V
Holding Ellie-May close to my chest, my palm supporting the back of her head, we hurried toward the elevator. As far as I could see, there was no other way down from this level.
X shouted, “What’s happening, Vee?”
“It’s okay, I’ve got her. We’re coming back down.”
I heard a laugh and recognized it as my father’s. I didn’t trust him for a second. What did he have planned? Did he have men outside, waiting to ambush us the moment we tried to leave? As far as I knew, he no longer had any contacts. All his men were working for us now. No one else even knew he was still alive. They’d all speculated that his body had been dumped in the Hudson River months ago.
“Do you want me to shoot him now?” X yelled back.
“No. I want to do it.”
Nicole and I got back in the elevator. She pulled the heavy door shut with a bang, and then went to work the control panel. She pressed the button for down, and the machinery moved with a jolt, slowly lowering us to the bottom level.
Just as we hit the first floor, my father called out, “I’d keep my finger on that button if I was you.”
We both froze and I glanced over at my sister, who had paled, but done as he’d instructed.
“Why?” I yelled back.
“The moment you got in that elevator, a timer started. There were fifteen minutes on the clock, and I’d say you’ve probably used up at least half of that.”
My heartrate tripped. “Fifteen minutes for what?”
“Explosives are attached to the top of the elevator. Enough to blow out most of the warehouse.”
My blood ran cold. “What?”
“Ah, but here’s the really clever part. If Nicole takes her finger off that down button, the clock will automatically be triggered to zero.”
I stared at him in horror, and then back to Nicole who was still standing with her finger pressed on the down key on the panel. Her hand was shaking, and she stared at me in fear and horror.
“So, you’re saying if Nicole takes her finger off, this place is going to blow.”
He gave his horrific smile again. “That’s right. Taking all of us with it.”
“No! You have to disarm it. Now!”
“Not going to happen. You deserve this, Vee. I don’t care about my life anymore. Look at me. I’m a shadow of the man I once was, all because of you and your sister. So, what are you going to do? Are you going to try to take your sister’s place and risk the bomb going off and killing you and your baby, and everyone else?”
He was doing it again. Making me choose between the people I loved.
“No!” I cried, my heart wrenching. “Nickie!”
Behind me, our father started to laugh. Rage like I’d never felt before burned through me, a white-hot flame. Though I was holding Ellie-May, I shifted my grip to free up one of my hands, pulled the gun from the back of my jeans, pointed it at my father and pulled the trigger.
He fell back in a violent motion, as though I just shoved him with both hands. He lay on his back, staring up at the roof, his eyes blank. A round bullet hole was directly between his eyes. Only knowing there were explosives in here, and that I was holding my daughter, prevented me from putting several more bullets in his lifeless body.
X rushed forward to take Ellie-May from me. I was shaking, but our daughter had given up on her hunger and fallen asleep. I was amazed she’d slept through the gunshot, and hoped she wouldn’t have to sleep through anything louder.
“What are we going to do?” I asked X, feeling helpless.
“I’ll swap places with Nicole,” he said. “I’ll hold the button. You get out of here with the baby.”
I shook my head, frantic. “No, you can’t. I can’t lose you.”
“You can’t lose your sister, either, Vee. I know what that will do to you.”
Nicole’s voice cut through us. “We can’t risk swapping over, even if I allowed either of you to put yourselves in my place, which I won’t. It would only take the slightest slip, and we could all end up dead.”
“No, Nickie. There must be something else we can do.” The possibility that this might really happen, and I would lose my sister, dawned on me, but I didn’t want to believe it.
“It’s okay,” said Nickie, shaking her head. “I’ve got this.”
“No, stop it. No, you haven’t. You’re not going to die like this.”
“Please, just go,” Nicole begged. “Your daughter needs you. X needs you. No one needs me.”
“I do!” I cried. “I need you, Nickie. Please, don’t do this.”
“We don’t have any choice,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “One of us has to hold it, and it can’t be you.”
“There must be another way.”
“There isn’t. We’re running out of time.”
I shook my head in desperation. I couldn’t do this. Not again. Choosing which one of my family members got to live and which died. For the first time in as long as I could remember, tears sprung to my eyes, making my sister’s face swim before me. The tears spilled down my cheeks, and I tasted salt.
“Vee, this isn’t your fault. You’ve been the best sister a girl could wish for. You were there for me when plenty of others would have given up on me, and I love you for that. This was never your fault Vee, it’s him. It’s always been him. But he’s dead now, and you, and X, and Ellie-May can go on and live a nice, normal life. Do that for me, okay?”
I was sobbing now, my face contorted in anguish. But she was right. I needed to be there for my daughter, to watch her grow up.
“Please—” I managed to sob, reaching for my sister one last time.
“Go!” she yelled at me.
Still my feet felt like they were glued to the floor. Ellie-May squirmed in X’s arms, as though she sensed something terrible was about to happen.
“Please, Nickie.” I still wanted there to be some way to change this.
“Go, Vee. Let me do this for you. Let my life mean something. And tell Ellie-May about her Aunt Nickie, okay? Tell her how much I love her, and how much I love her mom.”
“Vee, we have to go,” X yelled, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me. I wanted to fight him, but my desperate need to be alive for the sake of my daughter allowed my feet to move. I knew we were almost out of time. I couldn’t let Ellie-May die as well.
My heart tore in two as we ran from the warehouse and out onto the street. My tears blinded me, so I couldn’t even see where I was going, only X’s hand in mine leading the way. We kept going, putting distance between us and the building. It felt like too much time had passed, and I allowed myself to glance back, wondering if perhaps it had all just been one final cruel trick our father had been playing on us, allowing myself a tiny modicum of hope, but as I turned, a blast of hot air hit me, followed by a huge roar and an explosion. Suddenly, pieces of debris were flying all around us, and instinctively I threw my body toward X, not seeking his protection, but trying to shelter my daughter from the pieces of flying building.
We huddled together. Around us, everything settled, a silence in all the noise. Then a pop and a bang, and a crackle and roar of flames. The building was alight. There was no way anyone inside could have survived that.
The sound that came out of my mouth wasn’t just a cry, but a howl. A sound no human being should ever have to make.
The sound of my heart breaking a thousand times over.