Chapter 40
CHAPTER
FORTY
Erica
The shot rings out of nowhere, and I bolt upright in bed. Holy shit, what was that?
I listen, straining to hear, but there’s no sound.
I remember what Brew told me earlier.
I keep a piece in the drawer next to the bed. I reach for it in the dark, and when I feel the cool metal in my hand, I shudder. I had one shooting lesson, and that was ages ago. It was also the first time Brew and I had sex, but that’s beside the point.
Was I just dreaming it, or did a gun really fire?
I move quickly across the room, opening the door, my heart hammering in my chest as I head toward Olive’s room. A hand snakes out, grabbing me from behind, and I yelp.
“Shhh!” Bronco whispers. “It’s me.”
“Holy shit,” I whisper back. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Someone’s downstairs. Stay up here with Amber.”
“Olive.”
“Go check on her.”
“Bronco—”
“No buts. Go!”
I scoot my butt towards Olive’s room as I watch Bronco disappear toward the stairs, his gun raised.
“Olive?” I whisper, but when I blink, I see her bedspread turned back, and she’s not in the bed.
My heart thunders in my chest.
I dart out of the room and over to the third bedroom, Amber is in the doorway.
“Olive?” I barely get the words out. “Is she with you?”
“No,” Amber says. “Oh, shit, Erica.”
“I’m going down there.” I turn, but she hauls me back.
“Bronco will deal with it. Just stay up here until it’s safe.”
“It’s my child! A gun went off!” I whisper-shout.
“Nobody knows about this place. I’m sure it’s nothing.” I know she’s trying to be positive, but it’s making me nervous. She has that uncertain look in her eyes where she’s trying to be strong, but her nerves are giving out.
“A gun went off,” I repeat. “I’m going down there.”
“You’ll get yourself killed!” she whisper-shouts. “If you’re going down, so am I.”
We both stop when we hear Bronco’s voice. “Don’t do it. Drop the gun, or I swear to god I’ll fuckin’ shoot!”
My blood turns cold as I don’t even think. I just move. My legs feel like jelly and steel at the same time. It feels like I’m running in slow motion, but when I hit the landing and slide, I grip the gun, afraid to let it go. It’s my talisman right now.
“I want her!” A female voice screams. “Bring her down to me now, or Olive dies.”
Who in the world?
When I get to my feet and scramble to the stairs, Bronco still holds his gun over the bannister, pointing down at the floor. “Not gonna do that. Drop the gun. Now!”
“You think I’m joking?” She lets out a shrill laugh. “I’ve waited a long time for this, nobody is going to stop me.”
“Think about what you’re doin’,” Bronco says, his eyes flick to me, and he shakes his head.
“It’s okay,” I say, flicking off the safety before tucking the gun into the back of my pajama pants. It’s risky, but if I have to use it, I don’t have time to think about the safety. “I’m coming down.”
“No!” Bronco shouts, but it’s too late. I by-pass him on the stairs, my eyes landing on Jude; Steven’s other wife. The one Amber punched in the face all those years ago when we escaped.
I hold my hands in the air. “I’m unarmed,” I say. “Let Olive go, we both know you won’t hurt her, she’s a child.”
“Shut up!” Jude roars at me. She’s changed, but she’s also exactly how I remember her.
Angry. Hateful.
“I’ll come quietly,” I say, hearing Amber behind me on the stairs.
“Stop, or I’ll shoot,” Jude still has the gun pointed at my child.
Olive stares at me, her tear-stained face tugs at my heartstrings. Amber halts on the stairs as Bronco pulls her back behind him.
“No,” Amber cries. “Jude, why are you doing this?”
“You?” She sneers. “You betrayed your own brother! So you have no room to talk when you turned your back on him!”
“He was part of a trafficking organization with my fucking husband!” Amber roars. “I think I know what he was and what he wasn’t.”
“You don’t know him like I do,” she goes on. “You weren’t loyal to him in the face of all the uncertainty that followed. Steven is innocent, and because of your testimony the first time, you helped get him locked up for good.”
