Loose Cannon

by Sidney Bell

  One-handed, of course. With his nondominant hand.

  What choice did he have, though? Okay, it wouldn’t be good for Miller if Church didn’t call back, but he shuddered to think what the Krayevs would do to Church if he did, especially since he might not give Ghost up easily. Even if Church didn’t get the message, he’d come home eventually, walking right into the trap. No. Miller had to get away, and with any luck, he’d be able to warn Church before he came home.

  With his hand on fire, Miller wasn’t sure his luck was that good. Considering the Krayevs were still discussing whether they should make him scream louder, he was inclined to think it wasn’t.

  He coughed and bent to one side like he might be sick. He heaved once—entirely unfaked, unfortunately, because moving had jarred his hand—and used that as a cover to roll onto his knees.

  In his peripheral vision he saw Yasha make a face and step back.

  Miller braced his good hand on the floor, curling his toes under, getting ready. He spit onto the carpet, selling it for all he was worth.

  Vasily aimed another look at the phone, brow knitted.

  “All right, get him up,” he said.

  Miller ran for it.

  * * *

  On his way back to the bus stop, Church checked his voice mail.

  At first he couldn’t make sense of it. There were thuds and a few distant voices. A cry that sent a shudder down his spine. Vasily’s voice came on the line.

  Church was dialing as soon as the message ended.

  * * *

  Miller’s fingers scrambled on the dead bolt. He heard someone shout and caught movement from the corner of his eye, but he didn’t let himself get distracted. He got the lock unbolted, and fumbled for the knob.

  The door opened. Four inches, five, almost enough, and then Yasha yanked him backward. A few seconds later, Grisha grabbed him too. Miller struggled, kicking, catching somebody in the shin hard enough that he heard a curse, and their grips on him slackened. A chance, this was his chance.

  At least until Vasily grabbed Miller’s broken fingers and squeezed.

  Miller screamed as his whole body buckled under him. The door slammed, knocking him in the shoulder in the process, but he barely noticed. He was too busy panting, trying to get air, because the pain had crawled up his arm and into the rest of his body, choking him, overwhelming him.

  “There,” Vasily was saying when Miller calmed enough that he could hear over his own breathing again. “Do you believe me now, Church?”

  Fuck.

  “Where are you?” Vasily asked. After listening for a minute, he said, “Okay. You’re gonna go to the Waffle House down the street, and someone’s gonna pick you up. We’ll bring you to your boyfriend and we can talk in person. And Church? If I so much as smell a cop, your boyfriend’s gonna be praying for a bullet in the brain.”

  * * *

  Church hung up the phone and allowed himself exactly two minutes to freak the fuck out.

  He paced and punched the air and kicked the nearest mailbox post a few times, but none of it relieved even a drop of his fear and frustration. Plus, his entire body hurt worse than it did before. Yeah, throwing a fit one day after getting the crap kicked out of him hadn’t been his best moment.

  But it brought home one simple fact. He wasn’t going to be fighting his way out of this. A six-year-old could take him down at the moment.

  Smart. He had to be smart.

  Which meant he was fucked.

  “Okay,” he muttered. The owner of the house he was currently pacing in front of was going to call the cops sooner or later to report the crazy dude at the edge of his property, so Church needed to get his shit in order. “Okay. Okay. I can do this. Freak-out over. Okay.”

  He couldn’t just call the cops, that much was clear. Vasily was ready for it, and even if Church knew where the Krayevs were going to take him, he’d need half an hour to explain the whole mess. Besides, who knew what Vasily would do to Miller if he thought Church had turned him in?

  But Church couldn’t go with the Krayevs without some sort of protection or there’d be nothing to stop them from shooting him and Miller once they’d gotten whatever they wanted.

  He took a deep breath and started walking to the main thoroughfare, because that was where he’d told Grisha he’d be waiting. As he went, he called Tobias.

