Dirty Power

by Ashley Bartlett

“But it’s sleepy time,” Ryan said.

  “I know, honey. But you need sleepy time in your own bed.” We may as well have been eight years old again. Her tone hadn’t changed at all in the intervening decade and a half. “And Vivian needs good sleep. She won’t get that with you two in here.”

  “We have to stay and protect her,” Reese said.

  My mom laughed. “You guys can stay if you want, but not in bed with V. One of you will get hurt.”

  “Nuh-uh,” Ryan mumbled.

  “Yes huh. I’m afraid you guys are going to roll right off the bed.”

  “Can’t leave. Got to watch Coop,” Reese said.

  “Come on, honey. You need your rest too and you won’t get it here. Go back to the hotel. I’ll stay here. That way you two can come back in the morning.” Mom rubbed Reese’s shoulder.

  “Fine.” Ryan slowly rolled off the bed.

  “Good boy.”

  Reese climbed out too. “You have to stay here and watch her, okay?” She rubbed her eyes in an adorably sleepy way.

  “I have my book.” My mom held up a paperback. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Promise,” Reese said.

  “Yeah, promise.”

  “I promise, guys. Now go get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

  Reese and Ryan headed for the door. They were leaning heavily against each other.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “What?” Reese looked back.

  “Don’t I get a kiss?”

  Ryan rolled his eyes. “Fine.” He started walking back to the bed, but Reese grabbed him and pushed him aside. He started giggling.

  “Tool,” she said.

  “Whatever.” Ryan giggled some more.

  Reese kissed me and pulled up my blankets. “Listen to your mommy, okay?”

  “Blow me,” I said.

  Reese rolled her eyes. “Good night.”

  “Night.” I was tired as hell, but I fought to stay awake until they left the room. “Hey, Mom?”

  “Yes, honey?” She pushed the hair off my forehead.

  “Are you mad?”

  “About the twins sleeping in here? No, of course not. It’s weird, but I’m not mad about it.”

  “No, not that.” I yawned. “Everything else. Me leaving. That stuff.”

  “Oh, that.” She took a long, deep breath. “I’m…I’m really happy that you are safe. I’m relieved that you’re all right. That this”—she nodded in the general direction of my body—“will heal.”

  “Yeah, but you’re pissed, right?”

  “You have no idea how pissed I am.” She pushed the hair off my forehead again. I was pretty sure at this point that it didn’t need to be pushed off my forehead. She just wanted to play with my hair. I liked it.

  “So you are pissed?”

  “Of course I am. How could I not be?”

  “Good point,” I said.

  “But the anger is the last thing on my mind. I’m just happy you’re okay. Or that you will be okay. I’m so relieved that you and Reese and Ryan are safe and that we have you back again.”

  “Cool.”

  “But you’re grounded for the rest of your life.”

  I laughed. My mom was making jokes. That had to be a good thing. “I’m twenty-three. You can’t ground me.”

  “Watch me.” She almost sounded serious.

  “Okay. Whatever you say.” My eyes closed. It wasn’t my fault. I made them open again.

  “It’s all right. Go back to sleep.”

  “Wait. What about the Feds in Europe?”

  “What about them?”

  “If you wanted us home, why didn’t you help them?”

  She got a weird look on her face and shook her head. “I don’t like the things you did. Not at all. I don’t understand it. I’m not even sure I want to understand it. But that doesn’t mean I was going to help someone put my babies in prison.”

  “Serious?”

  “I love you, honey.” She played with my hair some more.

  “So you don’t care that I killed people?”

  “I do care. I find it very upsetting. But it doesn’t make me love you any less. Nothing could change that.”

  “Thanks, Mommy.”

  She kissed my head and said good night. I was already asleep by the time she picked up her book.

  *

  My mom stayed the entire night. I woke up sometime around two and she was curled up in one of those institutional type chairs in the corner of my room. Her knees were propped against one of the heavy wooden arms of the chair. And her head was turned at an odd angle against her shoulder.

  I should have woken her up, made her go back to the hotel. But I liked her being there. I liked that she still wanted to watch me sleep. Reese had stayed the last two nights. Before that, Ryan and my dad had each done a shift. But my mommy still called dibs on keeping me safe, keeping me sane. It was nice. So I let her sleep. And a few minutes later, I drifted off too.

