The Fall of V

by Jessica Gadziala

  I didn't even know.

  I hadn't seen it in so long.

  She wasn't in pajamas like I thought she would be.

  She was in jeans and a tee, some makeup even on her eyes.

  Like she was going to go out.

  There was a long pause before her hands grabbed frantically at her window, yanking it up, her voice not even quiet as she declared, "Ferryn! Oh, my God! Where have... does your Dad know you're... what are you doing here?"

  "Let me in," I demanded, tapping on the screen that we had used to sneak me in so often that it barely fit within its track anymore.

  "Okay, but Ferryn, your face..."

  "Is a mess, I bet," I agreed, tone a little deader than usual. "Please. I will explain. But I need to come in. I need a shower. And food. Please."

  Finally free to display the desperation that had been bubbling under the surface for days - and I still didn't even exactly know how many days - it seeped into every word, something Iggy picked up on, not asking any more questions.

  The screen popped out as I climbed up top the little plastic fake rock monstrosity that her parents used to hide the cap for the well, hauling myself up and in, finding that with all the adrenaline depleted, my arms and legs were feeling like Jell-O.

  "Shower first?" she asked, making me suddenly wonder self-consciously if I actually smelled. I never smelled. Never. I made sure of it. It was pretty much universally accepted that stinky people were the type of people that no one else wanted to be around.

  "While you make me food?" I asked, going automatically to her closet to drag out things that might fit me even though I was a few inches taller and a bit more narrow.

  God, new clothes.

  Fresh underwear.

  There were some things you never realized it was even possible to take for granted until the luxury of them were taken from you.

  "Of course. Yeah. I will make..."

  "Not eggs," I demanded a bit frantically. "Or rice and beans."

  "O...kay," she agreed, tone hesitant, questioning, but accepting of the agreement we had made.

  "But, Iggs, a lot of it. Please," I said. If it was possible to hear hunger, you could hear it in my voice then.

  She must have sensed it, too, because she gave me a rapid nod before shuffling quietly off.

  I let myself in through a door inside her room that led into her own private full bath, something I had always been jealous of in the past, but now was just incredibly grateful for as I put the clothes down, grabbed a towel, turned on the water, and stripped out of the clothes that had been sticking to me with grime and sweat for hours, days.

  I had always been a shower freak, having to listen to Fallon or Finn slamming on the door at home, annoyed that I was taking so long.

  But this was different.

  This wasn't about enjoyment per se.

  This was about feeling like I needed to get not only the dirt and sweat and blood off of me, but the experience as a whole.

  A useless task.

  I scrubbed until my skin was red and aching from the attention, but still felt a slime covering me, an invisible coat of anger, helplessness, disgust, hunger, and fear that I was worried would always be a part of me, always be a reminder of what I had been through, even if I managed to move on from it.

  If.

  "Here, let me do that," Iggy offered as I pulled out a first aid kit from under her sink to deal with my feet. I had scrubbed the dirt off as best I could with how raw they were, but was not looking forward to treating and dressing them. "You sit. Eat," she invited, holding out a plate stacked with sandwiches, thick with meat and cheese, bright green romaine peeking out from under the rye bread.

  My stomach groaned as I dropped my butt down on the top of the toilet, taking the plate while kicking up my legs on her lap as she sat off the side of the tub, digging through the kit to find witch hazel and triple antibiotic.

  "Okay," she said when I was on my third half sandwich, finding the hole in my belly felt no more full than it had been before I started eating. "Talk to me, Ferr," she asked, securing the gauze on my foot with tape.

  I did.

  Words tumbling out of trembling lips, knowing that if there was a single person in the world who I could trust with my vulnerability, it was Iggy.

  "That bitch," she snapped when I finished, shoving half of a sandwich whole into my mouth, chewing until my jaw hurt. "I'm so sorry," she added.

  "I need to do something, Iggs," I said, heart fluttering around at even thinking about speaking these awful thoughts aloud.

  "What?"

  "I need to go."

  "Go?" she asked, eyes small.

  "I don't understand it either," I agreed, looking away, feeling my eyes glistening. "But I need to go."

  "Go where?"

  "I don't know," I admitted. "Somewhere that someone can turn me into a weapon," I added, cringing at how silly those words sounded spoken aloud.

  "But, Ferr, wouldn't Hailstorm be the place for that?"

  "Maybe," I agreed, nodding. "But they have trained me all my life. I barely held my own."

  "You were surprised," she corrected, likely meaning when the men caught me from behind.

  "I never should have been surprised. I never should have hesitated. I think... having my dad as my dad and my aunts and uncles as my aunts and uncles has always given me this safety net, this false sense of security. But it is false. This whole situation just proved that I'm not safer because of them. I am at a much bigger risk."

  "Yeah, but... going off on your own will put a target on your back."

  "Not if no one knows who I am," I said, shrugging. "Which brings me to the next - and last - thing I have to ask of you tonight."

  "What?" she asked, sounding like she was dreading what I might ask.

  "Does your mom still groom Peaches?" I asked, referring to the malti-poo that had a better life than most humans.

