Previous Chapter

Next Chapter

---

Valentina drove from an awkward position, almost lying down, holding onto one side of the steering wheel.  In the moment she thought she was getting her bearings, Highland jerked the wheel, and she saw a late glimpse of a dark vehicle with headlights off.

The gasp for air she made at that realization didn’t seem to bring in enough air.

They drove over grass and dirt.  Through the unlit playground at night.  Cars on either side of them fired.  A few of those shots hit the car.  She now had to rely on those senses she’d felt were so lacking.  Those mental pictures of the playground she’d seen in better light earlier.  If she drove into a see-saw or bent swing set, they’d crash.

Her father would have her.  He would be angry.

“Net’s not totally closed,” Highland gasped.  He let go of the wheel to grip his ruined wrist.  “They must’ve been doing a circuit, looking for our backup.”

She wanted to respond, but her mouth was dry, and the air in her lungs-

She pulled on the side of the steering wheel to get them back on course.

“Steering wheel column, plastic cover.  Should be able to tear it off.”

“I’m trying to-”

“Kid!” Highland barked.

What little remaining air she’d had felt like it was pushed out of her.

I’m trying to drive like this.  I can’t drive like this.  You’re-

His ruined leg was the same leg operating the gas.  Putting too much onto it, so they sped forward.

“Steer!  Fuck!” Highland shouted.  He used the elbow of his right arm to jab at one of the bars that connected the center of the steering wheel to the outer rim.  The same right arm that ended in a hand with a deathgrip on his ruined wrist.

She pulled on the wheel.  She felt a moment of lightheaded terror and that internal stomach flip-flop, and at least one wheel of the car stopped touching the road.

“The steering wheel column!  We don’t have time!”

She groped for it, finding the seam.  Her hands weren’t cooperating- and it felt like her focus wasn’t working.  She could try to divide her attention between the road and what she was doing at the steering wheel, only for Highland to tug at something, or get impatient-

With frustration, unsure if she was meant to find some catch or something, she tore the plastic halfway down.  The edges cut at her fingers.

The car lurched, Valentina’s shoulder hitting the console, arm slipping and bumping hard into the shattered cup holder.  There was a screech like a pterodactyl demon had settled on them.

They’d scraped against a parked car.  Not a little one, either.  Full side-on side drag.  Side mirror gone.

“Move!  Gear shift!  Down one!”

She pushed herself back and away from the dashboard and front of the car.

“And fucking steer!”

The view out of the front of the car was half steam, it seemed like, and the cool night air with traces of smoke in it made her eyes sting, and the were already prickly with sweat and tears anyway.

She was panting for breath, she realized, but she felt like she was suffocating.  That pain in her chest – she could believe why people thought a panic attack could be a heart attack, instead.

All of it secondary to the horror that awaited her.

He was trying to use his legs, but one of those legs was bleeding a lot and he wasn’t doing much to staunch it.  He’d been… pretty levelheaded, comparatively, even after she’d cut Addi.  He didn’t seem that way now.

“Go up a gear!”

She did.

“Tell me what I’m doing!” she told him.  She steered as best as she could.  “What am I looking for?”

“Look for a yellow wire, or yellow connector!”

Yellow.

There was a light past the window, like a streetlight.  The lone light on the face of the drone with the guns mounted beneath it.  The drone itself was shaped like something halfway between a plus sign and an alien skull- or like a plus sign had been turned to face the sky and been given a helmet, a mottled gray, while the underside and propellers were black.  One piece of that had the lights mounted on it.  And the camera, she presumed.

She couldn’t get the rifle, and in her haste, she grabbed a piece of the broken cup holder.

She pointed it at the drone.

It veered out of the way.

It was, as things went, the tiniest, smallest victory.  Something she could grasp for, psychologically, when brain, body, heart, ally, car, and everything else felt like they were going to pieces.

She pulled on the steering wheel.  They turned.

Highland shoved his arms out there, blood streaked forearms a kind of brake, keeping her from turning too much.

He let up as she turned back the other direction.

Had to swerve, maybe throw off the shot.

She’d nearly run them off the road.

Outside noise, gunshots, engine, and everything else blurred together.

Everything seemed to slow down, but it was deceptive.  Her senses were tricking her.

She stole a glance inside the gap.  “No.”

“No!?”

“No wire.  No yellow.”

“Fucking- black wire with yellow dashes!”

She looked.  She steered.

Gunfire.

Multiple cars further ahead were accelerating.

“No.”

“Speak louder, speak more!”

She tried to breathe and it felt like the failed attempt fed the darkness at the edges of her vision, instead.  Her chest hurt.

“Under the seat!”

“Under my-”

“My seat!”

She moved her seat as far back as it would go, then bent down, awkward, unsure how to even look, and he shoved her shoulder down.  Forcing her down, past the broken cup holder, past his leg.  Only the shoulder that was closer to the floor of the car kept her from having her face shoved into the blood and chunky bits below his leg with the bullet wound.

Not his chunky bits.  Fragments of glass in blood.

She looked.

She reached over, grabbing.

“I see it.”

“Unplug it.”

“Is- s’unplugged.”

He was doing the driving, with a blood slick hand, his ruined arm in his lap, using a leg with a bullet wound to operate gas and brake.  Gas, mostly.

