by Allen, J. C
It was made all the better when I heard the elevator whirling up about ten minutes later, indicating that Matty had come over in seemingly record time to take care of me. As soon as the elevator doors opened and he stepped through, I greeted him with a massive hug. I couldn’t even get around his sides, but the intent was received in full.
“It’s OK, girlie, it’s OK,” he said, cupping my head in his hand as I leaned into his belly. “Yer in good hands now. A little fatter hands than Derek, but good hands all the same.”
I couldn’t bring myself to say anything, still feeling guilty about pulling him away. In fact, when I looked up at him, I pulled back, said, “sorry,” and turned away, ashamed of what I had done.
“Eve?”
“I shouldn’t have asked you to come,” I said, tears forming down my cheeks. “I was weak. I selfishly asked you to come while the Saviors were out on a mission, and… and…”
“And it’s OK,” Matty said with a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Ya see, I’m here because I can be. All respect, Eve, but if the mission required me to be at the shop, I would be. But I ain’t, cuz I don’t need to be.”
He motioned for the table and had me sit down. He went to Derek’s fridge, mumbling something about how “boy owes me a drink, anyway” and poured us some wine. He sat down with the glass, held it out, and cheered me.
“Are you sure you’re OK being here?” I said, still uncertain how what I had done was OK.
“Absolutely,” Matty said, pulling out his phone. “This right here? This is all I need to run shop. Boys will report in, and then I’ll make notes in my phone. Ain’t nothin’ gonna happen where I need anythin’ else.”
“No laptop?”
“I ain’t one of them programmin’ dorks,” Matty said with a laugh. “Look at me! My hands barely be able to reach the computer!”
He laughed some more, seemingly for effect to get me to smile. Good news for him—it worked. Just a little, but enough.
“Nah, Eve, I promise ya yer OK.”
“OK,” I said with a grateful smile. “I just… I don’t want this to happen again, you know? Like tonight works, fine. But what happens when you and Derek go out? And Tara’s off doing Tara things? What then? How… how do I become strong, Matty?”
“Hmm,” he said, scratching his chin. “Million dollar question right there, Eve.”
He sat in silence for several moments, seeming to give the question serious contemplation. It was a question on which my future alone moments hinged, which seemed cruel to myself—I’d fought so hard to get alone, to get away from the life of constant surveillance, and now that I had it…
“I can only tell ya how I got it, and then hopefully it’ll have something for ya in there,” he said. “Back before Derek was nothin’ more than a twinkle in his momma’s eye, I worked for his papa. Dominick Knight, though most of us just called him sir, half out of respect, half because we knew he hated the formality of it.”
It was kind of sweet seeing how much Matty glowed when talking about Derek’s father. It pained me to know that I would never get to see him and would only hear tales of him, but then again, I probably wouldn’t have even gotten the chance to meet Derek if his father and brother still lived. He’d be with his deceased wife, living the kind of life that Derek and I spoke about now.
“Well, truth be told, when I joined, I was ‘bout your age. New, fresh, and not nearly as fat as I was now.”
“But I bet you still ate like you do now?”
“You kiddin’ me, sista? I ate more then! The blessin’ of youth is that I ain’t ever gotta stop eatin’! Now that damn indigestion slow me down!”
I don’t know how Matty so easily got me to laugh, but he just did.
“Anywho, I admired Dominick Knight. A true man. He did what he said he was gonna do and stuck by it. Now, to be clear, he ain’t ever go on any mission as dangerous as what we’re facin’, at least not until I had grown up, but when he’d go on these deliveries, dealin’ with criminals n’ such, I felt like you. I assumed the worst. If he got gunned down, who woulda took over?”
He snorted.
“Woulda been Falcon. How fucked is that? Anywho, for a good two years I was like this. Prayin’ to Gods I ain’t believe in and beggin for negotiatin’ his life. Then, one day, he came home early from a mission and noticed how much of a goddamn mess I was. Asked me how I felt, said I felt like shit.”
