Light of Day

by Allison van Diepen

  I worked up a smile. “I totally know what you mean. How did you meet him?” I was hoping to draw her out. Hoping she could see me just as Gabby, her old friend.

  She blushed. “A dating app, if you’d believe it. Sometimes he recruits girls that way. But he knew right away that I was different.” She smiled at the memory. “Love is such a rush, huh? Unfortunately, you picked the wrong guy.”

  I shuddered, terrified to ask what she meant.

  “She’s awake!” Bree called out, blasting my ears.

  Milo came in from the next room, wearing a Dolphins jersey and board shorts. Behind him were his two goons—the ones who’d attacked us at the Phoenix.

  Milo stopped in front of me. I kept my head down, fixated on his pristine sneakers. He didn’t speak until I lifted my eyes.

  “This is how it’s gonna go. You’re gonna text your boyfriend and tell him to come over. Once you get him here, we let you go. How easy does that sound?”

  My gut tightened. It was Jackson they wanted. But I wouldn’t lure him here. I couldn’t.

  Not knowing how to respond, I stalled. “I—I don’t understand. My mind’s still messed up. I—I can’t think.”

  He slapped me, sending me back into the couch cushions. I cradled my throbbing jaw.

  “You awake now?” He grabbed the front of my shirt, getting in my face. “If you don’t cooperate, Malik’s first in line.” He indicated the big black guy, who watched me menacingly. “Then it’s Eddie for sloppy seconds.” The greasy white guy’s mouth contorted in a smile. “Then we slit your throat and throw you in a Dumpster. And here’s the kicker: we still get X anyway.”

  I burst into sobs. How could I send Jackson into an ambush? And yet, if I refused to contact him, those guys would . . . My whole body shook.

  “Do you know how much those Destinos have fucked with us?” Bree snarled into my ear. “Did they think we were gonna put up with it? They even got the cops on us. So now we’ve got the Destinos and the cops trying to shut us down.”

  I was the one who’d gone to the cops, not Jackson. Thank God they didn’t know that. They’d probably kill me right now.

  “Okay, okay!” I shouted hysterically, taking my phone from my pocket. “I’ll call him.”

  Bree snatched it from me. “Yeah, right. In the state you’re in? No, Gabby, you’re gonna text him. And if you try to pull anything or put in some secret message, you’ll regret it.” She bent close to my ear, whispering, “Eddie’s the worst. That’s why Milo’s saving him for last. He’s the one who punishes our bitches for us.”

  A tremor went through me. “Y-you do it then.” With her bad spelling, Jackson might catch on that something was wrong.

  “How stupid do you think I am?” Bree asked. “You have to text him the way you text. And don’t worry, I’ve been looking at old texts you sent me—I know how you write. I’ll read it over before you send it.”

  I took a deep breath, trying to get a hold of myself. It was up to me. I’d have to find a way to get a message past Bree and through to Jackson. I had to find a way to alert him.

  Finally I reached out for my phone, but Bree held it back. She was going through my contacts, looking for the number.

  “It’s under Jackson,” I said, “his real name.”

  Bree looked suspicious, but then she scrolled through my last few texts, and saw it was true.

  “Awww, how sweet,” she said. “‘Good luck with the show tonight. See you tomorrow.’ Kiss hug kiss.” She handed me the phone. “Go to it. If you send the text before I approve it, you know what’ll happen.”

  Looking into her eyes, it suddenly struck me: Rory had been right. Bree had slammed our lunch table that day. She was an instigator, not a follower. The difference between her and the others was that she was two-faced about it. She was nice to me in class, then went around bashing me like everyone else.

  I only wished I’d figured that out sooner.

  “Tell him you’re at Caro’s dad’s place finishing up a history project,” Bree said, “and that the shit car you drive won’t start.”

  So she’d done her research. She knew that Caro and I were in sixth-period history class together, and that Caro’s parents were divorced. Jackson would know that most of my friends lived in Coral Gables, but he wouldn’t know about Caro’s dad; I didn’t know where he lived either.

  I started to text.