  “I need the biggest favor of my life.” Church explained as fast as he could, wrapping up with, “So you need to text me every five minutes with a question that only I’d know the answer to, okay? If I don’t answer right or at all, you call the cops.”

  “Okay,” Tobias said, his voice thin. Church could hear him breathing hard. Rushing to his car, maybe. He was probably at the library studying or something even though school had to be out for the semester. Church winced for interrupting, but it wasn’t like he had a lot of other friends he could call for help. Tobias grunted like he was moving or lifting something. “And I’m sending the cops where?”

  “I have no idea. Probably the Krayevs’ place.” He hoped so, anyway, because if they took him to some abandoned warehouse, he was fucked. He might be fucked anyway since he’d been midpanic during his first trip to the ranch house and it was out in BFE anyway, hidden in a dirt-and-gravel maze of county highways that wouldn’t know a street sign if one was planted smack in the middle of the road. Church took the phone away from his ear to brace himself on his thighs while he forced himself to calm down.

  When he had control, he said, “If you have to go to the cops, tell them the Krayev name. Vasily’s done time before. Maybe they’ll know where Mama lives. If not, tell them to go to Moe’s Bakery. If Matvey’s there, he might pass along the address.”

  Yeah, and Santa might bring him a million bucks this year.

  “I’m making a list of questions now,” Tobias said. “How charged is your phone?”

  Church’s heart leaped as he checked, but fortunately he had a nearly full battery. “It’s good.”

  “I’ll send the first question in five minutes.”

  “I’m sorry to ask,” Church said uncomfortably. “I know your anxiety is—”

  “I won’t screw up. I promise. I’ll... I can do this.”

  “No, I know. I’m not worried about that.”

  “Oh.”

  “You sound scared,” Church said.

  “Well, so do you.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Call me as soon as you’re safe.”

  “I will.” He was quiet for a minute. “Tobias, if—”

  “Don’t. I already know you love me, and besides, you’ll be fine. The hero always saves the day.”

  “There’s nothing heroic about me,” Church said roughly.

  “You’re a hero to me. I’ve never seen someone try so hard to be a good man.”

  Church’s throat closed, his chest tightened, and he couldn’t say anything for a minute. He could only walk, the line open and quiet and understanding at his ear. Finally, he managed, “I gotta go.”

  “Call me when you’re safe,” Tobias reminded him. “First text in five minutes.”

  Church stammered a goodbye and hung up.

  As he walked, his stupid brain kept recycling the memory of Miller screaming. It hadn’t been like the sound you made when you cracked your funny bone or the one Church remembered making when he sprained the hell out of his ankle playing dodgeball in fourth grade. It was the kind of sound that meant something in the body had gone seriously, dangerously wrong.

  At the corner he turned right, aiming for the parking lot of the Waffle House on the corner. He found a clean stretch of curb to sit on and settled in to wait.

  And as he waited, he thought.

  He thought about Miller saying he wasn’t stupid. He thought about what Miller woul
d do. What Miller had done, when he’d listened to the story last night while cuddling Church’s pathetic ass on the couch. Church ran over their conversation again, focusing on one particular detail.

  What had Miller’s first question been?

  “Why would Mama have Vasily beat you up?” And later, Miller had said, “Maybe she thought Ghost wouldn’t help her if she hurt you.”

  Big maybe.

  The first time Vasily had gotten slapped down by Mama, he’d reacted by coming to the store and throwing his weight around. At the time, Church had interpreted that as a giant temper tantrum meant to make Vasily look tough again, and Church still thought that was true. He definitely couldn’t picture Mama telling Vasily to piss on the floor.

  Maybe, just maybe, this was more of Vasily’s temper tantrum. Maybe all of Vasily’s attacks had happened without Mama’s knowledge. It rang true, anyway. Almost downright easy to believe.

  The other brothers’ motives were harder to guess, and that was what he needed to know. Where did their loyalties lie? Would they believe Church if he told them that Vasily was acting without Mama’s okay?

