Yazmin
At around two o’clock in the morning my arms are so tired I can’t hold them up anymore. I crawl away from the window, leaning against the bed and hoping that Spike saw my message. Dad mentioned that they were going to attack tonight, so I can only assume Spike has seen my message and retreated. Otherwise the shooting would have started by now. I climb to my feet and sit on the bed, wondering if I should try and get some sleep. I want to, but I feel wired, as if somebody has slipped a stimulant into my system. My body is weary but my mind is on speed.
I stand up and go to the door, pressing my ear against it. I’m not sure exactly how many hours I spent like this during my time here, listening to the men in the hallway, saving the information for a rainy day. Or in the bar, pretending to just be sitting, looking pretty, when really I was listening to every word spoken.
“. . . boss might be paranoid.”
I hold my breath. The men are down the hallway, at the end of it, their voices quiet.
“Yeah, right.” The man scoffs. “You shouldn’t say things like that, not if you value your life.”
“Oh, come on, man. They were meant to hit, what, at like eleven or midnight? Maybe his mole has fucked him over.”
“Well, we’ll see, won’t we? I’m sure we’ll get word when they’re really coming to hit us.”
“Yeah, I hope so. I ain’t dying today. I’ve seen how I’m gonna die, in a dream.”
“Is that right?” The man laughs. “And how’re you goin’?”
“In bed, surrounded by women, and when I bust my nut into the back of her throat, it’s lights out. Oh, and I’m one hundred and ten years old.”
The men chuckle, their laughing growing quieter as they leave the hallway. I stay like that for a long time, waiting. Sleep tries to drag me to bed, but I can’t sleep at a time like this, when at any moment Spike might return and the shooting might start. I think of soldiers waiting for battle, wondering if this is what they feel like. I don’t hear anything else for the rest of the night. I lie down. I might as well try and rest, if not sleep. I lie there staring at the darkness of the ceiling forcing my eyelids open every time they fall closed.
Despite my efforts, I must sleep for an hour or two, because I open my eyes to the sound of gunfire. It’s like hell has been unleashed on the clubhouse. All around, the guns are being fired, bullets ricocheting loudly off metal and wood, man roaring, men screaming, men calling out for their mothers. I roll off the bed, hardly able to hear myself breathe for the sound of combat, and crawl under the bed, hands over my ears. I don’t think it’s possible to know how truly terrifying gunfire can be until it’s all around you.
I move to the center of the bed, knowing how much danger I’m in. All it’ll take is one of Dad’s men to find me instead of one of Spike’s, and that could be the end of me. Or a stray bullet. Or a piece of unlucky shrapnel.
“Get the fuckers!” somebody roars, their voice just audible below the unceasing tat-tat-tat and boom-boom of the bullets. “Get the fucking bastards!”
When I was a girl I would often hide under my bed like this with a book, so small that the dark place beneath the bed felt like a whole separate world. With a flashlight and a profound sense of peace, I would turn the pages until I was sinking into the world of the book, the dark place forgotten. Now I’m large and unwieldy, a grownup with too-big arms and too-big legs. The bed isn’t a large one. I’m squashed beneath it, my chest tight. It gets tighter when the door squeaks open. I notice that more than anything. The door squeaks open. It isn’t kicked open. Which means whoever’s opening it has the key.
I tuck my legs up, tuck my arms in, trying to make myself small. I wish I could turn back into that tiny girl. Nobody would find that tiny girl. The man is wearing thick boots, but that doesn’t tell me much. All of them wear thick boots. He snorts and spits, but that doesn’t tell me much. Many of them snort and spit on account of how much they smoke and how much coffee they drink. When the man starts talking, though, there’s no doubt about how he is.
Closing the door, he says, “It seems your boyfriend is smarter than I guessed. Maybe he rooted out the mole. Maybe he worked around the mole. In any case, the mole was useful to us and now he’s not. Oh, you’re wondering to yourself, why isn’t he panicking? Why isn’t he looking for me? Let me tell you something, little slut.
“I met up with your mother once or twice over the years, more like nine or ten times if I’m being honest. You see, despite what ended up happening between us—she never should’ve borrowed that money; it’s not my fault she was bad with her finances—despite what happened, she still liked the odd fling. She couldn’t help herself. That’s probably where you get your sluttiness, I reckon. I think she wanted me to love her, poor woman. Sometimes she would sit up and prattle on about this and that. The only reason I let her do it is because—” He pauses as what sounds like a shotgun blast tears through a hunk of metal, maybe a bike. “Don’t worry. I’ve got good ears. If anybody comes down the hallway, I’ll see them.
“Where was I? Oh yes. The only reason I let her is because she still looked good naked, despite her age. She would go on and on about her boring job and her boring friend and her boring life and, once or twice, her boring daughter. Oh, my daughter did this, my daughter did that, until I wanted to put a bullet in her head. I guess I did, in the end. Life’s funny like that.”
I feel tears sting my eyes. I want to roll out from under the bed and attack him, flail at his face, disfigure him, and hurt him. But even though I’m sure he knows I’m here, there’s still that one percent chance that he’s bluffing, or that somebody will get to him before he gets to me. So I stay where I am, despite the rage working its way through me.
“Once she told me about how her sweet boring daughter would lie under the bed with a flashlight and a book, reading until the sun came up sometimes. She told this to me like I was going to be so proud I’d sweep into that apartment and give you a kiss on the head.” He snorts out a laugh. “What a stupid bitch. Anyway.” His boots move to the edge of the bed. I’m so close I can see how the laces crisscross, that one of the lace-holes has worn away, so the toe of his right boot is scuffed. “Time to get out of there, Yazmin. Hellfire is raining down all around me and I need some leverage. Don’t make me kneel down.”
