19. Benji
19
BENJI
T his is irrational, probably not the right move, but I can’t sit around and let Cassie die. My aim is to get her out of here first and foremost. I’m a lot less worried about my surviving it. I just need her to live. It’s imperative, and not just because of my job but because I really might be head over heels in love with her. I think I spoke the truth, however crazy it was.
“Right.” I take Cassie’s hand in mine. “It’s time to go. I need to fight, so I might not be able to hold onto you all the time. So, Cassie, I really need you to focus on getting out of here. I need to know that you’re going to be safe. That’s most important.”
“But what about you?” she begs. “I don’t want to get out without you. I need you with me no matter what.”
Okay, so Cassie isn’t quite as prepared for me to die as I am, so I’m going to have to comfort her. “But if you get out, then you can get us help.” I hand her my phone. “You can call whoever you want and get someone to save us. You’ll be the eyes outside.”
“Right, yes.” She presses her lips tightly together in a thin, defiant line. “I can get out to save you, to save us.”
I give her one last tiny kiss before it’s time for me to slam the motel room door open. Once I do that, the protection surrounding us is gone and it’s time for action. But I’m giving Cassie a chance, and that’s all I care about. Her life.
Immediately, I slip my hand from Cassie’s and I fight. I jump on the man outside the door and attack. With the element of surprise on my side, he succumbs quickly, dropping his gun hard as he hits the floor. Unfortunately, the chaos has made it to our hallway, so it isn’t easy for me to locate it. I have to dive to the floor, barely missing kicking feet as I go, to wrap my fingers around it. With the cold metal in my hands, a brand-new confidence flows through me. We can do this after all.
“Cassie?” I call out, because all of a sudden, I can no longer see her. Holy fuck. “Cassie, where are you?”
It’s pretty dumb of me to call out her name, I know that much, because she’s the main target, but I need to find her. I can’t die knowing that she hasn’t gotten out. I won’t be able to hack that much. I’ve to see her escaping to know that it’s all been worthwhile. I yell her name out as I run, shoving people out my way as I go. Which way has she gone? Where’s she headed? How the fuck did she manage to escape without my seeing her? Oh, my God, this just keeps getting worse and worse.
“Cassie?” I spot a flock of red hair. I don’t know if it definitely belongs to her, but it’s the first clue I’ve had. “Cassie, wait up.”
Someone grabs me. I shake them off hard, but I keep getting pulled back. Someone’s hitting me as well, attacking me from every angle, during which time the flames of hair vanish from sight. I fucking lose my mind. A red-hot anger bubbles through me. I become like a goddamn animal, primal and flooded with rage as I fight back. These assholes keep trying their hardest to keep me away from Cassie, and it’s making me insane. I love her… I love her, and they won’t win. I won’t have it.
“Fuck you,” I scream in a guttural manner at the next guy I knock out. “Fuck the lot of you. You’re all bullshit.”
I don’t know if I’m going to get out of this fight. It’s starting to feel a bit like I won’t. There are too many people, too many attacks. I don’t even think this is all just the gang. Maybe someone started fighting back because they didn’t want to die and it erupted. It exploded like freaking fireworks and the wildfire just caught on. Now, no one might survive it.
Bang, bang! The chaos halts as rapidly as it began. Everyone falls apart as the gunshots ring out. Bang, bang, bang.
Blood splatters, I don’t know who’s been shot, but as long as it isn’t me, I’ll take it. Since I don’t know who’s shooting and who they’re aiming at, I duck down instantly. I cover my head and hold onto the gun tightly in case I need to defend myself. My breaths are sharp and ragged, my heart racing and pounding like crazy, but my nerves are on fire. I’m sharp and crazy.
“Get up!” someone yells. “You’re under arrest. Anyone does anything stupid and they’ll end up getting shot. Don’t fuck up.”
Cops ? I think desperately to myself. Holy shit, is this for real? Are the police here at last? Was this… Max?
Hope blooms like a freaking flower. I can’t stop it from growing with every single second. My eyes dart upward, and I try to find out who the voice belongs to. I need to know if this is really linked to the police or something else. Even without the chaos, it’s hard to see anything. It’s challenging to see anything in particular. This is still as much of a mess as before.
