Life to My Flight

by Lani Lynn Vale

  “I mean there was very little, if any, evidence. There was no tearing,” I explained, holding up one finger. “There was no bruising,” I said holding up the second. “There was no semen. There were no fibers. Vanessa didn’t even want to press charges, but her father was standing outside the door ranting. So she did anyway.”

  Once I got that last sentence out, a small smile tipped up the corner of the stoic lawyer’s lips. “I see. And what was the father doing during this time?”

  “He was on the phone with the DA’s office, from what I could tell. He was ranting and raving about turning this,” I said, gesturing to the room as a whole with my hand. “Town upside down, and selling off every property he owned if someone, somewhere, didn’t ‘fix’ this.’”

  A grumbled oath from someone in the crowd had my heart beating a little faster.

  I knew it was Vanessa’s father.

  I just knew that if I looked over at him right now, he’d flay the skin from my body with the intensity of his anger.

  “Anyway, like I said, she told me that she said ‘no’ but she also told me she was playing a game with the young man. However, towards the end she ‘actually meant it’ even though in the beginning she was just saying no because that’s what they’d agreed upon before they made the contract,” I explained.

  Mr. Masterson’s eyes zeroed in on me. “Contract?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “So you’re telling me that Vanessa admitted that the two of them had a contract?” He asked slowly.

  I nodded. “Yes,” I agreed.

  “Hmmm,” he hummed. “I think that’s all. No further questions.”

  I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders as I got down from the stand and made my way back to my seat.

  I kept my head down, refusing to look at Vanessa’s father’s eyes, even though I knew he was still glaring daggers at me.

  Once I sat, I leaned into Cleo, resting my head on his shoulder as the DA called the next witness to the stand.

  “You did good, sweet girl,” Cleo murmured against my head.

  “Thank you,” I whispered back. “I did.”

  He laughed.

  “Yeah, no self-doubt there,” he teased.

  I agreed, albeit silently.

  I wasn’t a big fan of contempt of court, and based on the glare I was receiving from Judge Judy, it wouldn’t be long before her patience failed her.

  Giving him one last kiss on the cheek, I laid my head down on his shoulder and promptly fell asleep.

  Chapter 20

  I’m sorry for what I said when you tried to wake me up. I don’t control that me.

  -Rue to Cleo

  Rue

  I awoke from my nap when my pillow slid out from under me.

  I’d been drifting in and out while my head laid pillowed on Cleo’s thigh. He, Torren and Loki spoke quietly about the day, allowing me the sleep I so desperately needed.

  Channing was on her way over with food, Bodacious BBQ, to be exact, and we were all just waiting.

  They’d come to my place since the workers had started on Cleo’s house that morning. It was in the process of having a full overhaul, including a built in generator, and a brand new security system.

  I’d volunteered to go somewhere else, but everyone, except me that was, agreed that I’d had a long day and I needed to be around my own things.

  Secretly, I thought it was because if something did happen, they didn’t want blood on their carpet.

  The voices that had been floating around my subconscious in my asleep/waking state drifted away, and I fell back to sleep without thought.

  The next time I woke was to a sharp pinching sensation in my leg.

  I sat up only to fall backwards as whatever was in the needle that was currently embedded in my leg took effect.

  My brain got sluggish, and my arms only worked long enough for me to push myself up completely, propping myself up on the arm of the couch.

  My limbs refused to work, and my heart started to pound as Vanessa dropped down to her haunches in front of me.

  “What are you doing here?” I slurred.

  “How hard is it to not testify?” The young girl hissed.

  Vanessa White looked ghastly.

  I looked at her with wariness. Would she slit my throat with that knife? Stab me?

  I could see why she was using a knife, though.

  Anything louder would alert the men in the other room of what was happening.

  What had she given me anyway?

  My eyes were getting heavy, and I couldn’t even open my mouth to protest.

  She’d played the part of a thankful victim well.

  Cleo must’ve just let her right on in and not even thought twice.

  Hell, I wouldn’t have questioned her wanting to see me either.

  While I watched her pace back and forth across the room, I focused on raising my arm.

  Just a little bit.

  There was a glass jar of marbles on the side table.

  The jar wouldn’t shatter if it hit the floor, but it would make a hell of a noise.

  Maybe if I could just knock it off, Cleo would come in here.

  “I mean, how many ways did I have to tell you to stop?” The young girl hissed without looking at me or what I was trying to do.

  My hand rose in slow degrees.

  A millimeter at a time until finally I had it resting against the base of the jar.

  It was heavy. Really heavy.

  “Then daddy wouldn’t let me drop the case, and my poor boyfriend was just hung out there to dry,” she whined.

  If I could lift my arm right now, I’d have smacked her.

  My fingers inched closer and closer. All the while I prayed I’d make it.

  It took another ten minutes of her ranting and raving before I finally got my hand in place.

  I pushed with all my strength.

  And nothing happened.

  My hand didn’t even move a single inch.

  “All I wanted was to be a wife to my ex-boyfriend. Then everything was screwed up royally when Brendan went all the way instead of my ex finding him. I’d have gone with it, too, but then my supposed best friend caught us and then told Scooter,” Vanessa spat.

