by Eden Butler
Emily glares at her, finally giving up the façade. “It doesn’t matter, Mojo is a dead man. As soon as he goes back to prison, he dies.”
Viv nods the EMTs toward Mollie, her eyes still trained onto Emily’s pale face. “Mojo isn’t going anywhere. Neither are you.” The D.A. glares at Emily, her head in a slow shake. “You think that little act at the hospital between me and Mollie was real? You really aren’t very bright. And your bosses have already been arrested. I can snoop and lie too, you know.” Viv laughs when Emily’s curses ring out and the trooper walks her toward a cruiser. “Be sure to say hi to your uncle for me?”
Viv’s conversation with Emily is little more than background noise to Mollie. A woman in a paramedic’s green uniform rips open her pants legs, does something that makes Mollie’s body jostle. She blocks out the woman’s activity. Her vision has gotten worse and Mollie can barely make out the bright constellations above her; the shining diamonds of starlight that pepper the black sky. She thinks that cluster to her far right is the Big Dipper, but she can’t be sure, can’t even remember if that constellation is even visible here in Cavanagh.
“Mollie?” Viv interrupts her view, falls to her knees and lifts Mollie’s fingers into her hand. “You okay?” When Viv rubs her hand over Mollie’s face, then wipes her fingers on her jeans, Mollie wonders where all the blood has come from.
Is that mine? I didn’t think I had any blood left.
Everything hurts. Everything. Her face feels split apart. Her leg and feet have gone cold and though it is August and she knows the night is mild, Mollie’s skin is chilled and a shiver has her shaking her shoulders.
“I’m okay.” She feels like she has to reassure Viv. It had been her idea, setting this up, making her wait until they attacked and Mollie can tell by the expression Viv wears—drooping mouth, worried, wide eyes, that she had not wanted things to get so desperate. Mollie attempts a smile, hoping it fools the D.A. “Just sore is all.” When Viv’s face doesn’t release the worry, she tries for distraction. “Where’s Vaughn?”
“The cops went in your place. I’m sure he’s fine.” But Viv still glances toward the building, likely hoping to see her brother walking out of it. “He’s going to be so angry. He hated you being the bait.”
“I… I know. We talked about it earlier tonight.” Mollie’s eyes are heavy and she feels cold, but her thoughts are jumble of worry. She hopes, fleetingly, that Vaughn’s anger at his sister will cool. It hadn’t been Viv’s idea alone. Mollie wanted to draw out Emily and Jimmy. She knew the only way to do that was to play the sitting duck. Her father’s face breaks through the worry, pushes aside any concerns Mollie has for Vaughn and Viv’s relationship. “Daddy…”
Viv looks back at her, smiling and this time, the expression is genuine. “Still at the safe house, honey, don’t worry. You did so well. For a second there I thought you really hated me. I’m sorry we had to use you like that.”
“Bait is better than jailbait.” Mollie doesn’t know why she finds that stupid comment so funny. But once her laughter starts, it will not stop and every giggle she releases is met with a rent of pain to match it.
“Yeah, you’re losing too much blood, honey.” Viv turns, toward the EMT and to her partner who has approached with a stretcher. “Can we hurry this up?”
“Daddy will be mad I got hurt.”
Viv soothes her, shushes her with a few low murmurs. “I’ll handle Mojo, don’t worry.”
“Where is she? Get the fuck off me!”
Mollie watches Viv’s gaze dart around and her shoulders relax, breath releasing long. “Vaughn!” Next to Viv, his face comes into view. There is blood sliding from the corner of his mouth and a nasty wide cut opening the skin below his eye. Mollie wants to touch it, as though one kiss would heal the injury, but her arms feel like lead and her eyelids block half of his face, of Viv’s as well. The D.A.’s voice is confident, comforting, but even her reassurance of “She’s being treated” can’t settle the shake of Vaughn’s chin or keep his hands from covering his head as though if he moves them, fire will shoot from his scalp. Mollie frowns, worried, when Vaughn falls to his knees, hands interrupting the EMTs, moving over her arms, up to her shoulders. “Mollie, God. I’m so sorry.”
“Sir, you’re going to have to back away from her. We need to put her on the stretcher.”
