Emmy Laybourne - Savage Drift

Maybe a half hour later, Lori comes to sit with me.

“Do you think Mario’s going to be okay?” she asks me.

I shrug.

“He’s tough,” I answer. “But he’s old.”

“What do you think is going to happen to us?” she asks me.

“Please,” I say. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Don’t talk to you? Don’t try to be your friend? God, what is it with you?”

I shush her. She is going to wake up the kids.

“You think you have it so much worse than the rest of us,” she complains. “You’re all high on yourself.”

I laugh.

She is so totally wrong.

“You’re not even going to answer me?”

“You should go to sleep.”

“You know, if you had just let me do what I had to do with those boys, none of this would be happening.”

“You wanted to have sex with those boys?” I ask her.

She wouldn’t meet my eye.

She stands there at the window, arms crossed against the chill, the unearthly glow of the floodlights outlining her goose bumps in blue.

“No,” she says. “But I could do it. To protect us. It wouldn’t be the end of the world.”

“Mmmmm, you don’t know that. It might be the end of the world for you. Sometimes you can sacrifice too much—”

“It’s all right to do things you don’t want to, if the outcome is worthy.”

“No. It is possible to sacrifice too much,” I repeat. “It is.”

She still wouldn’t look at me.

“I’d do anything to protect those kids.”

“I killed to protect my kids,” I say.

And like a film being projected on the empty Sheetrock wall of our crummy double suite, I see Robbie, gun raised at Niko down at the end of a darkened aisle.

I see the crazed O soldier in the woods, headed for Max.

Oh, the joy I felt when I ripped that face mask off and inhaled, filling myself with rage and lust. And how strong I was when I bashed his head in.

And the father of the boy.

The father who had laid a trap and caught my friends.

My little loves, my devoted Niko, my old-new family, trapped down in the bottom of a pit and that daddy shining a flashlight on them, considering whether to let them live or die.

I sunk my teeth into his neck like a vampire and took out a hunk and he bled out, looking up at the no-star muddy sky.

I had enjoyed it.

Lori comes and stands beside me, wrapping her arm around my shoulders.

What sign of my distress had I given?

Maybe she could see the scenes playing in the reflections of my eyes.

They come around midnight.

First, the rattle of a hand on the lever.

Right, as if we might have left it open by accident.

Then the sound of fingers on the keypad.

Lori and I look at each other.

This is it. If they have the combination, we are dead.

Rattle, rattle, rattle. No.

They don’t have it.

“Hello?” comes a singsong voice. “Anybody home?”

And sniggers. The sniggers cut off by an elbow to the stomach, maybe.

Knock-knock.

“We’d like to see Josie,” the voice repeats. It has to be Carlo.

And then BAM, they try to kick the door in.

“Leave us alone,” Lori screams.

By this time the kids are up and watching from the doorway to the other room.

BAM, BAM! They try the door again.

The bed shakes and the bureaus rattle.

“Hey, we just want to talk to you, Jojo,” Carlo says, the singsong lilt in his voice. “Not so nice what you did to Brett and Juani.”

“Go away!” I shout. “I’m not coming out.”

“You messed them up real bad!” comes a different voice.

“Leave those kids alone,” comes a shrill female voice. Maybe the skinny mom. “We all know you’re up here! We’ll tell on you!”

“‘We’ll tell on you,’” one of them mocks. “Who are you going to tell, Venger? He’s the one who let us up here!”

“Yeah! And anyone who helps Josie is in for it. You should all know that now!” roars another one.

We can hear them striking several of the other doors in the hall.

“You leave that girl alone!” comes another voice.

“Room Three-Oh-Four. Write that down, Ray,” Carlo says loudly enough for them all to hear.

Then BAM, BAM, BAM, they are hitting our door with something, maybe a chain, and the metal is bending, a little, near the lock.

I push against the bed with all my might.

The bed shakes with each chain lash on the door, but the lock holds.

Lori and the kids scramble to help.

The Union Men cannot get in the room.

They stop trying and my ears ring with the sudden silence.

There comes a polite knock on the door.

“Oh, Josie,” Carlo calls.

“What?” I say.

“This door is fully and truly locked. So we’ll catch up with you tomorrow.”

We spent the night in the car.

Astrid cuddled with Rinée in the backseat and I reclined in the front seat.

Jake was crashed out in the passenger seat, snoring like a bear, his head lolling against the window. If I hadn’t been so tired, it would have kept me up.

Rinée woke us up, crying.

“Shhh,” Astrid told her. “It’s okay.” But there was no soothing the kid.

“We’re out of juice boxes,” I said. I rummaged around for something the girl would eat. Actually for anything that would get her to stop crying. My nerves felt like they’d been sharpened on a honing blade and the crying, screaming now, was going to put me over the edge.

“What about a protein shake?” Jake suggested.

But we tried that and she wouldn’t take it.

“Come on, sweetie, let’s take a walk,” Astrid said.

She opened the door and Rinée wailed louder, pushing against Astrid. Astrid set her onto the ground and the toddler stormed away from the car.

“Do you want me to go?” I asked Astrid. She nodded.

The circles under her eyes were starting to worry me. It looked like she hadn’t gotten, maybe, the best night of sleep in the world, curled up in the backseat of a Mazda with a twenty-two-month-old.

I followed Rinée as she wandered around. It was chilly, almost downright cold.

“Let’s go get a blanket, Rinée,” I said. “Come on, Rinée. Gotta keep warm.”

I went to pick her up and she laughed and ran from me. Good, it could be a game. Anything to keep her from crying.

A cup of coffee sounded good to me, even though I didn’t like the way it tasted. I needed something to open up my brain.