One Family

by Smyth, R. A

  After a while my mother gets up, taking over from the priest at the podium. Needing to drag out her moment of fame for as long as possible, she spends the first few minutes trying to get herself under control, tears streaming down her face.

  “Maybe you should go up there,” Preston whispers, making me glare at him.

  “And ruin her moment? God, no. I’d never hear the end of it!”

  After another awkward minute where she continues with her dramatics, she finally starts to speak.

  “Steven Belmont was an incredible man,” she begins in a choked voice. “He gave everything he had to this community, both through his job and through his numerous charitable donations. Of course, I will continue with these contributions in his name,” she beams, pausing for a second as though expecting a round of applause for her generosity before frowning and moving on. “It’s going to be incredibly painful to move on without him. My son, Barrett, and I miss him so much,” she sobs, a fresh round of tears flowing again as she manipulates the crowd to drum up some extra sympathy. “Our lives will never be the same without him.” On that final word she falls against the podium, overcome with grief.

  I roll my eyes at her dramatics. If I hadn’t lived in that house with the two of them, known how they really were with one another and how little they truly cared about each other, I’d believe the show she’s putting on right now, but I know better. This is purely for the benefit of her socialite friends and her own standing in this society. Although I’ve no idea why. She’s probably going to take herself off back to France as soon as my father’s body is in the ground. I bet she’s out of here before it’s even dark outside tonight.

  Preston nudges me in the side when it becomes apparent my mother has no intention of leaving her stage, and the audience shuffles awkwardly around us, embarrassed by the display of emotion in front of them.

  Sighing, I get to my feet, moving to the podium and gathering her into my arms. She clings to me the minute I reach her, her perfectly manicured nails clawing into my shirt as I wrap my arm around her thin frame, leading her back to her seat.

  “Nicely played,” I whisper in her ear, helping her sit down and letting go of her.

  The second the priest takes up the podium again, and she loses the crowd's attention, the tears magically stop, a coy smile curling at her lips. Manipulative bitch.

  The rest of the service goes by uneventfully and before I know it, we’re standing around the grave site as my father is lowered into the ground. As soon as it’s finished, the crowd disperses, giving their final well-wishes and condolences before taking off, back to their normal lives.

  I’m shaking hands with some guy my dad worked with when Preston nudges me, drawing my attention.

  “Something’s wrong,” he whispers, flashing his phone screen at me, so I can see he’s got twelve missed calls from Aiden, Sophie and Ty. Fuck. What the hell has happened now? “We’ve gotta go.”

  Totally done with this farce of a funeral and desperate to know if everyone’s okay, I turn to follow him to the car.

  “Barrett, darling, you’re not leaving so soon are you?” My mother calls out, moving away from her circle of girlfriends surrounding her, and stepping in front of me, blocking my path.

  “Yeah, mom. I have things to do,” I tell her, moving to step around her.

  “Barrett.” This time my name comes out more sharply, and as she closes the distance between us, the genial smile on her face falls, annoyance taking its place. “You’re expected to be at the wake back at the house after this,” she says sternly, her hand coming out to touch my upper arm. It might look like an affectionate gesture, but her nails dig painfully into my skin, making it clear I’m embarrassing her.

  “No can do, Mom.” I growl, unphased by her attempt at intimidation. “Maybe if you’d bothered to pick up your phone and communicate that with me, I could have told you, and we could have avoided all of...this,” I snark, waving my finger back and forth between us.

  She narrows her eyes at me, pissed off that I’m daring to cause a scene here. “It’s been real though,” I say, plastering on a cheery smile. “Great to see you as always, mom. Feel free to not let me know next time you're in town.”

  Shaking off her hand on my arm, I walk past her, ignoring her look of shock and stride towards the car park where Preston is standing beside the car, waiting for me.

  Hastily climbing in, Preston hits dial on his phone, and we wait anxiously for the call to connect.

  “What’s happened?” Preston snaps the second someone answers.

