Mom sat by the window, face slack with medication. She’s been on the worst of them, then gotten off them, then on again. Her expression was as deadened as it had been during her Thorazine years. Margie and Sheila talked with their arms crossed, and the singer stood to the side as if she didn’t belong. We’d have to fix that. I’d hold her first, then hug Mom, then Sheila, and I would apologize for running away. I wouldn’t explain the unexplainable, but I would go deep into my gut for the regret and gratitude they deserved.
Except I never got to the waiting area. One minute I was walking down an empty hall wide enough for two lanes of traffic, the linoleum shining in vertical stripes where the lights were reflected, and the next, my feet didn’t feel the pressure of my body. I was pulled out of the hall so fast I didn’t have time to scream, even if a sweaty hand hadn’t been covering my mouth. My shoes slipped on the floor, and my knees dragged. I no longer had control of my body.
A door slammed, then there were steps. I clawed at my attacker. Male. Huge. Not Antonio. As I got thrown down a flight of concrete steps, I knew, even as my vision swam and my stomach flip-flopped, that I was alone. As alone as I’d ever been. No one was coming.
The man looked like the guy Antonio didn’t shoot in Tijuana. The one behind the rock. Domenico. Bruno Uvoli’s brother. I remembered it when my lungs emptied as he grabbed me and, as if he just couldn’t be bothered to carry me down the stairs, tried to thrust me down the next flight.
At the last second, I grabbed his ankle. My weight, which already had significant torque, pulled him down with me.
Bodies in motion tend to stay in motion, and we did exactly that. Elbows, knees, hips, the corners of the stairs, and gravity all battled for space. In those two turns, the civilized parts of me peeled off as if by centrifugal force, whipping away, leaving the basest, coarsest version of myself. The raw rage and adrenaline. All action and forward thrust. I considered nothing but action.
When we got to the next landing, I twisted until my hand was free, and I reached between his legs, grabbing for the soft flesh there. I squeezed, twisted, and pulled all at the same time.
Domenico’s howl woke me from my fog. He reached for me, and I couldn’t get away without letting his balls go, so he got my hair and jerked me around.
“You fucking mick bitch.” He went for my throat with one hand and pulled his other fist back.
I kept squeezing the flesh between his legs. His hand tightened on my throat. The edges of my vision dotted black as he cut off my circulation. I kicked at him but hit nothing, and fight turned to flight as I waited for him to smash my face.
But the blow never came.
Domenico was pulled away from me, mouth half open, eyes popping as if I was still twisting his balls.
In the whoosh of air as he was drawn away from me was the scent of campfires in a pine forest. Choking on my bruised esophagus and hurting everywhere, in a stairwell that should have been guarded but obviously wasn’t, I felt safe again. I got my legs under me.
“Theresa.” His voice, unflustered by anything but simple rage, cut through my pain and disorientation.
“I’m fine.”
I wasn’t. I was beat to hell, more shattered than I ever had been in my life. Yet I was fine the second I heard his voice.
Antonio held Domenico against the railing with his left hand while he pounded his face with his right. His knee was wedged between the man’s legs, immobilizing him into a back-arched position. His face was red.
“Chi ti ha mandato?”
I scanned the stairwell. Why was no one coming? How had this even gone on so long? The camera hung in the corner like a wasps’ nest, but it was turned all the way around.
“Chi ti ha mandato?” Antonio insisted, glancing at me quickly. “I’m going to fucking kill him if he doesn’t answer.”
Domenico made gacking noises in his throat.
“I don’t think he speaks Italian,” I said through a throat full of sand.
Antonio tightened his grip. “Too bad he can’t pray in God’s language.” He got up in Domenico’s face, jabbing his knee between his legs, and whispered, “Who sent you?”
Domenico puckered his lips as if to speak through layers of spit, and Antonio turned his head a quarter to hear.