Christie turns and walks over to us. We both freeze. She has a determined look on her face, a cold calculation in her eyes that I’ve never seen before. I think she’s seen the knife and she’s going to take it from us, but she reaches down instead and pulls the gag from my mouth, letting it rest around my neck. My jaw aches as I open and close it. I glare up at her as I run my tongue over the back of my teeth, trying to get the taste of dirt out of my mouth. Griggs pulls up a chair from the table and sets it behind her. She sits, crossing her legs, her shins only inches away from my face.
“Now,” she says carefully, “we’re going to have a talk, you and I. I will ask you questions, you will answer the specific questions, and that will be that. Are we clear?”
“Fuck you,” I snarl at her, trying to grab the blade of the knife again.
She sighs as if she’s dealing with a petulant child. “Benji, this can go very easy for the both of you. Or it can be very difficult. The choice is yours.”
“Did you do it? Did you kill him?”
She looks taken aback. “You were there, Benji. Did it look like I had a rifle in my hand?” She frowns. “How hard did you hit your head?”
“My father!” I shout at her. “Did you kill my father!”
Something crosses her face then—a shadow, a stutter. Her eyes go wide and she purses her lips like she’s trying to think up something to say, anything to say. Finally, “It was an accident, Benji. You know that. He lost control and went into the river.”
I’m quaking. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?”
“Yes. I know you had something to do with it. You knew he was going to meet with Corwin. You knew he’d found you out, or at least about the drugs. You knew he was going to turn you in. Did he know? Did he know about you specifically?” The knife begins to open again.
She suddenly leans forward, grabbing my face in a single hand, squeezing my jaw harshly. She brings her face close to mine. I don’t look away. “This,” she says, a sneer on her lips, “is why you’re here now, Benji. You don’t know when to stop.”
“And I won’t stop. Not now. Not now, you fucking bitch.”
“George,” she snaps, not taking her eyes off of mine.
He steps forward without hesitation, and I have no time to brace myself against the butt of the rifle smashing into my stomach. The world grays around me and all the air is expelled from my body. My throat feels constricted, and I can’t catch my breath. Vaguely, on the outskirts of my consciousness, I hear Abe yelling against his gag, but his protestations seem unimportant. I think I’m about to pass out, but then I’m finally able to suck in a thin breath that burns my lungs. My face is wet with rain water and sweat, and tears threaten to follow, but I won’t allow them. I won’t allow myself to show weakness. Not here. Not in front of them. I take in another breath, gasping in the air.
“This could be quite simple, Benji,” my aunt says again. “I will ask the questions, you answer them. Then we see what happens from there.”
“Fuck you.”
She shakes her head. “So like Big Eddie. Stubborn until the very end. Who besides Special Agent Corwin did you talk to? You’re not wearing a wire, I already checked. But that doesn’t mean you haven’t spoken to anyone else. Who else is there?”
Going from my father to Corwin to wires confuses me. “What?”
She speaks slowly as if I’m dumb. “Who besides Special Agent Corwin did you talk to?”
I think about lying. I think about telling her I spoke with the whole goddamned FBI and that they’re about to bust in this place and take her down, but I don’t want to take the risk. If they’ll hit me, they’ll hit Abe. I can’t see him hurt any more than he already is. So I answer her truthfully. “No one,” I mutter.
She stares at me for a moment. Then, “You’re lying.”
I’m insistent. “No, I’m not!”
“Who else have you told?”
“Nobody. Corwin was the only one I talked to!”
“George,” she says.
The rifle slams into my stomach. I lean over and gag, a thin stream of spit hanging from my mouth. It feels like my eyes are bulging out of my head, and my body feels like a bundle of exposed nerves. I put my forehead against the ground and through the fireworks in my head, I think, Please. I pray, please. Please God, Michael, whoever. Please. If not me, then please help Abe get out of here. Just make them stop. Please. Cal. Cal, please don’t be dead, please see my thread. God, please. Dad. Oh, Dad, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but it hurts. Oh my God, I hurt. Please let it be quick. If not for me, then for Abe. If we go, let it be quick for him.
The fireworks go off in my head again, all exploding in shades of such blue I almost cry out. The rain drips through the walls and down from the ceiling onto the burning skin of my neck and it’s one drop, then two, then three, and I count all the way to seven before I stop. There’s no answer. No one hears my prayer. No one is coming. We are alone. We’ve always been alone.
I sit back up with a groan.
“You know,” my aunt says, “I’m rather upset that it’s come to this, Benji.” There is something akin to sadness in her voice, and for an impossible moment, I almost believe it. “When we started this little… endeavor, I never thought it would come to this. But I guess like all things, choices had to be made. To take on something such as this, you have to be prepared to make sacrifices.”