He paused, almost seeming emotional. If I had not heard any of his words and only listened to his tone, it would’ve been obvious that Matty had so much respect for this Dominick Knight, Derek’s father, that he might even have seen him as a big brother.
“Dominick pulled me aside, n’ he said, ‘Matthew Roost Rose, let me tell you something.’”
It was so odd to hear him use a “normal” voice, or what passed for normal with his acting. I didn’t mind in the slightest, but it was just so jarring it was odd to hear.
“’You got things you need to worry about, and that’s what you can control. If you can’t control it, you don’t worry about it. Understand?’ I nodded my head, but truth be told, I went on like that for another six damn months. But!”
He held up a finger with a big, shit-eating grin, as if confessing to some awesome crime he’d gotten away with.
“The words lingered in me. I started to think ‘bout what that man meant. And ya know what I realized? I ain’t in control of a whole lotta shit. More than I care to admit, really. And while I ain’t gonna say I magically snapped my fingers one day and was all good, eventually, I could accept it.”
“But what about for your loved ones?” I said.
Matty gave me a look of confusion, as if he had already addressed just that, but then shut his mouth.
“All the same,” he said with a strange weakness to his voice. “Eve, listen to me. What I just said ain’t gonna magically make ya life better. And it’s my vow to ya that as long as I can, I’ll be with ya when Derek goes runnin’ with his Marine buds. But if ya wanna be strong? Ya gotta choose to be strong. And ya do that by focusin’.”
It wasn’t the first time I had heard such advice.
But it was the first time I had heard it with such stakes as these, with Derek out on dangerous runs, with the war between the Falcons and Saviors drawing to a conclusion, and with Derek and me fighting to keep our love and our future alive.
“Thanks, Matty,” I said.
“Don’tcha go lyin’ to me and say ya found Jesus with these words,” he said with a laugh. “If ya need me, ya call me. I ain’t able to promise I’ll always come, but I am able to promise that I’ll be there if I can. So that’s how ya stay strong.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah. I get it.”
I took a gulp of wine, feeling relieved—and even though I knew it was temporary, I would take temporary relief as best as I could right then.
“Do you ever get stressed again?” I said. “Do you ever have moments where you think ‘I shouldn’t be stressed, but I am?’”
“Hell yah,” Matty said. “Right now, in fact. But yer boy—”
Just then, his phone rang.
“Probably one of ‘em boys finished his scoutin’ and didn’t find nothin’. Ain’t a bad thing,” Matty said as he pulled out his phone and hit the answer button. “Hello?”
I watched closely his facial expression and tried to get a sense of what words were being said.
And then his face dropped.
“Bring ‘im here, critical?”
Oh no. Derek.
“OK, good, bring him to his place.”
He hung up, looked at me, and sighed.
“Ya need to listen very closely, Eve,” he said. “But ya need to let me finish before you react. Derek’s been shot and is unconscious.”
No! No! Derek!
I should’ve never let you go. Should’ve never… Derek… I’m sorry… I’m…
“But!”
I had to fight the tide of tears.
“One of our bo
ys, Rucker, got ‘em taken care of. Passed out cuz of lost blood, but he got shot in the arm. He just gonna need some sugar, some sleep, and some squeezin’ of that arm to prevent blood loss and he’ll be fine.”
Fine.
He got shot!
“Ya don’t believe me,” Matty said.
“He got shot, Matty!” I said, not bothering to hide my tears. “I am gonna worry about this, because why wouldn’t I? My boyfriend’s shot!”
“Eve,” he said, more or less slamming the wine glass on the table to silence me. “I gave ya some nice love, but I’mma tell ya something a bit harsh. We all been shot at. Derek, myself, Rucker, anyone else in the team. Hell, ya know I went into a coma after a gunfire recently.”
