Chapter Fourteen
Music was pulsing out of the house when we got back. Dom hadn't spoken a word to me the whole trip and I knew he wouldn't. He probably wouldn't say a word until my brother said he could. The purpose of this party was clear. My brother was holding it so everyone would know I'd gotten exactly what one gets when they talk to cops. No one was an exception.
Everyone outside went quiet as I got out of the car. I kept my head bowed as Dom escorted me up to the house but then disappeared inside before I even crossed the threshold.
No one said anything to me as I walked in, both of my arms still crossed over my chest. I walked across the entry way and then started up the stairs, fully planning on disappearing into my room so I could sleep.
Dom stopped me as he stood on the third step. "Stay downstairs."
"I wanna go to bed."
"Stay. Down. Stairs."
A point was going to be made and I wasn't going to bed until it was done. I backed down the three stairs I'd gone up and hoped, prayed, I could find a corner to crawl into until the point my brother was making was over.
I went to the kitchen, not even looking at anything as I passed through to get to the back door.
But one of my brother's other lieutenants stepped into my path, arms crossed over his chest.
"Stay inside."
He was caging me in and I knew what would come next. I quickly made my way back to the living room and as I tried to sink into a corner, another body moved into my way. "Stay in the open."
When I tried to sit down. "Stay standing."
All the members who were in front of me stepped in my direction and I backed up, only to bump into someone else. I whirled to look and there was a solid wall of muscle behind me. They quickly circled me in, all having their arms crossed over their chests.
"We are..." half of them said.
"The Spanish Thorns," the other half answered.
"And we do not..."
"Talk to cops."
I was shoved from behind and I stumbled forward. They were so tight together that I couldn't move a few steps before I ran into someone else. That person shoved me too and it continued, me being shoved around the circle until I lost my balance and fell to my knees. I remained quiet the whole time and as I tried to capture my breath, I wasn't surprised when I felt a barrel press against the back of my head.
"We do not allow snitches in our ranks."
That voice cut deeper than any knife my brother could sink into my skin. Rey was the one behind the gun, the one who would be pulling the trigger. My luck had run out.
"No hay excepciones."There are no exceptions.
"She didn't tell them anything!" I heard Michelle scream over the silent cluster of bodies. The music had been stopped so everyone could hear what was being said. "Nothing!"
The gun was cocked and I squeezed my eyes closed. The only thing I hoped for was that my brother would be able to forgive himself for this.
"Don't!" she screamed. "Rey! Don't!"
I remained silent, knowing no amount of begging or pleading would change the orders Rey was given. I tried to picture something happy and a memory of my childhood popped up. By chance, both of my parents got a Friday off at the same time. It was during the summer and they decided to take my brother, Dom, and I to the park.
The boys made me chase them around, saying there was no way a girl could catch them. There was this split second where my brother looked over his shoulder at me and gave me the biggest, carefree smile I'd ever seen on his face.
A tear squeezed out of my eyes and dripped down my face.
Just as a shot rang through the house.
Michelle was screaming from where she stood on the stairs. I heard her footfalls come down and her yelling for everyone to move as she tried to make her way through the crowd. She probably expected to see a body by the time she got to me but by some miracle...she wouldn't.
I opened my eyes and gulped for air as Rey crouched down next to me. How I managed to hear what he said with the shot still ringing in my ears was unknown to me. "That was your only warning. Next time he'll have me shoot you for real."
He got up and walked away. The music started up again and the wall of bodies around me dissipated. Even then, I couldn't manage to stand up or move. I was stuck there on the floor and I was still there when Michelle reached me. She dropped to her knees in front of me and gathered my shaking form in her arms.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so, so sorry. I never should've let him in the house. This is all my fault."
She helped me to my feet and up the stairs. She took me to my room and helped me change, locking the door to keep the unwanted out. I think she wanted to move my dresser in front of it but she settled to just locking it.
When I was dressed for bed, she curled up with me, hugging around my back like I was her child.
"I'm so sorry, Em."
She kept repeating it, over and over until I fell asleep.
*
I had nightmares about the warehouse and I never had nightmares about that night, ever. After I heard Ford was dead in rehab, it was like my mind was perfectly happy with knowing he was gone and I was able to cope. But because my brother smacked me around—it was all stirred up again.
