Crack! The doorframe had finally given in. I jumped. Rocco swore. He looked around the
room and, with all his might, pushed me into the furthest corner of the living room where there
was a large wicker chest. He opened it, threw the blankets that were inside it on the couch and
forced me inside. As he closed the lid, I heard the front door violently swing open and a trudge
of footsteps rushing toward the living room. Through the weaves of the chest, I could see Rocco
standing guard in the middle of the living room with his arms bravely crossed.
A heavyset man led the gang into the living room. With his finger on the trigger of his machine
gun, he glanced around the room and stopped to stare Rocco down. Rocco never flinched.
“Clear!” the heavyset man yelled.
He and the rest of his men slightly relaxed their grip on their weapons and parted to the sides.
A lanky, bookish man strolled in from the back through the split of men, stopping in front of
Rocco. Unlike the sweaty and agitated men that backed him, the man was tranquil, unconcerned.
There was something familiar about him. My heart was pumping so fast I was shaking.
“Where’s the girl?” he demanded of Rocco. He had an almost female tone to his voice.
Rocco cocked his head to the side. “It’s Norestrom, isn’t it? I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Where’s the girl, mongrel?” Norestrom repeated more forcefully.
“What girl? There aren’t any girls here.”
Norestrom peered at Rocco through his red-rimmed glasses. “Listen, kid, we know the girl is
here. All of your men are dead. Now, you can tell us where she is and you’ll live, or you can
die and we’ll still find her. Which one is it?”
Gunfire suddenly erupted at the back of the crowd, and I saw two of Norestrom’s men go down
with a splat. One of the ailing guards had crawled out of bed from the basement and snuck behind
them, taking two men down before getting shot himself.
While Norestrom’s men had been distracted with the guard, Rocco had cocked his fist back and
punched Norestrom right on the nose. Norestrom fell back like a rag doll. He slid to the floor
and his head hit the ground with a thud.
One of Norestrom’s men ran to his side but Norestrom shoved him away. Disoriented, Norestrom
wobbled to a sitting position, his nose bleeding, and his glasses shattered on his face. He was
incensed.
“Kill him,” he ordered pinching his nose with two slender fingers.
The heavy man immediately raised his weapon.
Shots were fired.
Rocco fell limp to the floor.
In that moment, I felt like I’d been knocked out of my body. What I had seen … it couldn’t
have happened. My vision blurred, but my eyes stayed on Rocco. I willed him to get back up, to
fight back, to run. But he wasn’t moving. Red stains soaked the front of his gray T-shirt, and
a puddle of burgundy was spreading around him.
Thick fog had started creeping into my brain.
Norestrom got up and brushed his hands over his khaki pants. “Find her and bring her to me,
dead or alive,” he commanded and thought about it, “Preferably alive.”
The men scurried and spread out, leaving Norestrom behind in the living room. Norestrom
approached Rocco and kicked his lifeless body. Rocco didn’t react. Satisfied that Rocco wouldn
’t attack him again, Norestrom bent over him and searched his pockets. He pulled out pieces of
my Rocco’s world: screws and a nail, a napkin, a few peanuts, candy wrappers, and the cell
phone.
Norestrom flipped the cell phone open and quickly scanned the screen before the battery went
completely dead. Then he bellowed, and his heavy assistant ran back to him.
“He had time to call them. We don’t have much time,” Norestrom said. “Get the body out of
here and make sure it’s the first thing they see when they drive in.” The heavyset man jumped
and called for aid. They carried Rocco out of the living room, leaving a trail behind.
Norestrom stood and scanned the pool of blood with a smug smile. When the heavy man came back
and stood with him, Norestrom turned angry. “Go find the girl!”
The two of them ran off through the kitchen doorway, and I heard their footsteps climbing the
stairs up to Cameron’s room.
The sound of things getting thrown around and broken rang through the house as the men searched
high and low for me.
But the living room was left empty.
I didn’t have much time before they started pulling apart the living room to find me.
In a daze, I opened the lid of the chest, crawled all the way to the patio door, sliding it
open. I crept out into the night and crawled into the dark recess that had once been the site of
my hidden first kiss with Cameron. I could hear men stomping within the living room and kitchen
now. I rolled myself under the deck’s railing, stuffing the pistol in the waistband of my
shorts and clinging to the side as I heaved my body over. Hanging from my fingers, I dropped to
the ground and immediately skidded away from the basement light, squeezing my body against the
cold, brick wall.
The basement patio door slid open, and a man stepped outside, glancing around. My heart pumped
frantically as his gaze was slowly coming into my path.