“I know, but—”
“Gettin’ shot on the arm and passin’ out ain’t nothin’ but a rite o’ passage with us,” he said, even daring to laugh. Laugh! “I ain’t sayin’ it’s not serious, but—”
“Fine,” I said.
If Matty wasn’t going to appease my wailing—which, I slowly began to understand, may have been a good thing—then I was going to make sure Derek was taken care of.
“What do we need to do to make sure he can recover when he gets here?”
“Bed made, water n’ cookies for when he wakes up, and—”
He paused, went to the window, and cleared his throat.
“They’ll be up here in a min. Eve—”
But before he could finish, I headed to the bedroom as fast as my feet would take me, stripping the bed off of the sheets and placing some towels where Derek would lie, the better so that blood wouldn’t seep into our special sheets. I laid out about three before I hurried back into the kitchen, filling two glasses of water and finding the nearest dessert that I could.
“I’m goin’ down to meet ‘em!” Matty yelled. “Eve, let us get Derek to the bed. Don’t get in our way.”
“I know!” I shouted.
I wasn’t angry at Matty, but I was as determined as I’d ever felt. I was going to do anything it took to get my Derek back and safe. I was not going to be a whimpering mess.
If I wasn’t going to find peace and tranquility in acceptance, then I was going to find it in determined action, damnit.
I had everything laid out and then stood by the table, waiting. Waiting.
And waiting.
Only a dozen seconds had passed, but it was eleven seconds too long. I needed to see Derek and I needed to see him now. The longer I went without seeing him, the more I assumed some complication had taken place that would’ve necessitated Matty going to the hospital—without me.
What if he had played a trick on me? What if he was going to the hospital and had said these things to me so I’d get into the mindset of action and not panic?
Damnit, Matty, you better have not lied to me.
I looked at the half-drunk glass of wine and took it in one gulp. I then took Matty’s and finished it myself. Yeah, I was a little pissed. But I was pissed in the direction of action.
And then I heard the elevator rising from downstairs.
This was no time to be emotional or show frustration—this was time to do what was requested of me and the move out.
The doors opened, and I caught the tail end of some conversation.
“… should wake up by tomorrow morning.”
“Yer sure of that?” Matty said. “Yer gonna have to answer to Eve if he ain’t.”
“I’m sure of it,” a bald, stocky man who looked like he had wrestled grizzly bears in the past said as he came into view. “And I’ve been to the homes of parents who lost kids in war. I’ll be fine.”
I’m not sure if he saw me, but he didn’t acknowledge me—which was fine, because the only reason I saw him was because Derek was slumped over him.
Blood was… well, it had soaked through his jacket, but the puffed out appearance of it made me believe that someone had put a tourniquet on it, limiting the blood loss before it got severe. His eyes were closed, but really, other than his arm, he looked perfectly normal.
Matty and the man moved Derek into the bedroom, laying him out perfectly on the bed.
“Move,” I said, surprised at my own bossy nature.
They parted quickly, stepping to the side as I looked at Derek, resting peacefully. I held his hand, kissed his forehead, and looked up at the two.
“What’s your name?”
“Bones, ma’am,” the bald man said.
“Bones,” I said.
I was about a half second away from threatening him if he had misdiagnosed Derek’s condition. I didn’t want to think of how I would react if Derek didn’t actually wake up and if I ever saw him again.
But that was foolish. Bones had rescued Derek from being shot and brought him back here. I couldn’t even fathom how much danger he had gone through—certainly enough so that Derek had gotten wounded. To do anything other than to show my appreciation would have been maddening.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice softening. “I know he’s in good hands with you.”
“Just doing my job, ma’am.”
“Just call me Eve,” I said, almost embarrassed that a soldier was calling me, a former whore and current college dropout, ma’am.
“Yes, Eve,” Bones said.
I turned back to Derek.
“I’m going to spend the night with him,” I said. “If that’s OK?”
“Should be fine,” Matty said. “Might not wanta get too near that blood, but I ain’t think ya gonna do anythin’ stupid. Bones?”
