Battered Not Broken (40 page)

“I’ve seen the way you two look at each other. It’s getting serious, isn’t it?”

“We’ve only been seeing each other for a few weeks.” Ally tried to shrug off the uncomfortable weight her words seemed to add to her shoulders.

“But still. You’ve never been like this with anyone else. When you’re around him, you seem at ease … happy. I’ve never seen you look truly happy with any other boyfriend.”

“That’s because—” Ally bit down on her tongue. Because of what? Because Ryan wasn’t like anyone else she’d ever known? Because she felt things for him she’d never thought she’d feel for a man, even inside a relationship? “He’s different,” she admitted. “Things became more serious between us than I’ve ever been with anyone else pretty quickly.”

Maria nodded, as if that was exactly what she’d known all along. “Eventually, you won’t be happy living at home and only seeing him on weekends and certain week nights. That’s just the way it is. So when that time comes, don’t think that I’ll be angry with you when you move on.”

“Mamá, we don’t need to worry about this now.”

“I wanted you to know. I don’t expect you to live at home forever. That would be unfair.”

No good reply came to mind as they rounded a corner, the soles of their shoes scuffing against the sidewalk. What was she supposed to say? Of course she didn’t expect to live at home forever, but at the same time, the idea of leaving her mother now was unconscionable. “At least until papá is home. I’m not going to leave you before then.” He only had another year left to serve, anyway.

The house came into view, a small white structure that was anything but unique, yet distinctive in Ally’s eyes nonetheless.

“Ryan said some things that make sense,” Maria said, raising her eyes to look at the house. “Even I have to admit I’m uneasy over Manny’s return. You shouldn’t… I mean, maybe Ryan is right. If our family is a sinking ship, you’re the last one who should go down with it.”

“Mamá!” Ally’s voice came out higher than she’d intended. “Mamá, don’t say that. I’m sure Ryan didn’t mean it.” Anger and regret heated her from the inside. Why had he said that – why had he said it where her mother could overhear?

Maria made no reply as they stepped off the sidewalk, approaching the house.

Instead, she pulled a set of keys from her pocket and climbed the short flight of stairs that led up to the porch.

There was the faint jingle of keys hitting one another, the rasp of the one that went to the front door being inserted into the lock, and then the faint hum of a car rolling down the street. “What do you want for dinner tonight?” Maria asked as she opened the storm door and the main door, stepping inside. “I have the things to make—”

Noise burst across the street like fireworks, the staccato notes of something that Ally never, ever wanted to hear in her neighborhood.

But it was undeniably real. Little pieces of plastic and wood sprayed through the air like confetti, shot loose from one porch post and the siding between the door and the kitchen window, which burst with a crash, the pane smashed into a thousand little shards that rained down, clear and sharp.

All that had only taken half a moment, and Ally had stood frozen. Now she turned – or tried to, at least. Bolts of fire seemed to hit her a moment too late – one to the bicep, and one to the shoulder above. The pain was so searing that bile rose in her throat as she wobbled, her knees failing her mid-turn.

She didn’t see the car drive away, but she heard it as she crumpled onto the porch, her pulse ringing in her ears.

“Ally!” Her mother’s voice was like a siren as the screen door banged open, swinging on its hinges, screeching like an oil-thirsty banshee.

The floorboards shook beneath Ally as her mother clattered across them, shrieking her name again.

The sound of a motor was clearer to Ally’s ears than her mother’s screams. The approaching car hummed with power and set Ally’s heart racing.
Get down. Mamá, get down!
The words echoed through her mind but wouldn’t come out of her suddenly-dry mouth. She tried to make her tongue work, but it might as well have been tied in a knot.

By some miracle, her mother did exactly what Ally was trying to telepathically relay. With a shuddering cry, Maria dropped to her knees, pressing her hands to Ally’s body, quickly but lightly, as if she wasn’t sure where she should or shouldn’t touch her.

Someone killed the motor that was purring in the street.

Bile rose higher in Ally’s throat as her heart sped against her ribs like a freight train. Surely the curved columns of bone would snap beneath the pressure. Someone was coming.
Mamá!
Someone was coming to hurt her, too.

Heavy footsteps sounded on the front steps – unmistakably a man’s.

“Thank God!” Her mother’s voice came out slightly strangled and didn’t make any sense.

“Fuck. Fuck! What happened?” A male voice answered.

The floorboards rattled and wobbled beneath Ally, sending fresh waves of fiery pain through her body, especially through her arm. Her heartbeat matched the frantic pace of the approaching footsteps. She recognized that voice.

“She’s been shot!” Maria’s voice was high and strained. “She’s bleeding…”

“Don’t move her. I’m calling 911.”

Four distinct electronic beeps filled the air. One for nine, two ones and a last beep for send. It was weird that the sounds and their meanings were so crisp in her mind when she couldn’t even see straight. Maria was leaning over her, but bright patches of light danced in the field of Ally’s vision, mimicking the colors of her mother’s scarf.

Ryan’s voice was an angry growl, like a speeding car engine, as he barked at the 911 operator.

Then the call was over and he dropped to his knees beside her, too. “Ally!” His fingers swept across her forehead and delved into her hair.

