Chapter 13 Cade #2
My mom wasn’t a lot of things, but she was my mom, and whatever she lacked, she made up for in love.
I think of that now, of all the times her love brought her through another beating. I don’t love Bunny, but I-I feel something, and it’s strong enough to pull me through.
Exhaling, I run my own nails across my scalp, digging deeper than my mom would have before picking myself up. The black spots are once again stars, and the worst part of my dizziness has subsided. It’s not a mission to walk again, but my wounds don’t leave me without a challenge.
“Bunny?” I call out, but no one responds. The hope I felt in finding her diminishes with every step. Thirty-five cells down and nothing, but on number thirty-six, I finally feel someone looking back at me.
Standing still at the bars, I peer through the dark, trying to make out her delicate features.
Unable to make out anything in the pitch blackness, I take the keyring from my waistband and struggle to fit the right one inside.
When I hear the click of the lock unlatching, I swing the gate open, praying to meet her stare.
Instead of soft doe eyes and a grateful smile, a hand raises, a rock held tightly in a trembling fist. That’s how I know it’s her.
“Don’t,” I exhale, out of breath from exhaustion and relief. “Fucking. Do. It.” I stumble into her just as quickly as she rushes into me, fitting against her so perfectly.
Dancing her fingertips across every inch of exposed flesh, Bunny asks with a choking breath, “How did you get in here? How-how… Are you okay? What’s going on?” One question blurred into the next, each unfinished but full of confusion, sorrow, and worry.
Weakly, I grab ahold of her wrist, counting each beat of her racing heart. They bring me comfort enough for me to lean on her a bit. Funny, I’ve never trusted anyone enough to do that with.
“How are you here?”
Coughing, I clear my throat of the congealed mound of phlegm and blood caught in my esophagus, trying not to let her feel my shivers while she explores my body. “It was easy when there were just two of 'em.” Three, technically, but one was asleep, so he doesn’t really count.
Anyway, they don’t matter. She does. The wounds on her neck, face, and chest do.
I glare through the darkness, ignoring her question, “Cade, what are you doing?” searching for them all.
There’s one particularly brutal lesion on her collarbone, freshly scabbed, but still, there’s that puffiness surrounding it.
I shouldn’t, but I need to touch her, to replace whatever monster did this. “Never again,” I vow, biting off the tip of my tongue. “I’ll never let you bleed again.” Staring into her swollen, red eyes, I implore her to see it, to feel my words as strongly as I do.
Trust me, I want to scream, but I reach for the gun instead. “Here,” offering her protection instead. “See someone, just aim and shoot.” When it’s secure in her hands, I turn toward the exit, pulling her out with me.
“What are you doing, Cade?” Bunny asks in a harsh whisper, peeking around my shoulder while I glare through the shadows. I can feel her watching me as I study the space before me, but there’s no time to fill her in. I don’t know how far behind me they are.
“Clara?” I call, putting us at risk, “Clara!”
“She’s right here,” Bunny spits, poking me in the shoulder blade to shut me up. “She’s next to me.”
Expertly, she leads me through the dark into the next cell over, taking control while still being in tune with the sounds that echo all around us.
Her head whips around when a noise clanks particularly close, nervous twitching in her fingers.
I move as quickly as possible, fighting and cursing beneath my breath when the key gets stuck in the lock.
“Clara?”
Silence.
“Is she here?” I ask, struggling to remove the twisted key.
“I—” Bunny stops, uncertainty lacing her tone.
That doubt feeds the fear coursing through my veins, making me swell with unbridled terror. “Bunny!” I snap, “Is she here?!”
“I don’t know!” she hisses in return, scorching my back with venom. “I was brought here after you jumped the ring. I didn’t see her! I-I haven’t seen her since yesterday.”
Panting through the anxiety wrapping around my chest, I breathe, “Fuck,” knowing that my patience and time are running out.
Bunny all but confirms that when she whispers, “Cade.”
“I know.” Fuck, I know! I know! I’m—there’s no time. I need time. I need time. Please, God. Fuck! Give me time.
When the lock finally flips, I throw the cage door open, rushing inside the pitch-black holding. “Clara?” I call in a rushed panic, racing toward the slumped, lifeless figure in the corner. Bunny is right by my side, prodding her gently. “Clara? Clara?”
“Hm.” The pain in her voice is stronger than it was when I saw her earlier. It’s guttural and deep.
I can see the pieces of her throat spewing from her lips as she turns to fall on her side, bile puddling beside her. I dive in after her, losing my footing while saving her head from colliding with the stone floor.
“Fuck,” I bite out, every wound coming to life, “help me.”
Bunny rushes around us and takes hold of Clara’s other arm, doing her best to keep us both off the ground.
I can taste the adrenaline pumping through my veins when the cage door swings all the way open.
It’s a sign from God, my father would say, just like when we drove by a billboard honoring whiskey, “It’s a sign, son. ”
Well, if it’s a fucking sign, then we take it. Together, holding on to one another for dear life, we dart out of the grisly cell with a limp in our step. Despite the pain we feel, the three of us run for our lives, with Bunny and me doing most of the work.
Bunny takes charge, though, a step before me, effortlessly gliding us through the darkened spaces. I don’t know how she does it or how it is that the guards noticed so late, but when we come to a stop, their shouts fade away behind; it’s before a screen-paneled door.
“Here,” Bunny says, throwing off Clara’s weight, “hold her.”
