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“Like I said, we’ve been in contact.”
I don’t even have a right to be mad. I’m not with either one of them, not really, and even if I was, I don’t have the right to know every person they speak to. It just makes me feel like every ounce of privacy I once had has been stripped from me. In my mind, whether it be true or not, they could be comparing notes for all I knew.
I internally shake myself for even thinking that way about either one of them. I don’t know Victor as well as I know Crow, but I do feel that I know them both well enough to know that they won’t do that. Neither of them seem maliciously inclined to hurt someone.
“I need to get hold of my dad,” I tell Crow. I’m just venting, releasing something, anything out of my mind in an attempt to relieve myself of one more factor that's worrying me. Three times I’ve rang his number and he’s not picked up.
I try Victor’s number instead, remembering that if things were over, he would be there with my dad or would likely know where he was.
The agonising wait while listening to the frustratingly repetitive ringing on my phone drove me close to insanity, leaving my mind to contemplate every bad scenario it could come up with.
“Are you at mine?”
“Oh thank god, you’re okay.” I breathe a sigh of relief at the knowledge that one more person is uninjured or at least not harmed enough that he could answer the phone to worry about me when it is him that was running towards the line of fire the last time I saw him.
“Of course I am,” he says, sounding confused, as if the idea of him being anything other than fine was ridiculous. I can’t help but laugh at the abrupt tone of his voice.
“Good, I’m glad,” I tell him truthfully. “Is my dad there? Is he OK too?” I can hear noise in the background, men talking, both in hushed whispers and menacing degrees of anger. I can’t hear what they are saying, but the anger is what presents itself.
“Your dad is fine, he’s walking through with some of the others to make sure no one is hiding and that everyone got out safely. Are you going to answer me?”
The relief at hearing that my dad is safe is felt throughout my body. The speeding rhythm of my heart beating decreases steadily, my breathing relaxing and my hands began to smooth from the constant shaking.
Alice is OK.
Victor is OK.
Dad is OK.
“Answer what?” I ask, distracted, having forgotten that he had asked me anything to begin with.
“Are you at mine? It’s not safe yet, there is likely to be another attack, it's how they do things,” he tells me in a very matter of fact way, as if this whole thing is nothing but an inconvenience rather than a near fatal attack.
“We’re nearly there. Who was it that attacked?”
“I’ll explain when I’m with you. Do not leave mine.” And with that, his voice is gone and the phone call is cut short.
Seventeen
Crow and I have very awkwardly sat in Victor’s flat for nearly an hour now.
I’ve only been here once before and I’m not sure if Crow had been here at all, though given the fact he knew where it was suggests that perhaps he has. Even so, he seems as awkward and agitated sat in here as I am. It is one thing being in someone’s home when they are there to tell you to make yourself comfortable, but to be without them makes me feel like an intruder.
“Have you thought anymore about the letter?” Crow asks me as he puts his phone down on the coffee table in front of us.
I sigh, defeated, uneasy with the conclusion I had come up with but glad for the distraction, even if it is a dire one.
“Whoever Gray was talking about having taken him is with Mum in some way. I don’t know if they’re a gang, a MC, the bloody mafia, I don’t know but the letter made it sound like mum was a part of them somehow.”
“What happened to her? You’ve never talked about it. Neither did Gray,” he admits.
I hate talking about her or giving her time in my mind because she just isn’t worth it but maybe explaining why will either help relieve the burden of holding her a secret or possibly help him connect some imaginary dots to give us another clue in the mystery of Gray.
“I hardly remember her. I think I remember her face, but I was so young when she left that I don’t even know if what I remember is real or if it's just imaginary from seeing her face in pictures.” I recall looking at pictures of the four of us – me, Gray, Mum, and Dad in pictures when I was little and wishing she would come back. I look just like her. The same dark, wavy and wildly messy hair. The same eyes, even the same facial structure. Looking back now I realise that I look nothing like my dad and everything like her.
“She left when I was four. She told Dad that she didn’t want this anymore. The family life, the kids, the husband, and that she didn’t want to be contacted again. Dad said she left in the middle of the night after putting us to bed. She didn’t want to say goodbye, so she just left. Dad tried to find her a few times but didn’t come up with anything. He said I cried for weeks, but I don’t remember that either. I just know that whoever she is, or was is someone that I don’t want to know if she could just leave her family behind like that.” I take a deep breath in an attempt to collect myself and my fraying thoughts. She isn’t worth the energy I used even thinking about her.
“I’m sorry, it must have been shit, Char,” Crow says as he rubs his thumb over the top of my hand in an attempt to comfort me in the only way he knew how.
