Battered Not Broken

by Rose, Ranae

  And then they were gone.

  * * * * *

  “Thought I’d move our brunch date up on the calendar.” Melissa sat down in a vinyl chair beside the bed, balancing three Styrofoam containers on the little wheeled table that could swing over the bed. “Brought some for you too, Mrs. R.”

  Maria thanked Melissa and Ally echoed her. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  Melissa just smiled as she opened the to-go boxes full of waffles, piled high with whipped cream and strawberries. “Thought it might cheer you up.”

  Ally’s empty stomach contracted as she sat up in bed, accepting a plastic fork from Melissa. The waffles would be much better than the hospital food, but she wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. All she could taste was the bitter flavor of non-stop worry and fear, an unwelcome combination that lingered on the tip of her tongue, threatening to make her nauseous at random intervals.

  It was one of those rare times in life where she actually felt sick with fear. The pain in her arm had taken a backseat to the agony she’d been living with since the evening before. She glanced at the clock hanging on the wall above Melissa’s head. It was a quarter after ten in the morning. No earlier or later than she’d expected – she’d stayed up the entire night and had checked the clock often.

  At times she’d floated in a haze of semi-consciousness, mostly thanks to drugs, but she’d never truly slept. She’d always been alert enough to recognize if someone entered the room. Each time, she’d been disappointed by the sight of a nurse, relative or friend.

  As selfish and ungrateful as it sounded, even inside her own head, she wished they’d stop visiting. Every time someone walked through the door, her heart sank a little lower. And no matter how hard she willed herself to be, she couldn’t be distracted.

  “Where’s Ryan?” Melissa asked, already halfway done with her first waffle.

  Ally’s stomach shrank even more snugly around the one bite she’d managed to take so far. “He went after the people who shot me. With Manny.” She didn’t have the energy to be anything but blunt.

  Melissa froze with her fork buried in a heap of cream and berries. The sweet little smile she’d been wearing since she’d walked through the door was gone. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah.” Saying so felt strangely like self-harm.

  “They left yesterday evening,” Maria said, glancing toward the clock – it was a habit she’d shared with Ally throughout the previous, fitful night and miserable morning. She’d stayed by Ally’s bedside through it all. Waiting, mostly in silence. “We haven’t seen or heard from them since.”

  Ally hadn’t dared to try Ryan’s phone, afraid that if he actually had it on his person it would go off, possibly alerting someone hostile to his presence. Since he’d left, she’d imagined him in dozens of different situations, from sneaking up on an unsuspecting enemy to brawling or firing a gun to lying dead somewhere, a body that might or might not make it into that evening’s local news report. Letting her imagination run wild was torture, but she couldn’t stop it.

  “Sorry,” Melissa said, and truly sounded it as she sat frozen in her uncomfortable-looking chair, her head slightly bowed over her waffles. “You don’t have to eat those if you don’t feel like it,” she said, gesturing toward Ally’s virtually untouched meal. “I didn’t realize…”

  “I’ll eat them,” Ally said, tightening her grip on her fork. “They’re good. Thanks for bringing them.”

  And she did eat them. Slowly, and not all of them, but still. It was something to do as the minutes ticked by, bringing no one new into the room besides a nurse who said it was time for Ally’s bandages to be changed and her next dose of antibiotics to be taken.

  By the time that was done, a new wave of visitors had arrived. Ally’s aunt Elsa and cousin Gabriela, both of whom she worked with at the salon, entered wearing tentative smiles.

  “Do you want me to go?” Melissa asked, leaning in. “I don’t want to crowd you.”

  “It’s up to you,” Ally said. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to stick around all day, but I’m definitely not kicking you out.” Whenever Ryan returned – if he returned – he’d be the only person in the room, as far as she was concerned. How many people were present until then wasn’t important. It felt cold to think that way, but her nerves were shot, her every thought trained on Ryan and how he might be doing, whether she wanted to contemplate that or not.