And then the yelling begins. People are hit and knocked to the ground, people argue, and the fighting kicks off again, which means it’s time for me to get the hell out of here. I can’t stick around even if it is the police because I need to find Cassie. The urge to lay my eyes upon her and to see that she’s doing just fine is still overwhelming, and this might be my chance…
“Hey, buddy, you aren’t going anywhere.” Someone lifts me from the floor and grabs my hands behind my back. “You’re under arrest. Don’t think you’re getting away with this. This place is absolutely surrounded. Make it easy on yourself.”
I’m not fighting. I know that it’s better not to fight back with the cops. That’s how you end up Tasered and shot. I let them wrap handcuffs around my hands, just glad that I have some backup on my side this time around. As soon as they realize that I’m one of the good guys, this will be okay. At least the gang won’t be able to do anything to Cassie now.
“I’m not fighting back,” I gasp out, allowing the gun to drop to the floor. “I’m okay, I’m coming with you…”
I’m dragged roughly, being treated like a criminal even if I’m not one, which is pretty messed up, but the cops probably don’t know what’s going on, so they have to treat everyone the same. I go willingly until I’m dragged outside the building and slammed against the police car hard until my head hits the top of it and a dizziness overcomes me. God, that was agony. Have I not suffered enough pain today? Do I really need to go through more? I haven’t resisted arrest or anything.
“Benji, oh, my God, Benji!” I try to turn as I finally hear Cassie calling out my name, but the cops won’t let me. They grab my head and keep it fixed forward as if I might flip out and do something crazy. “No, no, no, Benji isn’t one of them. Benji isn’t one of the bad guys. Benji was helping me. You don’t need to arrest him. He’s with me. Please, let him go. No, don’t do this. Let him go. I need to check in on him. I need to know that he’s okay. Stop this, why won’t you let me get to Benji?”
“Everyone who was a part of this has to be taken to the station, Miss,” one of the cops tells her in a calm tone of voice, much kinder than any of them spoke to me. “Including you. Even if he wasn’t a part of this, we need to get all the info.”
“But can’t you just let him ride with me?” Cassie begs. “I don’t think he needs to be in handcuffs.”
“Miss, just go and do what you’ve been told to do and let us do our jobs. Right now, you’re making this last longer, and this is a nightmare enough. Everything can be organized down at the station. Miss, please step back.”
I’m shoved into the back of a police car, which is finally the moment that I can look Cassie in the eyes and see how she’s doing. She doesn’t look banged up and hurt, which is good, I couldn’t be happier about that, but there’s a pain in her eyes. We don’t like the idea of being separated, especially after everything that we’ve been through. But at least this is the beginning of the end of the drama. Once we get ourselves all sorted out, I can finally get her safe and home. At last.
“I love you,” she mouths to me with tears in her eyes, watching as the car pulls away. “I love you, Benji. I love you.”
I want to mouth it back so she knows that there’s still something there between us, but I don’t get a chance. The car pulls away and takes me out of her sight before I can. Instead, I’m left stewing in my handcuffs, wondering how long it will be before I can see her again. This sensation of being taken from her is killing me. I can’t protect her when I’m nowhere near her.
The only way I’m going to get to see her again is if I convince the cops that I wasn’t a part of the fighting in a bad way. As long as I can make them see that I was there to protect Cassie the whole time, then this will be fine. As long as they understand why I had to kill the people I did. I don’t want the deaths of Alex or the gang members to come back on me in a bad way…
Oh, God, it doesn’t look great, does it? My murdering people, whatever the reason for it. Especially since I don’t feel comfortable with any of it myself. The cops aren’t going to love that either, and it might go against me… urgh, who knows?
I huff loudly, the exhaustion still getting through me, and I lean my head back on the seat. My eyes slide closed, and I wonder if I could get in a moment of sleep while I’m here. It really does feel like I haven’t slept in forever. The weariness really is getting to me, and I could use some time to just relax, to get my head around all of this before I have to talk about it again.
Oh, God, I’m going to have to talk about this again. I’ll have to go through every damn detail of it with the police, which is going to be a fucking nightmare. I can barely even remember a lot of what happened, it’s all so blurry. And there are parts of it which I don’t know, such as the video she made, and there are parts that I can’t say as well. I can’t tell anyone that we slept together or that will feature far too much in the case. That doesn’t need to be a part of everything.
I’m sure that Cassie won’t tell the police either. That’s irrelevant to everything else. That’s just for me and her. A little secret that we will carry with us until… well, until we see one another once more. Then I have no idea what will happen.