He turned, hard, in a way that compressed her closer to her car door,  shifting gears.  As his hand nearly slipped from the gear shift, he flecked her face with his blood.

“The fuck,” Highland muttered.

There were gunshots.

The wheels screeched.  The car lunged once it found traction, and he shifted gears twice in quick succession.

They crashed.

⯁

He’s going to cut off my arms and my legs.

She could smell the space.  The other people without arms and legs, the medical smells.  She could hear the rustle of plastic.  No, it wasn’t that sound.  Close, her mind was blurring details together.

Will I be naked, tubes running out of me, or will he dress me because I’m family?

Tears obscured her vision.

Do I get totally blinded, or will he leave me an eye, to watch people, or watch the shows he puts on?  There was a setup.  Which is worse?

She hurt all over.

She was numb.

Does he medicate me to make it so I don’t die during the surgery?  Or will he make it so I feel every last use of the scalpel?

The sound of a generator, the gas smell thick in her nostrils.  Smoke.

Would he take her hearing?

That would be so sad.  No music.  No voices.

He was saying something.

Words kind.

The tears flowed more freely now.

Will my dad love me again, if I’m his, like this?

Was there something she could say, that would make him go easy on her?  Give her clothes, an eye, an ear?

Her mouth was filled with blood.

A look, then.  Something she could do, a way to call back to when she’d been a baby?  Or a little girl?  Before he’d stopped caring about her?

What did that look like?  What should she do?  What could she do?

Face bruised and cut up, swollen, mouth filled with blood.  Should she look pathetic?  Defiant?

What expression, tubes running out of her nose and mouth, would earn his mercy?

Because that was all she had.

“Look at me.”

She couldn’t.  That was the beginning of the end.

“Valentina!”

Valentina.

Not Gio.

She squeezed tears out of her eyes and looked at him.

Highland wasn’t doing well.

“Up.  I need you driving.  I’m not doing well, and I’m going to do a lot fucking worse if I can’t stop this bleeding.  Come on, now.”

She made a small whimpering sound.

“Come on!”

She forced herself up.

“Steer.  Clean the wheel.”

Her mind felt like it had been brutalized, and two instructions at once was a lot.

She grabbed a fallen plastic bag and wiped.  Then grabbed it.  It was a bit slippery anyway.

Steering.

“We passed beneath the highway.  I think they’re focused on directing the big gun drone.  The little ones are off us.  I think.”

“What?”

The word was fat in her mouth.  Her tongue hurt.

“The yellow wire I had you looking for, it’s the airbag.  Before we went, I looked at a map of the area.  On our way in, I scouted escape routes.  We had to drive through a fence,” he explained.

They weren’t evading anyone, but there were headlights behind them.  She could focus on steering.

“Couldn’t have the airbag go off when we hit it.  It’s a bomb going off in our faces at the worst moment.  But this car’s a piece of shit,” Highland explained.  With her steering, he was trying to staunch blood flow for his wrist wound.

There were five different warning lights on, on the dash.  The engine was venting a constant steam.  Or smoke.

“Previous owners must’ve changed something, fixed something, then never even had the bags plugged back in.  What a joke.”

He was speeding.  The leg with a wound near the knee was heavy, maybe.

She tried to compensate, watching the road for anyone who might come out of nowhere, crashing into them.

“I’m not doing great.  Dumb.  Dull.  Weak,” he said.

“Yeah,” she said.

“If we’re going to have a chance of getting away, we need away from that monster.”

The gun drone.

“It catches up when we turn.  We’ve got a straightaway here.  But the car won’t last.  It’s pulling to one side.  Engine’s fucked.  Both problems are getting worse, fast.”

“Yeah,” she answered.

She hurt all over.  Was that the crash?  Or everything that had led to it.  Was she shot?

“I need you with me, coherent.  Bolden might be drawing people away, but… this is still bad.”

She sat up a bit more.

Were the cars behind catching up?

Highland saw her looking and checked, before going back to wrapping his wrist wound.

“I don’t suppose there’s anything on that phone she gave you, that works miracles?”

“No.”

“Card up your sleeve.  Something you can tell your dad, that might make him back off?”

“No.”

“I need one more word from you, Valentina.”

She could see that weariness in him settling in.

“Yeah.  Okay.  There’s- I bit my tongue.”

“Are you shot?”

She wasn’t sure.  She shook her head.  “No.  I’m not.”

The words felt so forced.

“I’m feeling weaker, duller, I don’t think there’s a fast road to me feeling top of my game, here.  So if we’re dealing with that drone, we need to deal with it faster.  Or we’re done.”

That basement with the plastic wrap, the heads and torsos, the tubes, the smells, it felt more vivid to her than the numb, painful, smoke-and-steam-laced reality did here.

“Okay.”

“More than one word!” Highland raised his voice.

“Yes, okay.”

“Fucking- did she tell you anything?  About the drones?”

“Mia?”

“Yeah.”

“No.  I mean, yes.”

Highland hissed through his teeth.

“But I don’t know what’s important.  What you don’t know,” she said.

“It’s important to not get shot.  It’s important to get clear of it.  It’s important to know how the hell they operate this shit.”

“I don’t- know.”

“I’ve been fucking maimed by whatever high caliber bullshit that thing fired at me.  I’ve got a piece of the car door in my wrist I’m not pulling out, in case I bleed out.  I’ve got a graze in my leg.  I’m not at fucking one hundred percent here, kid.”

