Time to Live: Part Five

by John Gilstrap

  It wasn’t Matt’s side of the building, and protocol required that he not be distracted from his quadrant of responsibility, but this kind of drama was hard to resist. He watched as the sergeant in charge of the side one assault team stepped partially out into the open from behind his dune, as two other team members took up positions behind the dead Bronco. He could see right away that the release itself would be blocked from his view by the peak of the roof.

  He returned his eyes to the back door and settled in again. “Well, that changes a lot of things,” he told Luis.

  * * *

  It was the noblest, most stupid thing Brad had ever done. As he opened the door for the old woman and ushered her out, he saw beyond the glare of the lights that the SWAT guys were moving up to receive her. Watching her walk out to them, he couldn’t help but admire her spirit. Conscious of her audience, Gramma straightened herself and walked with as much dignity as she could muster out toward the lights. When she reached the truck, two black-clad gunmen darted out and dragged her back to cover.

  Brad closed the door. “Well, it shouldn’t be long now,” he said.

  Nicki smiled at him over the back of the sofa. “Thank you,” she said. “It was the right thing.”

  “Then how come it felt so stupid?”

  “Don’t you see?” she said. “We just bought ourselves all the time in the world. Without her, there’s no reason to storm the place anymore.”

  Brad couldn’t contain the grunt as he lifted Nicki’s feet and helped himself to the end of the sofa, where he put her feet back down on his lap. “Let’s hope you’re right,” he said. “Because from where I sit, they’ve got no reason not to shoot us both dead.”

  * * *

  Scotty bolted out of the Mellings’ front door before anyone could stop him and jumped from the stoop into the sand, where he sprinted around the corner toward the bright lights that marked his house. Somebody yelled for him to stop, but then somebody else said, “Let him go.”

  His head hurt from the effort, and he felt a little dizzy, but that was okay. He wanted to see his Gramma. He needed to see her.

  There she was.

  At first, he saw just a cluster of cops, backlit against the floodlights, but then, in the middle of them, he saw her. She looked stronger and taller than he remembered, and pretty pissed. He could tell from her body language that she was tired of being pushed around by these cops, and he told himself that maybe it was because she was at least half as anxious to see him as he was to see her.

  They must have said something about Scotty on the radio, because he was still fifty yards away when she looked up, staring right at him, and muscled her way through the cops to head his way.

  They met somewhere in between, and Scotty felt the air leave his lungs as Gramma enveloped him in a huge bear hug. He realized out of nowhere that he was crying, and while he didn’t know why, he knew that he couldn’t stop. No one had ever looked as beautiful as Gramma did in that moment.

  “I’d never leave you, sweetie,” she whispered, so close to his ear that he could feel her breath on his cheek. “Never in a million years.”

  Scotty tried to say something, but his voice wouldn’t work. It probably would have been something lame anyway.

  A black-clad cop cleared his throat and placed his hand on Gramma’s shoulder. “Pardon me,” he said, “but they need to talk to you in the command post.”

  Scotty let Gramma hold his hand as they walked back to the Mellings’ house and stepped inside. He didn’t even let go when other people could see.

  The mood in the command post had lightened. All heads turned as they entered.

  “Maury Donnelly,” the commander said, stepping forward and offering his hand. “We’re very glad to see you, Mrs. Parker. Are you hurt?”

  Gramma shook her head. “No, I’m fine, but that boy in there, Brad, he wanted me to be sure to give you a message as soon as I saw you. He meant what he said before: if he sees a face, he’ll shoot it. I think he’s serious. And he also said if you try to rush the building, he’ll shoot the girl.”

  Those were the first words Carter heard as Trooper Evanow ushered him into the room.

  * * *

  Brad fiddled with the pistol in his lap, turning it over, checking the action to make sure it worked. He dropped out the magazine and checked the gauge on the back. Ten rounds left. Nine more than he probably needed.

