I would miss Rocco so much. It felt like I was leaving my family behind.
My efforts to spend as much time with Rocco as possible went somewhat wasted; he didn’t get up
until well past noon. He lumbered into the living room, grunted and crashed on the other couch.
We slept until mid-afternoon. I told myself that, at least he spent his last hours with me doing
one of his favorite things: sleeping. As for his other favorite thing—eating—I commemorated by
making a really big lasagna. We sat at the table. He wolfed down most of the lasagna. I ate
without appetite.
“You know you can come visit me any time,” I told him, spearing my cold lasagna.
He squinted over his fork. “I already do.”
“I don’t mean upstairs. I don’t mean here … I mean when I go back to Callister. Someday.”
As I said this I realized that I wouldn’t be able to go back to the city, or back to my former
life.
“Okay?” Rocco watched me with awareness.
I dropped the subject. I was giving myself away, getting emotional. He was getting suspicious.
The night pushed forward, and I became more apprehensive about leaving. I had to remind myself
several times that I had no other choice. It was time to go—before it was too late.
I had decided that I would follow Griff’s lead and sneak out of my room in the middle of the
night by climbing down the two levels of balconies—strolling out of the front door would have
been a lot easier, but a little too obvious, even with sparse guards. Climbing down without
breaking my neck was as far as my plan went.
I waited for Rocco to go to bed, but after having slept all day, he was going to be up for a
while. I closed my eyes to rest before the big escape.
Chapter Twenty:
Terrorized
There were firecrackers resounding in the night. Rocco was on his feet before I had even opened
my eyes. He ran to the front door just as the off-duty day guards who had been unwinding in the
basement bolted past him and ordered him to deadbolt the door behind them. Rocco did as he was
told and limped back to the living room, his face white with terror. He had a cell phone to his
ear.
“Cam …” he half-yelled out of breath, “We have a big problem. The house is being attacked.”
I heard a voice calmly responding on the phone, but couldn’t make out what was being said.
Rocco answered the voice, “I don’t know who or how many! It’s dark out!”
A fresh round of gunfire exploded in the distance and seemed to be moving closer fast. The voice
on the other line was now rapidly speaking.
“I’m not running, Cameron. I’m not a coward. I’ll stay and fight with the guards,” Rocco
told him.
Cameron was screaming, cursing on the line. Rocco peeled the phone away from his ear and handed
it to me. “Here,” he said, “Cameron wants to talk to you.”
I picked up the phone, “Camer—”
Cameron didn’t give me a chance to greet him. “Emmy … Go with Rocco. Get out of the house.
Run for the woods.” He was panicked. I could hear commotion behind him. Spider was barking
orders, and people were yelling and shuffling rapidly.
Rocco had tottered to the cabinet and pulled a handgun out of the drawer. He handed it to me.
Steady thuds could be heard at the front door.
“Oh, God! Cameron, they’re at the door. I think they’re trying to knock it down!” I breathed
into the phone.
Cameron swore successively and pleaded, “Emmy, get out—” and the line went dead. I looked at
the phone and handed it over to Rocco.
He examined it. “Battery’s almost dead. I forgot to charge it,” he confessed and put the
useless phone back in his pocket. Rocco then started to rush me toward the patio door, but I
resisted.
“You need to get out of here, Em.”
“I’m not going without you,” I whimpered. “We run together. Cameron said—”
He was incredulous. “Run? Em, I can barely walk! I would just slow you down. Besides, I’m not
going to let them take my brother’s house without a fight.”
“This is no time for you to prove your toughness to your brother—”
There was a loud snap at the front door—the doorframe was giving into the attack. The
trespassers were moments away from entry.
“Can’t you just listen to me for once? I’m not going with you, and I’ll be dead if something
does happen to you because Cameron will kill me himself.” Rocco seemed to be getting calmer
while I was getting closer to losing my mind.
“Rocco, I am not leaving without you! Please …”