by Naomi Niles
I took a step forward, and Victor cringed at my approach as though I had just threatened him. “Victor,” I said, keeping my voice low and soothing. “Victor, are you okay?”
“I…don’t…know,” he replied, speaking in short, uneven bursts.
The blood on the floor was spreading. In a moment, it would reach the tip of Victor’s foot. I was conscious of Madison standing beside me, but I had to be practical here. I had to keep a clear head. And my instincts were screaming at me to get the gun out of Victor’s shaking hand.
“Victor,” I said again. “I need you to hand me the gun.”
He made no response. It was like he hadn’t heard me.
“Victor?” I repeated. “Hand me the gun.”
“Victor,” Madison said, her voice breaking as she said his name.
The sound of her voice seemed to break him from the trance he was in. He looked at me and this time, I could see that his eyes were focused. I stepped around Kameron’s body and stretched my hand out for the gun. After a moment’s hesitation, he slipped it to me as though it weighed a hundred pounds.
The moment I had the gun in my hand, I emptied it of its bullets. Victor watched me do this, and then he turned around as if on cue and threw up along the side of the house. Madison brushed past me towards her brother. She rubbed his back while he threw up. When he was finished, she made him sit down on the tiny porch outside her door.
“Wait here,” she said, in a voice that was a lot calmer.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“To the kitchen,” Madison replied. But she walked around to the back of the house. I realized that she didn’t want to cross over Kameron’s body again, so she had just taken the longer route. When she came back, she had a glass of water in hand.
“Here,” she said, passing the glass to Victor. “Drink.”
He took a sip and hunched over in defeat. Madison sat down next to him and continued to stroke his back as though he were a child. “Are you all right?” she asked, in a maternal tone.
“Oh God, Madison,” he sobbed, rocking back and forth. “I killed him.”
“Shhh,” she said quickly. “Don’t think about that right now.”
He looked towards her. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry. You were right about him. I should never have come here looking for you. I should never have tried to convince you to go back to him. I’m so sorry for leading him to you.”
I could see the forgiveness in Madison’s eyes, in her face, in her body, and in the way she held him. She forgave him as easily as breathing. She didn’t even have to think about it. I stood between them, watching the exchange, trying to figure out the right thing to do.
“Oh, Victor,” Madison said. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“Of course, it matters,” he said, his voice growing a little stronger. “You were right. I am your big brother. I should have protected you. The fact that you left town without telling me should have told me that I wasn’t doing my job. I’ve been a terrible brother. You were the one who always looked out for me. You were the one who always made the sacrifices. I should have protected you.”
“Victor,” Madison said gently. “You just did.”
He shook his head. “It’s too late,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s too late for me now.”
“Don’t talk like that,” she said desperately. “Don’t say things like that. It’s not too late. It’s never too late.”
I could hear the panic in Madison’s tone as the full weight of what Victor had done settled over her. I wanted to say something. I just didn’t know what.
“Victor,” I said, interrupting their conversation. “When did Kameron get here?”
“A few hours ago,” he said, looking up at me through his one good eye.
His face was badly bruised and I could see that Kameron had put him through the ringer before he had come to find Madison.
“And, you told him where Madison lived?”
“I told him she was in Fort Collins,” he said, his tone dripping with remorse. “He came down the next day. When he showed up, I realized why he had come. I knew he wasn’t going to just…forgive Madison like he had promised. When he asked me where she was staying, I refused to answer him.”
I saw Madison cringe a little at the story and I wished I could have spared her the details. But as painful as it was for her to hear certain things, I knew that she would want to.
“Is that why he beat you up?”
“Yes,” Victor nodded weakly. “I told him to go back. I told him that I had changed my mind, and I wasn’t going to help him bring Madison back. I told him to move on because she had found happiness here. I turned my back on him for a second…and…”
“He assaulted you,” Madison breathed.
“I fell to the ground, and he just started pounding on me. I couldn’t even fight back. At some point… I lost consciousness. He must have thought he’d killed me, because when I woke up, he was gone.
“And I knew… I just knew he was on his way to you. Your address was written down in my phone. He would have found it easily. I came to quickly, though. I didn’t think. I just grabbed my gun and headed here.
“All I kept thinking the whole way here was, what if he kills Madison? What if he succeeds? I would never have forgiven myself. I would have never have been able to live with myself.”
“Stop it, Victor,” she said gently. “Don’t think about that now. I’m fine. Peter was with me. Drink some water.”
The stench of blood and vomit was in the air, but the stink of death was overpowering. I wondered if Madison and Victor could smell it, too.
“I don’t regret it,” Victor said suddenly. His voice was firm and heavy. “I don’t regret killing him. If I hadn’t killed him, then he would have killed you. If I have to spend the rest of my life in jail, then at least it is for a good reason.”
“You’re not going to jail,” Madison said immediately, and I tensed in response to her words.
“Peter is a cop, Madison,” Victor reminded her gently.