I keep quiet, holding my breath.
He sighs heavily. “I’m going to give you three seconds. Let me explain to you what’s going to happen at the end of the three seconds. I’m going to shoot into the bed. This is a heavy-caliber pistol, by the way, so there’s no chance of the mattress eating the bullets. They’ll go straight through. I’ll shoot until my clip is empty, and then count to three again, reload, and shoot until my clip is empty. So either you crawl out breathing or I drag you out dead. One . . .”
I don’t wait for him to get to two. I know he means what he says. Even if it means his own death, he’ll kill me. That’s just the sort of man he is. I crawl out from under the bed, standing up and facing him. I’m so tired I can hardly think. Tears stream down my cheeks, unbidden, but I can’t fight them away. Dad tilts his head at me. The left side of his face is cut and bleeding. Otherwise he’s okay.
He darts his hand out, grabbing me by the elbow. “Those Viper fucks have us surrounded,” he snaps. “But let’s see them keep shooting when I’ve got their leader’s beloved little hole as my personal shield, eh? I think it’s time you finally did something useful as a daughter instead of leeching off of me. All right?” He drags me into the hallway, gun pointed forward. I want to fight him but it’s as much as I can do to keep up with him. I wish I’d had a full night’s sleep. I wish the tears would stop. I wish I was stronger. I wish, I wish . . . Wishing will get me nowhere. I have to look for an opportunity to do something.
He kicks through into the bar, ducking low as bullets smash into the wall above our heads. Dead men like all around, stinking of gun smoke and blood and shit. I try not to look at their slack, empty faces.
“They’re all around us, boss!” Rust says, crouching behind an overturned table and aiming out of the window.
“I’m taking her through the kitchen!” Dad snaps. “Keep them occupied.”
“Boss!”
Dad pulls me into the kitchen, which is a windowless room where the gunfire hasn’t reached yet. The attack started amidst the preparations for breakfast. Pans and pots are scattered all over the floor, milk pooling in one corner, the fridge door swinging back and forth, egg yolks splattered on the table.
“The whores ran,” he mutters. “The fucking whores ran.”
“Of course they did,” I say. The next time he tries to pull on my arm, I summon all the strength I have left. The tears stop. I make myself cold. I pull backwards so that we come to a standstill. A painful standstill, since he almost wrenches my shoulder out of its socket. “Why would they stay for a man like you?”
He grins at me madly. “You don’t want to do this now.” He points the gun at my belly. “I won’t kill you, sweet daughter. I’ll just put a bullet right here and see what happens.”
He prods the barrel of the gun against my baby. Rage seethes inside of me, rage unlike anything I have ever felt. It’s like all the anger which has built up over the course of my life has culminated in this one moment of anger. I feel far braver than I ever have before. Perhaps it’s because a mother ought to be brave where her child is concerned.
“If you do that, you die,” I say. “I’ll make sure of that.”
“You’re living in a dream world. Sure, they’ve hit us, but we’re fighting them back. A few of ours are dead. A few of theirs are dead. You better be careful about what you say. I’m taking you out the back and—”
It’s a child’s trick, but sometimes the unexpected plan is the only plan that’ll work. There are two doors to the kitchen, the one we came in through which leads to the bar, and the one which leads to the bins and the back of the clubhouse. I look at the door which leads to the bins and scream. I scream loudly, panicky. I scream like there’s a man with the biggest gun I’ve ever seen aiming at us. I scream so convincingly that Dad turns around, swinging his gun to the door. I don’t think as I pick up the biggest pan nearby. I don’t think as I swing it down at his head with all my strength. I just do it.
It connects with a sickening crack. I’m surprised by how violently the pan bounces off of his head. He stumbles forward. I hit him again, anger fueling me, and again, again. I hit him until he’s on his knees and then hit him one final time, causing him to fall on his face. Then I kneel down and wrench the gun from his hand. It’s heavy and I’ve never shot a gun before, but I feel safer for having it in my hand, safer for no longer being so defenseless.
Dad rolls over, squinting up at me. Blood seeps down his skull onto the floor.
“So you have some fight in you.” He smiles. “Maybe you are my daughter after all.”
“You’re wrong,” I tell him, the sound of gunfire a constant backing track now. “I was never your daughter. Over these past couple of months I’ve learned that family isn’t just biological. You don’t get to be somebody’s father just by having sex with their mother. I’ve got a new family now. Spike is my family. This child in here is my family. And Spike is going to show me what a father really is. Spike is going to be there for me and my baby. You, my father? You’re a joke. That’s all. A pathetic little weasel of a man.”
I look around the kitchen, go to the corner of the room with my gun still on him, and return with two aprons. Tearing them so that I just have the ties, I secure Dad’s arms to the fixed counter on one wall and his ankles to the fixed island in the center of the room so that he’s trussed up like something ready to be cooked.
“You’re not going to kill me.” He giggles, sounding oddly young. “You can’t, can you?”
I answer him by smacking him in the forehead with the butt of the handgun, causing his eyes to fall closed and his body to go slack.
“Fuck you,” I say. “Fuck you for what you did to Mom and fuck you for what you were going to do to Spike. Fuck you for the man you are.” I press the barrel of the gun against the side of his head, stroking the trigger, willing myself to pull it.
But he’s right. I can’t. However badly I want to, I just can’t. I want to. I desperately want to.
I stand up. “I’ll be back for you.”