Cruel Lover

The door handle seems cold, my fingers feel numb. My head is swimming.

Part of me knows what I’m going to find, but another part doesn’t want to believe it. Oz had a gun, right? I mean, I didn’t see him with one, but he’s a gangster. Gangsters have guns. It was his gun that went off. It’s all over.

Even I don’t believe it.

“Stop right there, little girl,” a familiar voice says, and I do as I’m told. What else should I do?

Oz is lying on the floor, not moving. My father is in his bed. The steady beep, beep, beep tries to tell me that there’s nothing wrong. That all is well. But I know it’s a lie.

“You killed him,” I say without emotion. Or too much emotion. I’m not sure which one.

“Now you know how it feels,” says the familiar voice.

Robert McKenzie is a couple of years older than when I last saw him, the day I gave him the bad news about his son. But he’s aged a decade, maybe two.

“I didn’t kill your son, Mr. McKenzie.”

“Yes you did. And maybe I’ve just taken away the father of your child. Somehow poetic, isn’t it?”

I stare at him, and he laughs.

“You think I don’t know you two slept together last night? You think I didn’t have people outside his house, watching what was going on? If you’re pregnant, I think I have my justice. I might even let Winston here live.”

“You’re a monster. Anything human inside you is gone.” I shake my head, looking down at Oz. And somehow I know this isn’t the end. It can’t be. I lost him once before, but there’s a thread connecting me to him. If he was gone, I’d know it. I’d feel it. Even when I was away, I would have felt it. We were meant to come back to each other and that kind of love can’t end. He’s there, somewhere. I have faith. “Wake up, Oz. It’s time for you to wake up now.”

Chapter Twelve

Oz

So this is what it feels like to die, huh? Not at all what I was fucking expecting.

For starters, I was always told that after death there wasn’t any pain. That’s what the nuns at St. Justin’s said when I was devastated by my mom’s death. Well they were wrong, because my eye is fucking killing me. It’s like someone just stuck a hot needle in it, pulled it out and smothered it with Tabasco sauce.

Then there’s the darkness. I thought it was all supposed to be white or something?

Shit. If this is heaven, I kind of want my money back.

“Is anyone here?” I try to say, only I can’t really speak. It’s like I’m just sending some sort of thought out into the ether. “God?”

“You have to go back, Odysseus.”

“Mom?”

I don’t exactly hear her voice. Or see her. It’s more like I know what she’s saying, more like I can smell her scent, feel her presence.

“You have to go back. She needs you.”

Malta.

Fuck. Mom’s right. I can’t stay here. I can’t move on. That motherfucker is there in that room, isn’t he? He’s not going to let her go.

“How?” I shout into the darkness. “I don’t know which way.”

“That way. Now go.”

I feel a hard shove and it’s like I’m hurtling down to earth. A single breath comes into my lungs, and suddenly I’m back in the room again. One eye opens, the other doesn’t. It just hurts like a truck just hit it. But I don’t care.

I’m back, motherfuckers.

There’s McKenzie standing over me, grinning like he just got the cream, aiming the gun across the room. I know who he’s aiming at. I told her to stay outside, but of course she came. Disobedient as she is. Now she’s in danger, and I don’t have anything. No weapon, no upper hand, just my wits.

But that’s enough. I won’t give up. I’m a soldier and I’ll fight for her.

“Or perhaps I’ll kill your father as well,” McKenzie says. “After all, who is this man to you? Someone you knew ten years ago?” He laughs. “No. You’ll get over that. It’s not enough. You need to feel what I’m feeling. If not your father then who? You? Perhaps a single shot will be enough to end any life already forming inside that womb of yours. Would that be justice? An eye for an eye, as the Bible says?”

“Motherfucker.” The word is out of my lips before I can stop it, and McKenzie can’t help himself. His eyes drop to me, his face shocked. He thought I was dead. Yeah, well I’m back, so suck it up, you asshole.

And as the gun turns on me I see my chance.

Rising despite the pain in the right side of my face, I knock his arm upwards. A shot rings out, but it’s harmless. I hear the barking from outside the room, hear the voices. SWAT, it has to be. Well, they’re too late. The door opens and Roxie rushes in, but it’s not her teeth that wrap around McKenzie’s wrist.