“Sorry.”

“I need you to give me more than a single fucking digit of brain!” he roared.

“I don’t-”

She choked on her own words and lack of knowledge.

He grabbed the steering wheel, and roared, rocking back and forth, hauling on it.  “Fuccck!”

She backed off.

“No,” he said.  “Steer”

Swallowing hard, she did.

The steering wheel was more slick.  Not blood- sweat.

“Trying to… keep amped up.  Stay focused.  Can’t fade,” he said.  “Fuck!”

She craned around.

Two Chevron Midases.  It felt like the headlights were specifically aimed at shining at them, producing maximum glare.

“It flies automatically out of the way of any guns aimed at it.  I aimed the cup holder at it and it flew off.  Took-” her tongue hurt.  “Um.”

“Evasive action.  Right.  It took two quick shots before we went under the highway.  I think something there’s human controlled.”

“But not the evasive action?”

“It’s looking for dark cylinders or angular shapes in people’s hands, and it can get confused by a cup holder.  Good.  So we need our gun to not look like a gun.”

“Pieces of cupholder?” she volunteered.  “Taped on?  Distort its shape?”

“Your sweatshirt.”

Various aches and pains she couldn’t remember getting threw wrenches in the works as she leaned forward, trying to get her arms free.

She had pit stains most of the way from armpit to her lower ribs.  And blood near her collar.  She wiped near her mouth.

Blood and spit.

“I’m so gross,” she said.

She had that vivid mental image of being in that basement again.  Like being gross here and realizing how it would feel to be unable to clean herself there was making that one step more real.

Her heart pounded.

“I promise you, I do not care.”

I care, she thought.

Caring about how she looked, keeping up appearances, trying to keep her chin high, and thinking about getting away, getting to her mom, if her mom was somehow still alive, it had been how she’d gotten this far.  Gotten through having hundreds of people hate her, while she had to walk among them every day.

The car dashboard beeped.  A yellow indicator light flashed, then turned red.

“Rifle.”

She got the rifle she’d dropped awkwardly between the seats.  It was wedged in there, pushed down by her body earlier.

She threaded her sweatshirt sleeve through it, one eye on the road.

Highland passed her a zip tie from a pocket.  She zip tied the sleeve into place, leaving the opening clear.

“This straightaway’s too straight.  Need a turn.  Don’t flip us,” he said.

He was taking the rifle.  Leaving her to steer.

“And lean the fuck back,” he said.

“Have you fought these things before?  In the war?”

“Fuck no.  Fucking nightmare shit.  Fuck.”

“Yeah,” she breathed.  And then, so she wasn’t saying only one word, she added, “Fuck.”

He had his mouth open to tell her off- she could tell.  Then he made a snarly sort of smirk instead.

“Next light.  Turn hard.  Don’t roll us.”

She couldn’t breathe.

They flew past a stop sign.  Traffic was light enough at this hour it didn’t matter.

The light was next.

The appearance of headlights further ahead brought on a moment of panic- of freezing.  She gripped the wheel tight.

“It’s fine!” Highland barked.

She steered.  Too gently, then too hard.

Highland braked hard enough that she thought they’d hit something again.  Rifle out-

The gun drone shot first.

Maybe it was that Highland’s head jerked forward, then slammed back into the headrest, with the hard brake.  The shot missed.

Highland took his shot, the sound deafening inside the car, and he didn’t.

The drone wavered, but it didn’t drop.  He’d caught part of the housing around one of the propellers.

The drone compensated, wobbling less with each passing moment and Valentina wondered if that was part of how it operated.  Recognizing guns.  Learning how to fly autonomously.

It took a shot before it had fully stabilized.  It hit the car.  Valentina wasn’t sure, but it might have hit the roof, punching through.

Highland took another shot with the sweatshirt-wrapped gun.

She didn’t see how much damage the shot did, but the bright light on the ‘face’ of the drone went half out.

Highland reloaded.  But the drone backed off, swaying violently at first, as if it had forgotten how to stabilize with the one slightly damaged propeller.

“They go back to home base when they’re out of battery,” Valentina said.

“It’s not out of battery.  But it is programmed to go home if something’s wrong,” Highland said.  His voice sounded faintly muted, beneath the ringing.  “And I dinged it.”

The cars that had been tailing them were catching up fast.

He hit the gas, shifting gears, still driving one handed.

Valentina steered until his hand was back on the wheel.  Her ears rang, the car smelled like gun smoke or gunpowder, or gun oil- she didn’t know enough to know what it was.

“Keep an eye out,” Highland said.  “They might be calling people in from elsewhere.  Coming at us from other angles.”

“Yeah.”

“Our group isn’t big enough.”

“We’re sorta big?  If you count the other gangs that are going at them?”

“I don’t.  We don’t have enough friends to call someone to bail us out here.”

“Right.  Yeah.”

“If I pass out, steer into a collision, take the gun, hide.”

“Don’t pass out, please.”

He took them around several turns in quick succession.

Through alleys.

It felt dangerous, to Valentina.  He’d talked about checking maps, but this didn’t feel like he was taking a careful route.  This felt like he was trying to shake their tail and so he was driving into alleys, down side streets, and zig-zagging that way, trying to be unpredictable.  But every blind turn into an alley gave them the risk that someone might have parked in the way, or that some fence might be up, blocking them.  Or trash.  Or a dumpster.  Or a homeless person.

