Unbreakable (6 page)

“I don’t intend to.”

And that was truth. But Pops once told me that a life without integrity wasn’t worth living. And sometimes, especially these last couple of years, it felt like integrity was the only thing I had left.

Alex

The hours dragged. The edge of fear became dulled by the slow passage of time. We’d each taken turns passing on to Amita whatever tidbit of information we had on the robbers—which wasn’t much—and our names and information to let our loved ones know we were okay. Amita, in turn, relayed that an expert hostage negotiator was talking to Dracula, but no more than that. They’d told her it wasn’t safe to tell us more.

Everyone’s watches had been confiscated and there were no windows to the outside from where we sat. I guessed it was probably close to nine o’clock at night. Our first basic need satisfied, the small group of people in the room began to shift uncomfortably.

“I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m hungry,” said Gil Corman, the pharmacist. “And thirsty.”

It was unanimous. Even Carol grudgingly agreed that she could eat, and we all needed water. Everyone waited for someone else to do something about it.

“Okay,” Cory said, and started to rise up.

Anger flashed through me, and I grabbed him, held him back, while shooting dagger glares at the rest of the group. “Again? Have we all forgotten what happened last time?”

“Alex—”

“No! Someone else needs to ask about food. I’d do it but…”
But if Frankie tries anything with me, Cory will try to stop him and end up dead.
“Someone else. Not Cory.”

“Aw, that’s cute,” Roy said, a sneer under his rust-colored mustaches. “Has true love bloomed in the middle of this crisis?”

“Shut up, you old blowhard,” Carol snapped. “Get off your ass and ask the little punk to feed us.”

Roy harrumphed. “I’m not doing any such thing! I told you, the squeaky wheel...”

“I’ll do it,” Cory said.

I flinched. “No, you
won’t
. We don’t need to eat that badly. It won’t kill us to wait, but it could kill you just to ask.”

“No one’s going to get killed,” Cory said. “But forget food, we need water. It’s been too long.”

Tanya nodded. “We need water, but Alex is right. Frankie’s got a bone to pick with you, Cory.” She swallowed hard. “I’ll do it.”

“No,” Gil said from the other side of the room. “I-I’ll do it. I can do it.”

We watched him rise shakily to his feet, Cory with a scowl. “This is ridiculous,” he hissed at me. “The man is petrified.”

“And you’re not?” I whispered back. “Because I am.”
For you.

Twice now I’d seen Frankie point that big ugly death machine at Cory and both times I’d felt something curl up in me, squeezing until I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t want anyone else to get on Frankie’s psychotic bad side, but I couldn’t help but feel Cory’s luck was going to run out.

Even so, I felt terrible for Gil. He faltered after one step. Cory shot up helped him resume his seat, shooting me a stern look.

“
I’ll do it
,” Cory said, his tone brooking no argument.

I watched him approach the door, but Amita, who’d been quietly talking to the police almost nonstop made a hissing sound. “They’re sending in pizza.” She touched a manicured finger to her hidden earpiece and waved at Cory to sit.

I eased a sigh of relief as he made to return to my side, when Frankie opened the door, a half-incredulous, half-eager expression on his face.

“Who said you could get up, asshole?”

Cory turned, hands raised, but Frankie had already shrugged the gun strap off his shoulder. He was a slight man, but moved with a furious speed. He flipped the AR-15 around and slammed the butt into the side of Cory’s head as if were trying to bust down a door, catching Cory completely off-guard.

Cory reeled and went down hard, blood pouring from the gash over his right eyebrow.

Sylvie screamed, and it was like a starting gun at a race. I shot forward to Cory’s side, catching him just as he would have knocked his head on the ground, which was hardly more than carpet-covered cement. I cradled his head in my lap while Frankie paced and danced, looming over us.

“Ooh, that felt good. Real good.” He licked his lips and his eyes turned to me. “Didn’t like that, did you, Red? What’s the matter? You don’t want me touching your boyfriend?” He grabbed his crotch and jigged it up and down. “How ‘bout I touch you instead?”