  Hey hon. At Caro’s dad’s. Just finished our history project. Car won’t start. Come get me? Bree told me the address. I ended with, Pretty please Jackie? G xox

  I held my breath as Bree read it over, then handed it to Milo. They both nodded, and Bree sent it.

  Jackie. That was the clue. He’d told me his mother had called him that, and he’d hated the nickname. It would be strange of me to ask him for a favor while using a nickname he didn’t like. If he even remembered he’d told me.

  Another part of me hoped that he wouldn’t see the text at all—that maybe his phone was off. But that would be rare for him.

  We didn’t move as we waited for the reply. After five minutes, Bree said, “You better hope he answers.”

  Then the phone buzzed in her hand. She read it. “‘Sure, twenty minutes. Hope you’ll make it worth my while. Haha.’” She looked at me with a grin. “Horny motherfucker, is he? Not as horny as Malik and Eddie, I’ll bet. They can go at a moment’s notice. Right, boys?”

  I didn’t look to see their reactions, but I felt their stares burning into me. I clenched my jaw, fighting back a wave of nausea.

  Milo loomed over me, waving his gun in my face. “You’re going to answer the door and invite him in. Once he’s in, he’s ours. If you’re smart, you’ll get out before the fireworks start. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes.” I put my head in my hands. I wanted to shatter into a million pieces. If Jackson wasn’t suspicious of my message, I’d be luring him to his death.

  I couldn’t let that happen.

  There was no way I was going to let him walk through that door. I would have to warn him. If I got shot instead, fine. Better die that way than face what Milo’s goons were promising to.

  I suddenly remembered the quote from Bree’s Instagram page, written in blood. Would you die for him? If you hesitated, you’re not in love.

  Yes, I would, I realized. I would die for him. And the weird part was, there was some peace in that.

  “It’s been twenty-eight minutes.” Milo stared down at me. “Where the fuck is he?”

  “He’s always late,” I said quietly. But Jackson was never late. It gave me hope. Maybe he was talking to the police right now.

  The minutes had passed with excruciating slowness. Bree had insisted on brushing my hair and cleaning up my face. If I looked like I’d been crying, Jackson would know right away that something was wrong.

  Thirty-five minutes. The goons were restless. I felt Milo’s anger rising, directed squarely at me.

  Forty minutes.

  Then the buzzer rang. I moved to get up, but Bree pushed me back down. Milo went over and pressed the release button to unlock the building’s main door. Then he came over to me, pressing the barrel of the gun to my temple as everybody took their positions. Eddie headed for the kitchen, while Malik slipped into the bathroom. Bree took refuge in the bedroom, closing the door.

  Then Milo went into the front closet, keeping the door open just a little so he could watch me.

  There was a knock at the door. Taking a breath, I got up from the couch and walked toward it. As I reached for the handle, a stillness came to me. This is going to be over very soon. And whatever happens, it’s going to be okay.

  I opened the door. Jackson was there, a warm smile on his face. My chest tightened. If this is the last sight I see, I’m good with that.

  “I told you that car was gonna break down one of these days,” Jackson said. “It’s a write-off.”

  But I wasn’t listening to him. Milo was creeping up behind the door, gun raised.

  “Run!” I flung
myself forward, trying to push him away from the door. But it was like pressing against a brick wall; he didn’t move. Jackson grabbed me and pushed me to the ground.

  Bullets sprayed the air.

  I covered my head. Heavy feet trampled over me, squeezing the breath out of my lungs. More shooting and shouting. Someone was crushing me into the carpet, and I knew it wasn’t Jackson. I didn’t know who it was, but he was protecting me.

  Then I felt myself being yanked to my feet. We ran down the hall into the stairwell. “Stay down!” the guy in black barked, as a stray bullet shattered the glass in the door and ricocheted off the wall.

  More gunfire. I covered my head and my ears.

  “How many in there?” the guy demanded. I dared to look up, and saw that he was familiar. He had a scar running down his face. I knew he was the Destino named Matador.

  “Three guys,” I said. “Bree’s hiding in the bedroom.”

  “Okay. Stay here.” Gun in hand, he reached for the door.

  “Wait. Bree’s probably got a gun too. Be careful.”