“I’m not going anywhere—”
“Vaughn, come on now, let them do their job,” Viv says to him, nudging him back. But Vaughn can’t seem to move more than a foot away from Mollie; not when the medics shift her onto a stretcher, not when a large police officer pushes against Vaughn’s chest as Mollie is rolled toward the ambulance.
“Mollie, I’m sorry. I couldn’t… she tased me. I couldn’t get here and, oh God, shit…” Those rough fingers, the slight blisters that she loves to feel on her skin, inside her, filling her body, settling the vibrations in her heart, move over her face as Vaughn slips around the cop trying to restrain him. Before she is lifted into the backdoors of the ambulance, Mollie hears the cracks in Vaughn’s voice, defeated, scared. “I should have stayed. I’m sorry, Mollie. I should have been there…”
And then all Mollie hears is the slam of the doors and the high pitched sirens screaming in the night. She thinks she hears Vaughn’s voice, breaking between the noise of the siren. She thinks she hears “I’m sorry” and “failure,” but the heavy haze of medicine, the sharp pierce of a needle pricks her skin and there is nothing but the numb of pain and the silent darkness.
When Layla’s nervous, she babbles. Well, Mollie thinks, she is always babbling about something, usually how much she hates Donovan, but today the babbles are reaching epic levels. It may well have to do with the green tint in her hair.
“So I told Daddy if he didn’t kick him off the squad I was moving out and he would never see me or Honey again.”
Next to Layla, Sayo’s giggle is a welcome, melodic sound that Mollie is happy to hear. “And what did he say?” Mollie can’t make out what her best friend says—she suspects it was something vaguely similar to ‘grouchy old bastard’ but when Sayo asks her to speak up, Layla exhales, finishing that off with a groan.
“He said he’d be happy to be rid of the dog, that asshole, but that Donovan stays and then, um, he offered to help me pack. It’s not funny,” she tells Sayo, slapping their friend on her leg.
Mollie’s eye is swollen again. This time, it’s the left and the purple and greenish tint, matches the nearly healed right eye. She is tired of hospitals, but Sayo and Layla’s presence here makes the too quiet, harsh chemical cleanness more tolerable.
Her best friend comes to her bed, helps her reach the plastic cup of water. Even the cold liquid on her throat burns. That bitch had choked her, returned the throat punch Mollie gave her and she had barely noticed. “Thanks,” she tells Layla when she replaces the cup on the table next to the bed. Mollie tugs on Layla’s ponytail and then lets her hair fall. “Do I even want to know?”
The way Layla shakes her head, the way her bright blue eyes shine with menace has Mollie worried. “Dye. In my shampoo bottle and conditioner. My stylist said it would have been fine if I hadn’t just gotten out of the pool.” Layla grips the rail on the bed and looks past Mollie, eyes blurring. “I’m going to make his life so freaking miserable.”
“Too late, love.” The girls turn toward the door when Declan and Autumn enter. The couple looks comfortable next to each other, but Autumn’s frown is dipping deep and is only forgotten when both she and her boyfriend catch Layla’s new hair color. A faint line wrinkles across Declan’s forehead when he looks at Layla and Autumn’s lips are pursed, as though she’s trying not to laugh.
“What the bleeding hell…” Layla cuts off Declan’s question with a wave of her hand.
“Do not even ask, Irish.”
When Declan steps forward, easing his finger toward that mint green hair, Autumn leaves him, comes to the bed to offer Mollie a kiss on her nose, the only space of skin
not bruised or cut. Mollie sees the wet glisten in the redhead’s eyes, the shake of her chin that Autumn tries to hide with her fingers. She never could stomach her friends’ tears and so Mollie takes Autumn’s hand, linking their fingers together. “I’m fine, sweetie. Really.”
Autumn doesn’t believe her, that much Mollie can tell. One ginger eyebrow uplifts, but before she can ask the question that Mollie is sure spins in Autumn’s mind, Declan approaches, fitting his hand on Autumn’s waist.
There are small red lines in Declan’s green eyes and the Irishman looks tired, worried and then, just as suddenly, angry, working his jaw and not bothering to hide the way he holds his hands in tight fists. That expression tells Mollie everything. He wants to punch someone, he wants someone to blame, to take out his anger and though Mollie appreciates the thought, she’s tired of her friends getting mixed in with the drama in her life.