  It was just after dawn the next time I woke up. I heard voices in the hallway, gentle murmurs outside my room. I didn’t open my eyes, just slowly processed the sound of my guard’s voice and another. It was oddly familiar, but off somehow. During daylight hours, there were so many people in and out of my room, I couldn’t hear shit.

  “Reese DiGiovanni. Yeah, I have your name right here,” the guard said.

  “Thanks.”

  Reese was really early. Weird.

  My eyes were blurry when I opened them. Mom was still sleeping in the corner. There was a figure in the doorway. She was wearing a hoodie and jeans. Something wasn’t right. The door closed softly. She walked over to me and pulled her hood off.

  “Oh fuck,” I said. But that was all I got out before Alexis had a knife at my throat.

  “Quiet, Cooper,” she whispered. “If you make a sound it will wake up your mother. Then I’ll have to kill her too.” I didn’t say a word. “You really fucked me over, you know that?”

  It didn’t sound rhetorical. “You deserved it.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “I’m digging the black eyes. Good look for you.” I grinned.

  “Shut the fuck up.” She dug the knife in a bit more. I felt a trickle of blood down my neck. “Do you understand what you’ve done? I’m going to have to flee the country. I really don’t like being on the run. I had it all fucking planned out and you had to go fuck it up. My uncle has been arrested. The whole family is going under.”

  I shrugged a little. Not too much. The bitch had a knife at my throat. It didn’t allow for much movement. Also, she was fucking insane. And murderous.

  “Don’t you want to apologize? You screwed me. You and your little girlfriend and that bastard.” Her eyes had gone dark, the bright blue pushed and shoved until there was only a hint of light. That was when I realized she was going to kill me. I’d known when she walked in, but there was some vague sense of hope. But I knew right then that if the guard walked in or my mom woke up or Batman crawled through the window, that she would just kill me faster.

  “Oh, am I allowed to talk now?” I whispered. I really wanted to scream, but I didn’t want to make her even more pissed.

  “No. Shut up.” Alexis tilted the knife a little. It hurt.

  I was scared. Hell, I was fucking terrified. After all I’d been through, the irony of getting my throat slashed in a hospital while under a police guard was just insulting. The fact that my mom would wake up to my corpse didn’t help either.

  “Come on, Alexis. Don’t do this. You might be able to get out of it. They don’t have shit on you.” I tried to scoot up the bed, take a little pressure off my neck. The muscles in my stomach screamed sharp and hard. My lungs constricted at the pain. Alexis just lifted the knife higher.

  “Don’t lie. They’re going to bury me. I’m never getting out of it. So I can’t let them catch me.”

  “So go. Go now before you add another murder to the list of charges.”

  “No. This will buy
me—”

  We both went completely still at the sound of the guard’s voice. I didn’t know if I should call out. Sacrifice someone else when I knew they couldn’t save me. Or sacrifice myself and hope that Alexis just let them live. Whoever they were.

  Reese. It was Reese for real this time.

  “No,” the guard said. “Reese DiGiovanni is already in there.”

  Reese must have shoved him or kicked him, I didn’t know. He grunted and it was only a half a second before the door started to open.

  Alexis grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled my head back. “Whatever fucking god you believe in. Start praying.” She started to slice my throat. I tucked my chin, grabbed her hand, and shoved. Every nerve in my body burst into heat and light as the pain spread, but I kept pushing her away. I couldn’t hear or see. I couldn’t fucking breathe. I just knew I had to hold her off.

  Suddenly, Alexis’s head snapped forward and slammed into my torso. And I reached awesome new levels of hurt. Choking, gasping, crying hurt.

  The knife fell. I grabbed my throat and held tight. I didn’t know what damage she’d done, but judging by the warm, sticky flow, it couldn’t be good. I blinked hard until the haze cleared enough to see.

  Reese was dragging Alexis back by her hair. Alexis threw a wild elbow that cracked Reese on her jaw. Hard enough to let go. Alexis spun to face her. The guard finally came into the room. He was limping and breathing hard. Reese must have gone for his junk. He looked pissed. Reese swung at Alexis, but the guard caught her arm and pulled her back.