The door showered me with rust flakes when I opened it but I didn't care. I was smiling to myself with a hand on my stomach. I could do this. We could do this. It would work.
Ford loved me and everything would be fine.
"Ford?" I called out. "Where are you?"
"Ari?" His voice came from straight ahead. "Hey. I'm over here."
He stepped out from behind one of the shipments. There was a clipboard in his hand but he held his arms wide to hug me. I hugged him back tightly and then he let go just a little.
"You ok?"
"Yeah." I smiled up at him. "I'm good. I'm so happy you want to talk about this."
His smile was real. "I'm glad you came. Look..." I heard shuffling from behind me but I figured it was one of his workers. It didn't occur to me it was late and there shouldn't be any one else in the building. The only reason he was here was because this was his operation. He had to watch over it.
"Yeah?"
"The thing is—I'm not as ready for this as I let on."
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
He cupped my face with one of his hands while the other remained firm around me, the metal clip of the board pressing into my lower back. "Don't worry, Ari."
I felt a prick at my neck and as I turned to look, the syringe was drawn away. I didn't know what was in it but it couldn't be good for...
"When you wake up," Ford whispered and I looked at him. "The bastard will be gone."
"What? No."
"I know this isn't the best way to handle the situation but my brother would kill me if he found out I got you pregnant." The world began to swim and I swayed on my feet. I gripped the front of his shirt. "Getting rid of it is the best thing for everyone. You'll see."
"What...?"
I missed a beat of time. I don't know how long I was out but when I started coming around, I was lying on the cold floor and two arms come over my head to hold my shoulders down.
"She's coming around, man! I thought you said you gave her enough!"
I felt something jerk between my legs and only then did I notice I was naked from the waist down. My knees were bent and spread wide...
"Just give her more. She'll be back out in no time. I'm almost done here."
I felt a prick in my arm and I whimpered. "I know, baby. But don't worry. The little bastard is pretty much gone."
I reached up and clawed at his arm. "No. No, please. Ford..."
"It's for the best." I felt a pressure on my forehead as well as my stomach. "It'll work out."
"Please..."
The pressure in my stomach got worse and then I felt something gush. I hadn't peed my pants since I was a kid but I remember the feeling. It was pretty much the same only it wasn't because it wasn't my bladder that was emptying. "Shit!"
"What?"
"I cut the wrong thing."
"What do you mean? I thought you said you knew what you were doing!"
"Her uterus is tipped back and there isn't much light..."
A roaring noise filled my ears and I managed to open up eyes to see Ford's face above mine, lit up by blue and white lights.
"What the fuck?!" Ford hissed.
"Ford..."
"We need to go," he completely ignored me. "You have five seconds to finish."
There was another jerk and then a snip... "Done. Let's go."
Ford glanced down at me finally, his mouth flashing a meaningless smile. "You'll be ok."
Then he was gone and I was alone. Despite the drugs, I could feel pain. It wasn't horrible, more like a dull, continuous cramp in my abdomen, most of it flushed out by the haze. My eyes started rolling, the lights making pretty images on the ceiling.
There was a lot of hushed yelling and warbled threats. I wanted to laugh at what they were saying because there was no one here. Just me and I highly doubt I was what they were after.
"Do you hear that?"
"What is it?"
"Sounds like a cross between a moan and a laugh."
"Probably a junkie. Gutierrez, Pena, find whoever is making that noise and shut them up."
I was flying so high I barely heard their footfalls as they approached. From what I could see, even though it was distorted, I was hidden behind one of the crates directly underneath one of the overhead lights. "Hold on. Do you see that?"
"Is that a puddle?"
"What is a puddle doing in a coke warehouse? I thought they keep this stuff dry."
"The sound is coming from over there."
"I can't believe we were sent after nothing. On three. One. Two..."
I heard something whirl and I arched my back as a little of the pain came to the forefront of my mind. It hurt, worse than period cramps, worse than scraping my knee or getting a tattoo. It was the worst pain I'd ever felt in my life and it made me scream.
"Call for a bus!"