“She’s good,” he said. “Let him sleep. But otherwise, you’re fine.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I didn’t need to tell the two to head out, because they did so immediately after. I silently thanked them once more, told myself to get a grip, and then turned to Derek.
His chest rose gently as his eyes remained close, certainly indicating that he had received proper medical treatment from Bones and whoever else was with him out there. That gave me an enormous sense of relief.
“Derek Knight,” I said. “Oh, the things you do to me.”
I was surprised that, even with how this night had turned out and for all that had happened in between him leaving and returning, I was able to laugh at myself. Perhaps this is what Matty had meant—I could only control being by Derek’s side, and now that he would be fine… well, it wasn’t exactly what he had meant, but his presence had ensured I wasn’t freaking out as I might have otherwise.
“Just do me a favor, babe,” I said, kissing him on the forehead. “Don’t go getting shot again. In fact…”
I wasn’t actually mad at Derek. No part of me would ever feel angry given that he had survived an attack and come home to me.
But there was a part of me that knew that being angry at him when he woke up would make him act even more carefully. He had taken steps in the right direction, but I wanted him to take even more. I wanted him to never, ever, ever put himself in even the smallest of chances of spots where he could get hurt.
“I’m gonna teach you some lessons tomorrow,” I said, patting his cheek gently. “I think it’s time you realize what I look like when I’m angry.”
9
Derek
I looked across the enemy from me.
Just one man stood before me. The man who had killed everything I loved.
Falcon.
Frank Young.
The murderer of my father, my mother, my brother, my wife, and my unborn child.
And now here he was before me, in the same alleyway that I had killed Chuck.
And he was laughing at me.
“Derek Knight, you are so stupid and so foolish,” he said, taunting me. “Do you understand how easy it was to get you here?”
“Fuck you, Falcon!”
But the more I came after him, the more that I yelled at him, the more he seemed to relish in me.
“You like this place, don’t you?” he said with a wicked smile. “Yes, this is where you met t
he whore, Eve. Yes, you know she’s a whore. You used to have Anne, a lovely professional woman who made a lot of money. And now you’re dating a whore. How’s it feel, Derek Knight? How does it feel to have fallen?”
“I haven’t fallen, she’s a real woman!”
“That she is, and she has a real job. She sucks off real dick for real cash, which I get.”
I crossed my arms, refusing to believe this. I knew she had once, but no longer. And I’d seen this game before with Chuck. Falcon wasn’t going to get me with some bullshit about Eve going back to her “roots.” I wasn’t going to fall for that again.
“But let’s say it doesn’t matter,” Falcon said, taunting me still. “Let’s say your girl, my whore, is not really a whore. Or at least, you choose to believe she’s a whore. Do you think that will bring your parents back? Your brother? Do you think any of them are coming back? Do you think killing me will bring them back?”
“Falcon!” I roared, and I chased after him.
But something fucked up was happening. No matter how much I chased, no matter how fast I moved, no matter for how long I moved, I wasn’t getting any closer to him. He just laughed from afar, mocking me as an imbecile of sorts.
“This is your curse, Derek Knight,” he said. “You chase ghosts that will bring you no joy. You might feel happy for half a second after killing me. And then what? Your family is still dead! Never again! I crushed your father’s skull and I relished it. I loved it. Loved! I tasted his blood, Derek. It was the blood of a dead man!”
He laughed some more. I patted my hips for a gun, knife, anything that could cover the ground between us, but there was nothing.
“Derek… Derek…”
“You won’t… you won’t!”
“Derek…? Derek!”
Suddenly, I jolted awake as soft hands shook me. I bolted straight up, nearly colliding with something in the process.
And then I felt an enormous pain on my left arm, as if someone had stabbed me and twisted the knife a hundred and eighty degrees in there.
Damn!
Guess I’d have to sleep more later. Guess I’d have to kill Falcon another day.