  “You still planning to shoot it out with them?” Nicki asked.

  “Only if they start it,” Brad said. He grunted against a stab of pain that lit up his right side.

  For the first time—miraculously, foolishly, she realized, because all the signs had been there from the beginning—she saw that he was seriously suicidal. In her heart of hearts, she’d allowed herself to believe that it had just been tough talk, driven by his desire to come off as a hard ass. “So, you’re seriously trying to die?”

  Brad gave her a wry look. “I’m seriously trying to get away, actually, but we seem to have run out of options. I’m not going back to prison.”

  “So you’re going to die instead?”

  “It’s not so bad. You said so yourself.”

  Nicki struggled to a sitting position, and her head spun from the effort. “But you have a choice,” she said. “Do you know what I’d give to have a choice to stay alive?”

  “I won’t go back. I’d rather be dead.”

  “Living is always better than dying.”

  “Oh, come on, Nicki, open your eyes. I’ve been raped. I’ve been beaten till I couldn’t stand.”

  “Tell somebody, then.”

  He wanted to laugh, but it hurt too much to try. “You mean walk down to the warden’s office, like you’d walk down to the principal’s office, and just tell him that you want Zippo transferred to a different table in the cafeteria? The guards know, Nicki. They know every goddamn thing, and half of them make money on the deal. To report another inmate, you have to give names. You give names, and somebody’ll slip into your cell and cut your nuts off. Or cut your gut open so you can hold your intestines in your hand. Those assholes get away with what they get away with because the guards know. Because they enjoy it. Don’t tell me that living’s better than dying. Not until you know what you’re talking about.”

  Nicki hated the fear and sadness she saw in Brad’s face. “Then why didn’t you just kill yourself?” she asked. “Why did you go through the effort to escape if life has no meaning?”

  “Had,” Brad said, emphasizing the past tense. “Life had meaning as long as I had a plan to get out of there. Now, that’s gone. It’s all gone. Everything.”

  “So, the solution is to get yourself killed by the very people you hate the most? Why involve so many people? If that’s your only solution, why not just do it yourself?”

  “I guess I’m just too much of a pussy.” He wished that the subject had never come up. There was no way to make her understand.

  “Oh, now there’s an epitaph,” Nicki scoffed. “‘Too much of a pussy to do himself in.’ Very classy. The history books will be impressed.”

  “Are you kidding? Christ on a crutch, we won’t get within a hundred yards of making the history books. We’re nobody.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “How is that view from your glass house? If life is so valuable, why aren’t you back in New York with your father and his doctor friends, hooked up to your hormone pumps?”

  Nicki felt her chest rattle as the air flow faltered. It took an enormous effort, but she swung her feet to the floor and leaned in closer to him, so close that she had difficulty focusing on his features. “Because for me, it doesn’t matter. For me, no matter what happens, life is over. For you, there’s a chance.”

  “Jesus, I told you—”

  “That prison sucks. Yeah, okay. Then maybe you shouldn’t have killed those people. Maybe you should have chosen your friends better. Maybe, maybe, maybe.” She took no pleasure in watching her words hurt him. “On the other
hand, maybe you’re the one who’s destined to make a difference in prison. I don’t know, maybe there’s some arsonist who you won’t meet for another five years whose life is going to be turned around because he met you. Maybe you’re the only one who can tell him the magic thing that will make life livable for him.”

  Brad smirked. “A prison savior, right?” He laughed.

  “Yes, exactly,” Nicki said, animated. “Why not? It’s possible. You saved me, why can’t you save someone else?”

  He made a circular motion with his head to take in the whole room. “You call this being saved?”

  “You know what I mean. You know how important you were to me when I was hurting. This isn’t your fault, Brad. It isn’t my fault, either. It’s just the way things turned out. Believe me, I’ve learned how to rationalize my way through shit that makes no sense.”

  “You think I haven’t? You think that I haven’t waded through my dung heap of a life and tried to figure out what went wrong? My list is a hell of a lot longer than yours.”