When he’d knelt something had fallen, hitting the floorboards beside her with a crunch of cellophane. Now, floral scents drifted from that direction, a strange contrast to the one other odor she could make out – a coppery one that should have set off alarm bells inside her head.

But she was strangely calm as her mother’s voice mingled with Ryan’s, their conversation literally over her head as they spoke.

“There was a car,” Maria said. “Just some car. It pulled up in front of the house and then…” Her voice faltered, as if she were being choked.

Ally’s vision had become a patchwork of bright colors and kept her from making out anything besides the outlines of Maria and Ryan’s bodies and faces. Sirens soon converged on the scene though, and she made out their bright red and blue lights clearly. The stark primary colors flashed like high-powered strobe lights, so harsh compared to the pastel colors that danced in front of her eyes, half-blinding her.

“They’re here.” It was getting more and more difficult to discern between Ryan’s voice and her mother’s, as strange as that was. The two were as different as night and day, but they were also muffled by the sounds of approaching footsteps, the noise of rescuers pounding up the stairs, hurried shadows in the sirens’ light.

“It’s going to be all right.” That voice was her mother’s. Or was it? A hand caressed her cheek, and it could have been anyone’s.

Chapter 22

“I feel like such a baby.” Ally reclined against a thick stack of pillows, the hospital bed adjusted so that she was more or less in a sitting position.

Ryan leaned forward in the vinyl seat he’d dragged to her bedside, shooting her a disapproving glance. “You’re
not
a baby. You were shot.” His mouth turned down at the corners as he spoke the last word, his eyes darkening to an almost-navy shade of blue. “And you’re not getting out of here early. I’ll tie you down to that bed if I have to. Just sit back and relax.”

He looked anything but relaxed as he sat in his chair, his shoulders hard knots of muscle beneath his t-shirt and his good arm propped on his knee while he balanced his cast on the chair’s arm. He looked so serious that she let the opportunity to make a joke at the expense of his ‘tie you to that bed’ comment pass. Her brain was too foggy from painkillers to think of anything clever, anyway.

“Yeah, but my injuries aren’t that serious. And everyone’s acting like I’m some sort of saint on her death bed. It makes me feel like a drama queen.”

The police had even come to question her about the shooting. She’d told them what had happened but had left any mention of her brother out of it.

She’d been in the hospital for a little under twenty-four hours, and already her room was stuffed with cards, a couple teddy bears and flowers – four different bouquets, in all. The well-wishers’ gifts were piled around her like offerings.

There was even a balloon attached to one of the bouquets. Cameron and his girlfriend Stacey had brought that one, and the stuffed bear that sat beside it, one of its arms in a sling. The other gifts were from her mother, aunts, cousins, Melissa and Trisha.

“Your injuries are serious,” Ryan said, his voice hard as he planted his good hand against his face, rubbing his forehead with his palm. “And we’re lucky they weren’t worse. So damn lucky.”

“Are you getting a headache?”

“No. I’m just so pissed it hurts.”

She slumped against the pillows, her body softened by a defeating wave of guilt. One fact had been playing on a continuous loop in her mind throughout the day – if she’d listened to Ryan and gone to stay with him like he’d asked, she wouldn’t have been caught in the drive-by shooting.

But her mother would have been caught in it alone and very likely would have been badly injured or killed. Ally wasn’t sorry she’d been there with her mother. But she was sorry for Ryan’s obvious agony. Mostly, she was sorry that the situation was what it was – that she hadn’t had another choice, really, and that when she left the hospital, she’d be right back in the crosshairs of shitty people and the misery they rained down on those around them in the form of bullets.

Ryan hadn’t asked her again to abandon her home in favor of staying with him, but he would.

And there was only one answer she could give as long as her father was still in prison, which would be another year, at least.

“How’s your arm?” Ryan asked, a little bit of the hard edge gone from his voice.

“Better,” she said. “Hurts, but not that bad.” The painkillers the hospital staff had given her helped a hell of a lot. “I was lucky.”

Incredibly so – the bullet that had traveled through her arm had tunneled through flesh, tearing skin and muscle, but it hadn’t touched bone. The doctor had told her that it had come within a hairsbreadth of hitting her axillary artery – an event that might have caused her to bleed to death on her own front porch as Ryan and her mother watched.

“And your shoulder?” He removed his hand from his own face, propping his elbow on his knee again.

“I can hardly even feel any pain right now.” Another incredible stroke of luck – the bullet that had hit her shoulder had grazed the curve of it, carving out a little ditch of skin and muscle as it had whistled by. The wound to her arm was considerably more painful. Both injuries were tolerable with the help of painkillers.

“That’s good.” His voice rasped a little – from exhaustion, surely. He’d ridden to the hospital with her in the ambulance and had slept maybe two hours, tops, since then. “Look, about when I showed up at your house, just before you were shot…” He frowned. “I was coming to apologize. Brought you flowers. I felt bad about what I said about your family. I—”

The room’s door creaked open and Ally’s gaze swiveled automatically in that direction. The door opened frequently, and it was anybody’s guess as to whether it would admit a nurse, visitor or doctor.