His words seemed to hit her hard. She looked up at me and there was desperation in her eyes. She rose to her feet. “Peter?” she said. “Can I talk to you for a second…inside?”
I nodded and walked back into the house. Madison put her hand on Victor’s shoulder in a bracing gesture of comfort. “Sit here and finish drinking your water. I’ll be back in a moment.”
Then she walked into the house, without even glancing at Kameron’s body. She acted as though he were no better than an item of furniture. “Peter,” was all she said.
“We have to call the police, Madison,” I said, keeping my voice low so that Victor wouldn’t be able to hear us.
“Please, Peter,” she said, stepping forward and grabbing the front of my shirt. “If we call the police, they’ll take him in. They’ll arrest him and put him on trial and they’ll convict him of murder. He’ll go to jail.”
“No he won’t,” I said confidently. “It was self defense. Kameron came at us with a gun. It’ll be a clear-cut case. I will testify for Victor.”
Her eyes froze with panic. “He’ll be put on trial?”
“Madison,” I said slowly, trying to calm her down with my voice. “They will need to determine what happened. You don’t have to worry. They won’t convict him. He was acting in self defense.”
“They’ll look into Victor’s background,” Madison said, her voice was gravelly as she spoke. “They’ll look into Kameron’s background. They’ll find out that Victor worked for him. They’ll find out that he was dealing in drugs and whores and God knows what else. What then?”
I froze. The truth of the situation dawned on me, and I knew instinctively that in this case, I couldn’t be impartial. I was involved, which meant I was also biased.
“He’s my brother,” Madison begged. “He’s my only brother. He’s the only family I have. I can’t lose him to jail. I can’t lose someone else to that hellhole.”
&
nbsp; “Madison-”
“He was only trying to protect me,” she interrupted desperately. “He’s my brother. He’s my brother.”
She kept repeating that phrase until it was all I could hear. Suddenly, Alan’s voice popped into my head. “What would you do if it was one of us?”
I glanced outside at Victor, but suddenly, all I could see was Talen…and Sam and Alan and John. What if they had been sitting there in the same position? What if one of them had fired the gun and killed a man? What if it was up to me to either save them or turn them in?
“Peter?” Madison’s voice was uncertain and scared.
I focused my eyes on her. “I want you to take Victor…and get him out of town.”
“I… Out of town?” she repeated.
“Yes,” I nodded. “Right now. I’ll keep Polo with me. You need to leave now.”
“Where do I take him?”
“A few towns over,” I replied. “Anywhere you like, it doesn’t matter. He just needs to be away from here.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I…haven’t decided yet,” I said distractedly, as my mind reeled to combat the roadblocks my conscience was throwing at me.
Madison’s eyes clouded over again, but she didn’t say anything. She didn’t ask any questions. She just grabbed her coat and her keys and headed out the door.
“Victor,” she said. “Come on, we’re leaving.”
“Leaving where?” he asked, in confusion.
“Somewhere where no one can find us,” was all she said.
Chapter Thirty
Madison
I pulled the car to a stop. It was past twelve now and my eyes, my body, and my mind were all tired. But I knew that I wouldn’t be able to sleep even if my life depended on it.
“Why are you stopping here?” Victor asked.
He was sitting low in the passenger seat. His eyes were wide and darted around frantically, as though he were scared that any moment the police would catch up to him.
“I need to visit the ATM,” I told him bracingly. “Sit tight; I’ll be back in five minutes.”
I got out of the car and walked over to the lone ATM at the corner of the street. As I walked, I checked my phone, but there were no calls or texts from Peter yet. I stepped into the closed booth and punched in my details. Seconds later, I took out the cash I needed and headed back to the car.
Victor jumped when I opened the door. The night had spooked him worse than it had affected me. I was actually surprised by how calm I was. My mind was on a loop, replaying those few moments just after Kameron had drawn out his gun.
I knew my mind was replaying it so that at some point, I could try and work out what I was feeling, but I just didn’t have the time to devote to my own mental state at that moment. Half an hour later, I pulled to a stop outside a motel called Bailey’s Place. It wasn’t the nicest joint, but it would serve our purpose for the night. I was too tired to keep driving in any case.
I headed into the separate reception area and asked for a double room for the night. The man sitting behind the counter took my cash and handed me the keys to Room 215 without once looking up at me. I thanked him anyway, got Victor out from the SUV and headed to our room, which turned out to be a shoebox with a television that looked like it had been plucked out of the 1960s.
“Sit down,” I said to Victor.
He did as I instructed, wringing his hands together the whole time, as though he didn’t quite know what to do with them.
“Madison?” Victor’s voice was low and childlike.
“Yes?”
“What will happen to me?”
The question nearly broke my heart. I sat down next to him on the single bed and put my arm around him. “Just breathe,” I said, because it was advice I needed to take too. “Breath and stop thinking.”
“I can’t… I can’t stop thinking,” he said, his voice breaking on the last word. “All I can see is the image of Kameron falling. All I can hear is the sound of the gunshot.”
