Battered Not Broken

by Rose, Ranae

  He looked anything but relaxed as he sat in his chair, his shoulders hard knots of muscle beneath his t-shirt and his good arm propped on his knee while he balanced his cast on the chair’s arm. He looked so serious that she let the opportunity to make a joke at the expense of his ‘tie you to that bed’ comment pass. Her brain was too foggy from painkillers to think of anything clever, anyway.

  “Yeah, but my injuries aren’t that serious. And everyone’s acting like I’m some sort of saint on her death bed. It makes me feel like a drama queen.”

  The police had even come to question her about the shooting. She’d told them what had happened but had left any mention of her brother out of it.

  She’d been in the hospital for a little under twenty-four hours, and already her room was stuffed with cards, a couple teddy bears and flowers – four different bouquets, in all. The well-wishers’ gifts were piled around her like offerings.

  There was even a balloon attached to one of the bouquets. Cameron and his girlfriend Stacey had brought that one, and the stuffed bear that sat beside it, one of its arms in a sling. The other gifts were from her mother, aunts, cousins, Melissa and Trisha.

  “Your injuries are serious,” Ryan said, his voice hard as he planted his good hand against his face, rubbing his forehead with his palm. “And we’re lucky they weren’t worse. So damn lucky.”

  “Are you getting a headache?”

  “No. I’m just so pissed it hurts.”

  She slumped against the pillows, her body softened by a defeating wave of guilt. One fact had been playing on a continuous loop in her mind throughout the day – if she’d listened to Ryan and gone to stay with him like he’d asked, she wouldn’t have been caught in the drive-by shooting.

  But her mother would have been caught in it alone and very likely would have been badly injured or killed. Ally wasn’t sorry she’d been there with her mother. But she was sorry for Ryan’s obvious agony. Mostly, she was sorry that the situation was what it was – that she hadn’t had another choice, really, and that when she left the hospital, she’d be right back in the crosshairs of shitty people and the misery they rained down on those around them in the form of bullets.

  Ryan hadn’t asked her again to abandon her home in favor of staying with him, but he would.

  And there was only one answer she could give as long as her father was still in prison, which would be another year, at least.

  “How’s your arm?” Ryan asked, a little bit of the hard edge gone from his voice.

  “Better,” she said. “Hurts, but not that bad.” The painkillers the hospital staff had given her helped a hell of a lot. “I was lucky.”

  Incredibly so – the bullet that had traveled through her arm had tunneled through flesh, tearing skin and muscle, but it hadn’t touched bone. The doctor had told her that it had come within a hairsbreadth of hitting her axillary artery – an event that might have caused her to bleed to death on her own front porch as Ryan and her mother watched.

  “And your shoulder?” He removed his hand from his own face, propping his elbow on his knee again.

  “I can hardly even feel any pain right now.” Another incredible stroke of luck – the bullet that had hit her shoulder had grazed the curve of it, carving out a little ditch of skin and muscle as it had whistled by. The wound to her arm was considerably more painful. Both injuries were tolerable with the help of painkillers.

  “That’s good.” His voice rasped a little – from exhaustion, surely. He’d ridden to the hospital with her in the ambulance and had slept maybe two hours, tops, since then. “Look, about when I showed up at your house, just before you were shot…” He frowned. “I was coming to apologize. Brought you flowers. I felt bad about what I said about your family. I—”

  The room’s door creaked open and Ally’s gaze swiveled automatically in that direction. The door opened frequently, and it was anybody’s guess as to whether it would admit a nurse, visitor or doctor.

  This time, it was Maria.

  Ryan sat in his chair, stone silent.

  “How was dinner?” Ally asked.

  Her mother and Ryan had agreed to take turns visiting one of the hospital’s dining facilities while the other remained at Ally’s bedside. She’d told them they could go together, but they’d refused.

  “It was fine.” Maria shuffled over to Ally’s bed.