“No…” Cory struggled to sit. “Leave her alone…”

Frankie laughed. “Or what? You’re going to bleed on me, fucker?”

Thankfully, Cory kept his mouth shut. He held his hand over his eye, and blood seeped from between his fingers. I helped him move back to his seat against the wall, hoping the presumption that this ugly scene was over would be enough to convince Frankie.

“You should watch your mouth, young man,” Carol snapped at him. “And bring me a cloth and something to clean that wound.”

Frankie laughed. “Yeah, right. Sit tight, piggies. Dinner is almost served.”

“Make mine pepperoni,” Roy muttered in an undertone. Everyone gasped—including me—as Frankie stopped, turned.

“What did you say?”

“N-Nothing,” Roy said. “Just…getting hungry.”

Frankie cocked his head. He wore his Frankenstein’s monster mask on his head like a party hat. “The pigs outside negotiated with Drac to get you piglets some pizza.” He cocked his AR-15 at the portly man. “How did you know?”

Roy’s jaw moved up and down but no sound came out.

“Speak up, fat man!” Frankie shrieked.

But Roy had frozen up. We all had, and now the big man was going to die. Frankie released the safety on his gun. The terrible metallic sound filled the small room.

“It was a coincidence,” Cory said quickly. “We’re all just hungry. Like he said.”

Frankie swiveled his wide-eyed stare toward him and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
Too many times. Cory’s drawn this psycho’s attention too many times.

“You’re lying,” Frankie said. “Tell me how you knew about the pizza or I’ll split your head open. For real this time.”

Time seemed to stand still. The air in the room vanished. I tried to breath and couldn’t as the reality became clear: Cory told the truth and Amita could die, or he could keep silent and Frankie’s patience with him would come to its final, grim end.

Cory kept silent.

Frankie’s fingers twitched over the trigger guard, but he looked torn, uncertain. I prayed that Dracula had given orders to not kill anyone…and that Dracula had enough clout that Frankie didn’t dare cross him.

Then Wolfman appeared in the door, and all of us—Frankie included—appeared relieved.

Wolfman’s eyes darted around from under his mask, landed on Cory and his bloody gash. “Now what? That guy acting up?”

Frankie’s head bobbed up and down. “Fucker knows something but won’t tell me. They all do. That one’s been giving me shit since the start. I was thinking I should end him right now, right? Don’t you think?”

Wolfman hissed a sigh from under his mask. “Quit the bullshit, Frankie. The last thing we need right now is a dead hostage. The food is here. Let’s go.”

Frankie let himself be dragged to the door, as if Wolfman were the only thing holding him back. He stopped and jabbed a finger at Cory. “Give me a reason. Just one more…”

The door slammed shut and eight people breathed a sigh of relief at once.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Carol seethed at Roy.

“I just…I…” Roy shook his head miserably.

Carol flapped a hand at him irritably, and crawled over to examine Cory’s brow. “Lovely lump. I can’t tell if you have a concussion or not. Feel nauseous? No? Well, don’t go to sleep. Not for a while yet. And you need stitches. At least ten. He clocked you good. And I have to stop this bleeding.”

“Here.” Roy withdrew a monogrammed silk handkerchief from his suit pocket. Tanya passed it to Sylvie who passed it to me. “I’m sorry,” he muttered.

Carol snatched it from my hand and dabbed carefully at Cory’s wound. “You should be. This young man saved your butt.” She turned her pale blue gaze to Amita. “And yours.”

Amita took the Bluetooth device from her ear. “Battery’s gone.” She put her hand on Cory’s shoulder, her large dark eyes regarding him gratefully, shamefully. “Carol’s right. I was going to speak up, to show Frankie I was the one…But I couldn’t move or speak or even breathe. I’m sorry. I’m sorry and thank you.”

Jealousy, like a second hunger, writhed in my gut for the way Amita looked at Cory, and I averted my eyes.

“Forget it, I’m fine,” Cory said. “What’s the news? Wolfman sounded tense. Like things weren’t going so well for them.”

