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"What does that even mean!?" I screamed.
"Who was going to pay the medical bills, huh?" he yelled back.
"She didn't need medical bills or a checkup. She needed you, Dad. All mom needed was you." He didn't respond to that. Every time we had this argument, it usually ended around this point. "You don't get to determine whether or not I'm safe. I'll do that from now on, because with you, I don't want to end up like mom." I shook my head and began walking off.
"Why?"
I stopped and turned back to meet his gaze.
"Why do you always blame me for her death?" he asked in a defeated tone. Phew. At least, I could still get that Bourbon. Hopefully, my mood wasn't too ruined.
"I'm not blaming you for her death. I'm blaming you for her unfortunate death." I turned back for the final time with a resolve to not answer him even if he called. I doubted he would anyways. I had given him enough food for thought to leave me be for at least a month before he'd have the morale to pester me again. In reality, I wasn't as pissed as he thought I was about him not being there for mom. It was just such a solid weapon to use to get him off my tail for a while. A weapon I was going to keep using as it would be enough to keep him at bay till he finally gave up.
I continued my strut to the bar, my feet and other parts of my body moving in sync with the beat of the music that surrounded the room. I tried my best to push out the memories of my mom - one of the reasons I always regret using this weapon - and winked at the barman. He nodded and gave me a shot withoutasking and watched as I downed it in one sip. The familiar haze flooded my vision and I had to squint reflexively. I didn't get to feel the full soothing effect because, in the next moment, adrenaline rose from my glands and overran my whole system.
There were shots indicating different guns were in use. Different types meant different power ranges, and this is the kind of place you'd expect to witness some of the best handguns in the defense industry. Without a second thought, I dove onto the ground and took cover.
The gunfight seemed as if it was never-ending. All I could hear were screams of pain and shattered glass from all over the place. Two bodies dropped next to me. One with a gunshot wound to the head. The other with a gaping hole in his chest. When the gunfire finally subsided, you could hear a pin drop. It was so silent. Probably because the target had been eliminated or had escaped. It took me a minute to gain my composure before I decided to look around. There were bodies everywhere. Dancers on the stage, men slumped over the seats, and cocktail waitresses sprawled out on the ground, covered with blood, and spilled alcohol.
That's enough Bulleit Bourbon for one night, even though it was just a shot (albeit a heavy one). No matter when I got to the club, gunshots were my'time to get home'alarm.
There are moments in life when time just seems to stop. Those moments are when the deepest memories are ingrained into your very subconscious ready to surface and plague you for future moments whether you're at your strongest or weakest; it doesn't matter. Now was one of those moments, when I saw myDad lying on his belly on the floor, much like I was, but with eyes open, in the same unnerving stillness my mom's had before I closed them for the last time.
I can't recall whether it was the alcohol's effect that began to take effect on my brain as the initial dose of adrenaline wore off or the shock of the sight before my eyes, but I know that if I wasn't already lying down, I'd have been on the ground anyway. My eyes, momentarily, seemed to lose focus of what was in front of me. It was as though my brain tried to trick itself that if it banned that image from its reality, it actually might disappear and I'd see my father rush in to pick me up from the ground complaining in his dialect, how rumpled I had made my clothes.
But the further I lay there, the deeper my heart sunk into the hole that had just been created by what my eyes saw. There was nothing I could do. The bullet hole in his head said that much. I was all alone now. My mother, dead. Father? I still didn't want to think of it. Frantically, like a land animal dropped in the middle of the ocean, I began looking around for straws to grasp to prevent my own drowning. I looked around at the dozen other dead men everywhere. My father was the perfect example of the term 'victim of circumstances'.
Most of them wore expensive tuxedos, making me wonder what could possibly have been beefy enough to cause a quarrel this dramatic. I couldn't even face my dad yet. I couldn't begin to think of the grief I'd go through. I just needed something to hold responsible, someone, and I got him. Stirring awake among the array of dead or dying men, was a younger man. He had a bullet wound in his upper chest and left arm, but that didn't stop thelightning speed I charged at him with, nor the matching speed he used to deflect the punch I threw.
More blows came from me, more that he kept deflecting with ease, the annoyed and confused expression deepening on his face.
"What the fuck do you want, you vermin?" he growled when I successfully landed a punch on his shoulder, probably affecting his upper chest wound. He pushed me with relative ease, and I flew shamelessly to the ground. But no sooner had that happened, I was back on my feet, charging at him, only to get knocked down again. By now, he was already fully standing.
"Can I help you?" he tried to reason with me.
"Yes!" I seethed, as I stood up from the fall and came at him again. "Give me my father back!"
Chapter 2
There was no more confused man amidst this chaos than the one I currently came at with another flying fist. This time, instead of shoving me to the ground with his good arm, he expertly maneuvered my entire body with my flying arm which he caught and used as some kind of twine to entangle me with and pulled my back against himself.
No matter how much I struggled, I couldn't get free. That was when my eyes fixed themselves on my father’s stiff form. The scream that erupted from my throat was raw, guttural, and downright disturbing. There was no other expression that came to my mind than that. It must have startled the wounded man because he let me go almost immediately. I moved to my dad's corpse and clutched it tight. The life force had already been completely drained. I could feel it. His body was just so...relaxed. Another scream tore from my throat, but this time it was a call and not just a raw, senseless noise.
After a heart-wrenching moment, I turned to look at the man I held responsible for completely ruining my life only to see him limping away from the mess and out of the building.
Oh no, you don't!
I started after him and easily caught up to him probably owing to his wounds that were dripping blood on the floor.
"Where the fuck do you think you're going?" I queried him, but he ignored me and kept walking. I was having none of that. Absolutely none!
I kept at him and yanked his good arm in a futile effort to get him back, but I ended up being a carriage link. I didn't expect him to still have this much strength. He didn't seem to mind that I was holding on to him as long as I kept moving.
"What is going to happen to your people there?" I asked when we got out of the club through the rear end. A small crowd formed in front of the building.
"The police will take care of it," he mumbled and grunted at a sharp pain that seemed to jab his wounds as he moved.
"Just like that?"