  With her on one side and Ryan on the other, Ally was trapped by two assessing, regretful gazes. It was enough to make her skin crawl with unease. They’d been freaking out over her for nearly twenty-four hours without sparing a thought for themselves, but every time she met their eyes she was haunted by thoughts of what might have happened if the car had driven by her house a few moments earlier or later. Her mother or Ryan could easily have been caught in the gunfire.

  “You can go now, Ryan,” Maria said. “Get something to eat.”

  Ryan remained seated in his chair and shook his head. “I’m really not hungry.”

  “Ryan, you need to eat,” Ally said. She’d slept during parts of the day, but according to her tally, he’d consumed a grand total of three cups of coffee, one coke and some sort of granola bar that Maria had bought from a vending machine for him. “You’re not helping me by making me worry.” Maybe it was a low blow, but it was true, and she didn’t want to see him pass out in his chair from lack of sustenance.

  He rose slowly, an unconvinced expression on his face. “I won’t be gone long.” He leaned over the bed and pressed his lips against her temple. The stubble on his jaw tickled in a pleasant way.

  “Take as long as you need. I’m fine.”

  He wouldn’t, of course, but she was. She’d been beyond lucky with her wounds and the hospital staff was more than competent. Surely she’d be safe from infection and other complications, thanks to their care. Healing would be a matter of waiting for her flesh to knit itself back together.

  Of course, there would be the hospital bills. Just the thought of the charges felt like a kick to the gut. She didn’t have insurance, and with the damage to her arm and shoulder, it would be a while before she could even fight. Not that even a permanent string of victories at Cameron’s events would be able to make much of a dent in the charges she was sure to be slammed with when discharged from the hospital.

  Fortunately, the painkillers took the edge off not only her pain, but her worries, too. Propped against the pillows and intent on healing as quickly as humanly possible, she willed herself not to think about money.

  “You know,” Maria said, pulling her chair up to the bedside, next to Ryan’s empty one, “I can’t stop thinking how much worse this could’ve been.” She reached out and gripped Ally’s right hand, careful not to disrupt the IV needle as she squeezed it gently. “It’s a miracle that the bullet that went through your arm didn’t hit that artery. But still… This is my fault. A part of me was happy to have Manny back. And I’m the one who let him in. I—”

  “Don’t, mamá.” The note of guilt in Maria’s voice made Ally want to cringe. “This isn’t your fault.” Even if her brain hadn’t been fogged by medication, she wouldn’t have been able to bring herself to assign blame to anyone. The sequence of events that had led to the shooting had started half a dozen years ago, and trying to trace its course was like getting lost in an impossibly complicated maze. When she really thought about it, blame seemed to both cling to and elude everyone at the same time. “It’s nobody’s fault. It just happened.”

  Before Maria could reply, the door swung open with the faintest of squeaks.

  Ally’s heart sank. If that was Ryan, he couldn’t have gone farther than the nearest vending machine.

  But it wasn’t him.

  “Manny.” Maria tightened her hold on Ally’s hand, seemingly unaware that she was doing so.

  Manny strode across the room without a word, clad in jeans and a black leather jacket that was as sleek as his shaved head. Tattoos peeked above the collar, snaking up his neck, hints of what was concealed beneath
his clothing. His gaze never left Ally as he came to stand at the side of her bed.

  The drugs the hospital staff had given Ally tugged constantly at the corners of her consciousness, begging her to let them take over, filling her with a floating sensation that left her feeling inappropriately carefree. She’d fought it recently while she’d been speaking to Ryan and her mother, but willed it to creep over her as she looked up into her brother’s eyes. His presence just wasn’t something she wanted to face with a clear mind. Maybe the shooting had left her weaker than she’d thought.

  She was due for another dose of painkillers soon. The effects of the last dose were no longer overwhelming, but they were enough to take the edge off all the things she should’ve been feeling as her brother stood by her side. Not that she was sure what those feelings were, exactly.

  The crinkle of cellophane and a waft of floral scent shocked her back to coherent thought, simultaneously sending her back in time to the night before. The same sound and scent had been present when Ryan had knelt beside her then.