  Scooter must be the ex-boyfriend. I hadn’t heard his name before now.

  I still couldn’t fathom how this little teenage girl was able to get past the entire room of men, and then drug me.

  Why hadn’t Cleo come to check on us yet?

  The glass I was pushing against slipped minutely, giving me hope.

  “Anyway,” she said waving her hand. “I just needed you to know that there were consequences. You should’ve listened when I had daddy’s friend come to scare you. This all would’ve been avoided, but now I have to prove a point. It’ll be ugly. It’ll probably hurt, too. But it can’t be avoided.”

  The girl was fucking cuckoo. What did she think she was going to do with a room full of men on the other side of this wall?

  “Anyway, I hate to tell you this, but you’re about to burn, baby,” she said cheerfully as she pulled a bottle of liquor out of her purse, twisted off the top, took a swig, and then stuffed the ugly pink scarf she wore around her neck down the neck of the bottle.

  My heart started to pound.

  But she surprised me.

  She didn’t do what I thought she was going to, which was smash the bottle against the wall once she lit it.

  Instead, she walked up to the door, opened it and started walking out.

  She stopped, though, looking over her shoulder and smiling widely.

  I must’ve had some sort of expression on my face that resembled pure terror, because she started to laugh once she caught a look at me.

  “Oh, by the way,” she said. “I sent the guys out to look at my car that conveniently broke down. They are all at the other end of the street.”

  Then she wiggled what looked like a spark plug at me and winked.

  Fuckin
g winked.

  “Peace,” she said as she walked away, disappearing through the door of my bedroom.

  A loud crash sounded from somewhere in the living room area, confirming that the men were not there anymore. If they had been, they wouldn’t have let her do that. And they’d be rushing in here right now to see just what had happened to me.

  Despair rose thick inside my throat, and I just knew this was it.

  I’d never see Cleo again.

  I’d never see my grandmother again.

  I’d never be a mother.

  Or a grandmother.

  I wouldn’t be anything, because I’d be dead.

  As the thick, noxious smoke started to fill the air, I felt horrible for Cleo.

  He’d witness his greatest fear.

  Losing me.

  A fear he’d admitted to on the way home from the courthouse, only hours before.

  My eyes closed on their own accord.

  The smoke was getting thick.

  So thick that I couldn’t even get a full breath anymore.

  My lungs felt like they were on fire, and as my breath sawed faster and faster in and out of my lungs, I knew it was a matter of moments before I lost consciousness.

  The hand that was on the glass vase slipped down, finally tipping the whole thing over.

  The marbles crashed to the floor, scattering everywhere.

  However, the roar of the fire burning just outside the room drowned out the sound, doing no good.

  My arm flopped to the couch limply, and my face fell further, burying in the crook of the couch, suffocating me even more.

  Then there was nothing.

  ***

  Cleo

  This is a pretty new car to be breaking down, I thought.

  Loki had gone to meet his wife so they didn’t have two vehicles here when it was time to leave later.

  He’d given Vanessa a withering look as he’d left, saying with his eyes that he didn’t trust her.

  Then she’d slunk away from him like a beaten kitten as he’d walked by, causing Loki’s glare to soften; only minutely, though.

  “You think her father beats her?” Torren asked as he puttered underneath the hood of Vanessa’s car.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know, but by the way she cowered from Loki as he passed her, I would say probably so. She looked like she was pretty sick, too. Do you think I should’ve woken Rue up before I sent Vanessa in there?”

  Torren shrugged and started twisting something. “Maybe if she were naked, then yes.”

  I didn’t look at what he was doing, however.

  It was too dark to see, and my head was already killing me from being on the edge of my seat all day, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  “I’ll go get the truck and we’ll pull it to the garage…there’s a spark plug missing,” Torren said suddenly.

  I blinked. “How the fuck…”

  Then a sudden, sick realization hit me. A spark plug didn’t just fall out on its own. Sure, it’d loosen, but it wouldn’t just be gone unless somebody wanted it gone.

  That girl.

  Vanessa.

  I’d fallen for her poor, pitiful me act; hook, line, and sinker.

  I looked at Torren, and Torren looked at me, before we both started sprinting back to the apartment.

  We’d left Tunnel there, seeing as he was waiting for his sister to come over.

  However, he’d be more vulnerable than most to her act because of his own sister having the same thing done to her only a few short months ago.

  My legs ate up the ground for a half mile before we turned the bend and saw smoke billowing out of Rue’s apartment.

  Fire poured out of the window in the front, so we bypassed it and ran straight through the narrow path between the Rue’s apartment and the one directly next to hers.

  Smoke poured out of the seams of the paneling as we rounded the back, thanking God that the back door and window were free of smoke and fire.

  “Follow me,” Torren instructed. “Walk where I walk, and don’t deviate.”

  Knowing when I wasn’t in my element, I did as instructed, staying on his ass the entire way.

  We both saw the lump in the living room at the same time.

