I’m one of them, after all.
*
It takes fifteen minutes of sneaking down back roads and drifting through alleyways before I slide into the bakery via the back entrance.
Charlie squeals loudly, half in shock and half in excitement, then spins to the internal shop door and raises her hands to prepare for Koko. He barrels into the kitchen clutching a vicious cleaver, probably making dark threats in Samoan, if the murderous intent in his eyes is to be believed.
I’m too out of breath to speak, and whatever they see on my face has them both rallying to help me without question.
“Sit!” Charlie barks, pulling up a stool.
Koko sloshes a glass of water down on the counter in front of me and grumbles, “Sip.”
I follow their instructions and slowly calm down enough to speak. They wait patiently; genuine concern engraved in their nose wrinkles and pitying gazes.
“Sor-ry.” The word hitches with my jagged breaths. “I didn’t mean…to bring…trouble to you. Just didn’t know…where else to go.”
“You’re always welcome here, and we’ve got Koko to deal with any trouble,” Charlie reassures.
The big guy grumbles. The rumbling threat is self-evident even without the fire in his eyes.
“Koko wants to know who he has to kill,” Charlie translates.
“I’m so tempted to give him names right now.”
Both their expressions harden. But it’s Charlie who asks, “What’s going on, Jules?”
I stare at my only friends and wonder if it is safer for them to remain ignorant or if they’ll be better prepared by knowing everything? In the end, my selfishness wins out. I need advice, support and, more than anything else, commiseration. I want someone I care about to know where to find me if I vanish.
Fuck. Is this what my life is now? An hour ago, I was excited to graduate and build a future. Now, I’m preparing to disappear off the face of the earth at the hands of Franz and Hanson.
“I think you’d better sit down.”
Chapter Two
Charlie paces the floor, swiping absently at the counters with her cloth but not really cleaning anything. Koko’s stool creaks as he watches us both warily. I don’t blame him. Charlie’s the overprotective type and quick to anger for the right reasons, so the bomb I just dropped has triggered all herkick-them-in-the-coochenergy.
The second Charlie started pacing, Koko sat down. Like yin and yang, Koko maintains their perfect balance staying calm and silent. The angrier Charlie becomes, the more stoic and unmoving Koko is.
“The police —” she starts and then shakes her head, knowing better than to think the Vale police worked for anyone other than Franz or their own self-interest. “Can’t this Mr Nagano or that Driscoll guy just shoot him in the head? That’d solve all their problems, too,” she reasons.
“You’d encourage people to become killers?”
“To keep you safe, I’d kill him myself!” she grunts.
My eyes sting. I struggle to swallow around the stone in my throat. “Why?” I ask.
“What do you mean,why?It’d keep you safe, and he deserves it. Scum of the Earth.”
“No, I mean, why would you fight so hard for me?”
Charlie dashes around the counter and wraps her arms around me. I can’t even bring myself to hug her back. I don’t deserve her or her kindness.
“Because you’re me. You’re where I was ten years ago. I had no one to fight for me, and maybe I would have made better choices sooner if I had. If I get to do for you what I wished someone had done for me, then maybe everything was worth it. You know?”
My response is a hiccupped sob, but Charlie only hugs me tighter.
“Plus, we’re pretty much family now. Who else would I trust in my home, in my business, with my gorgeous husband, to babysit the bun in my oven? You’re like a sister to me. But don’t tell my actual sister. She’s pretty territorial.”
