Liberty At Last (The Liberty Series) (17 page)

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m great,” she said, and I could see her smile at him viciously. “Now let me off this thing.”

“Honey, I’m not going to do that.” He actually sounded like he felt bad.

More shots punctured the van. Catherine replaced her smile with a frown at her father. “Dad, they’re going to kill you,” she said, as more bullets lodged into the back of the van. “They’ll kill
all
of you,” she said, cocking her head back towards me and Matthew.
Towards me.

“I’ll worry about that,” John said. “I’m not letting you go. You can’t go back to that. How could you? People that would kill your own family?”

She went back to watching through the shattered window.

“Sean, get us somewhere private,” John said. “I don’t want anybody out on the roads getting hurt.” I was already waiting —
hoping
— to hear police sirens, but aside from the gunfire, it was pretty quiet. When we’d first left, back when I could freely look out the window, the roads had been empty, the early morning sun just coming up over the horizon.

Matthew was looking at his phone. He started calling directions to Sean. “Turn left up ahead. Then the first right after a mile. That looks like an office park. It’s Sunday,” he said, shrugging at no one in particular. He looked back through the range. “So at least we’ll have some privacy with our little gang-banger friends,” he said to me.

Catherine still heard him. “Shut your mouth,” she said to him.

“Least they get to see you in your cute outfit,” he shot back.

“Enough,” John said. The bullets had slowed down, stopped; I wondered if they were still right behind us, but I couldn’t see that much from where I squatted on the floor. I peeked up and saw that we’d turned off the main road and were driving through what looked like an immense office park, filled with brick buildings and endless parking lots. Sean had slowed down, intermittently checking his rearview mirror, looking for the perfect parking lot to stage a gunfight.

“Where are they?” Matthew called to John, who was crouched down next to Catherine, looking out the back window as well.

“They turned off two lots ago,” John said.

“So they’re waiting for us,” Matthew said.

“Great,” Sean said. “They can set up all their shit and blast us when we try to come and get them.”

“Or just leave, peacefully,” I said.

“Right,” Sean said.

John stood up and climbed back over the seat. He reached up front, grabbed some ammo and started reloading his gun. Then he handed it to me. I looked up at him. He tucked a curl behind my ear and then tapped me under the chin.

His eyes were asking me if I was okay. If I was okay with this.

Yes
, I thought, and nodded at him. We had to do something. I wanted to leave the violent life behind, but I didn’t want to leave it behind because I was
dead
.

“Well, let’s go then,” John said. “Turn around.” He casually caught some sort of large, automatic gun that Matthew tossed to him, out from under our seat. I watched as Catherine just turned the slightest bit, looking at him. I wondered if she was surprised, or afraid for her friends in the other car. Or maybe she was worried (just a little, just a little in the deep dark recesses of her heart) that her father was about to get shot.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” said Matthew as he switched his gun for an even larger one. He seemed completely at ease. Excited, even. Like he was about to play a new level on one of his favorite video games.

“Calm down,” John said, cautioning him. But I noticed that he had a cavalier, almost upbeat tone to his voice. He looked loose, relaxed…his enormous biceps flexed under his tee shirt, holding up the big gun. I would think he was totally hot right now if I wasn’t totally overcome with a dull, numbing fear.

Catherine was staring at him now. “I don’t know why you’re excited,” she said. “There’s no way Angel’s with them. It’s not like you’re gonna shoot him and solve all your problems.”

“Oh, I know,” John said. “I didn’t think he’d bother to put himself in danger. Just his lowly thugs. But at least I can send him a message.” I looked at him sideways.
What message?

“What’s that,” Catherine said, not a question. She sounded bored.

“That he can go fuck himself,” John said, and Matthew looked over at me and smiled.
That’s why he’s the boss,
his smile said.
Because he doesn’t take shit from anybody. Including his bitch-ass daughter.

I sighed and felt the weight of the gun in my hand. I couldn’t believe I was back here again.
“Let’s do it,” Sean said, pulling the van into the closest parking lot and turning around. “Actually,” he said, thinking out loud. He then proceeded to back the van out. Now we were driving backwards down the road. Fast.

John turned to Catherine. “I’d undo that, if I thought I could trust you,” he said, motioning to the handcuff. “But I don’t.”

“Suit yourself,” she said, sounding more bored than ever. Her tone sent a chill up my spine. Being so blasé, while we were speeding down a road backwards towards men from
Los Morales
, made me wonder what she knew.
Does she think they’ll leave us alone?
I wondered, hopefully.
Or is she sure that we’re all gonna die, and she just doesn’t care?