Readjusting, I throw her arms around my neck, pressing her frail, wheezing chest to mine.
I hold her head in my hands while Bunny clumsily enters a series of codes into the panel.
I trust her, so I focus all my attention on Clara, fighting back the tears in my eyes as I whisper against her forehead, “I’m so sorry, Clara.
I’m so fucking sorry I wasn’t there.” I’m unable to murmur anything else, needing all these regrets to seep into her blood-clogged pores.
“Please forgive me. Please tell me you forgive me, Clara...”
She doesn’t speak anything comprehensible, but her tears dance down my spine. I can feel her lips moving, struggling to get the words out, but her head shakes instead—a weak, exhausted nod of acceptance.
I don’t deny that my chest feels a little lighter, but that ease can only stretch so far with us stuck here. “Bunny.”
“I’m trying. I’m trying,” she utters through clenched teeth, pressing different variations of the same sequence of numbers. To me, it looks like bullshit, but the pinch between her brow is too serious to be anything other than real.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
“Fuck!” Bunny roars, looking ready to destroy the keypad with her clenched fist. The voices and heavy footfalls of the guards are closer now. Maybe just a corner away.
Shifting Clara to lie over one shoulder, I take the gun dangling by Bunny’s side and aim it toward the corner, where shadows loom larger and become darker with every passing second.
“Bun,” I grind out, counting the seconds until one turns the corner and spots us. It’s any second now. It’s any fucking second now.
I see him.
“Hey!” Our shots go off simultaneously, his ricocheting off the metal door, missing my head by centimeters. My shot is nowhere near as accurate, leaving a chip in the wall a foot away from his chest. My dad would kill me for that shot. I don’t think he’ll get that chance, though.
And then a green light flashes.
“Go!” I shout, shoving Bunny inside the moment the gap is large enough. I toss Clara on top of her, banging on the door-close button while shooting through the narrowing gap.
“6-7-4-7!” Bunny screams. “6-7-4-7!”
I input the code with haste, barely dodging the bullets that fly into the cold metal box. “Get into the corner! Make yourself as small as possible!”
Bunny curls herself into a ball, holding Clara tightly to her chest. She attempts to shield Clara’s head with her hands while her legs wrap around her to drag her in.
With every bullet that fires, I whip my head around, checking to make sure they’re unharmed. “Come on!” I roar, still punching the button. It’s too fucking slow! They’re going to get us.
The gap is slim, too much for anyone to squeeze through. Still, we continue to fire. I don’t know how I’m lucky enough to make it through unscathed, but a fiery, shrilling scream bounces off the metal walls.
“What happened? Where are you hurt?” I ask when the doors finally shut, falling to my knees beside Bunny. No response is needed. The bullet took a nice strip of flesh off her arm, but it’s nothing too serious. “It’s not that deep,” I attempt to reassure. “It’s not that deep!”
“But the blood…” she whispers almost soundlessly, eyes downcast.
In the midst of all the chaos, the only one who couldn’t protect herself was Clara. Bunny tried. I think we all did, but there’s a hole in her chest, anyway. The blood… It’s hers. It’s my Clara’s.
It’s my sister's.
“Clara?” I call, unable to stop the tears from falling.
Eyes barely open, Clara lies still against Bunny’s torso, her skin waxy and pale and covered in blood.
It leaks from the gaping hole in her heart, spilling across broken and mottled bones.
“Clara,” I mutter again, afraid of the emptiness I feel radiating from her. “Please, Clara… please talk to me.”
As delicately as I can, I peel her away from Bunny, holding her tightly against my chest. “Please, Clara. Please talk to me. Please. Please.”
Hiding the anguish pouring down my face in the crook of her neck, I sob against her skin, digging my nails into her skin, hoping to transfer some of my life into her.
When she remains utterly still, my heart breaks the rest of the way, splitting entirely in two.
I lost my friend.
I lost my family.
“I should have saved you. I promised! I promised I’d save you… I’m so sorry, Clara. God.” I cry, squeezing her to me, “I’m so fucking sorry…”
I’m still hunched over, crying into my Clara’s hair, when Bunny sets her hand on my shoulder. “Cade,” she whispers, sniffling back tears, “we have to go.”
“How am I supposed to leave you?” I cry softly against her cheek, shedding all I have left. But I know it’s time. I know that, despite how much I don’t want to, I have to leave her here. I have to leave without her.
“It’s all over now, Clara,” I whisper before I go. “I hope you’re smiling again… Can you please watch over me? I want to smile again, too.”
When I lay her down gently, I whisper, 'I love you,' because I do. I love Clara like the sister she became to me. “Without you, I wouldn’t have survived.” I send my thanks to the sky above, because she believed in God and she wanted to be in heaven, even if Kassidy told her they didn’t belong.
So, whatever the truth may be, I hope she got what she wanted. I hope she’s resting now.
Numb, I stand and back away, giving Bunny her time before the elevator comes to a stop. “Be ready.”
Nodding, Bunny drops to her knees, whispering words I can’t hear into Clara’s ear.
When she’s finished, Bunny softly closes Clara’s lids, letting her rest completely.
“You’re safe now.” Words that mirror my own.
Clara was always kind. I knew that from the beginning, but seeing the agony pouring down Bunny’s face, I knew she wasn’t just family to me.
It doesn’t matter that their friendship was cut short.
Bunny loved her too.
Once the doors have parted, we hurry out, but we look back together, one final time.
Bye, Clara.
It won’t be the same out there without you.