  “Thank god,” Ty says down the phone, letting out a breath of relief.

  “Are you two okay?” Aiden asks, his voice clipped and businesslike.

  “Us?” I ask. “We thought something was wrong on your end.”

  “No, we’re fine,” Sophie assures, her voice calming the erratic racing of my heart.

  “Oliver phoned us,” Aiden informs us. The tightness in his tone is all the warning we need. Something bad has gone down.

  “Kirk knows about you two helping us. He’s got people following you.”

  “What?” I freak, glancing out through the windows, across the car park. Nothing stands out as obvious, though. Other than the couple of bikers we saw when we pulled in, I haven’t seen anyone following us.

  “How?” Preston barks, gritting his jaw.

  “I’ve no idea. He didn’t say. Kurt, maybe? Or, I dunno, any one of his men could have seen something.”

  “But we’ve been careful,” I say. We’ve barely left the warehouse. We go to school and that’s it.

  “Look, it doesn’t matter. The point is, he’s watching you right now. You’ve gotta lose them before you come back here and be careful; if he thinks you know where we are, he won’t just be tailing you.”

  Fuck, if that isn’t a sickening thought. Having to lose a tail is one thing, but knowing Kirk has given his guys the green light to do whatever is necessary to extract the location of the warehouse from us is something else altogether.

  “Yeah. We will,” Preston responds, hanging up the phone.

  “What the fuck do we do?” I ask, once again scanning our surroundings, half expecting the bikers to jump out of nowhere.

  “Lets just follow the train of cars back towards your house. Make them think we’re going to the wake. We can lose them somewhere along the way.”

  With no better ideas, I start the engine and reverse out of the space, following the line of other cars as they leave the parking lot.

  I don’t miss the rev of bikes as they’re started, or the couple of older cars that pull onto the road behind us. It’s not going to be easy to sneak away from them all.

  Driving along the county roads, I make a point to overtake as many cars as possible, that way when we reach the town center and traffic slows down, Kirk’s men should be stuck several cars behind me and I should hopefully be able to give them the slip.

  My speedy little sports car makes easy work of slipping in and out of the traffic, quickly increasing the number of cars between me and Kirk’s men. Unfortunately, the motorbikes are harder to shake off, sitting right up our tail most of the way. Yanking on the wheel, I abruptly veer across the road before righting the car again, back in our lane, causing the bike sneaking up the outside of the car to hastily pull back or risk crashing into us. I probably look like a drunk driver to anyone else on the road, but I smirk as I force the bike to retreat to a safer distance. A few more maneuvers like that and we’ll be in the clear.

  It’s not long before the surrounding trees and open road give way to buildings and shop fronts. Brake lights flashing, traffic slowing down as we approach the main part of the town. The roads can be chock-a-block around here at certain times of the day, or if anything is happening in the town center. Today is no exception as we slow down to a crawl, cars parking, people getting dropped off or picked up, shoppers diving between cars to cross to the opposite side of the street.

  As we slowly approach a s
ide road on my right, I glance in my rearview mirror, noting the motorbikes are stuck in the same traffic a few cars behind us, the beat-up old Chevrolet even further behind.

  Next time traffic shuffles forward, I push my foot down on the accelerator, spinning the wheel and directing us down the alleyway. Flooring it, I fly down the short road, coming out on a street running parallel to the one we were just on, but it’s slightly further out of the main thoroughfare so it isn’t as busy. Taking a hard right, I head back in the direction we came from, driving another block before banking left and hurrying away from the town center.

  Constantly checking my mirrors, I relax when, after a few turns, when the forest starts to claim back its natural space and surrounds us again, I don’t see any cars or motorbikes chasing after us.

  “I think we’re in the clear,” I sigh in relief, noticing Preston checking the mirrors for himself before settling back in his seat. We’re still on the opposite side of Crescentwood to the warehouse so we aren’t safe yet, but losing our tail was the hardest part.

