Unleashed (A Sydney Rye Novel, # 1) (29 page)

“Sure, go ahead.” Kurt waved his gun at the injured foot. I went into the kitchen and gathered all the dishrags I owned. In the bathroom, I found an ancient bottle of hydrogen peroxide under the sink. I carried it back into the living room and tried to remember any first aid I could. The yellowed Heimlich maneuver poster from my first waitressing job wouldn’t leave my brain.

“I’m going to pour peroxide on it now.” James looked down at where I crouched near his foot. “OK?” He nodded and closed his eyes. I poured the liquid over the wound. It bubbled white and red. James moaned against his gag. “Alright, that part’s done,” I told him. “Now I’m going to wrap some towels around it. I’m going to wrap it really tight to try and stop the bleeding a little.” James nodded. I lifted his foot gently and put one of the rags underneath and then brought the two ends around. I tied it as tight as I could.

“I feel like there was something about a pencil and making a tourniquet. Do you remember anything like that?” James nodded. I turned to the mayor. “Can I take his gag off so that he can tell me how to make a tourniquet?”

“No.” The mayor chewed on the end of his cigar and watched me. I wrapped another rag around the foot and then another. I didn’t know if it was doing any good. When I was done, I sat on the floor near James’s foot.

“You’re good,” Kurt said. “That whole thing about it being for her safety, that was smart. I really do wish we could have been on the same team.”

“Me, too. Yours is obviously the winning one.”

“That’s true.” He smiled.

“You’ve probably been a winner your whole life.”

“Not my whole life, but most of it. You know, I’m just willing to go further than the next guy.”

“Is that how you do it?”

“It’s part of the reason I’m successful.” You would have thought he was a college professor and I, an eager coed. “But it’s also just a lot of hard work.”

“And quick thinking.”

“Of course, quick thinking.” He puffed on his cigar, then realized it was dead. The mayor put down his gun, reached into his pants pocket, and pulled out a silver lighter with gold edges.

“You’re going to kill us both, aren’t you?”

He looked over his cigar at me, puffing hard, getting the thing burning. “I’m afraid that I have to. But, Joy, before you get upset, let me say that I really like you. I respect you and your brother. He put up a real fight, you know. It was not easy to get him here. And that cat of his, what’s her name?” Kurt put the lighter back in his pocket and picked up his gun.

“Aurora.”

“Aurora fought for him. Look what she did to my ankle.” He pulled his pant leg up to reveal deep, angry scratches all along his Achilles. I couldn’t resist a smile for Aurora’s loyalty. “It was a shame I had to kill her.” My face fell.

“You killed her?”

“Joy, you know, I’m not really like this. If Tate and Joseph had stuck to the plan, if you had kept your nose out of it, if Charlene hadn’t tried to run, no one would have gotten hurt.” I looked up at him. He was serious. Not a hint of irony played across his face.

“Alright. I get it. Go ahead. I don’t want to drag it out anymore. Just kill me.” I spread my arms out, exposing my chest.

“Joy, don’t be like this.”

“How would you like me to be?” I stood up and walked to the windows. “Do you want me to beg for my life?” I heard him stand up.

“No, of course not. Just wait until it’s time. Come on. Sit down.” I turned around. He was pointing at the couch with his cigar, his gun arm hung by his side. When I didn’t answer him, he moved a step closer. “It’s just what has to happen,” he explained from only an arm’s length away.

“Do you want me to beg for my life?” A red blush started to spread up his neck.

“Stop it.” He came even closer. Adrenaline rushed through me, pushing my heart to pump faster, sharpening my vision, filling me with strength.

“How about I fight for it?” I grabbed for the arm with the gun in it and caught his hand as he tried to pull it away. He tried to point the gun at me, but I had both my hands on it. I twisted so my back was up against his chest, and the gun was in front of us where he couldn’t see it. He put the burning ember of his cigar into my shoulder. It was a white heat, and I screamed. He twisted the ember, and my skin smoked.

