The Fall of V

by Jessica Gadziala

  So I would bide my time.

  I would let the other girls have him.

  I would remind myself that it was all for the best, that he could get that out of his system with them while I aged up and became a possibility for him.

  Then I would make my move.

  Heck, Iggy was even in on it.

  She would tell me all the time that she hoped I married Vance, so we could be actual sisters.

  Which was why she was smuggling something really awesome for me to wear to school with her. I could change in the woods, let her do my makeup since she had an amazing hand at it even though she wasn't technically allowed to wear it, then we could all walk out to meet Vance.

  I should have stayed in my jeans and long-sleeved tee.

  I shouldn't have changed into the skintight black dress that cut too short on the hem.

  I couldn't have known that at the time, though, as I walked out of the woods feeling more confident than I maybe ever had before.

  It didn't escape me, either, that Vance looked taken aback, and seemed to need to force his face forward out the windshield as we got to the passenger side of the car.

  "You're gonna be cold, Ferryn," he told me, but his voice sounded almost, I don't know, tense? Tense, I decided, was a very good thing as I climbed into the backseat with Heather as Iggy moved in beside her brother.

  Everything was fine.

  We got sugar-filled coffee drinks. We looked through endless shelves of books, only each buying one because our purses weren't big enough to store more than that.

  We bought some earrings and bangle bracelets at a little jewelry store, then we had slices of pizza as we waited for Vance to show up.

  He did, sometime around seven, his car pulling into the lot.

  I never did get back in it.

  Vance had been half-climbing out of his door, Iggy and Heather almost running toward him as I struggled with my purse that felt stuck on something.

  I didn't realize it wasn't something until I noticed a darkness overtake Vance, as his body stiffened, as his mouth opened.

  It was right then I knew.

  The falling sensation in my stomach started.

  The gut-flinch Uncle Malcolm called it. He said it was a gift. He told me to always trust it, to always follow it. That if I got the gut-flinch, if my body was telling me that something was wrong, then it was wrong.

  Well, my gut-flinched just a split second before I felt a hand close around my mouth from behind, an arm close around my midsection hard enough to strangle out my air, to lift me off my feet, to ensure a bruise would be there to remember the sensation even days later.

  "Ferryn!"

  Vance's voice was tortured, his face stricken even as I felt myself being dragged backward.

  There were things I knew about attacks, having been attacked by people of all sexes, strengths, in my training from Aunt Lo, Aunt Janie, Uncle Malcolm, Uncles Cash, Wolf, Repo, Cyrus, Pagan... the list was endless.

  But that was... I could only get away if I stopped it before I was completely overtaken.

  And, make no mistake, I was completely overtaken by this man who ran backward with me as though I weighed no more than a dried leaf.

  My feet couldn't make contact with the ground to jump up to break his hold on me.

  The arm around my stomach was too firm to wiggle out of.

  I was going to be taken.

  That realization made a coldness wash over my body, made goosebumps break out over my flesh, made my stomach turn sour, making me wonder if I was going to vomit even as I watched Vance chase us.

  All I could seem to think, though, as I saw a trunk open at my side was that he needed to get back in his car to chase us; he needed to get Iggy's phone to call my Dad.

  My body lifted higher, twisted, then slammed down into the scratchy material covering the trunk.

  "Vance!" I heard screamed, surprised, almost, to realize that the frantic, hysterical sound came bursting out of me before the trunk door slammed.

  He had been close, too.

  Too close.

  So close that the man who had taken me would have needed to deal with him.

  My heart seemed to freeze in my chest, understanding my need to hear, to make sure there wasn't a shot that said he lost his beautiful life trying to save mine.

  There was no shot, though.

  I heard a shuffle, a grunt, then a car door closing, and the stomach-dropping feel of the car peeling off.

  My body rolled, slamming hard against the side of the trunk, hard enough to make me hiss out as the car took a sharp turn, slamming me against the other wall before I finally kicked out my legs and threw out my arms, stabbing them into the corners of the trunk to try to hold myself still as the panic racked through my system.

  Panic is useless, Uncle Malcolm's voice spoke inside my head. Biologic, but controllable, he had added. You must fight it, stay in control. If you are in control of your mind, you can control your body. If you can control your body, you can change your situation.

  There was one last helpless, whining, bemoaning whimper from somewhere deep within me, something that, under any other situation, would have turned my saliva sour to even think of saying it, but in this situation, with my world changing around me by the moment, there was no pride left to fight it.

  My parents were right. I should have done what they said.

  But there was no time for that, for girlish helplessness. I was not helpless. I would never be helpless.

  I had trained for this for God's sake.

  When the car idled at some traffic signal, my legs and arms relaxed as I scrambled to the corner of the trunk, hands frantically searching for the pull. There was always a pull. It was the law. For little kids locking themselves in trunks, mostly. But also for this kind of situation, for people thrown helplessly into the locked depths. There was a pull somewhere that would pop the top open. So I could alarm a following car, get the police involved, or, if I was desperate enough, to jump out. Broken bones and road burn would hurt, but the pain would be self-inflicted, it would be known.

  Whereas whatever lay ahead of me would be brought on by others.