  “But killing yourself is not the answer! If you do that, I’ll have nothing. I’ll have nobody.”

  Brad opened his mouth to argue, but then he stopped. He looked away.

  Nicki cupped his chin with her fingers and turned his face to her. “I love you, Brad. Even if I found a miracle cure and lived to be eighty years old, I’ll never love anyone as much again. I know that. You were there for me. You’ve always been there for me. I’ll never leave you. If you let them take you to prison, I promise I’ll visit. I’ll move there if I have to, but you’ll never be completely alone.”

  Brad felt the pressure of tears arrive in a rush, too fast to stop them. A sob escaped with the sound of a cough, and as he pressed his hands to his eyes to stem the tide, he realized that it was useless. Nicki pulled him into her arms and nestled his face in the soft spot between her neck and shoulder the way her mother used to hold her to make childhood pains go away.

  He trembled under her touch as fear and sadness poured from him. The strength and humor were gone, leaving a terrified shell of the fallen God she adored. As she pulled him closer and felt the heat of him on her shoulder, she realized that this was the moment she’d been dreaming of. They were together alone, just the two of them, their souls bonded in an intimacy that transcended any of the carnal fumblings of the night before.

  Still, she wished that she had made love to him. She’d deferred to fear and confusion, and now she hated herself for not releasing the white-knuckled grip she held clenched on her life. She’d turned her back on her one chance to make him truly happy, and now the chance was gone forever.

  “I’m here,” she whispered. “I love you so much.” She rubbed his back, feeling the tautness of his muscles beneath his T-shirt, ignoring the stickiness of his blood.

  “I’m so sorry,” Brad choked, not lifting his head. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  She petted his hair. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “It will all be okay.”

  Brad pushed himself away and swiped at his eyes. “Promise me you’ll leave me here,” he said.

  “Brad—”

  “No. You don’t understand. There’s a way for you to live. There’s a way for you to live for both of us.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He paused long enough to control his breathing. “That wasn’t the police on the phone,” he said. “It was your father.”

  Nicki scowled. “But you said—”

  “I know what I said. I’m sorry. I was pissed and I lied. But now I’m telling you. They’ve found the real killer from the Quik Mart. You don’t have to hide anymore. You don’t have to be a part of this at all. You can walk out of here and go right home.”

  “Home to what?” She felt light-headed. The news he delivered seemed too large for her to process.

  “Your future,” Brad said. “Any future. Whatever you’ve got. You don’t need to be here anymore.”

  “But you’re here,” she said. How could there be anything more?

  “Come on,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’ll walk you out.”

  Nicki pulled her hand away and retreated to the far end of the sofa. “And then what?”

  “And then . . . whatever.”

  Something was going unsaid and it scared her. Her father had done something. She could feel it. He’d worked some sort of a deal. “What did he say to you?”

  “Huh?”

  “My father. What did he say to you?”

  “I just told you.”

  Nicki was unconvinced. “No. No way. You said I could live for both of us. What did he tell you to do?”

  Brad tried to settle her down. “Come on, Nicki, there’s nothing—”

  “I don’t want them,” she said. “I don’t want your lungs. Don’t even consider it.” The thought sickened her.

  He looked surprised that she’d put it together so quickly. “Look, Nicki, it’s more complicated than you think.”

  “No.”

  “Listen to me, okay?”

  “No.”

  “I owe you this.”

  She looked at him as if he’d grown a new head. “You owe me? God, what are we, vampires?”

  Brad reached for her, but his gut snatched him back. “You don’t understand,” he grunted. “It really is my fault. That’s the rest of what your father told me. Another set of donor organs came available today, but because you’re with me, they took them back. You lost another chance at life because of me.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. What, you think I’m making this up?”

