Chapter 4: Jonathon
“Sorry to do this to ya Johnny, but I need your car. It's hard enough to find one around here, and then you come rolling up like it’s an ordinary Friday night. Get out now, unless you want to watch your sister choke on her blood.” Darry says darkly as he presses the blade against Jo's neck.
“Darry, what are you...is this how it is now?” The words stumble from my mouth. Darry’s mouth curls and he beckons to the one woman on his left.
“Baby, go open up the driver's door and help him out” Darry barks. Some skinny brunette moves around to the front of the car over to my side. My left hand slips down and hits the door lock. Jo looks over to me, her eyes widen. Her hand trembles in her lap and she shakes her head ever so slightly. She wants to know what I'm doing. I wish I knew. The brunette tries to open my door.
“Darry, he locked it.” she whines. She begins to bang on the window with a fist. I look over to Darry. His upper lip twitches.
“Do you wanna see her dead man? Do it now!” He pushes the blade into her neck. A single drop of blood slowly runs down. “I will do it Jon. Please don't test me. I have no choice.”
“Alright! Let me get my seat belt.” I immediately reach down, but into my coat pocket. The center console hides my hand. I grip the pistol. He doesn't fall for it.
“I wanna see your hands! Unlock your door first.” Darry yells, and the blade goes a little deeper. My sister inhales and mouths a silent scream. I freeze.
“Sorry, sorry. I wasn't thinking.” The words rush out. My left hand goes toward the unlock button, but my right stays gripped to the handle of the revolver. I can already feel my palm sweating.
“Now,” he yells even louder. He curses at me and points the blade at me for a second. Before he can return it to my sister's throat, I draw out the gun between the blade and my sister's head with the barrel lined up perfectly with his forehead. His jaw nearly unhinges and his eyes dilate. His blade falls to the car mats. I tilt my head forward and look at him from the tops of my eyes. I’ve never felt such concentrated rage.
Darry stutters, frozen. “No man, I wasn't gonna do it. It was all for show.”
“Back up!” I command venomously, unsure if my hand is shaking from the rage or the fear. My sister gasps and her hand goes to the cut on her neck. I see the trickle of blood run down her green pea coat. I consider shooting him, and my finger twitches in anticipation. I feel it tighten more and more around the trigger. The hammer begins to pull back...
“Let's just go.” Jo yells. That was all I needed. My finger loosens and I put my foot on the accelerator and we drive off down the road. I look in the rear-view mirror and see Darry, the brunette, and the rest of his group standing in the middle of the road.
We take the exit to the bridge and the next ten minutes are completely silent. We reach the other side of the bridge just before the tunnel penetrates a high hill. Surprisingly there is no one around the tunnel’s entrance. Some of the cars and crowds must have deterred people trying to find a way out. Both of my hands are shaking. The gun is on the floor next to the knife. I hate guns. My stomach leaps to my mouth so I pull over for a second. I open my door and run around the car to the side of the bridge. The river is far below, but I can hear the sound of the rushing water. It doesn’t help calm me down; I vomit.
Reaching into my pocket, I pull out an old receipt and wipe my mouth. It's not the best method, but it cleans me up. I crush it into a ball and throw it below. I don't think the police will be giving me a fine for littering today. I feel a hand on my back.
“You did what you had to do,” Jo calmly says.
“It's not what I did. It's what I almost did. I wanted to shoot him. All I wanna do is go back there and put a bullet in his head. He hurt you. He lied to me.” I take a few breaths, realizing how much my anger is coming through in my words. “Who else is he now going to hurt?”
“Maybe now he will think twice. And I am okay. It’s not deep - it already stopped bleeding.” A maroon smudge is all that is left of where Darry cut her. I look at her neck worried. She smiles slightly. “I'll be fine. Trust me.”
“I knew things were going to change. I never imagined like this.”
“We will be okay.” She pats my back, and gives me a slight hug. The first she has given me in a long time. “Let's go.”
We both get back in the car. I pick up the gun and return it to my pocket. It had been three years since I held a revolver like that. I notice Jo has the knife in her hands. It’s a small switch blade. She wipes her blood off of it and folds it into her pocket. I switch the transmission to drive and we enter the tunnel. Perhaps things are better on the other side.