  We drive on in silence as I continue to bounce my gaze back and forth between the road and the rearview mirror, making sure they haven’t found us.

  “It was a stupid idea to go today,” I say wearily, mentally kicking myself for not just staying home with Sophie.

  “It wasn’t. You needed the closure, to see your mom one last time and put everything with your family behind you. Besides, how the fuck were we supposed to know Kirk was on to us?!”

  He’s right. It’s exactly the reason I pushed to go today, but seeing how many of Kirk’s men were there and what a risk it was, has me second guessing myself. What if we hadn’t lost them or one of them had followed us back to the warehouse? It’s not only my life I’d be putting in danger, it’s all of ours.

  “Did you get what you needed?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “Then it was worth the risk. We just need to be careful. We’ll drive around for a bit, then head back to the warehouse.”

  “How do you think he found out about us?” I ask. I’ve been thinking about it since we left the church.

  “I’m guessing it was Kurt. He’s pissed at us for the video, and this was his counterattack.”

  Yeah, I’d been thinking the same thing. Doing another check of the mirrors, satisfied when I don’t see any cars behind us, I change topics. “What’s going on with your dad?”

  “Not much,” he sighs. “The police have been looking for him, but obviously no sign of him yet. Given the way his campaign went up in flames, they reckon he’s off licking his wounds somewhere,” he shrugs. “Since no body has shown up, they can’t exactly say a crime has been committed, and his colleagues seem to give as much of a shit about his sudden disappearance as I do. The police have phoned a few times, asking if I’ve heard from him, but I’ve made it clear we live our separate lives and don’t talk often, so I’ve got no idea where he is and it isn’t unusual for us to go months without talking.”

  “I thought there would be more of an investigation, given he’s a former governor and all.”

  “Yeah, same. I’m not going to argue though. There’s enough on our plates as it is, never mind chasing after a ghost.”

  Isn’t that true.

  “What about—”

  The high-pitched whine of an engine cuts through the air, stopping me mid-sentence as my eyes flash up to the rearview mirror yet again.

  Fuck.

  A motorbike comes into sight, zooming towards us as I press my foot down further on the accelerator, trying to increase the rapidly closing distance between us. We shoot forward; the speedometer ratcheting up as we quickly pick up momentum. Not bothering to slow down, I fly round the corner, the wide tires clinging beautifully to the road as we go round it at three times the acceptable speed, Preston clinging to the ‘oh shit’ handle above his door.

  The bike handles the tight corner as well as we do, but he has to slow down so he doesn't lose control, allowing me to gain some distance. Shifting down a gear, I’m thrown back in my seat as the car surges forward.

  “Man, he’s catching up on us,” Preston shouts out, turning round to look at him through the back window while I focus on making sure we don’t go flying off the road at this speed.

  The sound of glass breaking snaps through the car before I can snark back at him, spider webs forming along the back window, distorting my view.

  “Fuck, he just shot at us,” he roars over the noise of both engines, pulling his gun out from the holster hidden under his jacket.

  Holy shit, is this actually happening? This is some James Bond kind of shit. This kind of thing doesn’t happen in real life!

  Unclipping his seatbelt, he presses the button to lower his window, flicking the safety off and sticking the top half of his body out of the car, firing off a few rounds before diving back in again.

  The sound of more bullets hitting the body of the car ring out, the metallic ding making me cringe. My poor baby, she doesn’t deserve such horrible treatment. Patting the steering wheel, hoping to make the car feel better, I continue to push her as hard as I can, weaving all over the road in an effort to avoid more bullets.

  Preston sticks his head out of the window again, firing off a few more rounds, but between me veering all over the place and the bike dodging his bullets, I don’t think he’s able to land a clean shot.

  “Fuck,” he roars, “I keep missing.”

  My palms are damp as I grip tightly to the steering wheel, the adrenaline coursing through me as I do everything I can to keep us alive. I’ve no idea how the fuck we’re getting out of here, though.

