22
Emaline
“Are you alright?’Is the first thing that drops out of that sultry mouth when I step outside to greet him.
“Yes. Rosie would’ve died if it wasn’t for Dante the Dinosaur,” I sigh in agony because I can’t get that thought out of my head. I had Austin to force me to the ground, but she has no one, and she deserves to have someone to adore her and shelter her from the storm.
“Yeah, it was a freaky coincidence,” he says smoothly.
“The bullet fell out of the costume and,” I exhale, breathing through the anxiety causing hell in my chest. “Is it my fault? Who were they aiming at? Why do I think it had something to do with the men from Illinois?”
“I don’t know,” he answers, handing me the spare helmet. I take my glasses off and slip them into my coat pocket, and Austin takes my bag from me and flings it over his shoulder.
“You don’t know?” I press. “You looked like you were expecting someone earlier.”
“We’ll talk later,” he states, placing the helmet over his head and prompting me to get on the back of the motorbike. “Best to leave before the police get here.”
“Why?” I ask suspiciously.
“Because they’ll ask too many questions, we’ll be here forever,” he answers swiftly. “And because I’ve got a criminal record and wherever I go lately, trouble finds me.”
“Because of me?” I enquire curiously. “Well…specifically my sister, not me. She’s always been a magnet for trouble, especially money troubles-”
He starts the almost deafening engine and drowns me out as I nestle into his back, and I’m glad for the reprieve. I doubt he was listening to me anyway since I currently have a severe case of verbal diarrhea. Obviously, he has no interest in answering my question, and it doesn’t need to be said. The Leroux boys stumbled into a snake pit by doing the simple, seemingly heroic task of rescuing my sister. And this is the thanks we give them…getting shot at.
Holding on tight to his warm, solid body, we ride through the thick evening traffic, creeping into narrow spaces that cars can’t fit into, making greater progress to getting to our destination. I wonder if Austin can feel me freaking out behind him, gripping with more intensity when he rides between two cars and jumps up onto the pavement to avoid stopping at a red light.
I’m not cut out for this, and I doubt I will ever get used to being on the edge of death, which is what it seems like right now as he scoots in front of an oncoming vehicle. Car horns scream, and I shirk down. I”m glad my face is covered so no one can identify me as the crazy girl behind the crazy man’s motorbike.
“Are you trying to kill me?” I scream in his helmet-covered ear.
He doesn’t reply, probably because he’s too busy driving like a deranged madman.
“Please slow down, Austin,” I bellow in a shaky voice as my stomach curdles from the constant toing and froing.
“Can’t,” he states urgently, or at least I think that’s what he said. Under the sound of his roaring motor, the irate traffic, and my hearing muffled by the helmet, he could’ve expressed any word. Cunt. Maybe he said cunt. He’s not beyond using language like that, even though I find it gross.
If he said ‘can’t,’ then why not? Is he trying to scare me? He must know by now that a girl who is terrified of most things, including climbing Landers” silo, would be terrified of riding fast through traffic on the back of a motorbike. And not just any motorbike, but one designed for dirt tracks and country roads, not smooth inner-city tarmacs.
My arms squeeze Austin so tight that I might cut his circulation off, but I don’t care. If he won’t stop or slow down when I ask, then what type of man is he? A jerk, that’s the type of man Austin Jerkface Leroux is.
My anxiety increases immensely when I notice that he’s not going in the direction of the hospital anymore, and tears form in my eyes out of pure terror. We are going too fast for me to jump off unless I want broken legs and a couple of layers of skin shredded from my backside.
We come out to an industrial area where traffic is sparse, and I’m shaking in terror as without glasses, everything I see is out of focus and fuzzy, and my spatial awareness is poor.
“Austin, please, where are you taking me?” I’m sobbing in fear, and as he slows down to turn around a bend, I’m tempted to throw myself off because hitting the pavement hard might be less of a punishment than what he has in store for me.
Austin glances behind him as we go around the bend and slows down even more before finally coming to a halt. As soon as the bike is stationed, I slide off and land in a heap on the ground, trembling.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I cry, struggling to take my helmet off so I can breathe in some fresh air.
