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I surged up to my feet, not sure what I intended to do, but the urge to bash the fuckhead's brain in was almost overwhelming. Violence had never been a part of me before, but, I guess, no one had ever threatened what was mine before.
"Easy, homie," her ex said, shaking his head as the man beside me suddenly wasn't brandishing a bat, but had a knife to the side of my throat. "Don't be getting any hero ideas in that workaday brain of yours. This shit is a family matter. It don't concern you. Now, bitch, where the fuck did you put it?" he demanded, grabbing hold of her hair, yanking viciously back.
"It's gone!" she shrieked, pain making her eyes small, her voice shrill.
"All of it? How the fuck can all of it be gone with you living in a motherfucking shack?"
Money.
That was what he was after.
Money that she had taken from him.
And despite the urgency of the situation, I couldn't help but wonder how much she took, and where it was. Because, he was right, the place was a dump. Before I had started pitching in around the house, she had been barely making it.
"It's locked up for Mikey," she spat at him, pain making her angry, making her get a bit of her spirit back.
"Unlock it, bitch. The fuck he need money for anyway? Another goddamn video game he don't play?"
"Because I won't live for fucking ever, Phil. Because someone will need to take care of him when I'm gone. That's why. That's where the money is. And I can't touch it."
"You're gonna have to fucking find a way, Ronny," he told her, leaning in toward her, snagging her chin so hard that his fingers turned white, the sensation must have been crunching her bones. "Or there will be some consequences."
"There's nothing I can..." Erica started to object, helplessly, making Phil look over our way, jerking his chin at the guy behind me.
"Consequences, bitch," he told her a second before the knife sliced in, hot and deep, making my blood spill out, warm and sticky, running down my neck, staining my shirt, making me feel unstable on my feet.
As Erica screamed, I dropped down to my knees, my legs feeling wobbly, clutching at the gaping wound to my neck like I could hold it in, stem the flow that seemed to be way too much, way too fast.
The world became oddly muted.
I could see Erica screaming, pleading, crying, but nothing came back to my ears but the swishing of my own pulse, slower, thicker than it ought to have been.
My gaze shifted, looking over at Mikey as my head started to feel too heavy to be held up anymore, making it nod slowly up and down as I struggled to keep it up.
And then I saw it.
The game went black.
Dead.
Erica had forgotten to charge it again.
And I watched with a pit of absolute terror in my gut, knowing what was coming, having no idea how anyone else would react to his tantrum.
There was a garbled sound that I realized came from me as I tried to say something. I wasn't even sure what it was. My brain was thick, molasses and honey, no thoughts seemed to really solidify there.
I watched helplessly as his arm flailed out.
And knocked into the arm holding the gun.
The last thing I saw before blacking out from the blood loss was the side of Mikey's head covering the wall beside him.
"Oh my god," Rey gasped, scooting closer, her hand going to my thigh, giving it a squeeze. "Oh my god. I'm... I..."
She didn't know what to say.
As it turned out, no one really did.
I woke up in the hospital hooked up to bleeping machines, a blood bag hung next to two other banana bags of something clear, trying to replace the shit I had lost.
My brain was slow at first, not quite remembering the events, just taking in the things in the room. The way my forefinger was tightly clamped by the heart rate monitor. The coldness in the room. The light streaming in too brightly from the windows, bouncing off the water in the river below. The sounds of nurses outside the door, going about their days.
It wasn't until I shifted my head on the pillow and felt the pull on my neck that reality came charging back in a riptide, dragging me under.
I hadn't even been aware I was yelling until nurses came running.
My words rushed out, tripping over each other, asking about Erica, about Mikey, demanding to talk to someone who could tell me what was going on, cursing at them when they told me to calm down, to relax, when they tried to tell me how much blood I lost and how many stitches I had.
Like I gave a flying fuck about my blood and stitches.