  “Thanks.” Then he was gone.

  Gunfire kept blasting. I hunkered down, staying clear of the broken window. Had Jackson actually gone into the apartment? Had he been shot?

  The shooting stopped.

  What was happening? Screw Matador’s command to stay put. I needed to know that Jackson was okay. Cautiously, I got up and opened the door. The hallway was littered with glass. I approached the apartment and looked inside.

  My eyes swept over the scene. Jackson was standing in the middle of the room, gripping Bree’s arm. She was sobbing and struggling like a crazed kid. There were several Destinos standing around, black bandannas over their faces. Milo, Eddie, and Malik were dead, sprawled on the floor.

  Jackson’s eyes met mine across the room. I saw relief in them. He said to the Destinos, “Time to head out. Gabby and I’ll greet the cops.”

  Without another word, the Destinos rushed past me.

  “I can hear the sirens,” Jackson said, a sense of inevitability in his voice. “I’m thinking two minutes.”

  No. You can’t do this. “Get out of here, Jackson,” I said. “Don’t risk it. They might think you . . .” I gestured toward the bodies. He probably had killed them, I realized. He’d been the first one in the apartment. But he wasn’t carrying a gun that I could see; he must’ve slipped it to one of the Destinos.

  Jackson wasn’t fazed. “I can defend everything I’ve done here. I’d do it all again. For you.”

  That was Jackson, always doing the right thing. His refusal to lie in the past had resulted in two years of juvie instead of a short stint in rehab. But this was different—his entire life was at stake. Did he really think the cops would hear his explanation? The truth was, the moment he admitted to these shootings, it would be over for him.

  I moved in front of him. “If you want to do something for me, then you’ll get out of here. Now.” I grabbed Bree’s arm from his grip. She wasn’t struggling anymore. Her sobs had turned to whimpers, as if she’d lost the energy to cry. “We’ll tell the cops that a rival gang stormed in here and we didn’t know who they were. Right, Bree?”

  Her head swung my way, her hair falling in a messy curtain over her face. “Fuck you.”

  “Back atcha.” My hand tightened around her arm. “I’ll tell them everything, Bree. How you kidnapped me. Drugged me. How you played us all. You like the sound of that? Or I could make it all go away.”

  She lifted her tear-stained face, pushing her hair out of the way. “Like I can trust you.”

  “I’m serious. I’ll tell the cops you called me over here to help you and that we got caught in a gun fight. All you have to do is not mention Jackson or the Destinos. How easy is that?”

  She fell silent. Through the tearful glitter in her eyes, I saw that clever mind of hers working. She might be torn up with grief over Milo, but she also wanted to save herself.

  Jackson picked up her bling-covered phone from the couch. “I bet there are some texts that show you weren’t the innocent victim after all. That you were a pimp’s partner in crime. Best you can hope for is that they’ll try you as a minor. But if you’re eighteen by the time it goes to trial . . .”

  “Fine,” she bit out.

  “Good choice.” He went around grabbing cell phones off the bodies. “I need your phone too, Gabby.”

  Right. If the cops found my phone, they’d see that I’d texted Jackson to come over. They’d know he’d been here.

  The sirens were drawing closer. Panicked, my eyes scanned the room. I had no clue where my phone was. After I’d been forced to text Jackson, Bree had held on to it.

  “It’s in the bedroom,” Bree said reluctantly. “I probably dropped it in the closet.”

  Jackson ran into the bedroom, and came out seconds later. “Got it.” He looked at me, and his expression was a caress. Then he ran out the door.

  It was me and Bree now.

  Although I still held on to her arm, it was more to hold her up than stop her from running. She stared at Milo’s body.

  “Love, huh?” I said. “Was it worth it?”

  She turned to me, a strange look in her eyes. “It was . . . an adventure.”

  “Freeze!”

  We didn’t move.

  Two cops, guns drawn, entered the apartment. Several more crowded the hallway behind them.

  “They’re all dead,” I said to the cops. “This is the missing girl you’ve been looking for, Brianna O’Connor.”

  “Are you Brianna O’Connor?” one of the cops shouted back, not lowering his gun.

