Page 2 of A Brother's Secret
1
Amalia…
I knew what I’d done by posting that. I also knew that the message had been received when it disappeared. It was deleted from the thread almost as soon as I had posted it. Now, a day later, I was waiting forthem.
I stared at my dad’s shiny, nickel-plated revolver on my crappy 70’s mint-green Formica table and wished he were still here. My heart ached. He’d passed last week from liver failure. He’d been pickling himself in alcohol since the night his seventeen-year-old daughter had turned into a killer to save him. The guilt of it was an overwhelming thing, even though it hadn’t changed him one bit. He’d been a grifter and a cheat his whole life, even right up until the bitterend.
After that night, we’d gone into hiding immediately, leaving everyone and everything we’d ever held dear behind… well, that I had ever held dear. He didn’t give a fuck about anybody but himself, as was evidenced by the fact that I still didn’t know the why of any of it. Now my dad was gone, my old life was long gone, and I just didn’t have the will to do any of it anymore. So I’d posted, and now I waited. The Colt .45 on the table was there because even though I’d given up, it didn’t mean I was ready to go down without some kind of a fight.
It wasn’t in the cards. That had never been in the cards.
I closed my eyes and tried to decide if I were really as in tune with dying as I thought I was. I mean, I knew I was leading them right here, but if I were so ready to die, why did I have a messenger bag slung across my back with my most prized possessions? All my sketchbooks, my tarot cards, and a few of my other favorite things. It was heavy, but not awfully so, but it seriously made me wonder… why sit here loaded for bear? What made me think me and six shots could stand a chance against the men coming forme?
The answer was, I didn’t. The answer was that I knew I’d sealed my fate and that it was only a matter of time, but the answer also was that I was angry, and fuck them, and I would go down swinging because that was the daughter my father had raised me to be. It was probably the only good quality I’d picked up fromhim.
He’d fought hard his whole life, in his own way, and had died broken, and I couldn’t say I would ever forgive him for that. Mostly because I was tired of the life and left with no one who knew or understood, and it just sucked so hard. This wasn’t the first time I had been impulsive and changed the trajectory of my life so suddenly and so drastically, but it was a more than fifty-fifty shot that this would be the last time I would doit.
I watched the rain streak the kitchen window of the old brownstone and a shadow move past it. I swallowed hard, and put my hand on the Colt, thumbing back the hammer even though I didn’t need to. My fingers curled around the grip, index slipping inside the trigger guard to caress the trigger itself as I slowly pushed back from the table.
The men that should be coming weren’t exactly in the habit of knocking. Still, I couldn’t tell if this was a ruse to lull me into a false sense of security or something else entirely. I got up and let my Doc Martens carry me across the cracked and chipped linoleum floor that was probably older than the shitty table I’d been sittingat.
I yanked open the door and leveled the gun at the man’s face. His hands went up along with his eyebrows and without any preamble, he said, “Mali, get your shit, we have togo.”
I blinked, my jaw dropping open as I squeaked out in disbelief, “Kyle?”
“Mali, I mean it – we have to go,” he said stepping past me into the kitchen. He went to the table and closed the lid on my laptop, yanking the cord from the wall and winding it around hisfist.
I’d shut the door and went down the impressive line of locks flipping toggles and sliding chains demanding, “Where the fuck did youcomefrom?”
“Home, which is right back where we’re going, we can talk about all this later – we have three minutes. Turn around.” I stared at him and he barked insistently, “Turn around!” which was quite the departure from the adorable nerd boy I knew in high school. So shocked, so startled by the fact that Kyle Cochran, my best friend from over seventeen years ago was really here, I swiftly turned around. He ripped open the sturdy Velcro holding my thick, vinyl messenger bag closed and shoved the laptop and cord into its gaping maw alongside the neatly stashed sketchbooks and graphite drawing pencils.
We both froze at the heavy footfalls on the wooden steps. My kitchen was at the back of the brownstone. A set of wooden steps leading to a small deck. Kyle and I exchanged a look. His liquid brown eyes which had once been so warm were cool and appraising as they whipped over my face. I could see the calculations going on behind his gaze and he produced a black gun from the back of his waistband, a long, slender finger from his opposite hand pressing to his lips. He ushered me behind him and told me, “Head for the basement.”
“Are you serious?” I whispered harshly.
“Mali…” his voice was low, concentrated, and bordering on impatient. I scoffed and tugged on the hem of his black leather biker jacket, which worked for him as much now as it had when we were teens, by theway.
He stepped back, amazingly silent on his heavy black motorcycle boots. I opened up the door leading down to the divided basement and laundry room and he waved at me to go down before him. I heard the crash of glass and the hollow rattling roll of a can. A hissing filled my kitchen and he leaped onto the steps and slammed the door behindhim.
“Down, down, down! Go, go, go!” His words were cried insistently but he still managed to keep his voice low. I went down the steps lightly in my knee-high laced Doc Marten’s and he clattered down the rough wood risers right behind me as windows and doors crashed in above us. He pulled me over to a wall with an old bookcase against it and said, “Help me movethis!”
“What?”
“Move it, Mali! Move it now!” I helped. The thing was massive, old, and the planks thick. We shoved and pulled and it moved grudgingly across the cracked cement floor.
“How did you know this was here?” I demanded at the sight of the door hidden behindit.
“Downloaded the place’s blueprints and schematics from the city assessor’s office. Go.”
I went, having to force myself through the narrow gap we’d made, my messenger bag sticking. I managed to unstick myself and push through and Kyle was right on my heels as the basement door from my brownstone’s side of things exploded inward. Kyle shoved me aside and went straight across the basement to a grate in the floor.
“Come on!” It was already moved aside and I lifted my messenger bag over my head and dropped it in, leaping down after it. He fired off two shots above my head and I clapped my hands over my ears. He dropped down beside me and pulled the grate back over our heads, dropping it into place. He shoved me ahead of him and I went, lifting my bag back over myhead.
“Should have packed lighter,” he grunted and led me down a twist in the low tunnel.
“Yeah, well, you know I’m a girl – vag and all. How did you findthis?”
“I have my ways. Figured you knew about it, that it was why you picked this place. Knew you were running, sorry it took so long for me to catchup.”
