Lisa Unger - Die For You

“What’s going on here?” I said, surprised at how steady my voice sounded.

“Marcus is wrong about you,” she said. “You’re going to be trouble, aren’t you?” The words landed like a spit in the face. She wasn’t even trying to hide her accent anymore. I recognized it right away.

“What did you say?” I asked. My voice came out in an incredulous whisper. “Who are you?” Though she was taller than me by about three inches, broader at the shoulders, stronger, I could see, at the legs and hips, I wasn’t afraid of her. In fact, I was overcome by the urge to put my hands on her long, white throat-gun or no gun. She seemed to register this; I saw her eyes widen just slightly. Then she raised her hand quickly and brought the gun across hard on my temple. I didn’t have time to ward off the blow, didn’t even really feel it. I just heard a loud, private thud inside my head. A curtain of red fell before my eyes and the next thing I saw were her thick black boots as the floor rose up fast to greet me, then a blue light. Then black.

Someone yelling, Help me! For the love of Christ, please help me! There was the stench of urine, over that a heavy odor of antiseptic. And something else, something sweet and metallic. Blood. The soft sound of busy footfalls racing back and forth. A phone ringing. Harsh white light, too bright. That phone kept ringing, like a lance through my brain. I tried to move and felt bottle rockets of pain behind my brow and down my neck. When I finally adjusted to the light, I saw Linda’s face. My sister. Her eyes were rimmed red, blue moons of fatigue beneath. Behind her, Trevor and Emily were huddled together, leaning against a white wall looking around them, with matching wide, green saucers for eyes. More curious than scared; they’re like that.

“Are you out of your freaking minds ? We’ve been here for five hours. She has a head injury .” It was Erik’s voice, I realized, loud and booming with anger.

I was lying on a gurney parked in a busy, grimy hallway off an emergency room. I guessed it was St. Vincent’s in the Village. How I’d gotten here, I had no idea.

There was a measured, deadpan response to Erik’s ranting that I couldn’t quite hear. Something about two strokes and a gunshot wound. “She’s been unconscious for hours,” he said loudly. “You can’t tell me that’s not serious. She’s barely been looked at.”

“Sir, you will get out of my face,” responded a deep female voice, very stern and more loudly. “Sit down right now or you will be asked to leave.”

Erik had a bad temper when it came to things like this. When he felt at the mercy of a bad system, he generally blew a gasket-no doubt he would have exploded into an embarrassing string of expletives had his children not been present. But if he said anything else, I didn’t hear it.

Linda saw my eyes open and leaned in close. “Oh, Izzy, Izzy, Izzy,” she said, putting her hand on my forehead. “Oh my God, what happened?”

Why was she whispering? Then I saw the cop, a uniformed officer sitting in a chair about five feet from Emily and Trevor.

“I don’t know,” I said, gripping her hand and trying to sit up but lying back down. I told her how Marcus didn’t come home, how I went to the office, what happened there. The events of the night before and that morning came back in vivid snapshots; I was firing off frames of memory, my words coming out in a manic tumble. I wasn’t sure how much sense I was making as my sister stared at me intently. She’d always looked at me that way, even when we were girls, even when I was telling her the most trivial things. She listened. I felt my face flush with the powerful brew in my chest-anger, fear, despair.

I saw all of those things on Linda’s face, too. “Oh my God, Izzy. Why didn’t you call me?”

“Linda, where is he?” I asked, a sob escaping me, tears coming in a hot, wet stream. “What’s happening?”

She shook her head, looking as helpless as I was, gripped my hand. “We’ll figure it out,” she said bravely. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

She was always the optimist. Not me. The way I saw it, things could only get worse, but I didn’t say so.

“Can I hold your gun?” Trevor had sidled over to the cop. Ten years old, blond as sunlight like Linda, and honey-sweet.

“Don’t be an idiot , Trevor,” said Emily, with an extravagant eye roll. Thirteen, hair the same inky black as mine but straight as razors, same major attitude problem.

“Emily,” said Linda. “Be nice to your brother. And Trevor, leave that officer alone .”

There was an unusually sharp, tense edge to her voice and both kids turned to stare at us. They were pampered children, treated tenderly at home and at school, rarely hearing an angry tone or unkind word. They both looked as if they’d been slapped. I’d never been sure how good it was for them to be treated so gently, worried that they’d be torn up when they stepped out of Montessori privilege and into the real world. Like right now.

The cop saw then that I was conscious, pulled a heavy black radio from his belt, turned away to talk. Something about the witness.

“Is that me? Am I ‘the witness’?” I asked my sister.

“They’ve been waiting to talk to you,” Linda said, nodding and rubbing her eyes.

“Who has?”

“The police,” she whispered, leaning in close. “They found you in the office. Izzy it’s been destroyed, everything stolen or smashed, spray paint everywhere. Someone called nine-one-one. You were unconscious behind Marc’s desk. They brought you here and called us. Detectives are supposed to come when you wake up.”

“Those people-they weren’t FBI agents,” I said in an absurd statement of the obvious.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “They weren’t.”

“Why didn’t they kill me?”

“Izzy!”

It wasn’t a lamentation; it was a question of pure curiosity. They should have killed me. I saw them all, could easily identify any of them and would likely be doing so shortly. But they hadn’t. Why not? To someone who constructed plot for a living, it seemed stupid, careless.

My sister put her head in her hand and I saw her shoulders start to shake a little. She always cried from stress or anger. Some people viewed it as weakness. But I knew it for what it was-her release valve. The kids crowded in around us, Trevor resting his head on his mother’s shoulder, Emily taking my hand. Trevor’s tangle of silky curls mingled with his mother’s.

“What happened to you, Izzy?” Emily whispered in my ear. Her breath smelled like fruit punch. She’d never called me “aunt” for some reason, and I was glad for it. That title seemed too formal, too old-fashioned, put a distance between us that I hoped she’d never feel. I squeezed her hand, looked into her worried face. She was rail-thin, and all hard angles, a cool city girl with a poet’s heart.

“I’m not sure,” I said lamely. She turned away, glanced toward the cop, who had returned to his seat and opened a copy of the Post . He seemed impervious to our drama, just putting in his time.

“Where’s Marcus?” Emily said, looking back at me. I tried not to cry again; one of us crying was enough. Children shouldn’t have to comfort adults.

“I don’t know, Em,” I managed, squeezing her hand.

“What do you mean?”

Trevor had turned his eyes up to me and both he and his sister looked frightened now. Then Erik came up behind them, put a hand on each of their shoulders. Both kids turned to wrap their arms around his middle.

“Okay, everyone,” he said, strong, light. He was not an especially tall man but there was a powerful, energetic force to him. Men liked him; women flirted with him. Everyone just felt better when he was around.