  “Hey, what the hell is going on here?” He tossed Reese against the wall. “Stay there. Who are you?”

  His voice must have woken my mom because she straightened and rubbed her face. “Reese, honey, what are you doing here? What’s going on?”

  Reese was breathing hard. My vision had cleared enough to see her hands tremble.

  “That’s Alexis DiGiovanni,” I told the guard. My voice was rough and hard. “You might want to arrest her.”

  “Oh my God, Vivian, you’re bleeding.” My mom jumped up and ran to my side. She pulled the sheet up high to press against my throat.

  The cop hadn’t moved. He was looking back and forth between Reese and Alexis like he didn’t know who to arrest.

  “Would you handcuff that woman?” my mom yelled at the guard. “And get a nurse. My daughter is bleeding.”

  He snapped to attention and took a step toward Alexis. She was still facing Reese so all I could see was her back. As the guard got closer, she reached back and pulled another knife from her waistband.

  “Knife,” I screamed. But it was too late. Alexis buried it in the guard’s stomach, yanked it back out, and pushed him to the ground.

  “Stupid cunt,” Reese said.

  Alexis just kept walking toward Reese, blood dripping from the knife. I felt around in my twisted, blood-soaked sheets until I found the knife Alexis had dropped. I tossed it to Reese. It skidded and hit the wall. She picked it up as Alexis lunged at her. Reese rolled away and got to her knees.

  I tried to get out of bed, but the combination of pain and my mother pushing me back made it hard.

  “Mom, go get help.”

  Her eyes got big and she shook her head. “I can’t leave you two.”

  Alexis jumped at Reese again. Reese spun back to her feet, the knife held in front of her. I couldn’t tell if it was a warning or a challenge.

  “Please, go now,” I begged. This wasn’t my mom’s fight. But I was thinking that wouldn’t convince her. “We need help.” Maybe that would get to her to leave the room.

  Alexis came at Reese again, but this time Reese was between the wall and the foot of my bed. Nowhere to go. Alexis swung at Reese, but before she could make contact, Mom grabbed the hood of Alexis’s jacket and pulled her back. Alexis spun and slashed at my mom. She caught her in the left side. It couldn’t have been deep because Mom just stood there and stared at her. Completely shocked that this very real violence had suddenly penetrated her world.

  Reese jumped forward and stabbed Alexis in the side. Alexis went rigid. She spun slowly as the knife fell from her hand. Reese twisted her knife and jerked it back out. Alexis dropped to her knees, her eyes wide in shock.

  “You bitch,” Alexis gasped.

  I pushed myself up in bed. I didn’t care right then that every muscle in my body hated that idea. Reese pushed Alexis to the floor. Alexis grabbed at Reese’s throat, her bloody hands slipping and trying to get a grip. Reese slammed her knee into Alexis’s side. Alexis screamed and her hands dropped. Reese kept shoving her knee in Alexis’s side, pinning her in place. She reached into the collar of Alexis’s shirt and pulled out my necklace, her mom’s necklace. I was amazed that her hands didn’t shake as she unclasped it. She was perfectly calm. Alexis was pushing against Reese’s knee, trying to relieve the pressure. Tears poured down her face.

  I felt no sympathy for her.

  When Alexis passed out, Reese just pushed down harder. Alexis twitched. Fuck, how was she still alive? Alexis’s breathing became stilted and wet. Reese held tight against the protestations of a dying body. I said nothing. Sixty seconds went by. Ninety.

  “Die, damn it,” Reese whispered.

  As if she were granting a final wish, Alexis’s body stiffened, then went slack. Reese dropped to the floor, her back resting against the frame of my bed.

  “Make sure she’s dead,” I said. There was an impressive pool of blood on the floor. But that wasn’t good enough for me.

  Reese shook her head. “She’s dead.”

  “Make sure.”

  “And if she isn’t?” Reese looked up at me. A bruise was forming on her jaw. There were spatters of blood on her arms and chest. Bloody handprints circled her neck.