  I wasn't naive though.

  It wasn't unknown.

  My fate.

  Much to my mom's discomfort, Aunt Lo and Aunt Janie had sat me down, insisting right to her face that she knew why this was necessary. There had been weight behind the words, something I hadn't understood, but it was enough for Mom to concede, to wring her hands as they charged forward into it.

  They didn't shy away from the words, the ones that made my belly tighten. Abduction. Trafficking. The sex trade. Rape. Virginity auctions.

  I understood in painfully explicit detail what men wanted from young, pretty girls when they snatched them off the street, threw them into a trunk, and drove them away from their lives.

  I knew what was going to happen to me if I didn't get away. If I didn't get control over this situation.

  My hands fumbled uselessly at the roof of the trunk, finding nothing, trying not to get hopeless, trying not to realize that not all cars had the pull. Old cars didn't. That was why the law was passed. Little kids suffocating to death.

  I choked back the cry that formed in the back of my throat, hands feeling at the sides, at the door itself, unwilling to give up.

  There's more than one way out of a trunk, Uncle Malc's voice broke through my frantic, scrambling thoughts. Back seats fold forward.

  I flew to the front of the trunk, slamming my feet out to brace myself as my hands sought the pull with a feeling of a full-body sigh as it folded forward.

  I could move out, throw the door open, and fall out into the road before they could get me.

  There was still a chance.

  Seat flat, I threw my upper body forward through the opening, blood pulsing wildly through my temples, wrists, throat, making my very familiar body feel oddly foreign as my hands grabbed the back of the seat to drag myself forward.

  "
Bitch has a will," a deep, chilling voice said. And all I could think was Close. Too close. "Gonna be fun to break her of that," he added before a pain exploded across the tops of my hands, cracking into my knuckles with the crushing sensation of breaking. A cry ripped from within me, a sound I hated hearing, hated giving to them, but couldn't manage to keep in as I snatched my hands back, finding them shaking even as the metal bar he'd used to whack them swung back up, and slammed back down with awful, black, unconsciousness.

  When I woke up again, I was back in the trunk, the back seat closing me in complete darkness.

  "Ow," I whimpered, raising my hand to my head where it was slamming with an intensity that made my eyes hurt. My fingers, sore and weak themselves, met the side of my head, coming back wet and sticky.

  Blood.

  Even as the thought formed, I could smell it. Metallic and primal, a scent I knew as well as anyone could, having smelled my own more times than I could count when I caught a fist to the nose, lip, ear. When I landed on something that forced holes into my arms, knees, hands.

  My training hadn't been about the gi, padded floors, and instructors who came at you with a fifth their real force, terrified of lawsuits.

  Everything I had learned had been raw and real life. Every bruise I got came from an adult who loved me, every bloody nose from an aunt or uncle who knew that training was useless if it didn't teach you to be able to think and act through actual pain, every split lip from a trained adult who knew I needed to become intimately acquainted with the feel, taste, and smell of my own blood.

  Cry if you have to, Lenny told me - not quite an aunt yet, though we all knew that was coming - but get up and fight.

  I pulled in a ragged, shuddering breath, trying to clear my mind to focus, trying to think of the next move.

  But my stomach pitched, making me turn on my side just fast enough to throw up into the corner of the trunk.

  Headache.

  Nausea.

  Head injury.

  Concussion.

  I had a concussion.

  I spat the saliva and bad taste out of my mouth, trying to move away from the corner, trying to keep consciousness as my brain started to swim, as my vision kept blanking in and out, stealing seconds, minutes, I didn't know how long.

  I reminded myself that the thing about not falling asleep was - mostly - fictional, something fun to throw into movies for dramatic effect.

  Mostly though.

  Sometimes, the concussion was bad enough that you shouldn't sleep.

  Because there was a good chance that you might not wake up, that you could pass out, choke on your own vomit, and never wake again.

  Even as the thought occurred to me, I could feel the car slowing. Nothing unusual. Even criminals - maybe especially criminals - needed to abide stop signs and red lights.

  But this time, it didn't charge forward after a moment.

  No.

  The engine cut, making me aware of the constant vibration that had accompanied it while it had been on.

  There was another pause as my heartbeat skittered into overdrive, making adrenaline surge through my body as a door slammed. Then another. As male voices got closer, as they laughed from outside the trunk.

  As a key was jammed into the lock.

  As the door started to lift.

  And I thought a thought then I never thought someone like me - so fearless, so ambitious, so full of drive, of ambitions, of, well, life - would.

  Maybe I'd prefer it if the concussion killed me.

  TWO

  Reign

  The car - sleek, black, long, flawless, the kind of car Repo would have wet dreams about, came to a screeching halt after pressing into the gates enough to bend the metal slightly inward, making me think a thought I would later chasten myself for.

  They don't make them like they used to.

  I mean, what the fuck kind of thought was that to have? Especially now. Especially with Ferryn pulling another fucking rebellion, sneaking out of school with her friends.

  Yeah, it was her birthday.

  And, yeah, I got it.

  I got her better than she got herself. I guess because she had a lot of me in her.