  “Here.” Manny pressed something into the crook of her uninjured arm – flowers. She willed her eyes to focus on the purple blossoms. Her mind couldn’t come up with the right word for them, but they were pretty.

  She didn’t say anything. Neither did Maria, who seemed frozen in her seat, as if the sheer force of not knowing what to do had rendered her incapable of doing anything at all.

  “Keep those flowers where you can see them,” Manny said, his voice perfectly controlled, his volume just loud enough for them both to hear. “And every time you look at them, think of me.”

  Ally continued to stare at the flowers. For some reason, it was easier than looking at Manny, even after what he’d said.

  “Think of me making the people who did this to you wish they’d never been born,” he continued. “I swear, by the time those flowers wither, every last one of those bastards will be burning in hell.”

  Something that felt an awful lot like an icy hand gripped Ally’s stomach, sending a faint wave of nausea rippling through her. “You know who did this?” She raised her gaze, meeting Manny’s dark eyes.

  He nodded. “Si. And I will make them pay.”

  Maybe the waning drugs in her system had put her in a stronger fog than she’d realized, because until that moment, she hadn’t noticed the thin line running along the length of Manny’s jaw, a couple inches beneath one cheek bone. It was bright pink, almost red, on the verge of being an open wound and just beginning to heal. Not a deep cut, but long. As if he’d just missed having his face sliced in half, feeling the bite of the very tip of a knife instead. Beneath his jacket, there was surely another wound on one arm.

  Dread avalanched through her mind. She started to say that she didn’t want him to avenge her, but stopped before the words were fully formed. What if, by some bizarre twist of fate, she was able to convince him to do nothing? The people who’d shot her might come back. To kill her, to kill her mother. Presumably as some form of revenge against Manny for whatever he’d done to anger them. But if he did go after them… He might be killed or hurt in the conflict.

  There was no answer she liked, no safe or satisfying course of action or non-action she could plead for.

  “Their time was just about up anyway,” Manny said, his voice permeated by a calmness that hinted at danger. Sort of like the water in the opening scene of Jaws, right before the shark ate the nighttime swimmer. “They marked themselves for death when they decided to challenge Casa de Ladrillos. The only difference now is that I’m going to make them hurt more before they die.”

  “Manny…” Her voice faltered as her heart practically burst with the effort of wishing that the biggest thing she and her brother had to worry about was still an animatronic shark and the ensuing nightmares it had caused.

  The squeak of the door saved her from having to come up with anything worth saying.

  In light of her medication schedule, she’d expected a nurse.

  Instead, Ryan walked through the door, his jaw set and his eyes so dark a storm cloud might as well have been hanging over his head. His body was so tense that his muscles appeared to be on the verge of busting his t-shirt at the seams.

  Manny turned slowly and the two men eyed each other like two wary predators. The calm and silence that filled the room had a strangely electric feel.

  The dread avalanche inside Ally was set into full motion again as the tension mounted. Ryan looked like he wanted to kill someone – namely, Manny. He leered in Manny’s direction, his eyes a steely shade of blue. “You know who shot her.” It was a statement, not a question.

  Manny inclined his head slightly, the barest hint of a nod.

  Something didn’t make sense. Ally’s brain struggled to identify exactly what it was for a moment. “How did you know?” she asked. “He was speaking in Spanish.” True to his usual habit, Manny hadn’t spoken a word of English since he’d walked through the door.

  “You were speaking in English,” Ryan said to her while still focusing on Manny.

  Oh. He was right. And the vibes passing between him and Manny were too intense for her to spare a thought on embarrassment. Her fear left no room for other emotions.

  “I’m going with you,” Ryan said, “to make them pay.”

  Ally’s heart skipped a beat, nearly stopping altogether.

  Manny was still for a moment, his dark eyes glittering faintly beneath the overhead lightning. Then he tipped his head lightly again, a sparse gesture of acquiescence.

  “After that,” Ryan said, his voice dangerously smooth, “it’s you and me. This is your fault.”