  If Church said it, would he be telling the truth or bluffing?

  It took about twenty minutes for Seryozha, who Church still linked with deli-slicers in his head, to pull up in a Mercedes, his music so loud that the bass rattled the chassis. It poured out, poppy and electronic, as the passenger-side window rolled down, revealing two Krayevs.

  “So? Now what?” Church asked, his nerves making him sharp as he bent down to look in. The music abruptly went quiet.

  “I’m Yakov,” the biggest Krayev brother said politely from the passenger seat. He gestured to the man behind the steering wheel. “And this is my brother Sergei.” His brow scrunched up and he added, “You’re not Russian, right? I’d give you my patronymic, but my father was American—”

  “I’m not fucking Russian, dude,” Church said, in what had to be the most combative tone ever, but they’d hurt Miller and he was out of patience with this fake-nice bullshit. “Do I look fucking Russian? And I thought his name was Seryozha.”

  “That’s a nickname. My brothers call me Yasha, and we call him Seryozha, but they’re more for family and—”

  “You can’t use them,” Seryozha said flatly, and Church thought, Not to your face maybe, SERYOZHA.

  The guy’s face tightened like he’d somehow read Church’s mind. “Get in,” he said, tone going sour.

  Church didn’t move. “Where’s Miller?”

  “At your place.” When he saw Church’s doubt, he added, “Believe me or not, but if you don’t get in, he’ll be there all by his lonesome with Grisha and Vasily.”

  “I have a friend who knows what’s happening. If I don’t text him every five minutes, he’s gonna call the cops.”

  “Does he know where we’re taking you?” Seryozha asked pointedly.

  “He knows where I work,” Church replied, and Seryozha snorted, apparently unconcerned.

  “We’re reasonable people.” Yasha gave Church an admonishing glance and shook his head.

  “You made Miller scream.”

  “Only because we had to get you to meet us,” Yasha added, sounding hurt.

  Church thought, Here goes nothing, and replied, “Why the hell would I believe that? Mama already lied to me once. So much for your mother’s promises.”

  “Watch what you say about her,” Yasha started, a thunderstorm brewing on his face, but Seryozha knocked his brother in the arm, leaning forward to study Church. Unlike his brothers, Seryozha had something of his mother’s craftiness; Church felt pulled apart under his gaze. He struggled to hide his excitement.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Church put on an impatient sneer and tried his damnedest to remember how Ghost had phrased things in that long-ago conversation about the truck and Mama’s denial of taking part in the vandalism. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. The whole ‘we didn’t tell Vasily to do that’ and ‘it won’t happen again’ bullshit that got served to me and Ghost. But here you are, fucking up my boyfriend anyway.”

  Yahtzee.

  Yasha’s eyes widened almost comically fast, and his head snapped around toward his brother. Seryozha was way more chill, giving up barely an eyelid twitch, but Church still honed in.

  They hadn’t known.

  Church and Miller might have a chance after all.

  Yasha and Seryozha had a silent conversation with their eyes until Seryozha finally snapped at Church, “Look, if you’re coming, get in. It smells like waffles and it’s making me hungry.”

  “Fuck you,” Church said under his breath, but his heart was pounding as he opened the back door and got in the car, stifling a groan at the way his ribs protested. Had it been enough to make them doubt Vasily?

  “Keep your feet off the upholstery.” Seryozha eyed Church in the rearview mirror.

  “Or what?” he asked. “You’ll kill me twice?”

  Seryozha’s brow creased, and Church said, “Oh, like you aren’t going to. If you were gonna do like Mama said she would, you never would’ve touched Miller. Do whatever you’re gonna fucking do.”

  He clammed up and stared out the window, fighting the urge to look for the effect of his words. If Seryozha picked up on Church’s attempts to pit the brothers against Vasily, that’d be all she wrote.