“You don’t have to.” Mollie pats Declan’s fits, shakes his wrist so he will unclench his hand.
“What’s that then?”
“She’s been arrested.” She waves to her face. “At least, last I heard from Viv.”
Autumn looks around the room. “Where’s Vaughn?”
This is when she deflates, unfurls her calm just a bit before she looks away, suddenly extremely interested in the two broken nails on her left hand. She doesn’t want to explain, doesn’t want any of her friends to know what a disappointment Vaughn turned out to be. His disappearance had surprised her and she thought his excuse was valid when Viv told her he’d been arrested for resisting the officer who tried to keep him out of the ambulance. Even Viv couldn’t convince the Cavanagh PD to let her brother go, not when he’d punched the poor cop several times. But that hadn’t been the worst of it. For someone who’d seemed so desperate to stay with her, Vaughn had stayed away. Even after Viv posted bail. Even though Mollie had spent two days in this hospital. He still hadn’t turned up.
Sayo’s voice comes from the window where she sits on the sill and Mollie hears the bitterness in her voice; it lowers her tone, makes each word come out clipped and harsh. “He was arrested. Right after they took her off in the ambulance. He hit a cop, a few times from what his sister said. She posted bail, but she said he won’t return her phone calls. The night nurse told me he stopped by to check on Mollie. Brought her those.” Sayo’s long, pink hair swings when she moves her chin toward the bedside table to the three magnolia flowers resting in a half empty plastic cup.
“But you haven’t talked to him?” Autumn is confused, eyes minimizing, narrowing, when Mollie only manages a half-hearted shrug.
“Nope.” She reaches for the flowers and Autumn hands them over. Vaughn took this memory from her. It had been one of the few that did not include police and bikers and mothers who treated her like she was property, not blood. That day on her family’s farm, at the graveyard keeping her history safely protected amid the large, fragrant trees, had been the spot she returned to time and again; when her mother’s cruelty had her screaming against her pillow, when the weight of her father’s absence became too heavy, so thick that she found breathing a chore. She often returned to that graveyard, smelling the lush scent of those brilliant, white flowers, feeling her father’s large arms spinning her around and around as she danced barefoot in the grass.
Vaughn took that from her and somehow, that was as bad as his disappearing act. Now when she stares at the magnolias, she only sees his retreating form, she hears his apology that rings like an alarm, fear and guilt clouded behind his words. Mollie doesn’t stop the tears when they start to form, she doesn’t care that Declan’s jaws have begun to work again, that his fists are white-knuckle tight; Mollie doesn’t care that when the tremors in her hands spill the water onto her lap, her friends converge, surrounding her like a barricade.
They let her tears move down her battered face and don’t wipe it dry. Layla comes behind her, pulls her hair off her shoulders and her arm stays there. Sayo and Autumn are at her feet, each with a hand on her legs, each waiting for her to become completely unhinged. And she does, just then, as the water slides off the side of the green plastic cup and then the sadness is surpassed, erased by the keen desire to slap Vaughn, to punish him for stealing her memory, for teasing her with something she knew could never really be hers.
But he is not here for her to assault. He has disappeared. So Mollie does the only thing she can, the only thing she thinks may help her exorcise some of her heartache: she throws the flowers across the room with enough force that the cup hits the framed artwork above the recliner and knocks it to the floor.
She doesn’t hear Declan stepping into the hall. Mollie barely notices anything but how her bruises ache with each painful sob; she only knows that her girls, her family, is here, arms tight around her, words low, soothing, kisses dotted over her skin. And just then, with the smells of her friends’ perfume, with the soft, sweet embraces that somehow ease her pain, Mollie thinks that this may be enough. Sisters. The family she constructed despite the ashes of her childhood. They are a circle of unconditional love, accepting her in the face of who she was, who she will be tomorrow. And for those few moments, for more, she hopes, they complete her, make her believe that she will survive this.
“There. You look almost human.” Layla winks at Mollie and tosses the damp rag in her hand onto the table.
“No puffy eyes?”
“Well…”
“I mean, no puffy teary eyes?”
