Chapter 36 Andy
Chapter 36
Andy
Something is happening at Akio’s mansion.
This is the text that wakes me up at 2 a.m. on a night when I’m not stationed outside of Chi’s mansion. I know immediately that I’m going there anyway, whether or not this turns out to be a false alarm.
To my surprise, though, as I pull on my jacket and open the door of the safehouse, Oxy’s number lights up my phone. That’s not a good sign.
“So, what’s going on?” I ask after I press it to my ear.
“Something suspicious happened. I’m trying to figure it out, but basically what I know right now is that someone jammed the signals. This is a billionaire’s mansion — could be innocuous, right? Just a faulty update to his security or something. But the weird thing is that they somehow delayed my alert that the signals were jammed. There are ways to do that, but it’s not fucking easy. What’s worse is, if it was a simple intel attack, it doesn’t seem like someone would go through all the trouble just to test the system, you know?”
I put my car into gear and floor it. Something about Oxy’s explanation is so unsettling to me. “Yeah, I know. I don’t fucking like it.”
Oxy’s voice is grim when she answers. “Me neither.”
I hear her click-clacking away on the other end, and I feel like I need to ask more questions to stem my concern. “So, they just stopped calls in and out. No other suspicious activity?”
“I’m not seeing anything,” Oxy clips. “Same guards as always. Everyone’s at their stations. Nothing suspicious on the… oh, shit.”
Any time Oxy says the words, “Oh shit,” everyone, their mother, and their cat should be scared out their fucking minds. She never gets flustered or worried about anything unless it’s extremely serious. I gulp before I ask. “What do you see, Oxy?”
She breathes deep and lets it out slowly before she answers, and it doesn’t matter anyway, because I’m already speeding down this empty highway to get to Chi as quickly as possible.
“It’s mylar foil interference.”
I don’t quite know what this means, so I make the only comparison I can think up. “Mylar foil? Like balloons?”
Oxy doesn’t laugh or make a sarcastic joke like she normally would. She pauses for another minute. “Fuck, there it is again. They’re blocking the cameras, Andy. They’re wearing suits that block the fucking cameras, and all I can see, when I can see it at all, are big blobs blending in with the night around them.”
I push down harder and floor the pedal. “This doesn’t sound like a test, Oxy. This sounds like a fucking all-out assault. Have the guards move in.”
“Already sounded the alarm. But Andy, they’re going in the wrong direction. I think they’re moving away from the grounds.”
“Are you sure?”
Oxy pauses again for another minute before finally answering grimly. “Maybe not… no, I’m sure. They’re heading away from the house, and you better hurry. Because this was definitely not a test. I’m pretty certain whoever this is has done their damage.”
*****
I’m at the mouth of the escape tunnel just five minutes after I hang up with Oxy. I figure there will be swarms of guards inside the house at this point, but I’m one of the few people that know where these tunnels lead to, or even that they are here. I jump out of the car and tear through the entrance, single-mindedly looking for Chi.
I don’t have to go far. She’s made it nearly to the end, but I see her hobbling, head down, limbs moving with staggered jumps, and I worry that she’s hurt.
“Chi!” I whisper to her as loudly as possible. She jumps about a foot into the air, gasping loud enough for it to be a scream. Her eyelids are as round as they can go, the whites of her eyes fully visible, bulging out at me in abject fear. She stares at me for a full ten seconds before she processes who I am but still seems rooted to the spot.
I approach her carefully, knowing immediately that something terrible has happened, even before she begins shaking uncontrollably.
As soon as I get close enough, she clutches my shirt in a death grip. “My father… Daiki… they—they…” She’s barely looking at me now, her eyes cloudy, roving over the walls of this tunnel as if she’ll find some impossible answer on them. I wish there was somewhere to sit her down, because she doesn’t look good at all.
“Chi,” I say lightly, putting my hands to her shoulders, grabbing lightly to try and ground her. She seems beyond just some physical touch, though. Her chest heaves up and down as she works her jaw, trying to push words out of her mouth but seemingly unable to say them. “Chee-chee, we have to go. Can you tell me what happened while we walk?”
Her eyes, still impossibly wide, land on mine and stop. She stops breathing and doesn’t move a muscle — just stares. The horror in her face is something I’ll never forget, I know. Something that will haunt me for the rest of my life, although I know in this moment that whatever she’s seen tonight will be about ten times worse.
“They’re dead.” She falls into me on the second word, her grip slackening on my shirt, but still holding on. She must have seen them, I think as I pick up her dead weight and hold her against me. She doesn’t look hurt, but she’s totally out of it. I really wish I could go into the mansion and make sure there’s nothing I can do, but I know I need to get Chi out of here first. I place her carefully into the car and drive off to the safehouse.
*****
Chi jolts up with a start, eyes wide in terror. I hold her hand, but she breaks the grip, snatching her hand out of mine and clutching it to her chest.
“They’re dead. They’re dead, and I have so much I have to do.” Her eyes don’t blink as she looks around frantically. “I’ll need to have their funerals. I’ll have to tell Daiki’s sister in Japan.I’ll need to postpone the wedding. They won’t be there, so I have to take them off the list. I’ll have to tell my mother and my brother, if they even care. They’ll need to come for the funeral.” She shakes a little, moving back and forth with her breaths, as I pull up to the safehouse. I approach her as I would a wounded animal.