  "Ah, yeah."

  "Can you get me the buzzer?"

  "Why?"

  "I want to get rid of my hair."

  "What? No! Your hair is gorgeous."

  "I don't want to be gorgeous. I want to be lethal," I said, so much conviction in my tone that my voice shook slightly.

  "But like... a pixie cut, right?"

  "Like Demi Moore in G.I. Jane I corrected." She was shaking her head even before I finished speaking. "You do it, or I do, Iggs."

  "You'd be all uneven if you did it," she objected.

  To which I shrugged, making her huff her air out.

  "Fine. But when you hate it, I'm not to blame."

  Ten minutes later, I stood in the mirror, looking at a reflection that I barely recognized. It wasn't just the hair. My eyes looked harder, closed off. My face was a smattering of bruises. There was a stubborn set to my jaw and lips.

  "Okay. I lied."

  "I knew you would hate it!"

  "No," I said, smiling a little, feeling a small bit of warmth swarm my chest. "I meant I lied about that being my last favor. I need a hoodie and shoes."

  "You can't really be going."

  "I know it doesn't make sense. And maybe I am just in shock. Have post-traumatic stress or something. But I need to do this. I can't explain it. But I have to go. Maybe it will be a mistake. Maybe I will realize halfway into the bus ride that I screwed up, that I was just crazy. But I can turn around. Or call my parents."

  "Your parents..." she said, eyes and voice sad. She'd always had a soft spot for them. Likely in response to the soft spot they had for her.

  "I am going to let them know. And I'm not asking you to lie for me. They'll show up here and ask where I went."

  "But I don't know--"

  "Exactly," I cut her off. "I'm not putting you in the middle. I will call them or write them. Tell them that. Tell them that I love them," I added, feeling my eyes water, my throat tighten.

  "Ferryn, it's safe now. Just go home," she begged.

  "No," I said, swiping the tears off my cheeks. "I can't," I a
dded, slipping socks over the bandages on my feet so I could walk back into the bedroom, snagging a gray hoodie and a pair of slip-on shoes, taking a deep breath, knowing I had to go. I had spent too much time here already.

  "Wait... take this," she said, grabbing her old laptop off a shelf, one that her parents had replaced simply because the new one they got her had better parental controls. "You'll need it. You know you will," she said when I started to object. Finding a backpack in her closet, she shoved it inside along with a change of clothes. "And this," she added, holding up a necklace she had gotten for her communion. "I hate it. You know I hate it," she insisted when I began to object. "And it will be worth a couple hundred if you hock it."

  "I'll pay you back, Iggs," I told her. "I will get a job and pay you back."

  "I know it is pointless to argue with you," she said with a smile I knew she didn't feel as she held the bag out to me.

  "Do me a favor," I said when we stood there awkwardly, knowing this was going to be the last time we saw each other for a long time.

  "Anything."

  "Find some way to take classes at Aunt Lo's gym. Tell her I said to do it. For free. She will believe you. You should... every girl should have some training," I insisted, thinking of Chris. Of Mary. Of the countless others.

  "I promise," she told me. And since we had a long track record of never breaking promises to each other, I knew she would keep it.

  "I love you," I told her, reaching out with my one free arm, giving her a short, but hard, hug. "Oh, God," I hissed when I heard a car pull into the drive.

  "It's Vance," Iggy assured me. "He's worried about me. I'm worried about him. We were going for coffee at the all-night. He will be so happy to know you're okay."

  Vance.

  There was a faint fluttering sensation much like I always used to get when I thought of him as I ducked out the window, hearing Iggy following, coming with me toward the front of the house where Vance was just languidly lifting himself from the front seat of his T-bird.

  He looked as good as I remembered.

  Better maybe.

  But there were bags under his eyes.

  Like he hadn't been sleeping.

  And I guess that made sense.

  "Ferryn?" he hissed as his eyes moved to me, confused for a second, likely about my new bruised and shaved look.

  "Vance," I agreed, taking a deep breath.

  I didn't even think about it.

  I didn't hesitate.

  I closed the distance between us, reaching up, snagging him by the back of the neck, dragging him down, and sealing my lips over his.

  It should have been the most exciting moment of my life. It would have been had it happened a week ago.

  But excitement wasn't something I was seeking anymore.

  This was determination.

  This was the culmination of something I had wanted for far too long without acting on it.

  His body had stiffened for a moment, knowing he was supposed to pull away, but softened a second later as my lips demanded a response, then got one, as he finally took over until my body felt like it was thrumming with need.

  Then and only then did I pull back, break away, finding his eyes hooded with desire but somehow also widened with shock as he looked at me.

  "Just so you don't forget me," I told him, taking a steadying breath I desperately needed, turning, and running off, ignoring the stabbing in my feet, ducking in and out of backyards until I reached the convenience store a town over, taking a card out of my wallet.

  My 'for emergencies' card.

  Except it was simply a card to my parents' checking account.

  With a lump in my belly, I withdrew eight-hundred, reminding myself that - like Iggy - I would pay them back as soon as I could.

