2. Gun To Your Head
GUN TO YOUR HEAD
Alejandro
“Choose quickly,” Li says. “Only one of them is leaving this bridge alive.”
Dahlia takes a steadying breath. “I—”
“And don’t be noble either because I’ll lose my patience and kill everyone instead.
” He glances over his shoulder. “The Prince of Manhattan is rolled up in a ball over there which means he has at most another five minutes before he bleeds out. Less if he isn’t applying pressure.
Hey Rian? Are you applying pressure over there? ”
Maniacal laughter fills the air as Li finds humor in his own twisted joke. Dahlia slowly closes her eyes and a single tear rolls down her frostbitten cheek.
“Or I can just kill this one. We never really got along. Rian played favorites in college and I felt thwarted by my only friend.” He laments. “Isn’t that right Narvaez?”
My options are nonexistent. I’m unarmed and even if I wasn’t, Li has a gun to Dahlia’s head.
There’s nowhere to go, no ace up my sleeve.
And Li’s bleeding out of his right eye which means that Dahlia already played whatever hand she had and lost. There’s Lyss who’s still hiding down by the base of the bridge but the last thing I want is to put her in the line of fire.
She could serve as a distraction but to what end? Li has us cornered.
“The melodrama isn’t lost on me,” I remark.
He lets out a wicked laugh. Then as if remembering where he is, knocks his gun against the side of Dahlia’s head. “Hello? Anyone up there?”
She grinds her teeth.
“It really shouldn’t be that hard. Rian or Alejandro? Alejandro or Rian?” He caresses the trigger with his finger. “Or I could just kill all of you?”
I’ve never seen Li so unhinged. He’s on the brink of insanity.
He gasps like a thought just occurred to him. “You know what? I’ll just choose for you.”
“Don’t!” She exclaims.
He turns and aims his gun. “Oh Rian?”
“Li, don’t!”
Li twists the hand gripping her scalp and thrusts her across the bridge. She slips across snow and ice and lands on her knees.
“Actually,” he smiles. “I changed my mind.”
And then he aims his gun at me.
I hear the explosion but I don’t feel the bullet. This isn’t my first time facing death and seeing as how I’m still on my feet, it won’t be the last. There’s no fear or loss of consciousness but confusion settles in. It all happens so quickly.
Dahlia sprints forward. The gun goes up and fires into the air. By the time I realize what’s happening, Li and Dahlia are in a struggle over the gun and I’m running across the bridge so fast that when I start sliding across ice, I don’t stop.
The gun goes off again. A patch of black ice sends me crashing to the ground.
Dahlia manages to push Li off her and empties the rest of the magazine his chest. Five resounding bullets, each one piercing his chest with such incredible force it sends him flying several steps backward.
She saves the last bullet for his left eye. Li topples over the edge of the bridge and falls into the icy depths below.
This bridge feels…endless. I run and run and run yet somehow, the distance between us doesn’t get any smaller.
She loosens her grip on the gun and lets it fall to the ground. When she turns to face me it’s with an emotion I can’t name.
“Alex…” My name is a whisper on her lips.
“Dahlia?” The closer I get, the more unsteady I feel.
She takes a step toward me and only then do I see the hand she has pressed into her side. Her knees give out almost immediately and I get there just in time to catch her fall.
“Dahlia? Dahlia, ?qué tienes? ?Qué te pasa?”
A shaky breath leaves her lips and she extends her hand to me; it’s covered in blood. “Alex?”
“Oh my God…oh my God,” I press my hand into her side. “Alyssa? Alyssa!”
“Alejandro?” Her voice echoes across the park. “I heard gunshots…I wasn’t sure if it was safe—”
“Get up here now! Call an ambulance!” I yell. “Jesus Christ.”
Dahlia shifts in my grasp. “Alex, listen—”
“No pasó nada, no pasó nada,” I yank the scarf off my throat and use it to stop the bleeding. “You’re fine, all right, you’re going to be fine.”
Footsteps come up behind me and a high-pitched scream fills the darkness. “Oh my God, Dahlia!”
Lyss bends down but I wave her away. “Help Rian! Go!”
Lyss sobs as she dials 911 and blurts a mess of incoherent instructions at the operator. She kneels beside Rian and helps him into an upright position where she cradles him against her chest.
I can’t think…I can’t think. My brain is shutting down.
What do I do, what do I do, what do I do.
“Just…just hold on, okay? Lyss is calling an ambulance and—”
“Guys!”
I look up and across the pond, Damiano is waving us down. He runs to meet us and comes up on Rian’s side of the bridge with a pair of security guards close behind.
“Alejandro,” Dahlia reaches up and grabs my face. “Listen.”
Her breaths are shallow and shaky. The cold may be slowing down the blood loss but God only knows how many hours she’s been out here. Her pupils are dilated and her hands are trembling. All the color has left her face and lips.
“If something happens to me, t-t-take care of Lyss…and Karina…” she struggles to finish her sentence. “Please.”
“It’s just a bullet wound, Dee, I’ve survived plenty of them. Look, I bet I can find an exit wound—”
“No. Promise.” She smacks my hand away but I continue applying pressure on the wound. My scarf is already soaked through with blood.
Her head lulls to the side and I reposition her so she’s resting against my shoulder. I jolt her awake. “Keep your eyes open, okay? Listen to the sound of my voice. You’re going to be fine. Lyss called an ambulance. Everyone is going to be all right.”
She looks up at me with half hooded eyes. “You sound…so calm…”
“I am calm. You came out of a burning building alive. You’ll survive this.”
“You carried me out of a burning building.”
“And I’ll carry you all the way to the hospital too.” I move my shoulder to keep her head in place. “Stay awake. Don’t fall asleep.”
“You didn’t promise.”
