Shattered Glass

by Dani Alexander

  No one was talking. No one was moving. I motioned to Darryl. He pinched his lips and threw open the door, yanking the seat up. I resisted petting my poor abused car.

  Cai picked a loose thread in his jeans, jaw trembling. “Let me go, Rabbit. I can’t live like this,” he pleaded. “I can’t be your penance anymore.”

  Peter clasped his hands and viciously rubbed his eyes. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “He’s dead, Rabbit. They’re both dead. You killed mine,” Peter’s head shot up, eyes widely staring at his brother, “—and I killed yours, and it’s over. They’re dead. Don’t look at Dare. It was Uncle Nikki who told me. He sat there that night, laughing. Bragging. Making his hand into a gun. Laughing about it.” Cai’s plucking became more intense, until a ribbon of flesh peeked through the cotton.

  Eight minutes until his appointment.

  Darryl sat on the car edge, head hanging between his slumped shoulders. “What a fucking mess.”

  Peter’s twitching became cataclysmic. He reached for Cai, drew back and gripped his own knees. “He made me. I swear to God, Cai, he made me.”

  The hole in Cai’s jeans grew. “I know he did, Rabbit! That’s why you need to let it go.”

  “It’s not that simple.” Peter rubbed his forehead raw.

  I shifted in my seat in the ensuing uncomfortable silence. Peter’s mouth opened and closed randomly like he was searching for something to say. Darryl hadn’t moved a muscle. Four minutes until his appointment. Cai had stopped responding, but still hadn’t made a move to exit the car. My fingers drummed again while I decided whether to break this up or let them work it out. It was an unbelievably inappropriate time to hash out a really-needed-to-be-hashed-out problem.

  Finally, Cai pulled himself out of the car and looked at me briefly before staring at the ground. “Let it go, or I’m leavin’, Rabbit,” he whispered. “You ‘n’ Dare gotta just let go. You gotta get your own lives, and you gotta let me have one, too.” Slapping away tears, he walked stiffly through the courtyard to the entrance of the building. Peter scooted out after him, stopping him just outside the doorway and pulling him into a hug. Cai’s hands hung at his sides for a few seconds and then scrunched into Peter’s shirt as he buried his face in his brother’s neck.

  11:01. The kid was late. And I didn’t see this ending soon. If this took much longer, it would be called in to dispatch. Cai would be arrested. Someone had to light a fire under their asses. “You’re not going over there?” I asked while hunting through my virtual rolodex for Kate’s number and slipping the headset over my ear.

  “Right now they need to work it out,” Darryl said, flopping in the front seat.

  I was going to point out that that wasn’t exactly true, but my phone rang. I pushed the button on the steering wheel to answer. “Glass.”

  “Oz—”

  “I was going to call you this morning.”

  “Shut up, and listen to me. Get the kid out of the building.”

  “Cai?” I unbuckled my safety belt and leaned forward. I spotted Cai and Peter pushing through revolving doors.

  “Yes. I couldn’t stop it. They’re waiting for him at the shrink’s office.”

  “Who?”

  “You want me to explain or you want to get that kid before they take him?”

  “What’s going on?” Darryl asked. The string to his pink hoodie was wrapped tightly around his finger. He yanked at it.

  “Stay in the car,” I said. After waiting for a car to pass, I threw open the door and tore out of the seat.

  “Hey! What’s going on? Is it Peter?”

  “Stay with the fucking car! In fact, get in the driver’s seat,” I yelled as I ran across the plaza, reaching into my back pocket for my phone. The Bluetooth was still streaming our call; I tore off the headset and hung up without a word to Dave. After nearly smacking my face into the revolving door, I stopped, scrolled to find Peter’s number and pressed ‘call’.

  I spun to the right, toward the sound of the first ring. The second ring brought my hand to my right front pocket. By the third ring, I was holding Peter’s phone in my palm. “Borrowed your jeans. Took them off again when I saw your bare ass.”

  “Fuck!” I raced to the elevators and machine-gun punched the up arrow until my thumb hurt. “I don’t give a damn how low my pants hang on you, Peter, this is the last time you borrow them!” And the phone was locked. I couldn’t even use it to call Cai. “Fuck me twice!”

