Duncan floats in slow-motion.
He grabs the gun, holds the hammer, and then kicks Dad’s knee. It’s the hardest kick I’ve ever seen, and I watch as Dad’s knee gives, bends out to the side.
Dad wails, falls to the ground, clutches at his lower leg that hangs limply from the knee, foot facing out the side instead of the front.
Duncan snatches the gun, points it at Dad, and then brings his foot down on Dad’s thigh. I hear the loud crack of bone, and Dad’s scream echoes in the gym.
It just took two seconds, and I’m still frozen to the spot. I look down at Frank’s still body, see the gun, and immediately bend down and pick it up.
“You motherfucker,” Duncan growls, pushing the barrel under Dad’s chin. “Give me one reason not to blow your fucking head off. You threaten the woman I love, my family? You piece of shit.”
“I should have never rescued you off the street you rat fuck,” Dad says, his words labored. “You were never any good for her. You turned my daughter against me!”
“You did that yourself!” Duncan roars, jamming the gun deeper into Dad’s neck.
“Don’t kill him,” I say quickly, staring at my broken father on the floor, then flicking my eyes up to Duncan. “Please.”
Duncan throws a wild look my way.
“Please. I need you. You can’t kill him. The police are on their way.”
He pulls back the gun, throws Dad to the ground. Dad just holds onto his leg and whimpers.
And… and I’m surprised that I feel the way I do. I never expected that I would. I thought that seeing Dad stopped, knowing that my baby is now safe, would flood me with relief.
Instead, I’m more heartbroken than I ever have been. The sight of my fractured father on the floor tears at me. I never wanted it to come to this. I never wanted it to end this way.
Duncan rushes to me, holds my face, asks me if I’m okay.
I barely hear the words. I feel shell-shocked. I’m just looking straight at Dad, the man who was supposed to be my protector in life, the man I was supposed to be able to look up to, admire, moaning on the ground, his legs broken by the man that I’m in love with, the father of my child, Dad’s adoptive son.
I touch Duncan’s hand, nod at him. He puts his arm around me, holds me and kisses my head. “I was right on the edge.”
I tap him on the chest. “I know. You okay?” I pull his head toward me, see a gash along the side of his jaw where Bullock got him with the knife. The wound on his forehead has opened up as well. “Damn it.”
“It’s fine.”
“You ungrateful little shits,” I hear Dad groan from the ground.
I step around Duncan, go to him, kneel down beside him. His face is contorted by the pain, but he looks up at me out of savage eyes.
“Why, Dad? Why couldn’t you just love me and take care of me? Why couldn’t you support me?”
He doesn’t reply, just lets out a snarl.
“Why?” I ask, raising my voice. “Tell me why!” I slap him hard across the face, hear his head thump against the hardwood.
“Why?” I cry, slapping him again and again. I hit him harder, faster, and each slap stings my palm.
He just takes them, doesn’t say a thing, and then I feel Duncan’s arms around me, and he lifts me up, pulls me away.
“I hate you!” I scream at Dad. “I fucking hate you!”
“I wish your mother had never died,” he says, his voice slurry. He spits out a wad of blood. “So she could have given me a son.”
Duncan turns on Dad, points the gun at him. “You shut your fucking mouth right now.”
“You were always a disappointment, Deidre.”
“Shut up!”
“I needed an heir, not a fucking—”
Duncan kicks Dad in the mouth. I look away, but too late, and the image of Dad’s flying, bloody gold teeth is seared into my mind.
I go to the bleachers, sit down, and Duncan comes toward me, his whole body tense like some kind of tornado, and he holds me, and I want to cry, I feel like I’m so pent up, like I just need to burst, but I can’t.
Nothing comes out.
I just look at Dad, can barely feel Duncan stroking my hair, can barely hear him telling me it’s over.
But after a moment I tell him, “It’s not over. It’s in my mind.” I touch my temple, then lie against his shoulder. “I hope I don’t lose you. The police are coming.”
The fire alarm bells have stopped, and the sprinklers peter out. I can hear their sirens now, wailing in the distance, growing louder by the second.
“You won’t. We’ll be fine. We just have to tell the truth.”