Deeper into downtown.

“Did we lose them?”

“No.”

There were a few people out on the street.  Starting their days.  Restaurant workers, it looked like.  People opening up at a store.  All pre-dawn.

They blazed past.  All gas, no brake.

“Slower,” Valentina said.

“We can’t afford slower.”

“Speed gets us noticed, now.”

“Slow gets us fucking caught and shot.”

She could see the look in his eyes. What this was taking from him.  A diehard focus, teeth clenched, lines standing out on his neck.  He’d keep going like this until he crashed.  Literally or physically and mentally.

She wasn’t sure what to do.  One well-placed bullet?  She couldn’t place it, and she wasn’t sure Highland could either.  A phone call?  To who?

Her eyes, searching the gloom, lit up only by patchy streetlights, when half the city had no power, for an answer.  For anything.

A parking garage.

“There.  Slow.”

“Barrier,” he said.

“I know.  Drive through it.  Maybe slow, let it scrape us, but if we can go under-”

They hit the long black and yellow striped arm, and it didn’t let them scrape under it.  It came free of the machine that held it up, clattering to the road.

Highland backed up a bit, then drove over it, relatively slowly.  Valentina, while Highland was moving that slow, climbed out.

The thing was heavy.  Her hope had been that it would be plastic, relatively lightweight, and she could put it back on behind them.  But it had some metal to it.

It took everything she had to lift the one end of it up.  Then to move it over, to rest against the machine that did the raising and lowering.  The associated machine that dispensed tickets flashed red.  She hoped that didn’t mean cops had been alerted, or that they might come looking.

She heard cars coming, and hugged the empty box where an attendant would normally sit.

They passed.

Chevron Midases, again.  Then a regular old truck.

She caught up to Highland, who was still driving slow.

He started to turn into a parking spot, and she banged on the door, before opening it.

“No.  That side of the car’s scraped.  Don’t park so it’s visible.”

“Right.”

He eased into a parking spot with an abundance of care that suggested he didn’t trust himself.

“The gate’s broken, people might notice.  Should we go?”

“I need to rest,” he said.

“We need to go.”

“Give me a few,” he said.  “Fuck.  I know we need to go.  Talk, help me stay alert.”

“Talk about what?”

“Mia.”

“Oh.  I’m not sure what to say.  She’d get mad if I gave away too much.”

“Good.  Sensible,” Highland said.

“She’s… the metaphor I kept going back to, she’s like a clenched fist.  Clenched so tight it shakes.  It took me time to realize… Highland?”

He opened his eyes.  “I’m with you.”

“It took me time to realize she wasn’t clenching her fist because she was ready to take a swing at me or anything like that.  It’s clenched because of… everything.  The world, maybe.”

“Yeah.  She and I… I think we understand each other.  We understand that.”

“I talked to someone yesterday, it’s like… the world isn’t great.  And in a lot of ways, it’s not headed in a great direction.”

“Hah.”

“And if we realize that, if we really, truly understand it, it fucks us up.  We’re not meant to grasp a picture that big.  We’re not meant to… to be tense, ready for the worst the world has to offer.”

“To realize the people in charge and the billionaires and all that aren’t all that different from the shlubs.”

“And apparently the adult shlubs aren’t all that different from high schoolers.”

“You hear some of the shit that goes on in politics, yeah, it’s not that different from high school.  And you’ve got the class fucking clowns fucking it up, making it so we can’t even get shit done, when we need to, we gotta-”

He groaned, shifting position.

“You okay?  Am I losing you?”

“Pain helps wake me up.  Fuck.”

“Mia says people take shortcuts, and ninety percent are on autopilot.”

“Yeah.  So you’ve mentioned.”

“You made a good showing tonight, Highland.  Getting us out of there?”

“Thank you.  Think she’d be impressed?”

“Yeah.  I do.  I mean, I think she’s very impressed with you to begin with.  The way she rated you, talked about you.  Trusts you?”

“Hmmph.”

It was a happy hmmph.

“She’s stupidly in love with Carson though.  I don’t think she even realizes or gets it.  She adores her kids and she loves him, but she’s broken- she’s got stuff going on.  So does he.  We all do, kind of.  So like, don’t like…”

“Yeah, I know,” he said.

“I don’t know why I said that, right now.  No reason to point it out.”

“No,” he said.  “You know, it’s the loneliest fucking thing?  The world breaks you over its knee, and you pick yourself up, limp forward, fucked up and disappointed, an’…”

He paused.

She watched him to make sure he wasn’t passing out.  His eyes weren’t closing, which meant she worried he’d drop dead, eyes staring out past that windshield at a concrete wall painted ‘P3G’

“Lonely?” she asked.

“You pick yourself up, broken, hurting, a particular kind of fucked up.  Rest of the world keeps on going.  You’re all alone in the fucked upness of it all.”

“I get that feeling.”

“Sure.  Some.  But you took it somewhere.  And you’re alone at that somewhere.  How much sense am I making?”

“Enough.  I guess?”

“She’s a bird of a feather.  Because I think she gets it too.  She gets the feeling and she took it somewhere similar.  Somewhere wary.  Somewhere that wants to protect something.”