  An idea suddenly hits, and glancing in my rearview mirror, I yell out. “HOLD ON!” Before he can do anything more than brace his hands on the dash, I slam my foot down on the brake, the car fishtailing on the tarmac as the brakes lock, trying to stop as fast as possible.

  “What the fuck?” Preston grinds, grabbing on to the dashboard for dear life as we’re thrown forward from the abrupt change in momentum.

  Not expecting the move, the bike is suddenly heading right for us, a crash imminent. My eyes are glued to him, as the rider gets closer and closer, quickly trying to move down the gears and come to a halt before he goes into the back of us.

  In a move of pure fucking luck, he manages to swerve out of the way just in time, remaining on his bike as he flies past us.

  “FUCK!” I roar, slamming my hand against the wheel.

  How the fuck did he manage that?

  Flying past us as we grind to a stop, he turns round in the road up ahead, coming back for us.

  “Shit,” Preston says under his breath as I slam the car into gear, my foot coming off the clutch as I press down on the accelerator, pushing us forward once again.

  Within seconds, we’re flying towards the motorcycle, the fucker coming right at us.

  “Barrett.”

  Ignoring Preston’s warning growl, I focus on the asshole intent on killing us today. He’s tucked his gun away, both of his hands on the handlebars as he flies towards us.

  He doesn’t have a helmet on, and as he comes towards us, we lock eyes, his gaze focused solely on me. A smirk curls at the corner of his lips telling me he isn’t going to back down, but neither am I motherfucker.

  It all happens in slow motion, every second feeling like it lasts a lifetime, until we’re about thirty feet apart, neither of us backing down in this deadly game of chicken.

  Just when I think I’m about to win, and this fucker’s insides are about to be spread all over the windscreen, he shifts his hands, veering around us.

  I move to try and catch him, so fucking intent on killing this asshole that I don’t realize my mistake until it’s too late.

  My last-minute change in direction takes us off course as we sail past the bike, missing him by mere fucking inches. Pulling on the wheel, I try to correct us, but we’re going too fast.

  Losing control, the car swerves off the road, leaving the pavement and
bumping along the uneven forest floor I close my eyes as trees fly past us, fat trunks knocking off the wing mirrors while branches scrape along the side of the car before we slam to a halt. My head spins, my ears ringing with the swooshing sound of my blood pumping, or the air around us, I have no idea. A sharp pain presses across my chest as my seatbelt tugs, holding me in place as the car bumps all over the place.

  We hit a particularly bad bump; the car lifting into the air. The sudden impact triggering the airbags, which spring free, colliding with my face, the sudden contact making me cry out.

  “Ugh,” I grunt, feeling like I’ve just been kicked in the face. I can feel warm blood running over my mouth and chin, from the hit to my nose. My whole body aches, like I’ve been shoved in a tin can and given a good shake.

  The ringing continues in my ears, black spots marring my vision as I try to breathe through the pain quickly spreading across my chest and up my neck. Squinting, I try to lift my head off the airbag, but my stomach revolts, the black spots getting larger until I can’t see anything and I flop back down onto the uncomfortable pillow.

  Chapter 22

  Fuck. What the hell happened?

  Squinting my eyes open, trying to think past the pounding headache forming behind my eyes, it takes me a few minutes to work out where the fuck I am.

  Steven’s funeral. Car chase. Crash.

  Everything around me is dark. Somehow I’ve ended up upside down, my head and shoulders awkwardly wedged in the floorboard. Tugging myself free, pain radiates across my shoulder, having likely hit it off the door or dash or something while I was being thrown about.

  Righting myself in the passenger seat, Barrett’s groans draw my attention as I look his way. Blood runs freely down the bottom half of his face, and if the confused expression in his face is anything to go by, he may have passed out for a few seconds there.

  “You alright, man?” I ask, my voice coming out hoarse as I peer out through the cracks in the windshield. All I can see is the dense forest surrounding us.