  “I’ll stay a little longer then,” Melissa said. “Keep you company. Though I have to head to work later.”

  “That’s fine. Thanks.”

  “Aunt Elsa,” Ally said, struck by a sudden bolt of realization that was edged with a razor-thin margin of hope. “Do you have Inés’ phone number?”

  “No,” Elsa said, her eyebrows rising in apparent surprise. “Not personally, though it’s in our customer database at the salon. Why?”

  “I wanted to ask her something.” She briefly considered lying and saying it was a question about the wedding but decided against it. Lying usually rubbed her conscience the wrong way, and who would believe that she cared about the wedding, especially at a time like this? So she left it at that.

  Elsa knit her brows together in a look of concern, then donned an easier expression that smoothed her forehead. “I can call in and get it for you if you really want it.”

  “That would be great. Thanks.” For once, it was nice to be treated like a dying saint. Apparently, no request was too strange – not even one for Inés’ phone number.

  A few moments later, Ally programmed the number into her own phone. For a moment, she almost caved beneath internal pressure and pressed send. In the end, she tucked her phone away. It would be better to make the call after Elsa and Gabriela were gone, since she hadn’t filled them in on Ryan and Manny’s mission and didn’t want to. Their last visit had been relatively brief, anyway.

  Their second one was mercifully short, too.

  “Sorry to run so soon,” Elsa said, “but this is our lunch break.” She shrugged. “Well, an extended one. We just wanted to drop by and see how you were doing.”

  “My arm is feeling a lot better.” Ally attempted a smile as Elsa and Gabriela leaned in one by one, giving her such careful hugs that they barely touched her.

  Elsa planted a kiss against Ally’s cheek. “We’ll be back to see you as soon as we can manage. When are they planning on releasing you, again?”

  “I’m not sure,” Ally said. “Maybe as soon as tomorrow.” Before, she’d been eager to get out of the hospital, to escape the dully sterile environment and the mounting bills that were sure to be astronomical. Now, she feared leaving the place where she’d last seen Ryan. He was sure to return to her hospital room. Wasn’t he?

  “That’s great.” Elsa patted Ally’s uninjured shoulder. “You give us a call and let us know as soon as you find out, all right? We’ll be glad to help with anything you need. Food, cleaning… Anything. You can even stay with us for a while if you want. We’ll take good care of you.”

  “Thank you. That’s really kind.” It was, so she hoped that her voice sounded more sincere to her aunt and cousin’s ears than it did to her own.

  Maria thanked them too and then they were gone.

  At last, Ally suppressed a sigh as she reached for her phone.

  Her heart raced and seemed to skip beats at odd intervals as she hit send and the phone rang at the other end of the connection. Maybe the heart thing was just her imagination, or a manifestation of her nervousness. Either way, it took four rings for Inés to answer.

  Chapter 23

  “Hey Inés,” Ally said, cutting her off before she’d even finished her greeting. “It’s Ally.”

  “Alexandra?” Inés sounded as if she would’ve been less surprised to receive a call from the Virgin Mary than from Ally.

  Ally ignored her obvious shock. “Listen, have you heard from Manny lately?”

  “Depends on what you mean by lately. Manny and I talk all the time, b
ut you know, sometimes he gets busy with work.”

  Ally’s heart sank preemptively. “Have you heard from him since yesterday evening?”

  A pause. “No. He’s out making money, you know? Like I said, he gets busy sometimes.”

  “Okay.” The muscles in Ally’s jaw seemed to tighten all on their own. She ended the call, sure that she couldn’t stand one more moment of listening to Inés’ voice. Though Manny certainly had his faults, it was hard to imagine him with someone so … whatever Inés was. It was easy to come up with a list of about a dozen different uncomplimentary words, but none of them described her accurately on their own.

  When Ally looked up, it was to face Maria and Melissa. They wore similar expressions of disappointment and sympathy.