Austin takes his helmet off, seemingly more concerned with the road behind us than me sobbing on the ground. “I think we’ve lost them,” he states, roughing his helmet hair with his hands.
“Who?” Finding it impossible to undo the helmet strap with my cold, shivering fingers, I turn in the direction he’s looking in, and the road seems clear to me, but I need my glasses to clarify.
“The white van following us,” he states in confusion.
“Is this a joke because this face is not smiling?” I point to my face hidden behind the helmet.
As he approaches me, I clamber to my feet, holding my hands out for him to keep away. “Wait,” he stalls, stunned and disappointed in my reaction. “Did you think I was deliberately trying to scare you?”
“I-I,” still trying to wrestle with the helmet strap, dangerously close to hyperventilating and flaking out. “Can’t get this damn thing off.”
“Let me help,” he says calmly, gazing at me precariously as if he’s never seen a girl freak out before.
“No,” I bark at him, and he freezes. “You stay there.”
“You’ve got the wrong end stick,” he proclaims as he tenses up at the sound of an incoming vehicle, only to relax again when he sees the vehicle.
“I can’t see properly without my glasses.” I step further back, slam into something hard, and swing around to find that it’s a transformer. Naturally, my imagination explodes with fear-based thoughts of being electrocuted if that transformer isn’t secured correctly. Gosh, I need to stop with the self-torture.
Austin’s firm hands seize my shoulders before I have a chance to land on the ground for the second time in two minutes. “You’ve twisted the strap,” he says smoothly. “Let me undo it so we can have a reasonable conversation about what happened.”
I sigh, resigning to having no choice, and allow Austin’s fingers to untwist the strap. He stands close, but his vibe is on edge as he keeps glancing down the end of the road every few seconds. Maybe he’s telling the truth, and we were being followed, or this is an act. But why do all this effort to scare the bejeezus out of me?
Finally, Austin has untangled the madness around my chin and helps me remove my helmet. “Explain yourself,” I demand. “I almost vomited on your back because you were driving so ludicrously fast and dangerous. Do you think it’s funny to scare me like that? You’ve clarified that you hate me but could show some respect…” I turn away from him when the tears start to fall and wipe my eyes with the base of my palm before reaching into my coat pocket for my glasses.
“You couldn’t see it, could you?” he states evenly and without remorse.
“See what?” I try to keep my voice steady, but I’m still shaking, and my stomach is in knots.
“The black Mercedes,” he clarifies, and I swallow over a lump in my throat. “It was a man in a black Mercedes that shot at Dante’s.”
“I didn’t see either,” I tell him. “I was too busy holding on to you in case I fell off and became another statistic under the tire of an oncoming vehicle.”
His scowl deepens as those eyes become distant and morose, but at least I can see his eyes clearly now that I have my glasses on. “I managed to lose them, but they’ll be back.” The sound of an oncoming vehicle forces him to gaze down the end of the road, and again, he relaxes when it’s not the bad guys in the black Mercedes.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to go to the hospital now because they expect you to go there.”
“But my sister is expecting me,” I panic, knowing he is right, but determined to learn more about our parents’ disappearance and the Viche saga.
“Call her to say you’ll be in tomorrow instead,” he insists.
“She doesn’t…I have her cell, so…” A terrible thought occurs to me, and I reach for my bag, which is still slung over Austin’s shoulder. “Should I also tell my grandparents to stay away from the hospital? Grandma sent me a message to call her urgently, and I’m sure it’s about Bri. Oh no…” My heart is pounding frantically as I swipe to find the message, “Something has happened to her, hasn’t it? Do you think the Viche men,” I lower my voice to say ‘Viche’ for fear that someone may be listening in even though there’s no one around apart from a guy on a bulldozer shifting dirt down the road, “managed to sneak into the ICU and hurt her?”
“Don’t think ahead of yourself, Emaline,” Austin suggests calmly, and I notice he lingers on the first part of my name, Em…aline. If I weren’t so panicked, I would be blushing over that.
