Tales from the Intermediate (gxg)

Chapter 7

Charlie's bedroom felt smaller with Dani and Matt in it. They were wordless, the entire house silent due to their shock and Charlie's parents being asleep. Charlie was sat on her bed with Dani, placing an ice pack on Dani's bruised wrist. Charlie really had held onto her tightly during their escape—so tight that a deep purple ring had already formed around Dani's wrist.

Charlie was the first to break the heavy silence, tired of hearing Matt's wheezy breathing and the whoosh of his inhaler every two minutes. "I didn't mean to grab you so hard," she said apologetically to Dani as she lifted up the ice pack to inspect the bruise, hoping that her wrist wasn't broken.

"It's okay," Dani said softly with a small smile. Even Dani was at a loss for words.

Charlie placed the ice pack back over Dani's hand that she held in her lap and turned her eyes to the window where she could see the streetlights illuminating the dark, empty street, and she imagined the man with the gun walking up her driveway. "When I heard the gunshots... I was so scared one of you got shot."

As Charlie remembered how loud the gunshots echoed in the alleyway, and the booming fireworks mixing with them, Dani's hand squeezed hers. "We're okay," Dani said, glancing to Matt who was sitting on Charlie's desk chair with his inhaler in one hand and his other hand gripping his leg that wouldn't stop bouncing. He glanced up to the two from under his glasses and nodded to assure Dani's words that he, too, was okay—besides his ritualistic asthma attack.

A few more beats of silence filled the room as Dani leaned her shoulder against Charlie and held her hand, and Matt tried to self-soothe before he spoke, "I guess all the old stories are true about Mulberry."

Dani and Charlie, who had both been staring despondently at the Harry Potter bedsheets, glanced up to Matt questioningly.

"The stories about an old underground gang operating in Mulberry," Matt continued breathlessly. "A gang, mafia, mob—I don't know. That's what that guy had to be."

Dani opened her mouth to tell Matt it was stupid for thinking that, but she snapped it shut when she found herself unable to reject the truth in it.

"They say..." Matt began, tensing in the chair as if telling a scary campfire story. "Their emblem is a spade. All the members have a tattoo of a spade. It's like their right of passage or something."

Behind Charlie's eyes came the memory of the moment in the alley when they were creeping around the corner. "The guy had a spade tattoo," she spoke suddenly, her eyes wide. "And the mayor's ring—it has a spade on it."

Dani sighed and shook her head. "Shit."

"Oh, God," Matt breathed, running a hand through his hair. "The mayor is in on it."

"Didn't you hear what he was saying?" Dani perked up. "Something about the election—"

"About winning it himself next time," Charlie finished for Dani. "Did he hire the man to rig it or something?"

Matt quickly pulled his phone out of his pocket, the light illuminating on his glasses as he pulled up Mulberry's news website. His mouth fell open when, right there on the very first page, was breaking news that the mayor's opponent for the upcoming election was found dead in his home. He turned the phone to let the two read the news.

"Natural causes?" Dani repeated part of the headline. "My ass—the mayor fucking hired a hitman!"

"A hitman?!" Matt exclaimed, realizing that they had an actual killer who was probably looking for them.

"Shhh!" Charlie shushed them, not wanting to wake up her parents and have her mother step her foot into the mess of a situation they were trying to figure out themselves. "Look, you two need to stay here tonight. The mayor himself saw us and ordered that man to fucking kill us, apparently. Whatever gang this is—"