I lifted his gun hand up to my mouth and bit the soft flesh between his thumb and the rest of his hand. He grunted behind me and dropped the cigar. He tried to get some distance between us, but I kept my back pushed up against his chest. I felt his body’s shape and heat as he struggled to be free of me. Blue was barking and circling us. The mayor punched me in the kidneys but didn’t have enough room to put much strength behind it. My mouth filled with warm, salty blood when I broke through his skin.

He dropped the gun, and I followed it to the ground. It was slippery with blood and I struggled to gain control of it. Holding it with both hands, my finger on the trigger, I turned to face the mayor. He was aiming a small gun at my head. I watched as if in slow motion. He began to pull the trigger.

Blue, mouth open, fangs bared, catapulted himself at the mayor. Blue twisted in the air when the mayor fired, and an inconceivable bang ripped through the room. Blood exploded out of Blue’s shoulder and splattered my face, arms, and chest. His injured body landed on top of Kurt Jessup, knocking him back onto the couch. The mayor pushed Blue off him onto the floor. A large red stain marked where Blue’s wound had met with the mayor’s white shirt. Kurt stood up, and I concentrated on steadying my own gun.

“Just leave,” I told him.

“You haven’t won yet. I still have a gun.” He leveled it at my chest. My heart was pumping so loud I could barely hear.

“Just leave,” I tried again.

“You can’t pull that trigger.”

“Don’t tempt me.” He took a step toward me, and I took a step back. I felt I could see the life rushing through him. I watched his chest rise and fall with each breath. He took another step toward me. I fired a warning shot above his head that sank into my molding. He stopped.

“Get out now.”

“I can’t leave without Charlene.”

“You’re going to have to.”

“Do you think you can go far enough?”

“I can go as far as I need to.” He turned quickly and fired a shot into James’s chest. My heart stopped beating, and the floor fell out from under me. My vision tunneled. I didn’t even notice the gun slipping away from me as I watched the blood drain out of James’s face.

“Tempted?” The mayor was smiling at me, a smattering of James’s blood on his cheek. I ran to my brother’s side and pulled the gag from his mouth.

“You’re going to be OK.”

“I know.” His breath was coming in gurgles. I ripped my shirt over my head and pressed it against the wound.

“James, you hold on! Do you hear me?” My vision became blurred with tears. “Nona!” I screamed. “Nona call the police! An ambulance! Call an ambulance!”

The mayor was watching us, the small gun held loosely in his hand. I looked over at him, then down at my brother. James smiled at me and said, “I love you, Joy.”

“Stop it. You’re fine. You’re fine.” I pushed some hair off his forehead. “I love you, James.”

I was filled with something I can’t even describe as rage or sorrow because it was so much more than that. I could feel the mayor watching us, and I wanted to shoot him, but not just shoot him. I wanted to destroy him. I wanted more than his death. I wanted him to have never existed. I could see that my brother was going to die right here. He was going to die.

“Now it’s your turn,” he said, his gun aimed at me. Before I thought, or he blinked, I was on top of him. I flew on him, slamming us to the ground. The gun clattered to the floor. My eyes blind with tears, I wrapped my legs around him, pinning him to the floor. I threw my fist at his face, connecting as often as not.

He tried to wriggle away, out of my grip, I held him between my thighs. He kicked at me but I was sitting too high on his chest for him to touch me. I kept striking at his face. His skin was warm. Its life, its color, made me insane. I tore at it with my nails, trying to make him bleed.

I pushed my thumb into his eye socket. His face contorted and he fought harder. I put my other thumb in his other socket and pushed. “Stop!” he yelled, but I kept going. He shook his head, so I gripped it with both my hands and slammed his skull against the floor, then I held on tight while I pushed his eyes. I could feel their shape, his pulse running through them. I was breathing hard. I was about to push his eyes all the way to the back of his skull. I wanted to blind him. I wanted to hurt him. I needed to kill him. But then something inside me balked, and for just a moment, a millisecond, I didn’t want to be a murderer.

