“Spider worships you. One word from you and he would have changed his mind,” I yelled.
She started sobbing, and I hated her more for it. She had no right to cry for Cameron. She had
caused his death. I wanted her to suffer.
“Is that what you did to my brother? You had him killed when he found someone else? Someone who
was prettier and nicer than you? He fell in love with Frances, and you and Spider couldn’t
control him anymore, so you had him put down like a sick dog.”
Carly’s face turned to despair. “Emmy, please don’t—”
“Don’t call me that! You have no right!” I spat.
Spider had calmly made his way back to us. He glanced at Carly who was sobbing uncontrollably
and angrily turned to me. “Carly had nothing to do with this. None of this is her fault.”
The man who had been holding the gun had conveniently decided that I was to blame for Cameron’s
death. A fury of adrenaline raged through my body, and I lunged forward, evading Tiny’s grasp.
My fist connected with Spider’s face, and he stumbled back from the blow. I managed to throw
another punch, though with less force, before Tiny grabbed me by the shoulders and lifted me
from the ground. I kicked my legs, and one of them caught, clipping Spider’s shoulder. He
swore. Carly stood by his side, between us, in a panic.
“Put her in the car!” he ordered Tiny.
While I continued to fight off Tiny, Spider turned to Carly, pinching his bleeding nose and
making stretch circles with his injured shoulder. “Go back inside. Make sure the mess is
completely cleaned up.” They glanced at each other for a half-second, and Carly made her way
back into the warehouse. In the meantime, Tiny had called for reinforcements, and three men
forced me into the back of a black car. I was made to sit in the middle, with my seatbelt
tightly strapped to my waist as extra backup, while Tiny and another guard flanked me. Spider
sat up front in the passenger side, and the third guard jumped into the driver’s seat.
“I want to see Cameron,” I demanded whipping the never ending tears.
“You’re in no position to be making any requests,” Spider said nasally, his head leaned back
on the seat and a bloody Kleenex stuffed up his nose.
He was right. I was squeezed into the seat between two very large, armed men who were nervously
watching my every move. I had no energy left to fight them off—the adrenaline had boiled out of
me.
We peeled away from the warehouse. We were somewhere in an industrial zone outside Callister.
There were gravel pits and rusty abandoned bulldozers, half-submerged. The car was dangerously
speeding on a sandy road with the shocks threatening to sever every time we hit fissures in the
uneven road. So much sand was being kicked up from the speed that we were enclosed in a fog of
our own dust. I turned back toward the warehouse, where I imagined Cameron’s body still lying
on the cold, cement floor; I could see nothing but a cloud of brown dirt. My throat was
collapsing into itself, like a trash compactor, squeezing the air out from each end. I could
barely breathe—but then again, breathing was by that point overrated, just another luxury that
I didn’t want.
“Where are you taking me?” I managed to croak out.
No response.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked again with more force.
“Shut up,” Spider said with irritation. He had removed the tissue from his nostril, and his
nose started gushing blood again.
“Are you going to kill me?”
“Can’t you keep your mouth shut for two seconds?”
“I don’t care if you kill me,” I blurted.
Spider swore. “If you don’t shut up I will kill you, with my bare hands, in this car. Keep
quiet.”
I started sobbing. I wanted it to be over.
He sighed. “I won’t kill you, all right?”
“Why not?” I asked him, looking for a different answer.
“Because I can’t kill people like you without other people like you noticing,” he said
angrily.
Spider’s words had hit me like a gunshot through the heart. Cameron died while I cruelly had to
outlive him, for no other reason than the circumstances I had been born into, which had put me
in a different world than him. Yet Spider, who belonged in no one’s world, was still sitting
there, alive and mostly unharmed. There was something despairingly unjust about that. Hate
boiled in my veins.
“You must be happy now that Cameron’s out of your way,” I surmised.
Spider fleetingly glared to the rear before turning his eyes to the road ahead of him, without
offering response. Everyone in the car was stifled.