“It’s where he belongs,” I say calmly as I hover on the last step, my hands still in the air. “We both know that he’s not a good person. He did terrible things.”
She shakes her head, adamant in defending him. “Liar!”
“Jude, this isn’t you. You don’t want to do this.
You don’t want to hurt anybody. What Steven did to you, what he did to all of us, was wrong,” I go on.
“Deep down, you know that he never should have had another hearing. The lawyers are grappling with no case to go on, the whole thing was thrown out of court.”
“Yes, because of you!?” Her voice wobbles, and Olive closes her eyes. “After you left, Steven wasn’t the same. He loved you. We all lost something that day, and you just acted like none of us existed.”
I shake my head. “Even after everything you know?” I can’t even comprehend her words. “You’d still take his side? He was an abuser, Jude, nothing you can say will change that. Let Olive go, take me instead, she’s just a child.”
Jude trembles. I know deep down she doesn’t want to do this, but she’s in pain. She loved Steven. Blaming me won’t bring him back to her, but she clearly thinks hurting me might give her some power back.
“Please,” Olive begs. “Aunt Jude, please don’t do this.”
Her words shock me to my core. My baby. Anger boils up inside of me. “Jude.” I grit my teeth. “Let Olive go.”
“If I let her go, I’ve no leverage,” she maintains.
“Yes, you do, you have me.”
She nods to Bronco. “Get your friend to drop his gun.”
I look up to Bronco and nod. “Do as she says, Bronc. It’s alright.”
Bronco looks far from happy. Amber is at his side, with a look of worry and disbelief on her face as she watches on. I give her a sympathetic smile. He lowers his gun.
“Toss it onto the couch,” Jude says, motioning below Bronco. “Do it!”
Bronco complies, muttering profanities under his breath.
“There,” I say. “Now none of us are armed, let Olive go, she has nothing to do with this. She’s innocent and shouldn’t have any part in this.”
“Is that what you tell yourself?” She sneers. “To make you feel better at night?”
Jude has crazy eyes, and we still don’t know what happened outside, judging by the way no prospects have come running in, I dread to think of who took the bullet. I start to feel nauseous just thinking about it.
“I don’t tell myself anything. I moved on, you should too.”
“Shut up.”
“It’s me you want. You don’t want to be responsible for hurting a child. You’re many things, but you’re not that,” I say calmly. I just want Olive safe.
Jude takes a breath, it’s the first sign that she’s perhaps got a small amount of rational thinking left in her brain. She loosens her grip on Olive. “Anyone who pulls any funny business, Olive will be the first to suffer.”
“Nobody’s doing anything,” I stress, waving my hands in the air. “We’re at your mercy now.”
She shoves Olive away, pointing the gun toward me as I fold Olive into my arms, kissing her hair and face as she holds me tightly.
“Are you okay”? I whisper.
“Momm, I’m fine, what is Jude doing here?” Olive whispers.
“I don’t know. Go upstairs, don’t come down again until I come get you, understand?”
“Mom?” Olive starts to cry.
“Go!” I tell her. “It’s going to be fine, I promise.”
Olive clings to me as I try to break free. “Mom, no.”
“Please,” I beg. “Go to Amber, I’m going to be fine. I won’t let you down.”
“Move!” Jude shouts, making both of us jump. “Stay where I can see all of you.”
I shove Olive behind me as she runs up the stairs toward Amber’s waiting arms. Amber cradles her as I turn back to Jude. “Let’s talk this through,” I say. “You and me, just like we used to do.”
Jude waves the gun at me. “Don’t patronize me. I’m warning you. Steven was supposed to be out. We’re supposed to start our new life together, but all he wanted to talk about was seeing you and Olive. I’m the one who’s been here the entire time, not you. You ran away. You left the family—”
“Because deep down I knew it was all wrong,” I say.
“I didn’t want that life for Olive. When I saw what was going on with Vincent, I couldn’t let Olive go through that.