“She wants to protect her kids.”

“Yeah.  And I want to protect her.”

Valentina wasn’t sure how to respond.

“Sad as fuck, right?  Because she went and… found her man.  Who isn’t me.  Soulmate?  What the fuck am I supposed to do?”

“You believe in soulmates?”

“Fuck no, but I’ve got some severe blood loss, I just ran on pure adrenaline for thirty or forty straight minutes, I’m burnt.  I’m allowed to say stupid shit.”

“Okay.  Yeah.”

“So what the fuck do I do?”

“Dunno.  Rest.  Heal up?  Protect her?  Protect her kids.  Then we all get away from this, move locations.  She gives you a new name.  And… maybe I convince her to let you be her family.  And… we… invite you to thanksgiving and Christmas.”

“And I go from being a sad sack of shit, pining for what I can never have from afar, to being a sad sack of shit, pining up close?”

“Sure.”

“Sure,” he said, echoing her tone.  It sounded almost sarcastic.  Then, in a different tone, he muttered, “Sure.”

“Maybe you become a throuple?”

“A what the fuckle?”

“Poly?  They fuck like bunnies.  Very strong, athletic bunnies.  I can tell from across the hall.”

“Did not need to know that.”

“And maybe you join in?  Or join the relationship, or something?”

“Jesus fucking christ, this Gen Z bullshittery.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice, though?”

“Fuck off,” he said.

But he sighed, smiling slightly.

The car smelled like blood and gunpowder.  The quiet was offputting.  There was only the ringing in her ears, from the gunshot in the relatively confined space of the car.  Albeit, a car with multiple broken windows and a shattered windshield.

The chair squeaked as she turned around, checking the coast was clear.

“They’re weirdly easygoing about relationship stuff,” she volunteered.

“Fuck the fuck off.  Change of subject.”

“I don’t know what to talk about.”

“Fucking annoy me with teenager shit.  You have a relationship?  Boy?  Girl?”

“Nah.  Not with what Addi did.”

“Hmm.  Sorry.”

“But I’m wondering about relationships in general.  What I did to Addi, I think that came from my dad.  Then there was a moment I felt like Mia.  A moment I… it’s like Carson lives in the moment, and even when looking back, he lives that moment in his memories.  I had a few moments of that.”

“Moment moment memory.  It’s a mumble jumble.”

“You okay?  Or should I-”

“Keep talking.”

“Before it all went wrong, back with Holler Street, I was thinking of myself as a shadow.  Cast by others.  Defined by others.”

“Hmmm.  Shadow.  Okay.  You said something similar before.”

“Is that all I’m ever going to be?  Just… copying the people I learned from?  Some of them very fucked up?  Sometimes it feels like everyone around me’s exceptional and I’m… so not.”

“I think that’s up to you.  You decide what you get from them.”

“I’m not sure I do.”

“It’s a skill.  One you train.  And by training it, maybe you become exceptional.  Shadowing people can be about empathy.  Understanding.  Figure out the skills you’re drawing on, hone them from different angles.”

“Maybe.”

“One part of that?  I need you to not freeze up like you did, if you’re going to shadow me,” Highland said.  “If we’re ever in another situation like that again.”

“Yeah.  I hope not.”

“But you did okay.  Good lines of thinking.  First firefight’s always hell.  It’s one of those things I don’t think humans are made for.  Like the big picture.”

“Sure is a lot of that stuff.  Internet.  All that information.”

“Big groups of people,” Highland added.

“Monogamy, maybe?”

“Fuck off,” he said.

She wasn’t sure what to say.

She saw his eyes droop.

“Highland.”

He didn’t open them.  “Set an alarm for fifteen minutes.”

“I’m worried you won’t wake up.”

“Fifteen.  And fuck off.”

He shifted position, grunting in pain.

The only sound was the ringing in her ears.  She had to watch carefully and strain to catch his exhalations.

Her tongue hurt, where she’d bitten it.  Her back hurt.  Was that from having her back close to the glove compartment and the broken cup holder when the car had driven through the fence?

Dwelling on her own pain made it worse, and helped her notice the little aches and pains that came along with the big ones.  Listening to that fire alarm going off in her ears made it worse, as if it fed on her attention in the relative silence.

It was easier to watch him, to empathize with him.  To will him to keep breathing, because what followed would be harder if she was alone, one less person behind her.

⯁

She didn’t even jump.

A man at the window.  Armed.  He pointed the gun at her.

She lifted her hands into view.

Stupid.  She’d let her guard down.  Dividing it between watching Highland’s breathing, her phone, and the world outside.  Her focus wasn’t good, especially when she was hurt and tired.  It hadn’t been good in the moment, and it wasn’t good now.

She carefully lowered one hand, and unlocked her door.  Highland startled awake as the door opened.

“Don’t move,” she warned him.

Highland lowered his hands- or one hand, one badly splinted hand with very dark red fingers that might need to be amputated.

A Cavalcanti soldier stood by the car, gun leveled at them.

“Sorry,” Highland told her.

“It’s okay.”

“I’m pretty sure it isn’t.  We shouldn’t have stopped.  That was dumb.”

The soldier stared them down.

Her eyes adjusted.  Her memory-

“Carlos.”

“Yeah.  Gio.  Fuck you.  Come on.”