  I tossed Peter’s phone into my front pocket and used mine to redial Dave’s cell. Voice mail. I hung up and redialed, barely resisting slamming the phone against the wall when it clicked to voice mail again. The doors pinged open just as I dialed their home.

  In the elevator, my finger rapidly pressed the button for the 18th floor. A business woman stepped in after me. As she reached to press a lower floor, I did the only rational thing. I panicked. Grabbing her briefcase, I tossed it out the door, ignoring her screech as she chased out after it. I squashed the ‘close door’ button like a dog with an itch. Marta answered the phone just as the woman directed me to the lowest depths of hell. The door closed out her escalating tirade.

  Trust Is An Illusion

  “Oz? Help. He is crazy!” Marta cried, hysterical with tears.

  I quickly summoned an image of a lunatic there to kill her. “Have you called 911?!”

  “No. No. It is Dave. He is throw our cloth in bags and saying we fly to Sweden.”

  I heard a rustling and more angry screams from Marta, then Dave took over the conversation. “Oz? Did you get him?”

  The elevator climbed up to the fifth floor and stopped. “In the four minutes since I hung up with you? No, Goddammit. Who’s up there?” I pressed ‘door closed’ before it even opened and kept my finger there. Tucking the phone against my shoulder, I barely contemplated the gender of the person who I pushed out of the elevator.

  “Hey!”

  “Take the next one,” I thundered.

  “I tried to stop it all after they killed Alvarado, but…” Dave, said.

  The doors closed and the elevator pulled up, but it wasn’t moving fast enough.

  “Confessions later! Who? How many are there, worst case?”

  “They just want the kid. So two, maybe three.”

  Twelfth floor.

  “Guns?”

  “Cops, Oz. At least one will be a cop. Probably Mick and Dick, they’re always together. So, yeah, three.”

  “Who’s the other one?”

  “Leila Alvarado.”

  Shit. Leila Alvarado was a crack whore with a mean streak as big as her beehive hairdo. Luis and I had presumed that Prisc had killed her. Maybe it was the other way around? Now she was armed and waiting up there for Peter and Cai. And Dave had seen fit to only inform me five minutes ago. Silently I called him every name I could think of, but because I needed him, the words festered in the recesses of my mind. And I had to think rather than give in to the urge to vent.

  Fourteenth floor.

  Cops involved. Couldn’t call 911. Mick and Dick surely had their radios. They’d hear instantly if I called. What would be their reaction if they heard the call? They’d just shoot Peter. Probably shoot them both. “Luis in on it?”

  Fifteenth.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. I don’t know everyone involved. Only a few of the bigger players.” Trust Luis or not? He’s always trusted you. He’s always stood by you. Risked his career for you.

  So has Dave and look where that got you.

  I went with my gut. “Call him. Tell him everything.” I hung up.

  Eighteenth floor. The ding announcing the floor was like a gong. The doors slid open slowly.

  “Go!” Peter screamed somewhere down the corridor furthest from me.

  Cai emerged from the left hallway, about forty feet in front of me. He banged his shoulder against the door marked ‘STAIRWELL’. Avoiding the stairs, he stepped onto the railing and jumped off. I didn’t have
time to contemplate where he landed. Peter was four steps behind him.

  I propelled forward on autopilot, stopping just as a bullet splintered the doorframe near his head. “Jesus Christ,” I whispered, automatically reaching for my nonexistent gun. Shit. Fuck.

  Rather than follow Cai down, Peter pulled the door closed, effectively using it and himself as a shield. Two figures barreled down on him. Mick and Dick pushed past without a struggle. When the door swung shut leaving Peter behind them, I saw why.

  Peter pulled a hand from his stomach, a patch of red blossoming there as he stared at his fingers. I was a few feet from him when Leila Alvarado put her gun to the back of his head.

  “No!” No. No. No.