  Something flashed in Manny’s dark eyes, and he slipped into English for Ryan’s benefit. “What the fuck do you know? You’re just some—”

  Ally’s mouth was so dry that it might as well have been stuffed full of cotton, but she managed to half-shout anyway. “No!” she cried sharply. “No! Ryan, what are you thinking?”

  “That this is never going to happen again,” he said, his gaze wandering briefly around the hospital room before settling on her.

  “But you can’t go. Don’t you dare.” In that moment, she couldn’t have cared less that she was bossing him around like the drama queen she’d felt like just half an hour ago.

  “I’m going.” He infused the statement with the same flat finality with which he’d addressed Manny.

  “You could die!” She wrenched out the last word between clenched teeth as she sat straight up in her bed and an unexpectedly strong bolt of pain raced from her shoulder to her elbow. For fuck’s sake, the people he wanted to go after had already shot her. Of course he could die. The chances were disgustingly high. He had to know that.

  He crossed the room, reaching her bedside in a few short steps. He displaced Manny, who actually took a step backward as Ryan bent over the bed.

  Up close, the thin rings of orange-gold around his irises were clearly visible. They reminded her of wedding rings – traditional golden bands. Maybe that was because her mind was racing in a whirl of emotion and drug-fueled sentiment, presenting her with a slew of things they’d never do if he died trying to avenge her. Things like living together like he wanted, and getting married someday. Possibilities she never, ever would have voiced out loud but secretly treasured in some deeply-hidden corner of her heart as she looked at him, her mind and heart racing.

  “I know,” he said. “But I won’t. Or at least, I’ll try my best not to.”

  A wordless sound escaped her, more of a whine than she cared to admit. She flung her legs over the side of the bed, narrowly missing tangling her own limbs in her IV cord. Something more potent than the drugs she’d been given was racing through her veins – adrenaline. As her sock-clad toes brushed the floor, it felt strangely as if she were entering a cage, pitted against an opponent who would beat her into a pulp if she gave her the least chance.

  Ryan used his good hand to grip her firmly by her uninjured shoulder. Noticing that only sent Ally’s
panic spiking. He was incapacitated. Fucking incapacitated and he wanted to face a bunch of gun-wielding deviants who’d shoot someone as soon as look at them if they thought they could get away with it.

  “I’d die for you,” Ryan said, his face so close to hers that his breath warmed her mouth and his nose nearly touched hers. He was just far enough away that she could focus on those golden rings. “I’d kill for you, too. Trust me. I love you, Ally.” He pressed his lips against hers, his kiss much more fierce than the effective but careful grip he maintained on her arm.

  Her entire body buzzed – with shock, fear, rage and a stunned happiness that was buried beneath the other emotions with no hope of surfacing. Her mind played no role in her melting into his kiss – it was an automatic response, the only thing about the whole twisted situation that felt right. With a detached sense of satisfaction, she noted that he’d eaten – she could taste traces of mustard on his tongue. A sandwich, then. At least he wouldn’t be facing probable death on an empty stomach. The thought pushed her to the verge of hysterics, and she trembled against him.

  “Don’t go,” she breathed as soon as the kiss ended. “Don’t.”

  Ryan rose and straightened, his expression resolute.

  Manny stepped forward and leaned in, so close to Ryan that Ally feared Ryan would forget his promise of confronting Manny later and lash out.

  The dark fire had gone out of Manny’s eyes, leaving him looking vaguely sad – an expression Ally hadn’t seen on his face for years. “I figure I owe you one. So I’ll keep him safe for you, sister.” He didn’t say it was a promise, but it was – that was evident in his tone and the way he held himself, as if he took himself more seriously than anyone or anything else in the world. She’d hated that trait – one Carlos had wrought in him – before, but now it was a strange but terrifying comfort.

  When he rose, he stood straight beside Ryan. Physically, there was no real reason for them to look alike. Ryan was fair and tall and Manny was a couple inches shorter and darker in comparison. Ryan’s short hair seemed long compared to the raven stubble that cast a shadow over Manny’s shaved skull. But they wore identical expressions of resolve, their mouths turned down at the corners in the same grim way.