I was certain my words had gotten through to him, so I wasn’t prepared for what happened next.
Of course, nothing could have prepared me for it.
I was dimly aware of the kid screaming, but I didn’t make a sound. I knew what I was seeing couldn’t be real.
Because shit like that only happened in the cheesiest of horror movies.
The movies I hated.
But the blood that gushed from the gaping wound across the man’s throat was very real. I began retching, but there was nothing in my stomach, so I was really just dry heaving. My stomach cramped as my body tried to expel something that wasn’t there.
I was dimly aware of my brother reappearing in the room, his gloved hands covered in blood. There were blood splatters on his face, but he either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
“Where is it?” Ricky asked as his eyes dispassionately roamed over the scene before him.
“Not here,” Jed snapped as he dropped the man’s body to the floor.
“What do you mean, not here?” Ricky asked.
“It means there’s no safe here.”
“You said your source was good!”
“Well, obviously, he got it wrong!”
“Fuck!” Ricky snapped. I watched as he walked towards the back of the house. Jed eyed the boy whose head was hung. He was crying softly.
I’d cried like that once.
The night Ricky had taken my innocence.
I didn’t give my actions any thought because I didn’t care anymore what Jed or Ricky did to me. I kept my gaze on Jed as I reached behind me and searched out the cordless phone. It seemed to take forever to remove it from its cradle, though I knew it was likely only seconds. I froze when Ricky reappeared with a bottle of bleach in his hand.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jed asked.
“This little bitch puked all over the fucking floor up there!” Ricky snapped as he jerked his head towards me and pointed towards the ceiling. “I saw a show where cops can track DNA or some shit like that!”
I dropped my eyes when Ricky passed me. The second he was out of the room, I maneuvered the phone carefully behind my back. I squeezed my eyes shut as I hit the button. I waited for Jed to ask me what the hell I was doing, but he seemed preoccupied with destroying what was left of the room. The first thing he and Ricky had done when we’d gotten everyone tied up had been to rip the paintings off the wall. I hadn’t realized until Jed had started asking the father about a safe that that’s what they’d been looking for. Now, he was tearing up the rest of the room, though I had no clue why. All I knew was that he was giving me the time I desperately needed.
The sound also helped drown out the sound of the dial tone. I couldn’t see the phone so I had to feel around the keypad and hope like hell I got the numbers right because I was only going to get one chance at this. As soon as I dialed, I pressed the phone against my back to muffle the sound I knew the operator would make when they answered. I could only hope and pray that they wouldn’t think the call was a hoax or wrong number and disconnect it.
A good minute passed before Jed finished trashing the place. I whispered silent pleas in my head as I listened for the sound of sirens. But there was nothing. I was so busy trying to listen for the 911 operator on the other end of the phone, that I didn’t notice Jed returning to the boy.
The boy’s quiet sob caught my attention and I finally snapped out of my daze long enough to see that Jed had pulled the boy to his feet. As soon as Jed pulled his arm back and the sheen of the knife reflected the light from the only lamp that hadn’t been shattered into a million pieces, I shouted “No!”
But Jed ignored me as he thrust his knife into the boy’s body.
I stepped forward, not remembering the phone in my hand. I also didn’t see my brother as he returned to the room.
He saw me, though. He saw me and then he was on me, snatching the phone from my grasp and hanging it up without saying even a single word to me. I heard the sickening sound of Jed stabbing the helpless kid, but I couldn’t do anything for him.
Because I was too busy staring into my brother’s eyes as I watched him pull his own knife from his waistband.
“Levi, wake up, damn it!”
As I jerked upright at the sound of Phoenix’s voice, I bumped my injured wrist. Between the searing pain and the remnants of my nightmare, I promptly lost it and began sobbing.
“Shhh, it’s okay,” Phoenix whispered in my ear as he pulled me against his bare chest.