  I saw the pathetic expression on her face, the help me look in her eyes. Bree had effortlessly slipped back into the role of innocent victim. She’d play the cops, of course. She’d play her family. She’d play the press.

  “Y-yes,” she said weakly. “It’s me.”

  When the two-day blur of questioning was over, Jackson was waiting for me. I knew he would be.

  I drove to his place at dusk, spotting him on the steps outside his building. By the time I parked the car, he was waiting at the curb, and when I got out, he immediately enfolded me in his arms. I breathed in his comforting scent, reveling in his strong arms around me. He was here and he was real, but I had to kiss him a million times just to make sure.

  As he caught my hand and led me up to his apartment, relief flooded through me. After walking on eggshells for two days, I was finally free. Both the cops and my parents had bought my story. They’d had no reason to doubt my version of events, since it was the same as Bree’s.

  I’d done my best to be strong and stoic during the questioning, to not give any hints of my true feelings about Bree. My goal was to protect Jackson and the Destinos, and I’d done that. My parents had hugged me and kissed me and chastised me for trying to run to Bree’s aid without calling the police first. They didn’t know that I’d been kidnapped, that a gun had been put to my head. And I couldn’t ever tell them.

  In the apartment, Jackson searched my eyes. “So Bree stuck to the story?”

  I nodded. “She knows that if she rats on the Destinos, the truth about her will come out. Bree’s too smart to let that happen.”

  “So it’s all tied up neat and tidy with a bow, huh?” His eyes were full of admiration. “You saved my ass, Gabby. But I want you to know, I could defend what I did that night. They were shooting at us. I had no choice but to fire back.”

  “I know that. But you would’ve gone to jail.” I looked at him, taking in a shaky breath. “I’m the one who put you in that situation. I could’ve gotten you killed. I’m so sorry.” Then it happened—the dam burst. I threw my arms around him and started to cry. For two days, I’d kept my emotions on lockdown. But the realization of what had happened, of the choice I’d made, was now hitting me.

  He pulled back slightly, tipping up my chin so he could look into my eyes. “I know what Milo would’ve threatened to do if you didn’t cooperate. That’s how he controls
his girls.” A cold rage took him over. “You had no choice but to text me. I’m the one who’s sorry, Gabby. If I weren’t in charge of the Destinos, they wouldn’t have kidnapped you to get to me.”

  I shook my head. “Milo blamed you for going to the cops. But I’m the one who did that.”

  “Yeah, but I fucked with him, trust me. We were on the verge of shutting him down. He had to do something about me sooner or later.”

  “I was terrified that you wouldn’t catch on to my message.”

  “I knew what ‘Jackie’ meant. You’re too careful to call me that by accident. But that wasn’t the only reason I knew it was a setup. It was weird for you to go to a friend’s place to work on a project after your show on a Sunday night. And Caro’s dad doesn’t live in Overtown. He lives in Coconut Grove.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s a pretty seedy neighborhood for someone who can afford to send their kid to Catholic school. There’s no one with his last name in that area. Plus, that apartment was only rented a month ago. I looked up the address, and saw a For Rent ad that hadn’t been taken down.”

  I was impressed. “You did your research.”

  “Point is, you didn’t need to go throwing yourself at me like that.”

  “I couldn’t risk that you were going in blind.”

  “You’re brave, Gabby.” He cupped my cheek, his blue eyes tender. “You’ve always been brave.”

  “Me, brave? You could’ve run but—” I broke off. “You killed Milo and his guys. It was you, right? I didn’t think you ever carried a gun.”

  “Yeah, it was me. Normally I don’t carry a gun. None of us do. If we had guns, we’d end up shooting people—and we couldn’t keep doing what we do with a trail of dead bodies around. But I knew what we were walking into that night.” His jaw tightened. “My guy, Matador, found Bree hiding in the bedroom. She shot at him. Luckily her aim was way off.”

  “God.” But I could believe it. Bree would’ve done anything to protect what she and Milo had going. “I knew her for years, but I never really knew her. I shouldn’t have trusted her after you told me she’d been recruiting for Milo.”