  Nicki took a deep breath. She had a lot to say. “It’s not because of you. That’s what I keep trying to tell you. It’s because of me. I’m doing exactly what I chose to do. You gave me God only knows how many chances to walk away, and I said no to all of them. I won’t let you shoulder the burden of this. It’s not fair.”

  Brad was close to begging. “But you’re a better person than I am, Nicki. You’re kinder. You care more. You deserve the chance.”

  “You’re not spare parts, Brad! I won’t let you force them to shoot you down.”

  “Then I’ll do it myself,” Brad said. He raised the pistol to his temple and closed his eyes.

  Chapter Nine

  Carter told the story of Nicki’s innocence as quickly as he could, but Commander Donnelly seemed unmoved.

  “We need official confirmation, you realize,” he said. Carter understood. “Should be easy enough. Just a phone call away. But I need to get the information to my daughter, so she can know that she’s off the hook for the murders.”

  “I would if I could, but Dougherty yanked the phone out of the wall, and ever since your call, he’s turned off the cell phone.”

  Carter acknowledged the rebuke and let it go. “How about a loudspeaker?” he asked.

  “So you were the one on the phone,” Donnelly said. That had been a test, apparently. “What did you talk about?”

  “I told him what I just told you. But he wouldn’t let me speak with Nicki.”

  “I don’t buy it,” Donnelly said. “We were watching it all right here. He got pretty damned agitated.”

  Carter was too ashamed of himself to repeat the suggested suicide. “He’s a volatile guy, I suppose. Plus, I probably wasn’t as diplomatic as I might have been.”

  Donnelly’s scowl said he wasn’t buying, but as he opened his mouth to say more, the crowd around the kitchen table erupted with excitement.

  “Uh-oh,” someone said. “This doesn’t look good.”

  Carter followed the commander to the peer at the monitor. Nicki and Brad were yelling at each other.

  “They were just sitting and hugging and this happened,” a cop explained.

  They watched as Brad struggled to his feet and became even more animated, gesticulating wildly. He looked like he might be crying.

  Donnelly said, “Muhammad, tell all units to stand ready. Looks like things are getting emotional.”

  The r
adio operator did as he was told.

  Carter couldn’t take his eyes off the screen. His stomach churned from anxiety, and he wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. “Please don’t let anything happen to her,” he prayed.

  Things seemed to settle down again, and then Brad made them all jump when he raised the pistol from his lap and pressed it against his head.

  * * *

  Nicki lunged from the sofa. “No!”

  Brad stiff-armed her and spun away, landing on his knees on the floor. His stomach muscles tightened to compensate, launching a spear of agony that shot all the way up to his jaw. He hoped that Nicki wouldn’t watch.

  “Brad, don’t! Please, please don’t do this!”

  Brad clamped his eyes tighter and willed his finger to find the trigger. Just a little pressure. Not much at all. He could make this work, and when he was done, nothing else would ever matter again.

  It was a good thing, he told himself. It was the right thing.

  “Brad, please,” Nicki begged. She dropped to the floor to be closer to him. “Not today. Not here. You can always do it later if things get too bad.”

  He heard the words, but he tried to push them from his brain. They were meaningless. Nicki didn’t understand the stakes. She didn’t understand that this was the one time when he could do this and it would actually mean something. Sure, she could talk about turning down the donation of his organs—she could say that to his face, and maybe even mean it in her heart as she was saying it, but when it was all done, she’d come to her senses. He knew she would.

  Just a little bit of pressure. That’s all it would take. His hand trembled, and he felt tears on his cheeks. Just a little more . . .

  Nicki kissed him. With his eyes closed, he didn’t see it coming, but at the instant a bullet should have been leaving the muzzle of his pistol, he felt her lips on his.

  “Then take me, too,” she said. “One bullet and we’ll go together.”

  Brad opened his eyes. Nicki’s face was too close for him to see it clearly, but he recognized the look in her eyes. It was her kind look, her loving look. The look that made his stomach flip even before there’d been a hole drilled through it.