  My shout startled her. Her hand jerked. But I was too late. Peter’s forehead disappeared in a mist of red, and Leila’s gun lifted and pointed directly at me.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Tourette’s is Contagious

  I barreled on toward Leila. A shot whizzed a foot from my shoulder. I ducked, ran two more steps and plowed my head into her stomach. Her next shot hit the ceiling. A sickening crack filled the corridor as her skull collided with the wall. I didn’t bother to watch as she slid to the floor—unconscious or dead. I preferred dead. I snatched the gun from her hand, secured it in my waistband and then crawled to Peter. Sitting back on my heels, I cradled his head in my lap.

  He was wheezing each breath, but he was breathing. Streams of blood pumped from his skull and seeped between the fingers he cupped over his stomach. I blinked away sweat and tried to see his head wound while fumbling blindly for my phone. It wasn’t beside me.

  Until that moment, it hadn’t registered that the gunshots had been muffled—since no one heard them, no one was coming to help.

  “Peter, don’t sleep. Don’t stop breathing.” I needed a phone. I scanned the area and saw mine down the hall near the elevator. In my haste to get to Peter, it had slipped from my fingers. “Help!” My voice cracked. “Peter?” He whimpered in pain. There was so much blood, leaking into my jeans, stiffening the material. “HELP!” I wiped at his forehead, but his hair was matting into the mess. I couldn’t see anything. I pressed my hand over his. At least I could hold one wound closed. “Peter, don’t pass out. Don’t you dare pass out.” Or die. Don’t die.

  Several people peeked into the corridor. Kate and her receptionist Kira were the only ones who didn’t hesitate to run to us. Kate immediately began feeling around Peter’s head. I tried to judge her reaction through a swath of her silver hair. It was impossible. “If you die on me, so help me, Peter…I swear to you. I fucking swear that I will let Cai rot in jail. I’ll pin drugs on Darryl. I’ll…”

  “Officer Glass,” Kate said, “I need you to stop yelling.”

  Was I yelling? Who gave a shit? “Call a fucking ambulance!”

  “I’ve called 911,” she said calmly. “I’m a doctor, Officer Glass. I’m going to take a look at them. Just take a deep breath, and try to focus.” She made a move to check Leila whose head was also within reach.

  “Not her. You don’t fucking look at her!”

  Kate hesitated, then nodded. “All right. For now. Kira, get some towels from the bathroom.” The younger woman’s ponytail bounced as she jogged down the hallway. Kate checked Peter’s scalp. “Listen to me,” she said, moving my and Peter’s hands from his stomach. They were slick with blood. “His head wound is superficial, but he’s weak from blood loss. You need to calm him down before he goes into shock. And yelling isn’t going to help.”

  “I’m not yelling!”

  Peter choked on a laugh and moaned. “Cai.” He reached up and pushed weakly at my shoulder.

  “Are you kidding me? You think for one second I’m going after Cai with you like this? You fucker! Asshole. Son of a bitch, whore, jerkoff.” Apparently his Tourette’s was contagious.

  He moved his bloody hand toward my face. I tilted my cheek toward it and closed my eyes. His fingers pinched my lips shut.

  I couldn’t even summon a smile when his hand fell away. Opening my eyes, I took a moment to adjust to the light blurring my vision. The scent of blood was overwhelming. I grabbed his hand again and held on.

  Kate had removed her blazer and was pressing the linen against the stomach wound. Kneeling by Peter’s head, Kira offered Kate a stack of paper towels.

  “Kira, take over here.” They switched places, Kate taking the paper towels and pushing them up against Peter’s head. He groaned, and his breathing grew shallow. Kate caught my attention with a deliberate snap of her fingers. “Listen, I don’t think the bullet breached his skull. For now it looks like the scalp is torn apart. Head wounds bleed excessively even when they’re not serious.”

  I knew that already, but hearing it gave me an emotional shake. “Wake up, you fucker.” Peter’s eyes fluttered but remained closed. I slapped his chest gently with our joined hands. “Wake. Up!”

  “Stop. Whining.” He cringed.

  “I’m not whining. I’m yelling. And Christ, can’t you stop giving orders even while shot? Domineering prick.”