  She was independent, brave, free-thinking, and stubborn as a goddamn bulldog.

  Somedays, when she was railing against me or Summer for some rule we laid down, that she objected to, I had to work to keep from smiling. And, if it weren't for Summer sending me that Don't you dare look in my direction, I likely would have smiled too.

  Because Ferryn and I, we were cut from the same cloth. And, what's more, I liked it. I liked hearing her argue and bitch and refuse to back down.

  I liked when she took a stand, and followed through, even if she didn't have permission.

  I might not have liked it when she came home with a hole through her nose, but I found myself respecting her balls.

  I mean, even my men wouldn't pierce something if I expressly told them not to.

  And here was my daughter, this black-haired, gray-eyed, tall, and slight thing, coming in with her chin jacked up so high you'd swear she was fucking royalty, telling you that you can punish her all you want, but she has a right to "bodily autonomy," and that no one could make her take it out.

  I'd wanted to laugh, but held it in until I got into the bedroom with Summer later, after having doled out a punishment of three months cleaning the entire goddamn clubhouse top to bottom on the weekends when I knew she wanted to hang with her friends, but she hadn't objected, hadn't begged or bargained for a lesser sentence. She took her punishment without complaint.

  "Bodily fucking autonomy," I had chuckled as a smile finally split Summer's face too.

  "That sounds a lot like Alex, don't you think?" she'd asked as I dropped down next to her on the bed.

  "Can't decide if she's a good, or a bad, influence," I agreed about the smartass, loudmouth, opinionated wife of Breaker. Not technically part of our strange, varied family, but Alex and Janie were buds and coworkers on their cyber vigilante missions, so that meant she was part of the girls club. And if she was part of the girls club, that meant she had a hand in helping raise our kids. Most especially our daughter.

  "I think she is going to show Ferryn how to unapologetically speak her mind," Summer decided, nodding a bit.

  "Even if she's speaking unapologetically to her parents."

  "Oh, you love it, and you know it."

  "Yeah, guess I do," I had agreed before, well, we stopped talking, finding not-talking a lot more fun, as we often did. Even after all these years. I'd never get enough of the woman. I swear on my deathbed, I'd be begging the universe for one last time with her.

  So, yeah, Ferryn was a mini me, with a better vocabulary and therefore sharper arguments. Much like the one she'd given us about her sixteenth birthday.

  And, yeah, she'd had a point.

  It wasn't fair that she got locked up on her birthday instead of celebrating with her friends.

  Summer, especially, felt guilt in this particular situation.

  Because it was her raging bitch of a mother who was preventing her children from being allowed to have a normal life.

  Not that it was anyone's fault that she'd gotten free.

  Well, except for Abruzzo.

  Who'd paid with a lot of bloodshed before he hopped on board on the mission to track down the elusive V.

  He'd been about as effective as we had, as Hailstorm had. Meaning not at all.

  The kids were all getting stir crazy.

  Ferryn, as always, more so than anyone else. Because she was older.

  She was missing out on more.

  Really, it was my own fucking fault for not seeing that this would be a stunt she would pull.

  I'd have done the exact same thing in her position.

  Had I thought of it, I would have made sure there were extra guards outside the school.

  Summer was a wreck, sitting up at Hailstorm saying how she never should have let her go back to school.
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br />   I'd assured her that she was just being, well, Ferryn, and that we'd find her, punish her, then wait for her to pull something like this again. As we both knew she would.

  Hell, Mina had pulled me aside once to tell me that I should prepare myself for Ferryn's teens, that she'd be a lot to handle.

  And she was.

  Clearly.

  But I had calls out to her friends' parents, and people trolling all over Navesink Bank to find them and bring them home, kicking and screaming if need be. Which it would likely be.

  She'd come home.

  So, the car thought crossed my mind in that moment between trying to figure out more of Ferryn's hotspots, and calling her deliberately turned off phone.

  "Fucking kids," Virgin muttered at the car as the one who'd been driving threw open the door, climbing out so fast he stumbled, making the guards by the gate readjust their guns, the ones that Lo's guys could wear with no concern of the cops for reasons she refused to disclose.

  It was right about then that I recognized this particular kid. Though, he could hardly be called that, closing in on twenty.

  Which I knew because I knew his sister.

  Because Ferryn was friends with her.

  Because this guy would drive Ferryn home some nights, leaving Summer to press her lips together to keep from smiling.

  "What?" I'd asked one night, watching out the window as Ferryn prattled on, and the guy just kept staring forward.

  "She's madly in love with him," Summer had informed me.

  "I'm gonna need you to repeat that."

  "I overheard her on the phone with Iggy one night. Madly in love with Vance."

  "And the reason we're letting her sit out in the car with him..."

  "Oh, please. Look at him. He won't even look at her. He knows he can't even do that."

  "She's a baby," I'd insisted.

  "She's a young woman, and you know it," Summer had insisted, putting an arm around my lower back, leaning her head into my arm.

  "Don't gotta like it," I'd grumbled, knowing I would likely never be able to see her as anything other than the little girl in the Chucks and tutu, giving me sloppy kid kisses on the cheek, smearing jam on my face, and telling me that my scruff tickled.