I swipe Grandma’s number, and it rings twice before she picks up, and I’m so relieved. “Grandma, has something happened to Brielle? I’ve been freaking out all afternoon, and then someone shot at Dante’s, and I was so scared that they forced their way into the ICU to get Brielle.”
“Now, just calm down, Em,” Grandma says sternly, which doesn’t help the situation, but I’m glad I’ve finally got in touch with her. “We’re up at the hospital now, and Brielle is fine. The nurses said they’ll be moving her into a ward tomorrow.”
“But she’ll need a room in the ward on her own so security can control who goes in and out,” I explain, and then her message dawns on me. “Why did you send me a message to contact you urgently?”
“Oh, that,” she hisses, “that was just me getting irate at a strange occurrence in our accounts, and I thought it was you. So, I kinda sent that message without much thought beforehand.”
“What?” I’m utterly bewildered. “What are you talking about, Grandma? You’ve completely lost me. What happened with your bank accounts?” I swallow over a lump in my throat. Are their money troubles so bad that the bank has intervened and frozen their accounts? “Please don’t tell me the banks have-”
“Not our bank accounts,” she snaps, setting me straight. “One of our suppliers accounts.” She clears her throat and lowers her voice, and I assume a customer is nearby. “Someone damn well paid off one of our invoices, and I wondered if it was you, but I doubt you’d have that sort of spare money.”
“Huh? Paid off an invoice? So…” my head is so full that I still can’t quite grasp what she’s saying. “So, someone paid off an invoice from one of your suppliers?”
“Yeah, and I’m guessing by the confusion in your tone that it wasn’t you,” she proclaims, then coughs a couple of times before clearing her voice.
“No, it wasn’t. Obviously, there’s been a mistake. How much was it?” I question, curious to see if she’ll confess.
“No, I called the supplier, and they said the bill has been paid, and the man who called stated specifically that it was this bill, our bill, that he, whoever he is, that is to be paid,” she explains, and I wonder if Gramps sold something to free up money to pay off their debt. That’s the only explanation I can think of.
“Have you asked Gramps about it?” I ask, expecting her to realize that he may have paid off the invoice.
“Of course I did, and he’s just as puzzled as me about it,” she shrills hotly. It’s unclear whether she’s angry because Gramps won’t be honest with her or angry at the prospect of a stranger paying her bill. Proud women like my grandma hate being a charity case if that is indeed what has occurred here. Personally, I think that’s highly unlikely.
“Come on, Grandma, it must be Gramps. Who else would…it…be?” I catch the telling look on Austin’s face, who is listening in to the conversation as he flicks dirt off his bike tires. Our eyes meet, and I shoot him my evilest glare, not because he almost killed me on the bike but because I suspect he knows who paid our bill.
“Anyway, I spent some time with Bri this morning while Gramps ran the store, and he’s there now,” Grandma explains as I drag my stare away from the man before me. “Did you say there was a shooting at Dante’s?”
“Yeah, but it’s probably random,” I lie, so I don’t worry her. “No one was hurt, but Boss is annoyed that the front window must be replaced. Anyway, I”d better go. I’ll see you later at home.”
“I don’t know what the world is coming to,” she exhales heavily, and I can feel her pain.
“Me neither,” I say quietly, watching Austin avoid my eye.
“Okay, love, take care,” she says warmly, but her voice becomes distant down the line.
“See you soon,” I end the call and address Austin. “Guilty as sin.”
“Dunno what you’re talking about,” he grunts, acting innocent, then swiftly changes the subject. “We’re leaving. Put your helmet back on.”
“Not until you tell me if you paid my grandparents’ invoice?” I stand firm, refusing to budge.
“Why would I do that for? And how would I access the invoice in the first place?” He places his helmet back on and watches me expectantly. “Are you getting on?”
I ponder his comment before arguing, “You were in our house a few days ago when you gave us the wildflowers. Maybe you saw the invoice then.”
“Fine, I’m leaving without you, and you can walk home,” he grumbles through his helmet before starting his motorbike and settling into the seat.
“I’m coming,” I panic as he’s about to ride away without me. I quickly grab my helmet, remove my glasses, slot the helmet over my head, and climb behind the sullen, lying, suspiciously generous evil twin.