She didn’t budge.

“You like him?  He a buddy?” Carlos asked.  There was something emotion-wise in his voice.  It might have been derision.

She remained silent.

“If you come with, I shoot his kneecaps off, I leave him alive.”

“I’m in pretty rough shape,” Highland said.  “That might tip me over the brink.”

“It’s a chance, if you cooperate.”

“I’m sorry I put you in that situation before,” Valentina said.  “I really am.”

“I don’t fucking care.  Up.  Out.  Or if you’re sorry about back then, make things easier for me now.”

“Just shoot me.  That’s easiest.”

The soldier was mid-20s.  Handsome.  It was part of why she’d made the overture she had to him.  When she’d been so lonely that a crazy offer to one of her dad’s soldiers had felt better than nothing.  Even if she wasn’t sure, even now, that she’d have followed through with it.

His gun didn’t waver.  But he wasn’t shooting.

“Orders are to take me alive?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know why?  Do you know what my dad does?”

“I know there are stories.”

“I’ve seen it,” she said.  “Carlos- I was down there.  I saw-”

“Hands where I can see them.”

Had Highland-?  No.  She’d moved her hands, while talking.  Clenching her fists.

“Sorry.  It kind of fucked me up.”

“Is that why-?”

“No.”

He really did have a very steady hand.  It gave nothing away.

“I read…” in the stuff Mia left for me “…that we have all these killer instincts.  Fear instincts, that tell us so much, and we ignore it all.  I think I noticed.  I think I knew, even long before I went into that basement and saw it for myself.  The fact there were always doctors on the house staff, working elsewhere on the property.  The way my dad acts.  The way things are.  I knew.  And then I saw.  And I wasn’t even… horrified.  Or surprised.  I felt sad.”

“You’re going to feel more sad if you don’t come with.”

“I’ll feel more sad if I do come with.  I know what’s waiting for me, if you take me alive, back to my dad.  Dismemberment.  A lifetime blind, deaf, immobile.  His.”

“Stories.”

She’d thought earlier about what it would take, if she was in her father’s clutches, to convey, with expression, the right message.  To achieve pity.  Or to evoke something paternal.

She found herself there now, wishing she’d figured something out.

Emotions brimmed to the surface.  She closed her eyes, blocking them, before realizing maybe she shouldn’t have.

Staring at a crease in the dashboard, she shook her head.

“Out.”

“I’ll force you to shoot me, before I go with you.  Or I’ll… take a bullet, in hopes Highland can get a shot off.  I won’t go.  I won’t go to my father, knowing what waits for me in that basement.”

She blinked, and a tear squeezed out.  She wiped it away.

“Don’t fucking move.”

“Sorry.  I really am.”

He grimaced, as if he was disgusted.  “You killed family.”

“Family destroyed my life. To make me tougher.”

“Doesn’t matter.  You killed cousins.  People I know.  People you share blood with.”

“It matters,” she said.  “It matters that he’ll take me into that basement and take me to pieces and keep me alive for years, if he can.  The fact I’m family doesn’t change that.  It matters he’s done that to people who were loyal.  Defranco Cruz.  Timoteo.”

Moses Murtha’s original name, and the contact.

“I don’t know those names.”

“Not family, but they were loyal.  Defranco was folded in from another gang.  They used him as cannon fodder, made him kill his friends.  Timoteo helped associates of the Kitchen disappear.  Helped members of the Kitchen disappear.  Let them get out of the game, when things got too hot.  Dav- my dad decided he’d torture all the information out of the man, take over that business.  Tortured him, and was going to torture him for years, for kicks.”

“You think it won’t happen to you?” Highland asked.

“You think it won’t happen to me?”

“You think I care about you?” Carlos asked.

“It might not happen to you, but it might.  It might happen to your friends, family.  I’d even say it will.  He’ll maim and torture people you know and care about.  That’s who he is,” Highland said.

“So you kill us anyway?  You think that argument’s going to sway me?” Carlos asked.

“He had Addi Arcuri turn the entire student body against me.  Mess with me.  It fucked me up.  His own daughter.  So I turned around and I did the same to him.  Gathered information about the family.”

“Was that what you were doing with me?”

“The idea hadn’t come to me then.  I reached out to you then because you seemed genuine, good.  Good looking.  Then I guess you proved you were decent when you turned me down.  But there are others who didn’t.  Others who… who have affairs, and sleep with family member’s wives, and nothing happens because the family’s sick.  My dad gets to keep doing what he’s doing, ramp up what he’s doing, in the basement of the house, because the family’s sick.  Because-”

“Shut up.”

“Because he can give them power, he can connect to police, government.  They’ll all work together, and once that happens, he will never, ever be budged.  No court will remove him, no police will arrest him, no family will be willing to touch him, if it breaks those kinds of alliances.  He is a sick, twisted man, who likes maiming people and keeping them as trophies.  He brought one of the working girls down there to scare her, to threaten to her that he’d do that to her.”

“So?”

It felt like bravado, that ‘so?’.

“So if my dad’ll do what he did to me, torment me, push me to the edge, to toughen me up, maybe, or to scare my brother, and drive me to a place where… you saw.  How desperate I was.”