  He choked a laugh again. I could barely make out his pink skin through the caul of blood on his face. The smile in the midst of that red mask was macabre even while uplifting. “Cold,” he wheezed.

  “You fucking cliché. Don’t say shit like that!” I gave a panicked look around for something warm to put over him.

  “It’s the air conditioning and the blood soaking his clothes,” Kate assured me. “He’s not going into shock yet. Someone have a blanket?”

  “How do you know? How fucking long is it going to take them?” I watched the elevator doors, blinking only when sweat dripped into my eyes. I was being unreasonable. It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes since I stepped off the elevator, more like five.

  “They’ll be here soon. And I know because he’s laughing and talking to you and because you’re shivering too.” Kate lifted Peter’s lids. Was I imagining the murkiness clouding the blue of his eyes? “Peter, how old are you?”

  “Twe-twenty.”

  She looked to me for confirmation. I nodded. She was checking for signs of shock. “Ask him something useful,” I said. “Like does he love me not?”

  “Soon,” he breathed.

  “Smartass.”

  “Ro…mantic.”

  Romantic? What the fuck? Since when was Peter romantic? “Should he be talking this much?”

  Kate nodded. “There doesn’t appear to be damage to his lungs or throat. His breathing is most likely labored due to pain. Keeping him talk—”

  The elevator dinged. We collectively inhaled, watching the doors slowly open.

  The Things I Do For You

  I counted four cops. Two gurneys. Four paramedics. The EMTs stayed behind while the uniformed officers assessed the scene. I yelled out my name, rank and badge number and told them the scene was secure. The number of people standing inertly in the hallway must have convinced them. They motioned the EMTs forward.

  The paramedics quickly push-pulled a gurney down the hall. Without being asked, the gawkers parted to allow them through. Though I regretted releasing of Peter’s hand, I was finally in my right head enough to let them do their work. I let go, stood and took a few shaky steps backward.

  Two officers checked the stairwell. Another checked the hallways then backtracked to where I was standing.

  “Detective Glass?”

  I nodded.

  “You don’t remember me, do you? James Hutcherson…”

  My mind couldn’t focus on his face. I stared at Officer Hutcherson blankly. He was a blur of black hair and brown eyes. “Sorry.”

  “We went to the Academy together.”

  “Ah, yeah.” He seemed to be waiting for more. “Hey.”

  He smiled with warmth. “So, want to tell me what happened?”

  My voice was monotone, explaining what I saw without embellishment. Strictly the facts, Jack—or James in this case. I didn’t mention Mick’s and Dick’
s names until the very end.

  “Sir?”

  “Officers Kelly Fitzpatrick and Jason Dillon.”

  “Yes, sir, about that, you said Mr. Dyachenko was blocking their path?”

  I met his eyes. “I said Peter was unarmed and standing in the doorway.”

  “You are sure he was unarmed?”

  “His hands were braced against the doorframe. I saw his entire body. A second later they converged on him. I didn’t see which one shot him. They ran past him. He started bleeding. The second shooter, who I identified as Leila Alvarado, came down the same hallway and shot him in the head. The whole thing took maybe a few seconds.” I lifted my shirt, showed the gun and waited. He got the clue, retrieving it from my jeans.

  “She got off two more shots before I tackled her.” I nodded to Leila. One of the paramedics was examining her. Another had cleaned Peter’s head wound and was bandaging it up. Hovering against the wall, I tried to assess the wounds as they cleaned them. The EMTs were working quickly, but I saw enough of Peter’s injuries to clench my fists.

  The second bullet had ripped through his scalp from the side of his head to his temple. I thought I saw bone peeping through before the white linen hid the gash. It looked worse than it was. They’d probably shave his head and stitch it up.

  If he lived.

  If? If he lived?

  A pair of scissors sliced through Peter’s shirt. The wound to the right of his belly button was only a small round hole. It looked innocuous, but I knew there was carnage below the surface.

  Watching the latex-covered hands work all over his body brought my own hands up. They were gloved in blood. My heart tripped in its beat. I wanted to take back that gun and shoot Leila in the face until she was unrecognizable.