He sensed my hesitation, and planting his feet on the ground, bucked me off him. I flew forward, landing on my face, and he scrambled to his feet. He whirled around, searching for the gun, his face swollen. He looked over at me, and I saw that he was scared.

“Leave,” I told him from the ground. He was breathing hard. Sirens wailed in the distance. “The police are coming. You better just leave.”

“Not without Charlene.” I stood up. He scanned the floor for the gun. I saw one under my bookshelf far out of his vision. The other was behind his left foot under the couch.

“She’s not coming.” His head shot up, and his eyes narrowed. I practically saw the decision happen. It was like the change in a person’s eye when they see someone they know—the look of recognition. He’d lost this one. Kurt Jessup didn’t waste any time. He turned and left, not bothering to close the door.

Wasteful

When the paramedics arrived, I’d untied James and was holding him in my arms. They pushed me aside and started to work on him in a flurry. Nona followed closely behind them. She wrapped me in an embrace and covered my face so I couldn’t see anything. She whispered in my ear that it would all be OK. But I knew she was wrong. I knew that James was going to die, and I knew that it was my fault. Even in the dark warmth of Nona’s assurance, I knew.

I rode in the back of the ambulance. It bumped and shook as we raced, sirens blaring, through the streets of Brooklyn. A siren sounds different when you’re in it. It’s not the usual approach and retreat, where you hear the siren coming, then you listen as it keeps going, away from you to someone else. When you’re in it, the siren is squatting on top of you. It’s wailing for you.

At the hospital, nurses and doctors in blue and pink scrubs loaded James onto a gurney and wheeled him away from me through large double doors that flapped back and forth. A well-intentioned nurse in her late fifties tried to take a look at me—maybe give me some stitches for the cuts on my face, X-rays for my injured neck. But I pushed her off and watched the doors flap. Someone wrapped a blanket around my bare shoulders.

Hugh arrived, eyes wide, face drained. “Joy. My God, what happened?” But I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t speak. I just stared at him. It was all my fault. I opened my mouth and closed it. “Is he going to be OK?” Hugh asked. Seeing the answer on my face, his eyes started to shine. “Joy, what’s going on?”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered and began to cry. My throat constricted painfully. I squeezed my eyes shut until the blackness was dotted with white spots. I felt Hugh hugging me and shaking.

A police officer in uniform tried to ask me questions. I didn’t turn to look at him. He squatted next to me and kept talking until he stopped. He stood back up and sighed. Then he walked into my vision and through the flapping doors.

Nona arrived. She hustled and bustled around us, getting us coffee and Danishes that sat untouched. She talked to the nurse about insurance and held paperwork under my nose to sign. “They are going to perform surgery.” She rubbed my back in a circular motion. “He has a chance.” Nona was playing the part of pillar of strength, but her red eyes gave her away.

“Joy, you need to see a doctor yourself,” Hugh told me after a while of waiting.

“After.”

“After what?”

“After we find out about James, I’ll let them take care of me. Let them take care of him now.”

“Joy, they can look after both of you at the same time.”

“No.” I pulled my knees up to my chest and hugged them.

After a time, a doctor came out from behind the doors that led to the part of the hospital we weren’t allowed in and introduced himself as Dr. Mufflin. “I was one of the physicians working on your brother. We did everything we could, but I’m afraid he didn’t make it. He fought hard, but his wounds were just too severe.”

Alone

I woke up between clean sheets with my head supported by two fluffy pillows. I blinked in the darkness and saw Hugh asleep, his head at an awkward angle, in a chair next to my bed. A curtain surrounded us, providing the illusion of privacy. I could hear a roommate snoring.

I tried to sit up and realized there were tubes going into my arm. I looked at the machines next to me. Little green lights glowed in the dark. I fumbled around trying to see what was attached to me. I found a small round thing with a button on it. I pushed the button and felt instantly more relaxed. I pushed it again and floated into a deep sleep.