“So?  You’re talking all this shit-”

“What do you think happens, Carlos?” she asked.  “How do I end up if I stay?  Do I get put to work, like that girl he took to the basement?  Or taken to the basement?  Or broken?”

“You should’ve been tougher.”

“Maybe,” she said.  “But I wasn’t.  He didn’t let me be.  What if that happens to your daughter?”

“If I had a daughter, she’d be tough.  I’ll make sure of it.  But I won’t.  Sons only.”

“What if he doesn’t let her be tough?  Or if he goes after your cousins?  Nieces?  He’ll run this family soon.”

“He won’t.  Nicholas will.”

“He’s alive?” Highland asked, surprised.

“He won’t go down from a single bullet,” Carlos said.

He’d taken on a tone of voice, like… pride.  Familial pride.  Pride in being a Cavalcanti, instilled by the gang.  Pride in the children he didn’t have yet.  Or faith, almost.

“My father will run the Cavalcantis.  He wants that control.  Nicholas is hurt.”

“Your fault.”

The gun moved back to her head.

“He’ll take over, he’s got too much power and connection, now.   Then I guess we’ll see.”

“I guess so.  Out.”

She stared him in the eyes.  Gun to her forehead.

“Don’t fucking move, big guy.  I’ll put a bullet through her and into you.”

“I’m too tired to move,” Highland said.

“Shoot me,” Valentina said.  “Don’t shoot him, he’s alright.  But I won’t go.  Put a bullet in me, do that mercy, save me from that basement.”

Highland spoke up, “If he does shoot you, what happens?  What are the odds he ends up in the basement?”

“If he doesn’t get me in that basement?  I dunno,” Valentina said.  “Fifty percent?”

“I’ll shoot you in different places, until you wish you were in that basement.”

“It’s on my phone,” she told him.  “In case you don’t believe me.  Reaching into my pocket now.”

“You’re not reaching for anything!” he raised his voice.  He pulled on her arm, pulling hand away from pocket.

“He doesn’t want to know,” Highland said.  “Doesn’t want to see.”

“Fuck you.”

Valentina barely flinched when the gun was waved in her face.

“Walk out.  Report back,” Highland said.  “Nobody in this parking garage.  We’ll go.  By the end of the day, we disappear.”

Carlos didn’t move, didn’t respond.

“Please,” Valentina said.

A flare of anger.  “Fuck you, Gio!”

She almost thought he’d use that anger to pull the trigger.  She managed not to flinch, or break eye contact.

“Soldier boy.”

“Cavalcanti boy.”

“No more killing Cavalcantis.  You walk out, you disappear.  No casualties on the way.”

“There’ll be some,” Highland said.  “But they’ll be Davie’s.”

“Might interest you to know that’s not a very good fucking argument when I’m in Davie’s camp.”

“Carlos,” Valentina said.  “They’ll be Davie’s.  The people who drag people into that basement.  People close to him.  Major lieutenants.  If they die, it weakens his hold, means he’s a little less likely to get control over the family before Nicholas recovers.”

Carlos stared them down, arm extended, gun pointed at Valentina.

“Or shoot.”

“You really don’t care.”

“I care.  But I’m… tired, and I’m more terrified by that basement than I am scared of the gun.  Terror beats scare.”

“You’re insane.”

“I can show you the pictures.”

“I don’t want to see the pictures!  That rifle right there.  You’re going to hand it to me.”

Valentina did, treating it gingerly.  She passed it to Carlos without aiming it at him.

“Nobody sees you.  You make a quick exit from this city.  No hurting Cavalcantis.”

“Except Davie and his lieutenants,” Highland said.

“You want to get shot!?”

“Except Davie and his lieutenants,” Highland repeated.  “I’m more tired and less scared of that bullet than she is.  This is the way it has to work.”

“Giovanna?” Carlos asked, taking a step back.

The sudden change in tone of voice made her a lot more worried he was going to pull the trigger.

“Yes?”

“Fuck you for putting me in this position.  Fuck you.”

He backed away, gun trained on the car, until he’d reached a post that he could keep between them and him.

“We leave the car,” Highland said.  “My leg works, it’s just grazed. But I’ll want your support.  I’ll lean on you.”

“Okay.”

“Come around to my side.”

She did, helping him out of the car.  They limped toward the stairwell.

Passing through the lower level on their way to the set of double doors that connected to the bookstore next door, Valentina could see that the fallen gate arm had been lifted up and set back into place.

⯁

“It’s so terrible,” the woman said.

“It’s not great.  But we’ll live.”

“And you’re a cousin?  Of the kids?”

“Yeah.  And my stepdad.  Uncle Max.”

“Are you sure you don’t need a hospital?”

“Already been to one.  It took all night, things are such a mess right now, protests and all,” Highland said.  “They did the bare minimum and showed us the door.”

“Terrible.  With the taxes we pay.”

“Terrible,” he said.  “But we’re alive.”

“Josie was a huge help.  Thank you both.”

“We’re happy to help.  I worry sometimes.  Feels like Josie’s over there as much as she’s at home.  But they’re good to her.  Taught her a lot of work ethic.”

“I looked after those kids one morning and I was ready to lose my mind.  She came in there and handled it all like a pro.”

“I wish she wasn’t so ‘pro’ at a young age.  She does need to live.”

“Well, she has that concert, right?” Valentina asked.

“We’llll see.”