  “Then I’ll stab the bitch again,” I said.

  “Vivian!”

  I realized that my mother was still in the room. There was blood on her shirt, but not enough for me to worry. Well, except for the whole flood of trauma I was sure would follow.

  “You should sit down, Mrs. C.” Reese got back on her knees and leaned over her cousin’s body. She put her fingers on Alexis’s throat. “She’s dead.”

  “Oh my God.” Mom looked about two seconds on the wrong side of freaking out.

  “Mom.” She ignored me. “Mom, look at me.” She turned. “We need you to go get help now. That cop needs a doctor. So do I.” She shook her head.

  “Use the call button, Coop,” Reese said.

  Well, that seemed smart. I reached over and hit the call button.

  “Mom, sit down,” I said. “The nurse will be here soon.”

  “Seriously,” Reese said. “Sit down.”

  My mom nodded. She turned back to her chair, saw the cop’s body, and sobbed. She stepped over him and sat down.

  Right then, a flood of people in scrubs ran through the open doorway.

  Most of them started working on my guard. One woman broke away and checked Alexis’s pulse. With a shake of her head, she stood and checked me. She muttered something about stitches and then I got to add a very sexy gauze pad to my collection of bandages.

  The next thirty minutes was like that, a lot of frantic people running into the room. Ogilvy showed up about two minutes before Ryan did. Ogilvy was demanding a statement from Reese when Ryan went macho for the first time in his life and insisted that Reese needed space. Ogilvy backed off. A little.

  After that, I was moved to a different room. They threw a couple stitches in my neck. It was super fun. Ryan held Reese’s hand and Reese held mine. I really, really didn’t like stitches. But when the doctor pointed out how close the wound was to my jugular, I stopped bitching.

  “How’s my mom?” I asked after the doctor left.

  “Your mom?” Ryan asked.

  “Alexis cut her,” Reese said.

  “That fucking whore!”

  “Can you just find her and make sure she’s okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah, yeah totally.” Ryan n
odded enthusiastically. “You need anything else?”

  “No, just that.”

  He left the room. Reese crawled into bed next to me. The blood on her knee was still wet enough to stain the sheets. I pulled her close until her head was buried in my armpit.

  “You saved me.”

  “Yeah, well. You look super hot when you’re naked,” she mumbled.

  “Dude, you look super hot when you’re naked.”

  “Obviously.”

  Reese started laughing, which made me start laughing.

  “Oh, shit.” Reese sat up. “I got this for you.” She pulled the necklace out of her pocket. It was stained with blood. She fed it around my neck.

  “Ouch. Neck wound.” Seriously. Ouch.

  “Suck it up. I killed a bitch to get this.”

  I started laughing again. Which didn’t make the pain lessen. At all. “That’s not funny.”

  “Nope.” Reese smiled. “I’m probably gonna be totally fucked up now.”

  “Yeah, but I still like you.”

  “Okay.” She snuggled into me again.

  We must have fallen asleep because the door opening woke us up. It was Ogilvy.

  “I know neither of you is ready to make a statement yet, but I do need your clothes.” Ogilvy held up a bundle of clothes and an evidence bag for Reese.

  “Whatever.” Reese sighed and got out of bed. She started stripping. Ogilvy kept her eyes trained on the wall. I watched Reese get naked. How could I not? Reese pulled on the sweatpants and T-shirt that Ogilvy had brought for her.

  “Thank you.” Ogilvy sealed the bag. Blood smeared the inside of it.

  “Is she really dead?” I asked.

  “Yes.” Ogilvy nodded once. “Thank you,” she said again and nodded at the bag of clothes. But she made it sound like she was thanking us for more than just that. “Your mother is fine, by the way. Ryan and your father are with her. The wound was shallow. She shouldn’t have any problems.”

  That made me feel better. “Thanks.”

  “Yes, thank you.” Reese sat back down on my bed.

  “All right. I’ll leave you two alone now.” Ogilvy turned and left.

  Reese stretched out next to me. I pulled her close and smelled her hair. Mine.

  I realized, as I heard Ogilvy’s steps echoing down the hallway, that she wasn’t coming back. She didn’t need to.