  Both of us cursed and went straight to Tunnel, Torren dropping down to one knee as I dropped down to both.

  Smoke billowed thick and black around us, causing Torren and me to cough.

  Tunnel, on the other hand, wasn’t coughing.

  He was staring straight at the ceiling, not moving even the slightest inch.

  He was breathing, thank God.

  Slow, and very labored, but he was breathing.

  He wouldn’t be for long if we didn’t get him out of the smoke.

  I looked at Torren, knowing without a doubt that it’d be easier for me to get Tunnel out.

  One, because I was larger and would be able to handle him more easily. Two, because he knew what to do, and I didn’t. He and I both knew it.

  He understood my silent torture, and as I picked up Tunnel and threw him over my shoulder, I left him with my heart.

  He nodded a silent creed, and turned towards the smoky hallway, disappearing in a matter of milliseconds thanks to the dense blackness.

  The smoke was so thick that it disoriented me.

  It took me a few moments to realize where I was at, and I lost a few precious moments that I couldn’t afford to lose.

  Or, rather, Tunnel couldn’t afford to lose.

  A roaring sound started to pound in my ears, and I couldn’t tell if it was from the fire, or the blood pumping through my veins.

  Either way, I started to move faster, feeling along the wall as I went.

  My hand brushed pictures off the wall, shattered sconces to the floor, and finally, knocked all the keys off the key hook that hung at the back door.

  Heart pounding, I pointed myself towards where I thought that the door might be, only bumping into the frame slightly as I practically fell out of the doorway and into the open air.

  I wasn’t home free, yet, however.

  In fact, it was just as bad, if not worse here since the fire and smoke sought the oxygen of the outside air.

  I fell to my knees, coughing and gagging on my own spit as my throat burned like acid.

  Then my body started moving on its own volition.

  Or what I assumed was my own volition.

  Turns out, it was my two best friends. DP took Tunnel, and Cord took me, carrying me out to the clearing behind Rue’s apartment and dropping me down crudely into the deep foliage.

  I sat up, choking and coughing as my two best friends worked on Tunnel. My brother.

  Cord breathed for Tunnel as DP did chest compressions, while I watched in silent horror.

  They worked for so long that two firefighters showed and took over.

  Kettle and Sebastian.

  They didn’t even see who it was at first.

  Tunnel was so covered in black soot that it honestly didn’t look like him.

  They never even realized it until Kettle stood back once he hooked up the leads to the ECG.

  “Nothing.”

  I moaned. “No.”

  He was gone. They knew it. I knew it. DP and Cord knew it.

  The only blip on the little black screen was each time Sebastian pushed down on Tunnel’s chest.

  A short blip, blip, blip, and then it was gone as Kettle gave the breath.

  They both shook their head.

  We all knew it.

  The rhythm wasn’t shockable.

  There wasn’t anything we could do.

  It wasn’t his heart.

  It was the fact that his lungs were most likely burned to Rice Krispies; there was nothing viable left. Even if his heart were to be working, there wasn’t anything in his body to oxygenate his lungs when his lungs were no more.

  “He’s gone,” I croaked.

  Kettle sighed and placed his hand down on Tunnel’s chest, only then realizing
what he was touching.

  Tunnel’s cut.

  I saw the moment realization dawned on him.

  One second he was only upset over losing a patient.

  The next he was devastated. Eviscerated.

  The moan of pain was echoed by us all as one of our own died, and two more were still inside, fighting for their lives, too.

  It felt like hours as we all watched the back of the house.

  Me, I’d have gotten up, which I’d tried to do, but my body just wouldn’t respond.

  At some point oxygen was thrust over my face, an annoying presence that obstructed my field of view of the back door.

  But after a long ten minutes, it was more than obvious that no one was coming out of that door.

  Especially after the back half of the roof collapsed, effectively blocking the final entrance that wasn’t encased in fire.

  I lost it.

  Chapter 21

  You will live on in my heart. I will avenge you, even if it takes me and my whole mother fuckin’ club to do it.

  -A biker promise

  Rue

  “You have to wait until they’re both out of here before we discuss the funeral arrangements,” an insistent voice growled from the chair beside me.

  My eyes blinked open, gritty and coarse.

  It felt like I’d rubbed some sandpaper over the whites of my eyes.

  I was surprised to find my bed surrounded by men.

  Sebastian. Silas. Loki. Trance. DP. Kettle. Cord.

  My hospital bed.

  Why were they all in here?

  Then I noticed who wasn’t there.

  Cleo.

  Torren.

  Tunnel.

  It was the beat of my heart that alerted them that I was awake.

  The steady beep, beep, beep became an erratic tattoo, going from an even 80 beats per minute to a steady 110 in less than thirty seconds.

  Silas was the one to jump up and come to me.

  He leaned over until his beard touched my chest. “You’re okay, girl.”

  “Cleo,” I croaked.

  My voice sounded raw and edgy, nothing smoky about it.

  Silas smiled. “He’s fine. They have him down in X-ray checking out his lungs. That’s why you have so many of us in your room.

  I blinked stupidly at him. “His lungs?”