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“Was it seriously your plan to destroy the McGill brothers with a five dollar wine bottle?”
A foolish plan then.
Perhaps a foolish plan now.
I raise it high and realize that someone has finally noticed that I am here. The man beside the couch stares at me. There’s a gun in his right hand but he makes no move to raise the barrel. He simply watches. I don’t know why I have the feeling that he secretly approves of what I am about to do.
I swing with every grain of strength that I never knew I had and the bottle finds its intended target. With an explosion of glass the shock of the hit sends a painful jolt all the way up my arm and I fall to my knees.
In my next breath I hear the sweet sound of Ben gasping air into his lungs. He’s on his hands and knees but he’s breathing freely. The fallen man, Angus, has crumpled to the floor and I crawl across broken glass to get to Ben.
“Are you okay?” I wrap my arms around him, rejoicing in the solid feel of his warm body.
Ben breathes deeply and then looks around in a panic. Angus remains on the floor. Glass and wine litters the carpet around us. And the other man is still standing, still staring, still limply holding a gun in his hand.
Ben zeroes in on him and gets to his feet before ushering me behind him, spreading his arms wide and using his own body as a human shield. “Are you planning to become a murderer too, Grey?”
The man, Grey, stares at the prone figure on the floor. The gun in his hand disappears into his pocket. He sighs in defeat. “No, Bennet. I am not.”
Then he sinks down on the couch and drops his head into his hands.
In the distance a noise begins to grow; dozens of horns honking in unison as the people of Devil Valley ring in a new year.
And as the honking fades, another more urgent noise takes its place.
The wail of approaching police sirens.
Camden
Ben is pretty banged up but he refuses medical attention. He winces as he pulls a sweatshirt over his head and I can see from the discoloration on his ribs that he’ll be hurting in the days to come. But he’s whole and he’s safe and I clutch his hand as we sit on the couch together and tell the pair of officers sitting across from us what we know.
I know very little.
The men are Ben’s cousins. Grey and Angus Drexler. I thought that Angus might be dead but he isn’t. The blow knocked him out and possibly fractured his skull. He was taken away in a stretcher and his brother went with him.
The officers ask stern questions at first and their demeanor becomes less severe when it becomes clear that Angus was the instigator.
“Was there a reason he attacked you?” asks the officer on the left. His basic expression is a frown.
“Yes.” Ben coughs into his hand. His voice remains a little hoarse. Apparently being choked by a wooden table leg does that to a person. “Because I told him I knew what he had done.”
The officer waits for Ben to continue. He doesn’t.
I clear my throat and speak up. “Should we call lawyers or at least our parents?”
A female officer approaches and has a quiet word with the cop who was questioning us. He glances our way, nods and stands up.
“We’re going to take a trip down to the station.”
Ben is not happy. “Can Camden just go home? This shit doesn’t have anything to do with her.”
The cop is already shaking his head. “We need to speak to both of you. You can get your coats. It’s cold out.”
We are led to a waiting police cruiser and while I have faith that we didn’t do anything wrong, I’m nervous. Ben keeps his arm around me and I lay my cheek against his chest. I don’t know exactly what happened tonight. But I do know I would have been crushed beyond repair if anything had happened to him.
The police station is busy. We are each briefly questioned alone and then left to sit in the lobby as people come and go all around us. A pregnant female officer brings us sodas and a plate of cookies. We are told that our parents have been contacted.
Ben touches my knee. “Go home if they let you.”