Valentina grimaced a moment.  “That’s…”

“Be careful,” Highland said.  “She’s got her heart set on it.  If you say no…”

“I have to be a mom, first.  I’ll break her heart if it means she’s safe.  I don’t like concerts.  The ear damage, the predators…”

“My class was going to go to Paris for a field trip one summer,” Valentina said.  “My dad sold the tickets for… selfish reasons.  Drugs.  I don’t know why I don’t just say it outright… that stuff scares me, I stay so far away from it, seeing what it did, but then I won’t say the word?”

“No, it’s understandable, but that’s not-”

“No, I know, it’s not.  You’re doing it to be careful.  My dad did it for himself.  But it was- that was a life milestone.  Something that I worked hard for.  It was going to give me stories I could share with my class for years.”

“She wouldn’t be going with her class.”

“But it’d help her make friends, it’d… it’s big.  Something you carry forward.”

“We’ll see.  I haven’t committed either way.”

“It’s a regret I feel like I’ll have for a long time.  And I kind of resent my dad for it.”

“She’ll come to realize why I did it.”

“Maybe in a few decades?” Valentina suggested.  “Maybe one day I will too, with my dad, and I won’t hate him for taking away something really cool and positive.  I spent that entire semester hating everything, stewing.  I said I never considered drugs before, but after that, feeling like there was no point to hard work, nothing big… it crossed my mind.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Because I had that past experience, I guess.”

“Is that our ride?” Highland asked.

Valentina craned around, aches and pains flaring back up.

A car had stopped on the street.

She could only barely make out the occupant.  She checked the time on her phone.

Josie would have dropped the kids off at school five or ten minutes ago.

He must have come straight here.

“That’s Ben.”

“Ben.”

“Some sketchy journalist.  He was being weird around the playground, so Josie and I called someone to check the situation.”

“Josie mentioned that,” Josie’s mom said, with a dawning horror.  “Oh my gosh, and he’s here?  Should I call someone?”

“No,” Valentina said.  “I want to wait to see what he does.  Is he watching us, or just checking to see if we’re home.”

“Neither of those is very good!”

He’s here.

They’d sort of invited themselves in, on the pretense of apologizing for leaving Josie taking care of the kids, with a bare minimum of communication.  Now they were in the living room, sitting on a couch with its back to the window.  Peering across the window, Josie and Highland could see down the street to the Hurst house.

The hope was that they’d created enough pressure and enough of a window of opportunity, coupled with enough doubt, that Mia and Carson would be able to say they weren’t involved, and if they were to continue to help, they needed their home setup.

The problem was if Ben was there.

Watching Mia and Carson enter, possibly at gunpoint.

And if there was a gunfight, or anything like that, to get Mia and Carson out?  It would alert him.  When his suspicions might already be raised.

Valentina got up, getting her phone out.  She walked across the living room, past the front hall, and into the dining room, to a window with a better view of the reporter and his car.

She opened up the app, and used it to move the app-decrypted files into an email.

Watching from the window, she studied Ben’s expressions, saw him pick up his phone.

“What’s going on?” Highland asked.

Josie’s mom had stepped out of the room.

Ben’s attention was fixed on the phone.  He did pause to look around, almost in disbelief, like he was being pranked, but Valentina and Highland standing at a window all the way down the street wasn’t an easy spot.

“I linked him to the student drama at my old school… Addi’s network, and attached a file of all Mia’s information on the Cavalcanti crime family and what they’re doing with the local government and police.”

Ben pulled out, driving down the street.

“Any news?” Josie’s mom asked.  She gave Highland a glass of water and a pill.  Presumably something for pain.  “Is he still there?”

“He left,” Valentina said.

“That’s good.  What a relief.”

Got him out of the way.

And now we wait, to see if Mia and Carson show.

She messaged the others.  Bolden and Moses.  The Angel.  Four more she’d hired, updating them.

They had to come.

This was a test, not just of them, but of Valentina.  Of whether she was a Hurst.  Had she gotten to understand them?  Had she picked up enough from them?

Highland’s words about being a shadow from hours ago stuck with her now.  Her entire self worth, bound up in this idea that… she wanted to anticipate them, to know them well enough, even in the span of a week, to have a sense of their priorities, and their next move.

She needed this.  It had to happen.

She swallowed hard.

Minutes passed.

“Do you want to sit down?” Josie’s mom asked.

“Give her a minute.  I think both of us are a little shell shocked,” Highland said.

“You especially.  You look so sore.  Let me know if you need something stronger.  I might have some old painkillers I didn’t finish.”

“I wouldn’t complain.”

Highland and Josie’s mom moved to the living room.

Valentina watched through the window.

Not praying.

It felt darker than prayer.  Opposite direction, when it would end like this was bound to end.

Black.  She saw it through the faint haze of residual smoke.  The first of three Chevron Midases.  They stopped in front of the Hurst house.

Do they believe you weren’t the ones targeting them, now? Valentina wondered.  But you’re still under Davie Cavalcanti’s thumb, aren’t you?

Sure enough, The men who got out of the vehicle to escort Mia and Carson into the house were Davie’s top men, with a crew of soldiers, to boot.

Valentina stuck her tongue out to wet lips that had gone dry.  Her tongue hurt where she’d bitten it.

“Highland,” she said.

---

Previous Chapter

Next Chapter