Chapter 8 Megan #2
“Did you always want to be a police officer?”
She smiles, but it’s still lost somewhere in the memories of the terrible things she has witnessed. “No, I wanted to be a ballerina when I was five. Then my mom introduced me to Sister Act, and I wanted to be a nun for a while.”
I chuckle softly and sip my coffee.
“Then, aged eight, I wanted to be a singer. I blame Hannah Montana.” At my frown, she adds, “Hannah Montana? Please tell me you know what I’m talking about.”
I shake my head.
“Jeez, Meggie, you really haven’t lived.”
She grows pensive then, and we cradle our coffee cups in our hands.
“I saw someone get murdered when I was ten years old,” she says eventually. “Shot straight through the head.”
Demi makes a gun shape with her hand and presses two fingers against her temple. She’s miming an execution-style killing, and I shiver. She witnessed that?
“Violence happened. No one tried to tell me that it wasn’t normal.
My mom never sat me down and said, ‘You deserve better, Demi. Break the cycle. It doesn’t need to be this way.
’ Because in our world, it did need to be that way.
Kill or be killed. So instead of ballet class, I had kickboxing lessons.
I learned how to use a firearm. And I paid attention. ”
I try to picture her as a child with a gun in her hand, and the image sends another wave of nausea rippling through me. I breathe deeply and wait for it to subside.
“And the whole time, I was thinking that violence existed, but it didn’t mean I had to accept it. I could do something about it. I could make a difference. So…” She shrugs. “Here I am.”
“What did your family think of you joining the NYPD?”
Her smile is wide. She waves her arms theatrically when she speaks in a low voice. “What are you thinking, Demi? Have you lost the fucking mind? People like us, we don’t make good cops.”
I laugh. “While you were out there proving your family wrong, I was baking cakes.”
We relocate to the living room and talk about easy stuff, movies and books and high school crushes.
“I bet everyone crushed on Gio and Enzo in high school.” Demi rolls her eyes comically.
“Do you think they even noticed?”
“Gio?” She tilts her head from side to side. “Probably not. Enzo, a hundred fucking percent. It’s a wonder the guy’s ego allows him to get through doorways.”
We both laugh as the cabin door opens, and Gio enters.
He stops on the threshold and watches us giggling like teenagers. “Should I have knocked before I came in?” He smiles, but the heavy dark circles under his eyes, and the frown lines creasing his forehead are unsettling.
I get up and limp towards him, trying not to grimace each time pain jolts through my body.
“You look tired.” I reach up to stroke his face, and he covers my hand with his, nuzzling it against his cheek. “Didn’t you sleep?”
“I’m fine.” He kisses me on the lips. A quick gentle peck like friends meeting up for a coffee and a blueberry muffin in Starbucks.
“Have you eaten, Gio?” I glance at Demi in the living room. “Can I make you something? We had breakfast earlier, but I can—”
“You don’t need to worry about me, Meggie. I only came to check that you’re alright.”
“You’re not staying?” I sound needy, like a teenager unsure how to handle her first boyfriend, but it’s too late to inject some nonchalance into my voice. “Can I help?” Nope. Even this sounds fucking clingy.
He folds me into his arms, and I wonder briefly if he is exchanging mouthed words and loaded glances with Demi over my head.
“You can help by staying safe and healing.” He releases me and cups my face in his hands. “Everything is under control.”
My pulse races. “Have you found Amber?” But I see it in his eyes: nothing has changed since the middle of the night.
The crushing weight of this whole horrible situation weakens my legs, and Gio holds me up to stop me from collapsing into a messy heap on the floor.
“We’re getting closer, fiore. He can’t hide her forever.”
I don’t tell him that this is what worries me. He can’t hide her forever because forever will be too late.
He leaves again to return to the war-room cabin, and this time I know that something has passed between him and Demi.
We go through the motions of a regular day, the two of us, drinking coffee, snacking on potato chips and chocolate, the conversation hovering on the periphery of what’s going on inside the ‘war room’ and looking outward instead.
