“You know, I don’t even like these things,” Eric said, shaking the gun from side to side with his right hand, his left hung straight and lifeless by his side. “But the weapon isn’t what’s important here. Ending your life is.” His lip twitched. “So a gun it is.”
Preppy slowly set me down on the rubble with my back against the wall. “If it’s me you want. It’s me you can have. Just let her go.” Preppy stepped in front of me shielding me with his body. He held up his hands in surrender.
His empty hands made me realize he didn’t have his gun. He must have dropped it when he picked me up. I searched around, spotting it just out of reach in the rubble.
Eric sneered at Preppy. “There is no OR, I want BOTH of you dead.” Without warning Eric shifted his aim to me and fired. That’s when everything shifted and became like watching a movie in slow motion. Even the POP POP POP from the gun sounded slurred and drawn out. Preppy leapt sideways, his body almost still in the air as he stretched himself out as long as he could, like an outfielder trying to catch a baseball. Only he wasn’t playing some game. He was shielding me.
And it wasn’t a baseball he caught.
It was a bullet.
Preppy landed on his side with an ‘UMPH’. The fabric of his undershirt grew red with his blood. I crawled over to him, barely noticing Eric approaching.
“We need to get you the fuck out of here,” Preppy ground out, sitting up. “No matter what happens you go to Bo. Take care of him.”
I was about to argue when he added. “Please, Dre. Just take care of our boy.”
Tan pointed-toe dress shoes clicked against the concrete. Eric crouched down in front of us. A look of satisfaction crossed his face when he realized he had us defenseless and cornered.
When another part of the roof collapsed nearby I used that moment of distraction to extend my foot and slide Preppy’s gun between my legs.
“I’d really hoped we’d have more time to get reacquainted, Dre. But it appears that Romeo over here is cutting our time short. Well, that and I kind of made the building explode,” Eric sang while staring hatred at Preppy. “Why don’t you move the fuck over so I can kill this fucking whore first without having to shoot through you...again,” he laughed. “Then I can send you to hell where you belong.”
Preppy chuckled. “Hell? Bitch, I just got back from there and I don’t plan on going back any time soon. So sorry, but you’ll be making this trip solo.”
“What you don’t understand is that it’s all too fucking late!” Eric shouted manically, pressing his gun against Preppy’s forehead. “This is just the rain. Soon, you’ll be drowning in the flood.”
“Listen, motherfucker. I love Bon Jovi as much as the next man, but let’s focus less on quoting the poignant lyrics of an iconic hair-band, and concentrate more on the fact that I’m about to cut you open, gut you like a fucking mullet, and feed your balls to my pig.”
“You can’t do shit!” Eric cried out. “I have the power of the Lord on my side and he says that you have to die.” Eric cocked the gun.
“I feel like this is really bad timing on your part,” Preppy started. “I feel compelled to share a little something with you. A motherfucking life lesson, if you will.” Preppy’s breathing became labored. “The greatest gift I was ever given, was death. Because only then did I learn what it meant to truly live.”
“That’s touching,” Eric said sarcastically.
I had to get the gun to Preppy. I would have fired it myself, but I had no shot. I didn’t want to risk not hitting Eric, or even worse, accidentally hitting Preppy. I finally managed to shuffle the gun between my legs. I pressed it up against Preppy’s back. He leaned back against me and Eric followed him over with the gun still at his head. Preppy folded his arms behind his neck, over my legs, like he was getting ready to tan at the beach, grabbing the gun in the process.
“And since my death was such a gift to me, I’m about to pay it forward and give that same gift to you.” Preppy shifted the gun from his back to his front while Eric was too busy focused on his words. “Now say ‘thank you’,” Preppy demanded, firing a shot off before he knew what happened. It hit him in the forearm, his gun flew across the room. He dropped to his knees.
“Say ‘thank you’,” Preppy repeated through his gritted teeth, cocking the gun once again and aiming for Eric’s chest.
Still nothing.
“Say fucking ‘thank you!’” Preppy roared, sitting up on his knees so the two men were eye to eye, only a few feet apart.
“Th-th-thank you!” Eric cried out in fear.
Preppy squeezed the trigger, hitting Eric in the thigh. A spurt of blood streamed from his leg onto the floor. Eric slumped to the floor.
“You’re fucking welcome,” Preppy said.
Eric sat back up, producing a smaller gun that must have been strapped to his leg. Preppy fired his gun first but nothing. He tried again and again. It was jammed.
Eric laughed long and loud. My heart was beating so rapidly I feared cardiac arrest at any moment. Preppy, still bleeding from his own gunshot wound on his upper chest, dropped back down to once again shield me from Eric’s bullet. “Remember what I said, Doc!” he called out as Eric aimed his gun at Preppy’s head.
“No!” I cried, reaching for Preppy but he turned around to face Eric. “Noo!”
I braced myself for the boom of the bullet meant for Preppy, but it never came. Eric stilled, dropping the gun. His mouth opened and blood poured over his lips, spilling onto and off of his chin like a bloody chocolate fountain.
He fell forward onto the ground revealing the hand axe that had been lodged in his head, and the person who put it there.
Bo.
––––––––
Preppy
Life was all about sacrifice and my son has just made a big one.
A human one.
Not only had he just killed a man, he was standing there twirling his arms around like he was about to ask me to change the channel from Sponge Bob to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Sweetly. Innocently. He stepped around Eric’s blood pooling at his feet without so much as a second glance. He pointed to Dre who was awake but incoherent. Her eyes open but seeing nothing. Mommy okay? he signed.
“She will be. How the fuck did you get here, Bo?”
Hid in van.
Kevin came running in. “I heard something explode. What the fuck happened?” he asked, surveying the scene, huffing like he’d ran all the way to the house.
“No time to explain. Take Bo to the van. NOW!”
Kevin did what he was told, grabbing Bo’s hand and dragging him from the house.
The collapsed ceiling-turned-wall shook, revealing a dusty but alive King and Bear standing on the other side. “You look like you guys fell into a bowl of blow.”
“I fucking wish,” Bear answered. They both looked as relieved to see me alive as I was to see them but there was no time for a family reunion.
I picked up Dre, ignoring the shooting pain in my chest, and followed King and Bear out into the sunlight.
Dre was dazed from all the blood loss. Her skin pale. The circles under her eyes dark. “I have to get her help. Now.”
Before it’s too late.