I was going with the latter option. So I raised my gun and crouched behind the seat, just like Matthew, Ethan and Corey.

“Gun it,” John called, and he crouched down protectively in front of Catherine, shielding her. Sean hit the gas and the van roared backwards, wind rushing at us through the broken window. I still felt numb, like my limbs and hands belonged to someone else.

“Steady,” Matthew said, sensing my anxiety. “It’ll be alright.”

There was a large black truck pulled into the last parking lot on our right. My heart thudded; I could feel it pounding in my ears. Sean floored the van and we went screaming into the lot. Just as we were about to hit the truck he slammed on the brakes and John was out of the van before I could yell at him to
stop
,
come back.
Matthew, Corey and Ethan were
right behind him, slamming the doors shut so I couldn’t see. I only heard round after round of bullets back and forth and some muffled, incomprehensible shouting. Catherine tried yanking her cuffed hand free. Pulling at it again and again, violently, until I could see her wrist start bleeding.

“Stop it!” I yelled at her, wildly. She wasn’t going to get free; she was just going to break her wrist. “Knock it off!”

“Mind your own business,” she said to me, and stubbornly kept pulling at her wrists.

“Liberty, up here!” Sean yelled. He was getting out of the van. “Pull it down to the end of the lot. Keep it in drive!” He leapt out with his gun up and I threw myself over the seat, putting my own gun next to me. It slid onto the floor as I threw the car into drive and Catherine and I both lurched towards the front. I slammed on the brakes fifty feet later and fearfully looked into the rearview mirror.

I didn’t hear any shots now. They were fighting.
Why are they fighting when they have guns?
I wondered, as I tried to understand what I was seeing. They were fighting
with
their guns, I now saw — as in, Sean was holding one of the men and Matthew was using his gun on him like a nightstick, hitting the guy in the stomach and the back; John was hitting the guy
he
was fighting with across the face with his big gun.
A pistol whip,
I thought, wildly, only with a gun that big, it was really more of a pistol sledgehammer across the face.
Ow
, I thought, as I saw blood fly from his face through the air.
Maybe just shooting them would be better.
Ethan and Corey were taking turns punching a guy they had on the ground.

At least we were winning. I counted — there were just three of them, and five of us — and eventually the two guys from the cartel went down next to their counterpoint on the ground. I was hoping they were out cold, not dead. I watched as Matthew and John discussed something, each rubbing their faces and wiping blood from their hands onto their respective shirts, while the others cuffed the men on the ground. John went briefly into their truck, probably to remove the keys.
Wouldn’t want to make it easy on them, or anything,
I thought, not knowing if I was angry or relieved — or both — that John and his guys had beat them so badly.

The five of them starting running for the van.

I felt like a huge boulder of dread was lifting off me: John was okay, and it looked like they hadn’t killed anyone. And luckily, we still had Catherine. “Looks like your boyfriend didn’t save you this time,” I said to her, meanly. She turned around and looked at me. The guys were almost to us. Thin red rivers of blood ran down her wrist.

“He’ll get me eventually — and he’s not my boyfriend, you fuckwad,” she said.

Huh?
I wondered and I just looked at her, waiting for whatever she was going to say next, which was sure to be laced with insults.

“He’s my husband.”

My mouth had dropped all the way open by the time they made it back in, slamming the doors behind them.
What the fuck,
I thought.
What. The. Fuck.

“Go,
GO!
” John yelled at me, and I drove as fast as I could make myself, which was about 40 miles per hour. Maybe I was in a little bit of shock.

“When we get on the highway, you have to go at least sixty,” John said, gently. His nose was bleeding, he was sweating and his hair was all spiky and messy. “We’re gonna have to dump this car. When we get to Knoxville, in about two hours, we’re gonna go get something else. Real quick.”

Ethan and Sean were in the back, covering up the broken windows with some sort of plexiglass and duct tape.
Always prepared
, I thought, clumsily trying to keep the information that Catherine had just given me out of my mind.
Always prepared, but probably not for his daughter’s news.
That was nuclear bomb news.
I sighed heavily.

“Everything okay?” John asked. I nodded at him silently, keeping my eyes on the road, not wanting to talk.

“Your wrist is pretty banged up,” Matthew was saying to Catherine. “Can I clean it up for you?”

“No thank you,” Catherine said, and I
almost
thought she was going to play nice again, maybe to finally get that shirt off of her.

“You can keep your dirty fucking hands off me. Or when Angel comes, I’ll have him
cut
them off.”

So much for Mrs. Nice Guy.