Any similarities between Demi and myself when we first met were superficial.
It’s blatantly apparent that our lives, our backgrounds, and our upbringings, are worlds apart, but as morning bleeds into afternoon, and afternoon creeps towards evening, I find myself thinking that we could be friends. Close friends.
I miss Nikki. I miss telling her everything: my fears and anxieties, my hopes and dreams, my frustration at not being able to do more for Amber.
I understand that, once we have found Amber and this is all over, I will have to unpack my grief over losing my best friend, but until then, I will continue to think of her in present tense.
Demi prepares a casserole for our evening meal, and while it cooks in the oven, we naturally gravitate outside to catch the last of the day’s sunshine before it slips silently behind the horizon.
We sit on reclining chairs outside the front of the cabin where we have a picture-postcard view of Stowe down below, the mountains behind us, and the war-room cabin a short distance away.
It feels strange knowing that Gio is in there.
He feels closed off to me, as though there is an invisible barrier separating us, one that he is determined I will not be able to break down.
What is he doing?
Is he planning his retaliation against his brother-in-law whilst searching for his sister?
Is he giving Enzo orders to strengthen the security around his business so that Mario can’t touch him?
Or is he solely focused on finding The Fish and praying that he will lead us to Amber?
How thin can one man stretch himself before he snaps?
He looked tired earlier. Thinner. More disheveled than I’ve seen him look before. This situation is grinding him down too, and I hope he doesn’t shut me out for too long. Has he forgotten that we’re in this together?
I don’t even know if he will come back to me tonight.
I’m staring at the other cabin, willing the door to open and for Gio to step outside, flash his dazzling smile my way, and tell me that they have a strategy in place, when a black van winds its way up the slope towards us.
The windows are blacked out. I haven’t seen the vehicle before, and this coupled with the faceless driver makes goosebumps pop on my arms and legs.
Demi watches the vehicle with narrowed eyes, her body alert. I don’t know if she is armed, but her right hand instinctively slides towards the waistband of her jeans beneath her oversized sweater.
She stands up as the vehicle approaches the cabin containing the war room. “Inside, Meggie.”
The van stops.
But I’m frozen in my seat, my limbs heavy, my brain scrambling around frantically trying to figure out what’s going on.
“Now, Meggie!” Demi’s voice snaps me back to reality.
She shields me with her body while I drag myself onto my feet, moving in slow motion, eyes fixed firmly on the vehicle’s windshield.
It seems unnatural to see nothing but the glare of the fading sunlight on the glass like the vehicle is being driven by something otherworldly.
Like shit is about to go down right in front of our eyes while we’re forced to watch it.
A pistol appears in Demi’s hand. She aims it at the driver’s door, clutching it in front of her chest with both hands, herding me backwards like a sheepdog moving its flock.
My legs work on muscle memory. I stumble backwards, arms flailing to keep my balance as my heel catches on a protruding rock, and I somehow manage to stay upright. I’m transfixed. Gio didn’t mention a visitor, and Demi clearly wasn’t expecting the new arrival either.
But nothing could prepare me for what happens next. Two men dressed all in black jump out of the front of the van almost before it has rolled to a stop and run around to the back, yanking open the doors and dragging someone out.
A man.
He is blindfolded and gagged, his wrists and ankles bound with thick rope coils. He struggles to free himself as the two guards drag him by his arms across the ground towards the other cabin, his shoes scraping the ground. The door opens as if the occupants were awaiting their arrival eagerly.
The captive is hauled towards the entrance despite his best efforts to dig his heels into the ground and against the door frame.
If he wasn’t gagged, it’s obvious that he would be yelling profanities at his captors, but he disappears inside while I watch, spellbound, from the doorway, Demi trying, and failing, to block my view.
The door closes behind them, swallowing them whole, the only reminder that they were ever here, the blacked-out van, rear doors still wide open.