Carly looked at me strangely, like I had just asked her if she regretted breathing.
“I didn’t have any choice, Emmy. People like Spider, Cameron, and I are lucky just to survive
for this long. If we weren’t doing this here, we would be doing it from the street, where
things are even more dangerous. We’ve all had to make big sacrifices in order to get here, but
at least we have some control over our lives now. I send money back to my family. I can keep
them safe from here.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to suggest that you shouldn’t be doing this.”
Carly conceded a sigh. “I know. It’s hard to understand when you don’t come from the streets,
when you’ve always had everything you’ve ever wanted. Your brother always had that problem
too.”
I could sense that Carly was getting upset by our conversation. I decided to not push my luck
any further.
We spent the rest of the day together, Carly and I. I found that I liked her more and more. In
some ways, she was very reserved—but her temperament seemed to flare up easily. I thought that
we were very similar in this way; yet it was clear to me that, in her eyes, we were very
different.
In the evening, we popped some popcorn and settled in for a girls-only movie night—though our
chick-flick choice probably had more explosions and gunfight than a movie that most “normal”
girls would have picked.
Carly even brought out a bottle of wine.
“I was able to sneak this past Spider last time we got back from the city,” she told me a
little shamefacedly.
“Why would you have to sneak it in?” Dating the head of security should come with some perks.
“Spider doesn’t allow booze anywhere on the property,” she explained.
“That’s … unorthodox,” I mentioned, though “control freak” came to mind.
She was slightly dubious. “Would you want these boys carrying machine guns after they’ve been
drinking?”
Touché.
Two bags of popcorn later, with plastic goblets and an almost empty bottle of wine … Carly and
I were thoroughly on our way to having a great time. But when the male lead got hit by a bus,
Carly suddenly turned the volume down. The slamming of a car door confirmed her suspicions that
she had heard something.
I turned to Carly with question. Her face had blanched. “Oh God,” she gasped, bringing her
hand to her mouth. “They’re early. Something’s happened.”
As she pounced off the couch, the front door slammed opened. What we heard next stunned both of
us.
“Is someone singing?” we asked simultaneously.
Chapter Fifteen:
Flying High
Cameron and Spider slumped in together and were followed by Griff and Tiny, who were dragging
Rocco in by the waist. Rocco’s foot was heavily bandaged, but he was otherwise very happy.
Carly was as shocked as I was. But Spider meaningfully shook his head at her; now was not the
time to ask questions.
Rocco was still singing like a drunken sailor as Griff and Tiny helped him to the couch. Griff
was ashen. He glanced at me from the corner of his eye, and then he glanced at Cameron. He
looked like he was about to say something to Cameron, but Tiny grabbed him by the arm and led
him back out.
While Carly and I wondered about Rocco’s concerto, Spider caught sight of the almost empty
bottle of wine on the coffee table. He picked it up and accusingly glimpsed at Carly and me. Our
cheeks burned wine red. Carly smiled, guiltily, while she examined her fingernails; I
immediately went searching for the remote control, to turn the movie off.
Cameron smiled, but his eyes were lined. “Did we interrupt your party?”
I found the remote too quickly and changed the subject. “What’s wrong with Rocco?”
“He’s heavily sedated,” Cameron told me.
Rocco suddenly took interest.
“I’m not sayne-dated. Dr. Lorne just gave me some happy pills,” he squeaked, shaking a
sandwiched-sized, clear plastic bag of multicolored pills. And then he ravenously grabbed the
nearly empty popcorn bowl, and we all watched him try to bite through the unpopped kernels.
Carly piped up in the inflating pressure. “So, are we supposed to guess what happened?”
There was a tense moment of silence between Cameron and Spider, between Rocco’s teeth-splitting
crunches.
“Rocco shot himself in the foot,” Spider finally spilled, keeping his eye on Cameron.
Cameron’s already treacherous mood exploded like a volcano. “He wouldn’t have shot himself if
my orders had been followed.”
“It was an accident, Cameron,” Spider reminded him, quickly, patiently.
“I said no guns! What part of my order wasn’t clear?”
Rocco got up from the couch and limped toward the patio doors.
“Where are you going?” Cameron demanded, the anger of his voice ricocheting off the living
room walls.