“Chi. Stop. It’ll be okay. I’m going to help you.”
She doesn’t hear me — maybe she can’t. She just keeps staring at the same space on the dashboard, somewhere else, making lists of all the shit she’ll need to do over the next few weeks now that her father and Daiki are dead.
“I’ll need to get the suite cleaned.” Her voice turns to a whisper now. “The whole mansion, really. After they walked through it.”
“Who are ‘they,’ Chi? Tell me, so I know how to help you.”
“What kind of cleaners get blood out of the rugs? He wouldn’t want me to get new ones,” she mutters to herself. She finally lets out a small sob. “He loved those ugly rugs.”
I jump out of the driver’s seat and around to Chi’s side of the car, opening the door and grabbing her shoulders to face her toward me.
“Ugh, God, don’t touch me,” she says as she smooths down her shirt, pressing into the dried blood. “Don’t touch me; no one can touch me!”
I step back and put up my hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. Why don’t you… come in? And then we can talk about, uh… cleaning the mansion and all that.” I just want to get her into the house. She’s clearly in shock and ready to blow any second. I reason that I can try to figure out what the fuck happened to her in a few minutes. She can make a scene once we’re between those four private walls, but right now I don’t want to draw any attention to us at all.
Every inch of her is shaking as she grabs the door and pulls herself out, stumbling over nothing. I want to just pick her up and throw her over my shoulder, but I feel like one wrong move could cause a screaming, fighting tantrum, and I know that would be detrimental to my purposes right now.
Her face is pale as a sheet as she continues listing mundane responsibilities. “I’ll get new rugs for the office, but not for the sitting room. I’ll put them in myself. I have to find the right cleaners, because they’ll need to get all the blood out. There was a… a lot of blood,” she tells me with a hiccup, finally grabbing my forearm in a death grip. I’ve been trying to push my curiosity and concern off as much as I can to give her space, but when we’re just a few steps from the house, I pick her up and sweep her in before she can react, kicking the door shut behind us.
Her eyes go impossibly wide again. As soon as she makes eye contact with me, it seems to snap something inside of her. I grab her shoulders to keep her from completely breaking apart, but I don’t think there’s anything I can do for the mental anguish that comes over her at that moment.
I see her break. Suddenly, she can’t breathe. She makes little strained, high-pitched noises as panicked breaths rip in and out of her body. Her knees wobble, and she grabs my shirt the way she did earlier in the night.
I sit her down on the couch, never taking my gaze from hers. I don’t know what I’m doing here — I’ve never had the occasion to console anyone who was breaking down after witnessing their father and their closest family friend die before their eyes — but it feels like keeping eye contact and pushing down on her is important. It feels like it’s keeping part of her here with me, engaged in this moment, instead of losing her to the horror that must be playing out in her mind.
“I’m with you. I’m going to help you. You’re not alone.”
Those words trigger her first earth-shattering, heartbroken sob. She falls into me, finally losing herself to her grief. I have no idea what to do. Everything I can think of seems woefully inadequate. But I hold her and stroke her long, fine strands of dark hair, trying to focus on the way they slide through my fingers and fall gently to her heaving back. I shush her and squeeze her as her body racks with tremors over and over again. It’s torture, but I want every bit of it. I want to take it all and absorb it for her so she doesn’t have to feel it. I know that’s not how this works, but even if it eases something for her, I’m willing to do it.
*****
I don’t have the heart to rip the information from her as her sobs turn to screams. She cries on me for hours; all the tears that she was never allowed to shed come out of her now, I think. She finally falls into an uneasy sleep, still gasping with sobs here and there. I sit with her on the couch as I talk to Oxy to figure out what the fuck is going on, since Chi is in no shape to tell me. It’s clear now, that two intruders eluded the guards and infrared cameras and made it into the private wings undetected, killed Daiki and Akio, and took off into the night. It seems that Chi saw it all. That she saw her father and her lifelong protector die before her eyes.
Two hours later, Chi screams herself awake and begins that earth-shattering crying, and the cycle starts up again. I don’t know if there’s anything I can say or do, but I guess I’ve had a little bit of experience with grief. I’ve sat with Cas after his brother — the only other man I called cousin — was killed. Come to think of it, my own father was killed. I doubt what I felt compares at all to what she’s going through, but at least I can be here with her. At least I can make sure she knows I won’t leave.
I doubt she’ll hear anything I say anyway, but I try to think up something comforting. There’s only one thing that comes to me naturally, so I hope it will help. It’s how I’ve always dealt with my own problems, anyway.
“I’ll kill them,” I say softly into the black, silky strands of her hair. “I’ll kill them all for you, sweet Chee-Chee.”
She slackens against me, letting out a long breath. I know she’s heard me, and that sigh tells me my promise made her feel better. Out of everything I’ve done, everything I’ve said, promising to take care of this for her is what has given her just a moment of relief. And it’s what I do best anyway.
There was never any question that I’d do it. As soon as Oxy told me someone dared to trespass on her property without her knowledge, I knew I’d kill them myself. I know I have to do it right away. I’ll hunt them all down, exact blood-curdling revenge, and then bring her the proof. I won’t do it because they deserve it, or even because they killed her father and her closest friend.
No, I’ll kill them because they hurt her. No one gets to hurt Chi.
END BOOK 1