I stared at his bereaved face, and I hated looking at him like that. “Let’s get you cleaned up, shall we?” I said. I tried to keep my voice as calm and as unaffected as possible.
I went into the bathroom. It was small and dingy, just as I had expected, but I was past caring about the state of our accommodation. There was a small bowl in one of the cabinets. I washed it out and filled it with fresh water. Then I grabbed the sickly yellow towel in the corner and headed back into the bedroom.
I washed Victor’s face, doing my best to remove all the dried blood. The bruising was more prominent once his face was clean, but at least it was a start. The whole time I cleaned him up, I hummed under my breath, trying to keep him distracted.
I realized halfway through that I was also trying to distract myself. It bothered me that Peter still hadn’t tried to get in contact with me.
I had no idea what his plan was. I didn’t know if he even had a plan. Maybe it was foolish of me to have trusted him so completely, but I hadn’t been in a position to think clearly at the time. Now, when I looked back on those moments, I realized that Peter had never made any promises to me. He hadn’t said he was going to turn Victor in, but he hadn’t said that he was going to protect him, either.
At the end of the day, Peter was a police officer. And a crime had been committed right in front of him. I knew it was his ethical and moral obligation to report the crime, but I hoped for my sake – and for Victor’s – that Peter’s affection for me was greater than his job. It was selfish of me, but I couldn’t deny that that was how I felt.
It didn’t matter either way. I knew I was going to stick by Victor no matter what. If Peter called me up and told me that he had decided to turn Victor in, then I would run with my brother. And if Peter called and said that he’d covered up Victor’s crime, then I would still stick with Victor and make sure he changed his lifestyle once and for all.
“Do you remember the time you broke your arm?” Victor asked abruptly.
“What?” I asked.
“The time you broke your arm,” he repeated. “Do you remember it?”
“Vaguely,” I nodded as little bubbles of the memory came back to me.
“Mom was getting high in the apartment with one of her new boyfriends that day,” Victor said. “And she was getting pissed off with the two of us because you kept running around and I kept screaming. She told us to go and play on the street and to come back in a few hours.”
“I don’t remember all that,” I said. “And frankly, I’m glad I don’t.”
“We walked to the park,” he continued. “If you could even call it that. It was a shitty dump of a place that was reserved for drug deals and poor kids. But they did have this tree…”
“I remember the tree,” I nodded, sitting down beside Victor.
“You wanted to climb it.”
I nodded. “I honestly thought that if I got that high and flapped my hands really hard, I’d be able to fly like birds did. I thought my reasoning was sound.”
“I told you it was impossible for a person to fly.”
“But I wouldn’t listen.”
“So, I told you to go ahead and see for yourself,” Victor nodded. “I thought I was teaching you a lesson. I thought I was being a wise older brother. You struggled for ten minutes, but you finally got up there. I watched as you leapt off the largest branch and it was only as you were falling that I realized I never should have let you go up there in the first place.”
“I don’t remember it quite like that,” I admitted.
“You wouldn’t,” he sighed. “You were only four.”
“Victor,” I said gently. “Why are you reliving this story?”
“Because it’s more proof that I was a shitty older brother who never looked out for you,” he replied in a deadpan voice.
“Don’t say that-”
“It’s true,” he said, cutting me off. “I should have been better to you. I should have done bett
er. I should have known how to take care of you.”
“You were a kid,” I said. “You were a kid who had been abandoned by your father and neglected by your mother. They were drug addicts, alcoholics, and petty thieves. How could you have known how to take care of me when you were never taken care of yourself?”
“You were a kid, too,” Victor said quietly. “You had the same parents I did. And yet somehow…you knew things, you behaved differently.
“Don’t you see, Madison? It’s not about how you were raised and it’s not about the example that’s set before you. It’s about the kind of person you are. You were the better man, always. And me? I was… I am like them.”
“No, you’re not,” I said firmly, recoiling against his words. “You are nothing like them.”
“I didn’t learn from their mistakes, Madison,” he sighed. “I just repeated them. As much as I hated them, in the end, I was no better than Mom or Dad.”
“Yes, you are,” I said fiercely. “And do you know why?”
“Why?” he asked tiredly.
“Because you never left me,” I said. “You never left me like they did.”
He smiled. “Don’t you see, Madison?” he asked. “You’ve got it all wrong. It never had anything to do with me. You were the one that never left. You were the one who followed me everywhere. You were the one that never abandoned me – even when you should have.”
We sat there, holding hands and feeling the shared pain of our childhood. I could barely remember my mother’s face anymore. She was a blur of features that changed day by day.
“Do you think about Mom ever?” I asked.
“No,” Victor said, a little too quickly. “Yes,” he answered after a moment’s hesitation. “All the time. She still has four years left on her sentence.”
“Do you think she’ll try and get in contact with us when and if she’s released?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Would you speak to her if she does?”
I hesitated, my mind veering rapidly between yes and no. “Honestly… I can’t even begin to make that decision now. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Though, I’d prefer never coming to it in the first place.”