  “Inés hasn’t heard from Manny since yesterday evening at least,” Ally said anyway.

  “I’m sorry, mija.” Maria reached out and clasped Ally’s right hand with her own.

  “Me too,” Melissa said.

  Ally shrugged and immediately regretted it. “Ow. Damn.” For the first time that day, she gave in and verbalized her pain.

  “It’s about time for your next dose of painkillers,” Maria pointed out.

  Ally glanced at the clock. “You’re right.” She found herself watching the door not just for Ryan, but for a nurse. This time, she’d let the drugs carry her off into sleep. Being awake had finally become more than she could bear.

  * * * * *

  It wasn’t a sound that woke Ally, but a touch. Lost in sleep that was fitful but deep, she missed the squeak of the opening hospital room door entirely. But the touch – it roused her immediately. Blinking, she focused on the person who’d just stroked a lock of unruly hair off her forehead and tucked it behind her ear.

  “Ryan.” Her voice came out breathy and weak, as if her mouth had gone desert-dry while she’d slept. Her heart made up for her voice’s feebleness by pounding furiously. Could he hear it, a rush of muscle and blood that drowned out the soft ticking of the clock on the wall?

  He bent down, burying a hand in her hair as he pressed his lips against her jaw.

  She’d tied her locks back in a loose ponytail in an attempt to keep them from going too crazy.

  He dislodged the slack elastic band with an easy tug, freeing her hair to expand and curl into waves that were sure to be messy. She couldn’t have cared less about how it looked. All she could think about was the reassuring press of his fingertips and palm against the back of her skull and the heat of his lips against her face.

  “I love you,” she said as he began to kiss a trail from her cheek toward her mouth. She hadn’t said it back to him before he’d left – a fact she’d realized a few moments too late. She’d regretted it during his absence, had agonized over the possibility that she might never get a chance to say it to his face. Speaking the words might as well have lifted the weight of the world off her shoulders for how light she felt as he pressed his mouth firmly over hers, taking her lips in a kiss that was reminiscent of the one he’d given her before leaving.

  His breath was stale and his lips were lightly chapped, as if he’d spent a lot of time outdoors in cold weather and hadn’t had time to take care of himself.

  She kissed him more deeply anyway, her veins tingling with the simple knowledge of news she’d been longing to hear ever since he’d walked out the door. He’s alive. He’s back. He’s alive. Her heart drove those facts home with each beat.

  “What happened?” she asked when their lips parted. “Tell me what happened. Where have you been?”

  Ryan sank down onto the edge of her hospital bed, next to her knees. There wasn’t a visible scratch on him, though there were dark circles beneath his eyes and a couple busted blood vessels in their whites. He was wearing the same clothes he’d left in, and they were noticeably wrinkled, a little dirty. Another day or two and his stubble would be worthy of being called a beard.

  “There were three people in that car during the drive-by. Three men. They’re dead.” He delivered the news with all the emotion of an automaton.

  “You killed them?” She hated the note of surprise in her voice. Of course he had. That was what he’d set out to do, and he’d made it back alive. What other explanation could there be?

  “Two of them were already dead.”

  Ally remained still and silent as her brain tried to reconcile the idea of the man who made love to her with such skill and tenderness to the idea of that same man using that same body to take human life. It didn’t work – she couldn’t picture it. When she kept trying, continuing to think about it, it left her mind feeling fogged and achy.

  “Don’t look so sad. I didn’t kill anyone. I would, though, to protect you.”

  He’d been a marine. He’d gone to war. It wasn’t surprising if he’d killed men there, but that seemed far away. There was a difference between knowing that he’d killed thousands of miles away, in a place she’d never see, than thinking of him doing the same in her city, to people that had affected her life, however negatively. Maybe there shouldn’t have been, but there was. A chord of emotion deep inside her trembled with relief.

  “Where’s Manny?”

  Ryan held her gaze but didn’t say anything. There was a subtle shift in the room’s atmosphere, a change that was invisible and intangible but noticeable nonetheless.

