Gunner

I was born in the desert and so was she.

I learned unconditional love from my mom and she learned it from her mom.

My dad taught me what honour looks like. Her dad taught her what courage looks like.

I was merciless like the sandy hostile land of my childhood.

I was unyielding and rough like the edge of a rock cliff.

I was wild until she tamed me and made me feel calm.

She made me burn with desire.

She made me hate.

She made me love.

Dimitri calls her Solnishko.

Sive calls her Grian.

Axel calls her Sunshine.

The others call her Sol.

***

I blink.

I inhale.

I’m awake, but I dream. It’s always about her.

The streak of light filtering through the square window slides down the wall as day dies and night falls. A second is eternity, quietness is absolute, and I’m enthralled by this transition. My heart leaps. Pain surges through me, delicate like a mist on an autumnal morning, transparent like the air. I should be at home, but I’m not.

My mom’s and my dad’s faces flash through my mind.

My dad is a decent man, but I’m not. I’m behind bars, after all. My list of criminal charges is very long: identity theft, robbery, vandalism, credit card fraud, murder.

Tomorrow, I will be transported to the proper prison in the city so I’m enjoying my last night in this cosy cell of the small police station built fifty years ago in the small town of Extbrook. It’s a little spot in the middle of nowhere with around four thousand inhabitants. England’s woodland and grassland seem to be never-ending here, with wild hills, ancient trees, and a breathtaking coastline.

I’m the only occupant of the cell. When I arrived two weeks ago, I had a companion—a ninety-year-old Brian who’d stolen three bottles of vodka, but they released him the following morning.

The officers are nice to me, because this is a town of nice people. Before my imprisonment, I was the only rude person in this town. The nice people living here didn’t pay attention though.

A female officer stands in front of the bars.

“Do you need anything, honey?” she asks as she sweeps her blonde side bangs away from her face. “A cup of tea? Another blanket?”

Her name is Angela Thomson and she looks sixty. She has a son my age, nineteen to be precise, and she talks a lot. Like a lot. I’ve already learned she’s divorced and her ex was an alcoholic. She has two sisters and her mother is a ninety-nine-year-old complainer. Her cousin has arthritis, her neighbour has glaucoma, and the café near her house is the nicest in town.

“I’m fine,” I say. “Thanks, love.”

“So, sweet dreams,” Angela says, flashing me a smile, and she walks off.

Like I said, everybody is nice. No need to be mean. I know it now. I’m kind of entertaining to them because there are no crimes in this town. The majority of people living here turned fifty a long time ago.

I stretch my body out on the parody of a bed protruding from the wall adorned with the cobweb of cracks and chiselled numbers and roll on my side, pulling the grey scratchy blanket up to cover myself. The officers watch TV and the voices of the movie characters drone on monotonously. I blink, rub my eyes to remain alert, but there seems to be more and more of the invisible glue between my eyelids. Auntie Sive visited me this morning, acting as my attorney. She told me to expect another member of my family to visit in the evening so I’m trying really hard not to fall asleep. Well, I’m the second person in our family who ended up behind bars. Mike was the first one, but that was a very long time ago. I’m entertaining to my family too, I guess.

A yawn escapes my mouth. Finally, the movie characters’ voices lull me to sleep.

A rumble like an explosion in a mine shakes me out of my nap, and I get up in one motion. Streaks of smoke slither into my cell and fill it in grey clouds. The fumes invade my lungs. A coughing fit claws at me, and I bend forward, almost spitting my lungs out. Shouts and growls reach my ears. The sounds of heavy footsteps follow. My mind whirls. My lungs burn. My eyes sting. Tears blind me like there is a wall of water in front of me. I fall to my knees as a creaking sound tears through me like an arrow. Somebody’s hand grips my arm.

“Move,” a female voice says as a blurry figure leans over me.

“Sol,” I rasp. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

I’d recognise her voice even if she talked to me when I was unconscious—it’s so unique. It’s delicate, a bit raspy. The voice of a temptress.

“I’m taking your stupid ass out of here,” she growls and coughs. “Move.”

She pulls my arm, and I rise to my feet clumsily. I notice a bandana around the lower part of her face and a gun in her hand. We pull forward, blinded by the smoke billowing out, hissing all around us. It forms a realm of dense suffocating greyness. I trip over a soft obstacle lying on the floor. My hands rest against someone’s thighs. I recover in one motion as Sol pulls my hand and we jump over two other bodies lying on the floor.

