Chapter 21
Jia
As soon asPa removed the gag from my mouth I screamed out.
The scream poured from me in response not only to the nightmarish creatures surrounding us but Pa too…
The bullet got him. It did. I was sure it hit him.
For a moment I thought maybe it didn’t get him. I’d thought maybe he was okay because he was moving around and hadn’t fallen. He’d taken the gag away from my mouth and started undoing the ropes securing my feet to the pole.
It was when he stood up to undo the ropes binding my body and my hands together that I saw the red, red path of blood seeping through his clothes. He’d had on full black with a white t-shirt underneath the black jacket. The shirt couldn’t hardly be classed as white anymore.
“Papa, you’ve been shot,” I wailed. Tears poured from my eyes when his hands shook and I could see that he was barely keeping himself together.
“Don’t worry about me my bellezza.” He stumbled and pulled a knife from his back pocket to slice at the ropes.
Damn it the platform jerked again and I screamed from deep within me as a massive, monstrous crocodile leapt up on to the edge.
That was how close we were now to them.
I hated these creatures so much. I was so terrified my skin crawled and it looked like we were going to be eaten by them.
Pa pulled his gun and shot the one that came up in its head. It flopped back into the water. He fired a few more shots and took out some more.
Once we had a little clearing he returned to undoing the ropes securing me.
Terror made me look around for Xander.
I couldn’t see him.
Pa bit down hard on his back teeth, looking pale. My arms loosened on the last cut of the knife and he pulled the rest of the rope away, picking me up like I weighed nothing, but the pain got to him and made him tremble. Still he held me to him and tried to move to the edge of the bridge where he’d come from.
“Pa let me go. I’ll help you,” I insisted .
“No, Jia, for once in your life listen to me,” he balked.
“Pa you’ve been shot,” I shrieked.
He took a moment to look at me and I saw something I’d never seen in him before. It was the end.
I didn’t know how to explain it other than that.
It was final and filled with sorrow, regret, deep sadness.
“I’m sorry. This happened because of me. Please remember me cooking for you, and maybe remember this part. All the parts where I was just your father and not the mafia boss. Not the Vegas King. Just your father, bellezza.”
“Papa please, don’t talk like that. Come I’ll help you get up the bridge and we can go to the hospital.”
When the platform jerked again and lowered, his face returned to the usual sternness I was used to.
A loud clank made us look up. It was Xander. He’d jumped from a height I didn’t know was humanly possible and landed on the suspension bridge. Then he came charging down it towards us, moving lightning fast across the bridge. The damn bridge that was just a little better than walking a tight rope. The little wooden path made into it was just to secure your footing but it still swung like it would just give at any moment.
When Balthazar had brought me out here I didn’t know how I didn’t die from the sight of the crocodiles and being on the bridge. When I realized his intention was to tied me to the fucking pole in prelude to them eating me, I knew I had bigger problems.
“It’s about fucking time,” Pa shouted when Xander got to us.
Xander hooked his leg in between one of the wooden wrongs and lowered his body down.