“Nope. You’re good.” Her best friend brings the discarded rag into the bathroom while Sayo finishes braiding her hair and Autumn works on her wrecked fingernails. She lets them pamper her. It’s what they’ve always done when drama surfaces. Usually, Mollie isn’t the victim, but she has to admit that she is beginning to feel more like herself; certainly more than she had just a couple of hours ago.
“Autumn, where is your other half? I’m freaking starving.” Hands on her hips, Mollie smiles as Layla rubs her stomach. Declan had nearly bolted away from the hospital when Autumn asked him to pick up burgers from Brady’s. Typical, Mollie thinks, wondering what it is about men and crying women that leave them as helpless as a blind, legless kitten.
Autumn doesn’t look up from the serious business of filing Mollie’s nails. “I don’t know, Layla. It’s not my day to babysit him.”
“Well, can’t you text him?” With a dramatic flop, Layla falls onto the recliner.
“I’ve never seen any girl put food away like you do.” Autumn gives the blonde-green-haired girl a sideways look. “If I didn’t know about your aversion to all things icky, I’d swear you’re binging.”
“Shut up. And don’t hate me for my high metabolism.”
Mollie is about to deflect the brewing argument, she shoots a warning at her best friend, but then two quick taps sound on the door and Viv enters.
The D.A.’s smile is wide and, unbelievably she looks rested. She dons her black designer suit again and if Mollie isn’t much mistaken, she thinks the distinct scent of gardenias pours from her hair when she bends down to squeeze Mollie’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry to interrupt.”
“No, Viv, it’s fine.” Mollie shoos away her pampering friends and lets Viv take Autumn’s spot on the bed.
“You look better.” Viv moves the stray hairs behind Mollie’s ear and the girl returns her smile, ignoring the compliment.
“How’s everything? Emily? Jimmy?” She wants to say Vaughn? but holds back, knowing that if Viv knows anything about where he’s gone, she’d tell her.
“Good. Everything is going well. Both are in custody and I’ve been informed that the bails will be set to astronomical levels. Also, Vasquez’s assets have been frozen so I don’t think we’ll have to worry about them for some time. But listen,” she says, her smile inching into a stretch, “I have a surprise for you.” The D.A. stands, darts to the door and shoots Mollie a wink over her shoulder. “A visitor.”
It’s not Vaughn, she tells herself. Viv wouldn’t be
this excited that her brother got his head out of his ass.
“Oh thank God,” Layla says, grabbing the bags of greasy burgers out of Declan’s hands when he walks through. There is a soft thump behind him as the door shuts and Viv pushes the Irishman out of the way.
“What the feck did I do?” he asks Autumn, handing her a burger.
“Look, here he is.” Viv drags Mojo behind her and the tight lump that had been hibernating in Mollie’s chest for ten years, fractures, shoots away into nothingness the closer her father walks toward her.
“Daddy?”
His arms are tight, so tight around her as he hugs her. He doesn’t feel as gaunt and as wasted-away as he had just a few weeks ago at the prison. Mollie didn’t know what kind of treatment Viv had arranged for her father, but she wouldn’t ask. She didn’t care. He was here. He was free and her Daddy was hugging her. Over his shoulder she sees three guards, feds from the look of them, likely handlers with Witness Protection, but even their dull, crisp black suits and shiny, tight shoes do little to chip away at her joy.
Behind her father’s shoulder, Mollie sees Sayo dragging Layla by the arm, mouth full of burger and her friends wave at her, silently excusing themselves for Mollie to have this moment with her father.
Mojo pulls back and grabs her chin, his easy smile disappearing when he moves her face from side to side. “Oh, baby…”
Mollie takes his wrist, stopping his examination. “Daddy, I’m okay. I promise you. Just some scratches and bruises.” When he remains unconvinced, she shrugs. “You should see that bitch. I took her down.” And the little lie has her father chuckling, but the sound is light, feeble and Mollie worries when Mojo’s eyes go glassy, then she gets a little afraid when the frown transforms into a glare which he directs at Viv.
With one look from Mojo, Viv’s excitement deflates, she even steps back and Mollie pulls on her father’s arm, bringing his eyes back to her face. He glares at Viv after he moves Mollie’s face by her chin, examining the extent of her injuries.