  I bought a ticket.

  I climbed on a bus.

  And I watched as Navesink Bank drifted into the distance.

  I would be back.

  When I was stronger.

  When I could stand on my own.

  When no one else could ever use me again.

  Yeah, I would be back.

  Someday.

  NINE

  Summer

  My daughter shot my mother.

  My daughter killed my mother.

  I was pretty sure that in no version of my reality that I had ever thought that those were words I could think.

  But there was no other way to put it.

  Because that was exactly what had happened.

  I almost hadn't gotten the chance to know that fact. At least not in real time.

  They weren't going to tell me.

  My husband.

  Our friends.

  They were going to leave me at Hailstorm wringing my hands, worrying the floors, pretending to put on a brave face for the boys. Boys who were getting older. Boys who knew something was up. Boys who had a lot of questions, and disbelieving brow raises at my makeshift answers.

  If I hadn't walked outside at the exact moment I saw my husband climbing into one of Lo's SUVs, I might have been left behind.

  I swallowed back my undeniable bruised pride, hurt feelings at still being thought of as weaker, as someone too soft to handle all the hard in their lives, and planted my feet, steeled my spine, demanded they take me to save my daughter.

  There were a lot of frightful people in the world, but there was none more terrifying, more unpredictable, more formidable than a worried mother.

  Needless to say, they took me along.

  I was even handed a gun.

  Then we drove.

  The most frustrating revelation was finding out that she wasn't that far. She could have been anywhere in the world. Indeed there were people looking for her in every damn corner of it. But she was just a few towns over.

  A few towns on a big piece of property with an old, abandoned house, protected by a handful of armed guards.

  A small, pitiful empire.

  It must have irked V to know that, to know she had been brought so low, to know she had so high to rise still.

  She was an appearances person.

  She was a reputation person.

  And hers had clearly not recovered as fast as she had planned.

  Her contacts she had built over decades of ruling the trafficking trade on the east coast had likely moved on, aligned with other people, established new bonds, forgetting all about her existence.

  If I knew the woman, and I thought I maybe had gotten to know how her brain worked over the years, analyzing what had happened with my imprisonment, listening to the stories my father told me about the conversations he had held with her, then I knew that she would have made up for her insecurities by being extra vicious, showing her men the kind of ruthless leader she was, forcing their allegiance through sheer terror rather than respect or hard-won loyalty.

  And my daughter, my perfect innocent, brilliant, willful, amazing daughter had been in her grips for six days.

  Six.

  I wasn't sure I had slept that many hours all put together since she had gone missing, making me antsy, frazzled, sick to my stomach wondering what Ferryn was going through.

  Had she met V yet?

  Had she learned of the betrayal at our hands for never having told her?

  And it was a betrayal, no matter how we tried to dress it up.

  She wasn't a child anymore. She hadn't been for a good long while, whether I wanted to accept that or not.

  And she deserved honesty from us, not evasions and half-truths, rules enforced for reasons we refused to disclose to her.

  Had she been angry when she learned?

  Upset?

  Indifferent because there were more pressing things for her to worry about.

  God, what if things were being done to her like they had been done to me?

  Or, heaven forbid, worse?

  "Stop, baby," Reign had demanded from beside me, his big hand landing mid-thigh, giving it a hard squeeze.

  "I can't help it," I had admitted,
not even bothering to pretend I didn't know exactly what he was talking about. After all these years, we barely needed to have full conversations anymore to get things across to one another.

  "We'll have her soon."

  Yes.

  But what her?

  There was no denying there would be changes.

  I had changed after V had taken me.

  And I had been older.

  I had more life experience.

  And pain, hunger, fear, and humiliation, they altered people, they got into your bones and changed your cells and altered your DNA.

  The Ferryn we brought home was going to need time, love, space, rest, food, understanding.

  And even then, there was no guarantee she would be our same sweet, rebellious girl.

  We would have to get to know the new parts of her, show her that they were just as lovable.

  Everyone had just gotten into place hidden in the tree line, most of us out front, most of Lo's men out back, trying to take stock of the surroundings, of the men, of the firepower.

  And I couldn't deny the almost overwhelming surge of gratitude that overcame me at that moment, for all these people who would do anything, not just because they were commanded to, but because they thought of Ferryn as one of their own, wanted her safe return just as much as we did.

  As many trained, hardened professionals that surrounded us, I was pretty sure not one was saved the heart attack of seeing the garage door open, and two girls sneak outside.

  Escape.

  Our girl.

  My girl.

  And another around the same age, with lighter hair and eyes, her clothes tattered and blood-stained.

  Both were worse for the wear.

  My eyes noticed that before they noticed the gun in my daughter's hand, the toilet tank cover in the other's. There were bruises and blooded bits. There were haunted, terrified looks in their eyes.

  That was what the mom in me took in first.

  "She's got a gun," Reign's voice whispered into my ear, making me aware of it. But only after noticing how raw her wrists were. From some sort of binding. I remembered that pain well.

  But she did.

  She had a gun.

  How?

  That was a good question.

  And I knew the answer involved violence.