3. Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Chi
I sense Andy’s absence as soon as I open my eyes. There’s a familiar hand on my shoulder, but it’s too soft. I need harsh. I need him to push me down or hold me together to stop me from falling apart. He always seems to know exactly what to do. Or maybe it’s just him being here that I need.
My eyes roll to Mara’s anxious glance. I have a minute of clarity, in which I know that immediately screaming out the sobs clawing at my throat will scare the shit out of her and possibly make her feel terrible. I try to hold them in as my eyes fill with tears.
“Hey, Chica Chi. You okay, babe?” She swallows and her eyes falter. “Of course you’re not okay, sorry. That was stupid. I mean, um…” She licks her lips, and I can actually feel the anxiety ratcheting up a notch as I stay silent. “What can I do?”
“Nothing,” I try to say, although the entire word comes out as a whispered sob. “There’s… there’s nothing to do. I’m just… this is just the way I am now, I guess.” I start crying, trying to hold it back a little to ease her into the really bad stuff I feel coming hard and fast.
“Okay, come here, come here,” she says, putting her arms around me and pulling me up awkwardly. But it’s strangely comforting that someone would even put themselves through such awkward feelings in hopes that they could make me feel better. Unfortunately, I still feel my sobs building to a crescendo, and while I’m certain I’ve been louder than this, it didn’t feel so out-of-control any of the other times I did it.
A moment later, there is just the consuming grief, and I lose track of how loud I am or how much time is passing. But I feel Andy’s arms around me when he takes me from Mara, and it’s like a shot of calm, straight to my heart. I instantly take the deep breath I haven’t taken in what feels like hours, but has probably only been minutes, and sag against him, trying to calm down.
He’s whispering to me firmly, waiting for me to answer a question. I don’t know what he’s asked, which he figures out a moment later, and says the entire thing over again patiently as I tremble and sob quietly against his shoulder.
“Did you hear me?”
I hiccup loudly and shake my head.
He starts over again. “Oxy thinks there were two of them. Does that sound right?”
It occurs to me that I haven’t told Andy anything about what I know; I haven’t given him any information at all, in fact. It seems like a Herculean task to recount any of what happened, but I can at least nod into his shoulder as another wail racks my body.
“Good, baby. Good. The guards at the mansion were interrogated. There was a mole — a mid-level guard who had a group of men he was managing. He took advantage of that — gave them bad orders so that this shit could happen. Anyway, after some intense torture, he gave up enough so that Oxy could track the guys who did it down. They were contracted, like we thought, so we’ll have to find who they were working for.”
I’ve surprised myself by calming down considerably throughout this explanation, but I think I know why. The only thing I can fixate on right now, besides my father and Daiki’s death, are the people who did it and getting my revenge.
“I know you want to do it yourself. But we have a good shot if we strike immediately, and you’re in no shape to go running into that situation right now. So… can I kill them for you, Chi?”
He’s right — I really do want to do this myself. But I also know that I can barely pick myself up off the bed. I see no light at the end of this tunnel of suffering, but even if one day I get over this grief, I’ll still hate it if we don’t take the chance now and lose it for good.
“Okay,” I breathe out against his shoulder. Mara shoves some kind of food in my face, coaxing me to just eat it quickly and get it over with, so I do. I truly can’t taste anything, and my stomach is constantly in knots, but it goes down and stays down.
Andy explains that he will leave and be back as soon as he can, and Mara will stay with me. He says something about guards outside, but I don’t even care about safety right now. If someone tried to come in here, I’d tell them to put me out of my misery. I feel bad for Mara, though. She’s going to have a rough time, because there’s no way I can hold this in just to make her feel comfortable being around me. All I can do is hope she’s up to the task and then forget about caring altogether when another wave of horrifying sadness overcomes me.
I cry for a lifetime again, but then I finally feel the inevitable, welcome wave of exhaustion roll over me. I usually have bad dreams, but since being awake is a constant nightmare in itself, I’ll take the possibility of blessed nothingness every time.
I feel my chest slowing down, still pumping out the same sighing, tired cries that I’ve noticed come minutes before sleep. I can’t believe grief can take away so much of a person’s agency, but the process is like a machine I can’t turn off, taking over my body.
Just before I fall asleep again, I grab Andy’s hand, with the sudden overwhelming need to impart one last thought.
“Chee-chee? What is it?” he asks, tightening his grip as I tighten mine.
“Kill them slowly. Make them beg,” I whisper. “Make them pay.”