  Seryozha slowly put the car in gear. Yasha turned the music back up until it had Church’s head aching.

  He didn’t complain, though. It was almost loud enough to drown out his rampaging thoughts. Seryozha’s reaction to Church’s claim that Vasily was acting without permission had given him hope that if he did everything right, he and Miller might end up at home by the end of the day, marveling over how bizarre everything had been.

  But he also remembered what Seryozha had said: “Does he know where we’re taking you?”

  The day might end in blood. If he was very lucky, he’d be the one who drew that blood. Tobias could say all he wanted about Church being a hero, but he’d never felt less like a good man in his life. Part of him wanted to leave civilization behind and ruin anything that dared to breathe in his presence.

  That was the part of him that could still hear Miller screaming.

  He answered three questions from Tobias on the way to Miller’s, and in between, he thought about how to play Grisha. He’d be a lot harder to convince than these two. For one thing, Vasily would be there contradicting anything he said. For another, Church would have to do it without losing Seryozha and Yasha in the process. He spent most of the ride testing and discarding possible comments.

  When he walked into the town house, he abruptly forgot all of it.

  Miller was slumped on the floor, pale and sweaty and shaking.

  “What the fuck did you do?” Rage, pure and sweet, an old, welcome friend, flooded Church’s veins. His voice trembled, but no one could’ve mistaken it for fear. No, there was no room left for fear in Church. Miller was alive, and as long as Church breathed, he was going to stay that way.

  Miller lifted his head at the sound of Church’s voice, revealing his bruised and cut mouth, but that wasn’t what stole Church’s attention, because now Church could see why he’d been bent over. He’d been curled around his hand, which was purple and distorted with swelling and some of his fingers were fat like sausages and—Jesus—sticking out in the wrong direction.

  For five seconds, Church stood poised on the verge of murder.

  The sane part of his brain told him that he’d lose any fight he threw himself into right now. He’d never beat them, not in the shape he was in, and he’d lose the chance to convince Grisha of anything. It would unite the brothers against him, and it would all be ruined.

  But fuck, he wanted them bleeding. He wanted nothing more than a red world. Nothin
g but the crunch of bone beneath his fists.

  “I knew she was a liar,” Church said, the words coming to his ears from very far away. Words that sounded convincing maybe, because he’d practiced them in the car, but all logic had stopped working at the front door when he saw Miller, so who the hell knew? “She promised Ghost she wouldn’t hurt either of us, and look what you fucking did!”

  “What?” Grisha asked. He stood up from the breakfast barstool he’d been perched on, looming over Miller like a guard dog. He looked not at Church or Vasily, but at Seryozha, worry and questions creasing his face.

  At Seryozha, who nodded once and slid his gaze to Vasily, who seemed, somehow, oblivious to his brothers’ reactions. He was focused on Church, eyes hungry, lips stretched in a grin.

  “Now we’re gonna talk about Ghost’s phone number,” Vasily said.

  Which Church had deleted two nights ago and didn’t have memorized, but he couldn’t get into that now, because he had to tamp down on the surge of triumph. He was right. Vasily was here without permission. Ghost had called Mama about the truck weeks ago, so she’d definitely have his number. She wouldn’t need to go through Church like this. Vasily was here because he couldn’t go to Mama for the number without her putting a stop to the whole mess.

  With another glance at Miller, who looked half-conscious at best, Church said, “Ghost isn’t gonna do jack for you or your mother. Not once he finds out about this. Like he’ll believe her now. Go fuck yourself.”

  “You want to get mouthy?” Vasily asked, puffing like a furious rhino. To his brothers, he said, “Hold him.”

  “What exactly did Mama say, Vasya?” Seryozha asked, and Church thought, Thank fuck. He wanted to edge over to Miller, but didn’t. He had to get them so stirred up they forgot about Miller entirely.

  Church’s phone buzzed. Tobias.

  Grisha’s eyebrows crushed together. “What’s going on?”