When I told Steven my concerns, he brushed them off like they were nothing.
I didn’t want my daughter to be a child bride to some old man.
You wouldn’t want that for your children. ”
“You don’t know anything about what I want,” she sniffles. “I loved our church. I loved everything Steven stood for, he’d never hurt anyone, not like Vincent. He was roped up in all of this.”
“That isn’t true,” I say softly. “And you know it. Steven went along with everything Vincent said and did. Everything. He knew what he was doing, and you need to accept that.”
She holds the gun at me, but even I can see it’s unsteady. “No.”
“Yes, Jude, hurting me or anyone else here won’t bring him back. He’s going away for good this time. You need to accept that.”
“Shut up!”
“You have to face the truth.” I step toward her.
“Don’t move!”
I spread my fingers wide. “I just want to help you.”
“No, you don’t. You want to ruin me, just like you did Steven.”
“That isn’t true. I just wanted out of that life. I couldn’t live like that anymore.”
“You broke him, do you know that?” she whispers. “He wasn’t the same when you took Olive.”
“I told you my reasons. I stand by them.”
“You have no conscience. You just abandoned your family. What kind of person does that make you?”
“It makes me smart. I’m a mother. I have to do what’s best for my child, and I will always do that. We were all sucked in by Steven, but he wasn’t a good person, Jude. Coming here tonight to hurt us won’t change that fact.”
“If you say one more word!”
“You’re not a bad person,” I go on. “But he brainwashed you, just as he did me and countless others.”
“No. We’re doing the Lord’s work—”
“They were involved in human trafficking.” I shake my head. “You can’t dispute that, no matter what you think happened, Steven was as much a master manipulator as Vincent was. I’m sorry, I really am, but you’re not going to hurt my friends or my family.”
“You don’t make the rules around here. Don’t come any closer.” She grips the gun with her other hand, she’s shaking like a leaf.
“Erica, be careful,” Bronco says. “Do as she says, back off.”
I lived with this woman for years. I know her. I know when she’s confident in doing something and when she’s not. She’s not going to do it.
“You won’t shoot me,” I say. “You’re not made like that.”
“Stop it!” She turns the gun, pointing at the wall as she shoots. The gun goes off, and I jump. “I will shoot you if you say one more word!”
“Put the gun down and let’s talk this through. You’re going to go to jail, is that what you want? For your kids to never see you again?”
She immediately starts to cry. If I didn’t despise her so much, I might even feel sorry for her. She’s a mess.
Knowing her tact isn’t working, she turns the gun and points it at her head. “It’ll be on you now.”
“No!” I shout. “Jude don’t.”
“You wanted this, didn’t you?” Tears stream down her face. “You wanted all of this?”
“No, I didn’t. I just wanted to live my life how I wanted,” I say truthfully.
Suddenly, there’s a commotion at the door and Jude turns the gun that way.
I don’t think — I act. I pull the gun from behind me, out of the waistband of my pj pants, and aim it at her.
She fires into the abyss, and before I know what I’m doing, I’m firing at her.
She drops the gun from her hand, and it skitters across the room as she drops to the floor.
Bronco leaps over the bannister, landing on the couch as he grabs his gun, as well as Jude’s, and aims his piece at the door.
“Erica!” Brew yells. “Holy fuckin’ shit, what the fuck?”
Relief floods through me when I hear his voice.
“Brew?” I cry out, my legs giving way.
Jude lies crumpled on the floor as I take in what just happened. I shot her. I may have killed her. Oh, my god.
Bronco gets to me as I crumble to the floor, then Brew bursts into the room with Haze on his trail, guns blazing. “Erica!” He runs toward me, and I stare up at him with tear-stained eyes.
“I’m okay,” I whisper.
“Olive? Where’s Olive?”
“She’s fine,” Bronco answers for me, pointing upstairs where Amber has shielded her eyes as she cradles her in her arms.
“It’s over,” I mutter as Brew cups my face in his hands. “It’s finally over.”