“Athena’s cocktail,” Sol says. “Don’t worry. They’ll only sleep for a few hours.” She raises her hand armed with the gun. “A tranquilizer gun. I took out two of them.” There is pride in her voice. “Shay handled the rest.”

“There were only three officers tonight,” I mutter as she slaps my arm.

She drags me out of the building, and I notice Shay standing by a white van. I also notice Grandpa Dimitri. They have bandanas covering their faces. Fucking hell. It looks like my whole crazy family has gathered to rescue me.

“What is that old git doing here?” I ask.

“Oh, you know him,” Sol says. “He always needs to have control over everything and everybody.” She rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

Dimitri moves closer to me, slapping me on the back. “Hurry, rebyata.”

He always calls us children even though we are all adults now, but that’s how he is—always in charge, always prying. Always caring.

The door of the van slides open and Nikko waves his hand to me. He puts his state-of-the-art equipment into a black suitcase like some fucking assassin. I’m sure he was responsible for disabling all the cameras inside and outside of the building.

Sol shoves me inside the van and Dimitri gets in right behind me.

I drop into the seat behind the driver’s and look out the window. Sol and Shay kiss passionately, like it’s the ending of some fucking romance movie then they jump on their bikes and roar off. Uncle Jax nods at me from the driver’s seat and the car shoots forward.

“We need to talk, Gunner Junior,” Dimitri says as he takes his seat beside me and fastens the seatbelt.

“Grandpa, I can explain,” I say as my eyes flick over the gas grenades and guns that lie in bags placed on the floor among the seats.

“You want to fuck married women? Fine.” Dimitri sweeps his hand furiously and pulls the bandana down, catching a wheezy breath. “Fuck them. Fuck them all. Just don’t kill their husbands.” He takes a cigar out of the pocket on the inside of his leather jacket and lights it.

“That dick—“

“What? Found you in his bedroom with your dick inside his wife?”

“Something like that.”

Mr Ferrero had walked into his bedroom with a gun in his hand while I was inside Mrs Ferrero’s hot tight ass. It was either him or me so I shot the motherfucker after he put three bullets into the wall and one into my arm. Mrs Ferrero should have been grateful, since her husband had hit her a few times, but she wasn’t. The alarm went off, all the doors shut, and the cops came.

The thin streaks of smoke circle around me as the heavy scent of tobacco invades my nostrils and fills my lungs.

Jax slams on the brakes and my body moves forward and back as the seatbelt squeezes the breath out of my lungs.

“What the fuck?” Dimitri growls and crushes the cigar under his foot.

Jax gets out of the car. I free myself from the seatbelt and follow him.

The scene unveiling in front of my eyes makes me freeze. There is a truck with a smashed front and a smashed bike on the roadside. Sol is standing with her hands raised as though she’s going to pray. A decapitated corpse is lying in a pond of blood on the road. The head is resting at Sol’s feet. Bits of brain are scattered around it—yellow, grey, bloody. I focus on the dead face, and my heart stops beating. Time stops. The world becomes a surreal dream. It can’t be, but it is. It’s Shay’s head.

A hand crushes my shoulder.

“Get in the car,” Dimitri says, his voice cold like a glacier.

I can’t move.

“Get in the car, now,” Dimitri rumbles as he shoves me towards the van.

I sway and watch him moving closer to Sol and grabbing her wrist. She wriggles and tries to tear her hand away from his, but he yanks her to him and shoves her at me.

“Get her into the car,” Dimitri says and the tone of his voice sends chills down my spine. “Get in, all of you. The cops will be here at any moment.”

Sol wails as I wrap my arms around her waist and throw her into the car.

“Shay,” Nikko says as he winces.

“We have to leave him,” Dimitri says as the sound of two sirens reaches my ears. “The cops are coming.” He shoves Nikko towards the van, but my brother resists. “Get in the car before we all end up in jail.” He shoves Nikko with more strength then rumbles something to Jax.

I can’t hear him because the sound of the sirens is muffling everything.

Jax leaps towards Sol who tries to jump out of the van and immobilises her in his embrace in one of the seats. Nikko shakes his head and finally settles himself next to them as I slam the door shut and sit behind them. Dimitri takes the driver’s seat.

I’m numb.

Then a thought sprouts in my mind and eats at it like a parasite. A hollow sensation replaces my heart. A cold hollowness that sucks all the air from my lungs.

I killed my brother.