“I promise. Nothing is going to happen to you but I promise anyway.”
She closes her eyes. “Don’t be angry with me.”
Voices, so many voices…Damiano, Lyss, maybe Rian too. The guards we brought with us and the distant wailing of police sirens. All the sounds mix together inside my head and conjure up memories I’ve spent a lifetime trying to suppress but they all bubble up to the surface anyway.
The street fair with Abuelo.
The day my father died.
The night Dahlia got trapped by the fire.
“I’m not angry with you, why would I be angry with you?” Gently, I nudge her head again. “Mi amor, despierta. Stay awake.”
“I love you, don’t be angry with me. I love you…”
This time when her eyes close, they do not open again.
* * *
If I never step foot in another hospital again, it’ll be too soon.
“Dahlia will never forgive you for this.” Lyss says. “She hates him.”
It takes every last ounce of self-control not to pounce on her. “What other choice do I have?”
“Lie!” She bolts to her feet. Eyes drowning in tears, her sorrow makes her nonetheless ferocious when fighting in defense of her friend. “Tell the doctors you’re her husband. Come up with something, anything, but don’t call him. You can’t.”
There’s a water fountain nearby. It’s leaking water.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Damiano bursts through the waiting room doors and says, “Rian just got out of surgery.”
Lyss cries out in relief and covers her mouth with both hands.
“He nicked an artery but he’s fine. The doctors stitched him up and gave him a blood transfusion.” He turns to me, still out of breath. “Well? How’s Dahlia?”
The doors swing open again. A white man in a long black coat lifts a police badge and says, “Detective Wilson. We’re here for the Central Park shoot-out victims.”
Sasha Antonov materializes from those same hospital doors, likely having just come from seeing his brother.
Despite the animosity between them, he was the first family member to show up when we called.
He extends his hand to the detective and says, “Rian O’Neil is my brother.
I’m the one who can answer all your questions. ”
I hadn’t noticed it before but there’s an old clock above those doors. It’s an hour behind and makes the most incessant ticking sound.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
More noise. Lyss spins in a full circle in search of her coat. “Shit, that’s my phone.”
Beep. Beep. Beep.
All the sounds mix together in my head.
Drip. Tick. Beep.
Drip. Tick. Beep.
Drip. Tick. Beep.
And I’m right there in that hospital room after the fire all over again.
“Hey,” Damiano touches my shoulder. “Are you all right?”
I clench and unclench my fists. The insides of my palms burn. “I’m fine. I have a call to make.”
“Don’t bother.” Lyss extends her phone. “Karina got your message. They’re on their way.”
I nod. “Good. Fine. Let me know when they get here.”
“Alex—”
“I’m going to take a walk.”
I leave before anyone can stop me but I don’t think they care enough to try. I’m glad they don’t.
There are no private corners in hospitals.
Maybe the chapel but what if someone is praying?
Or an empty room but I run the risk of a staff member walking in on me.
Finding no more suitable alternative, I settle on an abandoned staircase in a deserted area of the floor near two storage rooms and a bathroom.
I sink to the floor and pull out my phone from my back pocket. My hands are trembling so it takes several attempts to dial Diego’s number. He answers on the second ring.
“You’re up late,” my brother says. “Another wild night at the—”
Drip. Tick. Beep.
Drip. Tick. Beep.
“What did you call it?” I ask, raking my fingers through my hair. “What happens to me?”
“What are you talking about?”
“When I get overwhelmed and my heart starts beating out of my chest? And everything just starts shutting down.”
“Alex—”
“I keep focusing on these sounds. Drip, tick, beep, drip, tick, beep, drip tick, beep. Over and over and over again. Like when Dahlia was in the hospital after the fire. Her room had a leaky sink and a messed-up clock and the defibrillator kept making a strange sound. They all started mixing together in my head and I couldn’t focus on anything else. ”
The other end remains silent.
“I’m in a hospital again. The water fountain was leaking, their clock was an hour ahead because no one changed it for daylight savings, and Lyss’s phone kept beeping.
And I heard those sounds again. Drip, tick, beep, drip, tick, beep.
” I say. “I feel so dizzy. And numb. I’m aching all over, my chest hurts, and I can’t breathe. ”
My brother says nothing.
“Maldita sea, Diego. What the fuck is it called!”
“A panic attack, Alex,” he replies softly. “It’s called a panic attack.”
“Yes. Well…that.”
“Why are you in the hospital?”
“I wish I could cry. Or scream. I just want to break something and yell until a beast crawls out of me. Then at least I’ll know I’ll have exercised it all out of my body.” I lean my head against the wall. “Why don’t men cry? I want to. So badly. But every time I try something stops me.”
“Alejandro,” he says. “Why are you are in the hospital?”
There’s no simple way of explaining this so I tell him everything all at once. By the time I’m done, I can hear movement on the other end of the line and a little gasp followed by my brother’s shushing. Lettie must be in the room.
“They’ve stabilized her for now but they need to operate immediately…” I trail off. “The bullet hit too close to her kidney and shattered into fragments. She already had a blood transfusion and will likely need another.”
“Oh Alex…” Lettie cries softly.
“You know, another centimeter and it would’ve killed her. Just a centimeter…”
Diego speaks next. “When are they going to operate?”
“Someone needs to authorize it. A health proxy or closest blood relative.” Tension builds between my temples as a migraine bursts to life inside my skull. “Lyss wanted me to lie and say we were married so I could make medical decisions on Dahlia’s behalf.”
“Why didn’t you?” Lettie asks.
“Because…it felt wrong.” A beat passes before I continue. “However, if she makes it out of this alive, I don’t think she’ll ever speak to me again.”
“What?” Diego says. “Why?”
“Because, I had to get a hold of the one person she probably hates more than me or even Karina.”
“Who?”
“Her father.”