  Instinctively, Ally glanced to her right, where her mother was asleep in a chair, leaning against the wall. Her shoulders were hunched and she’d never looked so small.

  “Where is he?”

  “He was killed.”

  Her heart definitely stopped for a second. Everything else stopped too – time, her own breathing and the ever-present ticking of the clock on the wall.

  When everything resumed again, it was almost like sensory overload. Strange, since the room was calm and nearly silent. The feeling passed within a few moments, and she finally blinked. “What?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You have to tell me what happened.” Maybe then it would make sense. At the moment it didn’t – she’d feared it, had even thought about it in morbid detail during the last twenty-four hours, but now that she knew for sure, it just didn’t seem real.

  Ryan breathed a long sigh. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Tell me now, while my mother is asleep. Keep your voice down so you don’t wake her.”

  “The men responsible for the drive-by were part of a rival gang. A new one and a small one – a little smaller than Casa de Ladrillos. They’d recently started giving Carlos some trouble. Your brother got those cuts in a confrontation with one of them. Killed the guy. The shooting was in retaliation for that. They wanted to send Manny a message, to piss him off so he’d come looking for them in a rage.”

  “I’m surprised they didn’t go after Inés.” It wasn’t something said out of spite or dislike. It just seemed like Manny’s fiancée would be the logical go-to target if that was the rival gang’s goal.

  “Yeah. I’ll get to that. Anyway, apparently while Manny was here yesterday, several of them went after Carlos. Shot up his house. Didn’t kill him, though. Didn’t hit anybody. Just pissed Carlos off. So Carlos and the rest went after them.”

  Ally gripped a fistful of bedsheets. The cotton weave was strangely cool against her palm, a contrast to the flush of heat and emotion that had rushed through her when she’d woken in Ryan’s presence.

  “They tracked down the car and killed all of the men who’d been in it when Carlos’ house was targeted. Two of them were also two of the men who shot you. So that was already done.

  “Manny and I went looking for the third on our own while Carlos and the rest of the guys went after the man who’s reportedly leading the rival gang. We found the third man in the last place we’d expected to – Manny’s house. The doors were locked three times over and there were no signs of forced entry, so we didn’t expect him or anyone to be inside. But he was.”

  “How did he get inside?”

  “You kn
ow that woman your brother was supposed to marry?”

  “Inés?”

  “Yeah. Apparently she had a boyfriend in the rival gang. He was the third man.”

  Ally heard her breath leave her lungs in a rush, but didn’t feel the need to breathe for several moments. “What the hell?” she said when she finally inhaled again. “She was cheating on Manny?”

  “Yeah. She gave her boyfriend a key to his house.”

  “So she killed him. She plotted to murder him.”

  Ryan nodded, the circles under his eyes darker than ever.

  “Bitch,” Ally said, barely remembering to keep her voice low. “That bitch.” Her voice was almost a whisper, but there was nothing gentle about it. “It all makes sense in a sick sort of way. The way they got serious so fast. Making a show of planning a big wedding. God, what did she do to make him fall for her like that?”

  “I don’t know. But she had him hook, line and sinker, apparently.”

  Ally ached inside and out, and not just because her limbs were trembling, which aggravated her wounds. “He must’ve been so lonely – he must’ve wanted so badly to belong to a real family again.” Why else would he have let a bitch like Inés drag him into an engagement so quickly? And that had happened around the same time he’d started visiting home again, forcing his way back into his sister and mother’s lives. Now, it made sense.

  Maybe he hadn’t been cut out for gang life after all. Maybe he’d always been that same little boy who’d watched Jaws with her and let her spend the rest of the night in his bed a few hours later when she’d woken up from a shark-themed nightmare. Since they’d been caught watching the forbidden movie by their parents, she’d felt too guilty to approach their mother or father over it. Manny had been the only one she’d felt safe confiding in. “Poor Manny.”