Run from his Shotgun

Chapter Thirty Two- Biker

A numbness crept over me afterwards.

The hours passed through the full-height windows that exposed the views of the city of Las Vegas and its distant dry vegetation and mountain ranges. We were in one of the houses owned by Jago, a large building enclosed and yet situated in a position that took in the best sceneries offered by the landscape.

Even then, it was hard to see through the fog that my mind had created. Danny seemed to be in the same catatonic state, because even after reaching a perpetuating goal, it still took time for the brain to adjust. For the brain to recognise everything that had happened in order for it to accept and begin to proceed forward.

I'd phoned Mum later in the evening. "Where are you, Isla?" She asked sounding worried.

"I'm in Las Vegas with Danny. We're both fine, Mum, you don't need to worry." But she could hear the weariness in my voice, the resigned tone.

"You don't sound fine, Isla. What in the world possessed you two to go down there?"

"It was a spur of the moment thing, Mum. Something that Danny thought I needed." Half a lie, and yet still all feeling like half a life.

Mum let out a long exhale. "OK, if you're both alright, then I will be too. When are you coming back?"

"We should be heading back tomorrow, Mum. Probably late in the evening. I'll let you know."

"Alright, Isla. Speak to you soon, honey. Take care."

I sighed as Jonno entered the room, watching as he stood to take in the view of the valley before turning to me. "What's wrong, Isla?"

"I just feel...empty. I don't understand why."

"Arrival fallacy," Jonno said simply. "You thought that when you eventually found him, you'd feel better. But that's just an illusion. Nothing could make it better, she's still gone."

I stared at him, open-mouthed, "How did you know?"

"My mum died when I was ten. My dad was an alcoholic and abusive- abusive to her. I swore on the day she died that if I ever see my father again, I'd kill him." Hearing about his past and the pain he'd been through as a child, made my heart pang.

Softly, I asked, "Did you get to see him again?"

Jonno nodded, eyes distant with the memory, "I did. On my fifteenth birthday. I'd been sent to live with my grand-parents and he'd ended up in jail. He was released a couple of days before my birthday and for some reason thought he'd show up to surprise me. I'd bought a revolver, my first ever gun, a few months before, knowing that one day I'd shoot him dead the second I lay eyes on him again. When he turned up, ten years after I saw him last, he was exactly how I'd remembered, only more pathetic and jaded."

"What happened, Jonno?"

He gave a wry smile, "We argued, and I held the gun up to him. When I looked into his eyes, I saw everything in there, the shock and the betrayal of his own son who'd dreamt about killing him for five years. But he was pathetic and weak; he couldn't be anything other than that for terrorising a woman he claimed he loved, for years before killing her off." 

He shook his head, "I really could have pulled the trigger and I was going to. But the bastard's heart seized in that moment, must have given up on him. He was dead within minutes."

Jonno sat beside me on the sofa, "I thought I'd feel lighter somehow, that feeling of intense relief, like a weight off of my shoulders, but I felt nothing. Just empty. I didn't realise but he'd meant nothing to me but also I felt like I lost a sense of direction, like the only goal in life I had was to face him again and show him just how much he hurt me. It didn't matter, because he'd never have cared."