“How does it look?” I ask, nodding at Duncan’s hand. He lifts up the revolver, then drops it to the floor in disgust. “Your prints are on the gun that killed Frank.”
He sighs, pinches his eyebrows together in his fingers. “Fuck. I had to take it.”
“I know.”
“God damn it.”
I peer into my own hand, realize I’m still holding Frank's gun. I look at Dad, then Bullock, then Frank’s limp body.
We can’t count on Bullock, and I realize, my mind whirring at a million miles an hour, that I have to take this into my own hands.
“It’s cold,” I tell Duncan. “Go put on your top.”
He listens to me, gets up, picks up his shirt and jacket off the floor. He squeezes into his t-shirt, and then looks at me and asks me the question I was waiting for.
“Are you cold?”
“Yes.”
He gives me his jacket, and I worm my arms into it, then find the inside jacket pocket.
“Go check on Bullock,” I say.
“Why?”
“You need to see if he’s dead. We need to know what to expect when the police get here.”
Duncan goes to Bullock, kneels down by him, and when his back is to me I shove Frank’s gun into the jacket’s inside pocket.
Duncan returns to me, and looks down at the revolver on the ground. He opens his mouth to speak, but at that moment the door to the gym opens, and we see a yellow fire helmet.
The fireman steps into the gym, looks at Duncan and I in turn, then sees the bodies and the gun on the ground, and he throws himself back out of the door.
“Be ready,” I say.
Duncan bends down, picks up the gun.
“What are you doing?” I ask, widening my eyes. “Put it down, don’t hold it.”
It’s too late. The cops come in, weapons raised, shouting at Duncan to get to his knees. He holds the gun out, lets it hang off his finger, and then falls to his knees.
He looks at me, says, “The gun had to be in my hands, Dee.”
The police circle Duncan, handle him roughly, and I shout at them, tell them that he was just protecting me, that I’m pregnant, that we were held at gunpoint.
But they clear out, carry out Bullock and Dad, and then I see a lone detective walk into the gym. He’s old, wiry, but his eyes shine. He sits down beside me, and asks me one question: “Are you the daughter of Johnny Marino?”
“Yes,” I say.
“I’m going to have to take you down to the station.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“Yes.”
“I want to be read my rights.”
“You will be.”
“But I need to see a paramedic first. I’m pregnant, and they weren’t gentle with me.” I rub my belly, and the detective’s eyes go to it, fill with compassion for a moment.
“There’s an ambulance outside. Come on.”
I get up slowly, shake off his helping hand.
“I can do it myself.”
We go outside, and there I see Duncan being forced into the back of a police car. He’s cuffed, and he swings his head over his shoulder, and I meet his eyes for a moment before he disappears.
“This way,” the detective says, guiding me with a hand on the small of my back. He’s holding an umbrella out for me, and rainwater wets his long trench coat.
“How did you know to come?” I ask, looking around, seeing just one fire truck but a barrage of police vehicles.
“We got a tip from someone out of Hong Kong,” he tells me. “That a man on the FBI’s most wanted list was entering Australia. We maintain a cooperative relationship. We’ve been following your father.”
“You could have fucking got here sooner,” I say.
“He lost us in the rain.”
I shake my head, watch as Duncan is driven off.
“What’s going to happen to him?”
“He’s under arrest.”
“Charges?”
The detective shrugs. “We’ll hold him while we analyze the crime scene.”
We reach the ambulance, but the paramedics are busy dealing with Dad’s knee and Bullock’s knife wound.
“I think there may be someone else,” I say. “A fourth man, the driver of the limousine.”
The detective stiffens, pulls out his weapon.
“Here? At the school?”
“Yes, one of my father’s men.”
The detective rounds up the officers to sweep the area. In the commotion I take the gun from Duncan’s jacket and throw it down a sewer grate.
It’s been raining so heavily all night, I can hear the water surging.
The cogs in my mind are whirring, and I’m hoping I’m not making a terrible mistake.
When the detective returns, panting, he tells me that they searched the school but found nobody, asks me if I’m sure.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I think I’m in shock. Are you going to handcuff me?”
“Not if you don’t resist.”
“Then I’ll come willingly,” I tell him.
I just hid a piece of evidence. I’ve got to get this exactly right!