There was a shuffling noise, like the sound of Vin making scrambled eggs in the morning. The memory of my brother standing in front of a stove when he was twelve in our mother's apron made me smile.
"Fuck, she's od'ing. Where's the blood coming from?"
"Sweetheart." I felt a pat on my face and my eyelids fluttered. "Can you open your eyes for me?"
"Oh...fuck! What..."
I turned my head to the side, about to yell to keep quiet. "Sweetie..."
My eyes opened and I saw a man where Ford used to be. He blocked out the pretty patterns on the ceiling with his grim looking face. I couldn't help but think of the one thing I wanted to forget, what was really happening to me. Drugs were supposed to make you forget but even as I laid there, I knew exactly what was going on. Tears formed in my eyes and the man above me tried to comfort me by stroking circles into my cheek.
"It's coming. Just hold on..."
"My baby," I whispered. "They tried to take my..."
My eyes fluttered closed and that horrible pain got worse until it was all consuming.
"Em! Wake up!"
My eyes opened and my screaming stopped. Michelle was kneeling on the bed next to me, shaking me to jar me out of my sleep. She looked worried and tired. There was pounding on the door but I ignored it as I curled in on myself, tears pouring down my face.
Michelle scrambled away and went to answer the door. As soon as the lock clicked, the door was shoved open and Michelle had to jump quickly out of the way to avoid being hit. The bang of it hitting the wall made me jump and I curled even further in on myself.
"What's going on?"
"Bad dream. She's fine."
Michelle tried to close the door in Rey's face but he kept a hand on it. "Are you sure?"
"Old demons. Tell Vincent she's fine."
"Vince isn't here." He brushed passed her and over to the bed.
"Where is he?"
"Business," he said softly as he crouched down and brushed hair off my face. "Michelle, why don't you go to bed? You look tired."
She sighed. "I can't leave her."
"I'll stay."
"If her brother catches you..."
"It'll be fine. Go ahead to bed. I'll keep an eye on her tonight."
"Alright."
I watched Michelle leave, albeit hesitantly. It was easy to see she didn't want to leave me alone, with or without him here didn't matter. Instinctively, she knew what I was dreaming, maybe she saw it in my eyes or I'd said something in my sleep but she knew. After the door closed, Rey remained silent but then he reached out. I flinched back and his hand stopped, shaking a little as it hung in the air.
"I'm not going to hur—"
"I'm fine, ok? So go."
"I couldn't..."
"Its fine," I croaked out. "I know my place now."
"That's not..."
"I'm tired. Please just go."
"I know what happened may have warned you off..."
"Nothing's going to happen," I said quickly, thinking it was just another test. "My brother..."
"Shouldn't have hit you," he said softly. "Everyone knows you'd never talk to cops. He was—upset."
"He's never hit me before," I whispered with a little bit of a sob in my voice. "He said he'd never—I thought—"
"There's a lot on his mind. You picked the wrong time to run off like you did. After we talked to the dealer at the convenience store, he was afraid something bad had happened to you. You were nowhere and no one had seen you. It was like you disappeared into thin air. Then we got a call from Michelle saying you were back and there was a cop here. He just snapped. Cops come to see you twice only in a manner of days and it screams snitch." He sighed. "I told him you would never talk to cops but he was adamant he couldn't take the chance."
"Would you have pulled the trigger?"
"I didn't have orders to shoot you. Just scare you. Like you scared him, that's what he said."
I closed my eyes and shook my head. "I never should've hit him. I never should've thought I was different than anyone else..."
"You are different than everyone else. Why else do you think I like you so much?" He leaned over and kissed me on the forehead. "Scoot over."
"You can't. Vince—"
"Is gone until about noon. Everything will be fine so scoot over."
I did as he told me, still not wanting anything bad to happen to him but unable to refuse. On some basic level, I wanted him there. Michelle gave me comfort because she was familiar but Rey—well he was just Rey. There was something about him that made my stomach unclench and trust him. He climbed in where I was just laying and gently pulled me forward so I was pressed as close to him as possible with his arms around me. My face and throat hurt worse than I wanted to admit but he was careful of what he was doing.
"Rey?"
"Hm?"
I wanted to tell him I liked him but I couldn't. So instead I said, "Thank you."