“Yes, but that’s not good for us.” Amita glanced at the door before saying more. “The leader—Dracula—has been trying to negotiate a safe way out. Seems as if he had a plan but S.W.A.T. thwarted it. Blocked him somehow. The dispatcher wouldn’t give me details. Dracula knows he’s in over his head and the only way out is by using us.”

“W-what does that mean?” Gil asked. “Use us?”

“As bartering chips,” Amita said, her voice was smooth, rich, faintly accented. “He released someone from another room. That’s how we’re getting pizza. Now the sergeant in charge wants him to release more of us but Dracula wants safe transport out, which the police are dragging their feet to give, of course. The dispatcher was trying to warn me. I could tell. To be careful.” She glanced at each of us with large dark eyes. “If Dracula doesn’t get what he wants he’s going to show the police that he’s serious.”

“H-how?” Gil asked.

“We’re the currency here,” Roy said, some of his bluster returning. “A hostage walks, and we eat. Free another, and we get some water. That’s the cops getting what they want. But what do you think happens when monster squad wants something and the cops won’t give it? Then we’re expendable.”

The import of his words sunk in, made all the more terrible when Amita nodded. Silence fell and then Frankie returned to haphazardly toss a plain cheese pizza and a pack of water bottles into the center of the floor. He looked dull and tired, a complete 180 from the twitchy, jumpy bastard of only moments earlier.

“Eat up, piggies,” he said, wiping his nose on his sleeve, and shuffling out.

He’s coming down
, I thought, wondering if that was good or bad for us. Everyone snatched up a water bottle but no one moved to take a slice.

“Come on, guys,” Cory said. “Eat.”

“And what about you?” Carol demanded. “Are you nauseous?”

Cory smiled crookedly. “I’m waiting for the beer.”

This helped to loosen some of the tension, and one by one, the others reached for their slice of lukewarm pizza.

Everyone fell into various conversations. Gil and Roy talked across the room about certain drug company’s stock prospects; Sylvie and Tanya chatted quietly in their corner, while Amita spoke intently with Carol about their professions—turned out Amita was in med school.

“How are you, really?” I asked Cory.

“I’m good. I think the bleeding’s slowed. Hurts like a bastard, I won’t lie.”

“What can I do?”

“Talk to me. Keep my mind off of it.”

“Okay, but no dozing on me.”

“Better make it interesting then.”

I rolled my eyes, though secretly I was pleased. “I’ll do my best. Although I’m not sure what would make good bank hostage conversation.”

“I’d say pretty much anything,” Cory said. “How about we rewind to before all this crap. To when we met. Those envelopes you dropped? They looked pretty fancy. Birthday?”

“Uh, no,” I said. “They’re engagement party invitations. Mine and my fiancé’s.”

“Oh.” Cory looked straight ahead for a moment then smiled, though I could see it was tense and didn’t touch his eyes.

“So, when’s the big day?”

“January.”

“That’s good.” He looked away, nodding. “Yeah, that’s good for you.”

I glanced at Cory. His hands dangled off his raised knees. No ring.
The monster squad may have taken it.
“What about you? Are you married?”

“No,” he said. “No, I’m not. I have a little girl—Callie. She’s seven.”

“You do?” I sat back, absorbing this. It explained a lot. I now thought I knew the source of his kindness, the innate
goodness
of him. A deep well of love for his child. But it scared me too. If something were to happen to him in here, his little girl would be robbed of a father. The thought stole the warmth right out of me and sent a chill down my spine.

“They’ve got the AC blasting,” he said, watching me. “You want my jacket?”

“No, uh, thank you. You were saying you weren’t married?”

“Oh, right. Callie’s mother, Georgia…She isn’t the marrying type.”

“And you are?”

“Yeah, I guess I am. I would be.”

“That’s not something you hear from young men these days.”

“I’m almost thirty. Not all that young.” He shrugged. “I don’t know, I like the idea of sticking with one person through it all. Help each other accomplish goals…have kids…help
them
accomplish their goals. It just makes sense to me.”