Chapter 21 Skipper #2
“Darling,” I snap. “If I leave here without you, I go back to being the lonely sailor out at sea trying to get away from myself. You saved us, Carmen. The least we can do is return the favor.”
Slow, intermittent clapping breaks us all out of our trance.
Conrad steps over his men’s dead bodies, working his way over to us. Of course there’s not a single drop of blood on him, nor his suit. Somehow, the linen shirt is still crisp white, his pants unripped.
He could use a beating. Maybe it would improve his appearance.
“Heartfelt,” he says between claps. “But pathetic.” He cracks a smile and starts to laugh. It’s a shrill kind of laughter that echoes through the warehouse, more earsplitting than any gunshot.
“What is the matter with you men? You stick your cocks into something warm and call it love.” He makes his way over to us at his own leisure. “At least one person here has their head screwed on.” He offers his hand out to Carmen. “Come on, darling. Let’s get out of here.”
My eyes must be deceiving me, because there’s no way Carmen just slotted her hand into Conrad’s. Willingly.
“Now, hand Otis over,” Conrad says.
“No.” She finally snaps out of her daze, eyes returning to the present moment. They’ve been elsewhere up until now. “I stay here. Otis goes free. That was the deal. You can’t go back on that.”
“The deal was broken when you decided to bring your cocksucking boyfriends out here. Life isn’t fair, Carmen. Wear a crash helmet next time you plan to undermine me.”
Backup approaches from behind. I catch their attention and give them a subtle shake of my head.
They don’t get to kill Conrad. I do.
Although I’m severely handicapped at the moment with Otis in my arms.
Vex is the only one who can do it. He holds the gun at his side, the weapon dripping blood. A knife is also sitting pretty under his belt.
I turn to him and we lock eyes. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
Slowly, Vex slides the knife out of his belt and curls his hand around it, careful to not make any rash movements. Conrad isn’t going to make it out of this warehouse. Vex will make sure of that.
“Poor boy,” Conrad says. He registers the knife in Vex’s hand but doesn’t have a big opinion on it.
Instead, he looks down at Carter and continues speaking.
“Poor boy. His daddy is about to die, and he doesn’t even know who he is.
I must say, Carmen”—his gaze shifts over to her—“that’s bad form.
What mother keeps a secret like that from their own kid? ”
Otis starts to stir in my arms, his head turning out to face everyone. To face Carter. “I don’t have a daddy.”
The smile on Conrad’s face is enough to send the poor child into a coma. “Yes you do, Otis. Why, he’s lying right beside you on the floor.”
Carmen flashes a look, her head shaking rigidly.
Keep him turned away. Don’t let him see his father bleeding on the floor.
The message is received. But it’s too late.
Otis is already looking down at his father—radio silent.
Anything is better than silence.
I feel for the kid. Of course, I want to be there for him too, but this is different. No child should watch a biological parent pass away right before their eyes…
Pass away? Carter won’t be doing that anytime soon. All of us have to live at least another forty years before we’re allowed to die. We have Carmen and Otis to protect. We have lives to start living—proper ones where we settle down and remain in one location.
I’m so repulsed by Conrad’s sickening smile that I don’t even see Carmen disappear into the shadows. All I feel is light movement whisking behind me, and the warming scent of apple shampoo. It’s her.
I remain still even though instinct is begging me to snap around and save her from the bad decision she’s about to make.
“I see how it is.” Her feminine voice ripples through the warehouse. “You already ruined my family, so now you make it your mission to ruin other peoples’. Not on my watch. Nothing comes in between me and Otis. Not even stinking Irish buffoons who think they rule the world.”
An agonizing cry tears through the warehouse.
I zip around and watch the moment Carmen thrusts the knife clean into Conrad’s stomach. I’m so taken aback that I don’t even realize Otis is looking too, his infant eyes wide in horror as blood splats to the floor.
Eventually, after fighting to keep himself stable, Conrad falls. He plummets to the cold warehouse floor. Carmen chokes on air. The knife leaves her frozen hand and clinks to the floor.
Vex’s knife. I turn back around to share his horror, and find the weapon no longer in his hand.
“We have to get Carter out of here,” I say, lunging forward to swing one of his hopeless arms over my shoulder. “Vex, grab the other side. Carmen.” I snap my fingers in her face and hope it’s enough for her to stop hyperventilating. “Take Otis. We need to move.”
No response.
Carmen is shaking too profusely to even look at me.
“Carmen!” Vex tries. He manages to grab some of her attention. It’s a small win that she’s looking his way instead of staring mindlessly into the abyss like she’s been doing ever since Conrad went down. “Carry Otis. We need to get out of here. Now.”
When you join a group of outlaws, nobody tells you how challenging it is to lug a fully grown man over two dozen dead bodies.
Carmen takes the lead, Otis buried in her breast as she steps gingerly over corpses. It’s a never-ending obstacle course.
I step over them myself and with Vex’s help, lift Carter over them. Something in my stomach feels off about tonight, even though we all made it out alive (barely).
Otis shouldn’t have been here. It was Conrad’s fault, nobody else’s, but I feel partly responsible for all of the trauma the boy will now carry through the rest of his life.
I catch a lock of brown hair lifting in the breeze up ahead. The first leak of daylight breaks into the sky and turns Carmen’s hair a beautiful caramel color. I stare at the back of her head and my heart sinks.
She still thinks this is her fault.
She races ahead to put as much distance between us as possible.
I fear we overcame one obstacle just to run into another.