Page 45

A sneer warps Mr. Ato’s face from disappointed father to demon. He grabs his bottle of a thousand dollar whiskey and hurls it at Red. It smashes into his head, raining liquor down his body. He falls back, hitting the wall and moaning.

“No one told you to speak, you imbecile!”

“Sorry, boss,” Red mumbles even as he digs glass out of his skull.

Everyone’s on edge, holding their breath so they don’t squeak wrong while Mr. Ato calmly pulls another bottle from his desk drawer and peels off the foil. “As I was saying, why are you here Talong? Is it to return to the fold?”

“As if you’d take me back,” I mutter.

Mr. Ato nearly drops the bottle as he stares down at me. His rotund face crinkles into one of shock and even a touch of regret. “Of course we would, son. You’re…family.”

The bulletproof panels fall over the windows. Darkness, save the cut of light from the lamps, smothers the room.

“It broke my heart when you ran.” Mr. Ato focuses on filling two glasses while the Bell twins inch closer.

“After everything I’ve done for you.” He takes a sip then swirls his whiskey.

“You would have burned without me. The whole island was baying to turn you to ash, just like your grandfather. Hold him down.”

Two hands grab my right arm. I reach over to shove Green away, when Red takes my left.

“Sorry,” Green mumbles as he pulls my arm back.

A giddy Red damn near slobbers in my ear as blood drips into his mouth. “Ha ha, fucker.” He wrenches my left arm until my shoulder screams. I bite my tongue and stare dead ahead.

Mr. Ato picks up his cane. “You were like a son to me. More than a son to me. I cared for you, Talong. I gave you everything you could ever need.”

“You killed those people.”

He twists the outer layer of his walking stick and reveals the secret blade hidden inside. “It was an accident.”

“No. Packed in like that. No one could have shifted without squashing the others. They were trapped in that crate with no way to get out.”

A soft gasp rises from Green while Red digs his grubby nails into my skin.

Didn’t they figure it out? Mr. Ato was supposed to bring in loyalists to the Brassicas, but he paid off the dockworker to ensure they wouldn’t make it here.

To ensure that the Brassicas would dwindle in numbers but have no way to prove it was him.

Metal catches on the light. The blade slices through the air without the deftness of a swordsman, but he doesn’t need it.

“If they really wanted to survive, one of them would have shifted first and fled. That is the law of this world. Eat or be eaten. Squish or be squished.” His sunken round eyes easily dismissed as pudgy take on the heartless glare of a shark smelling blood.

The knife swings. I wrench my arms, trying to yank free, but the Bells have me.

Fuck! Pain wells up on my right shoulder, right above the graze, then another swipe splits open my chest. Hot, sticky blood weeps through my undershirt as I grit my jaw.

Mr. Ato’s grinning like a child at a birthday party. He’s found his pinata and isn’t going to let anyone else have a turn. “You broke my heart, Talong.”

He winds the knife back for a deep cut. “I think I’ll break yours.”

“They know!” I shout. The knife pauses a hair from hacking into my throat. “The Brassicas.”

“Of course they know about their fallen companions. I told them myself. Along with condolences and a lovely floral arrangement.” He’s dismissing me, but the knife doesn’t cut.

“No. They know about your plans to take out the entire family.”

Rage. It bursts so fast across Mr. Ato’s face, I brace for his attack. Instead of gutting me like a fish, he whirls on Red. “How does he know that? Did you fucking tell him? Did you tell them?”

“No. Boss, I swear!”

“Aaaah!” Mr. Ato punches Red’s skull right where it’s still bleeding. The man screams in agony and crumbles to his knees.

“Hey!” Green shouts. “That’s my brother!” He lets go of me and lunges at the boss.

Despite having the height and muscle on Mr. Ato, he doesn’t have the righteous anger. Without a second thought, Mr. Ato spins his gun out and smashes Green across the face. The pistol whip splits open his cheek nearly to the bone.

I turn away, gorge rising at the visible muscle undulating under flapping skin as Green screams. Even in pain, he tries to help his brother, who shoves him away.

Red’s disoriented and hobbling, trying to slink into the corner like the coward he is.

They’re awful people, but even they don’t deserve this.

Deep down they love him. We all did.

Because if we didn’t, he’d kill us.

And, for as much as I can’t stand the Bells, I can’t let them hurt either.

“The Squash found me,” I shout just as Mr. Ato’s reaching down to grab Red by the collar.

“What?”

“They offered me a job. Said that I was going to need a new line of work after the Brassicas took you out. That didn’t make a lick of sense. Why would they wipe you out when you’re needed to control the docks, unless…”

Mr. Ato licks his lips. His face pulls as he realizes there’s a drop of someone’s blood on the side of his mouth. After wiping it away with a handkerchief, he picks up his glass of whiskey and downs it in one throw. “Here,” he says, pushing over the second glass.

I stare at it.

“It’s Glenfiddich. Older than you.”

My arms ache but I take the damn glass while he pours himself a third. He’s never drunk on jobs, but not exactly sober either. Paying me absolutely no mind, Mr. Ato savors his drink this time and finishes by peering through the amber liquid.

“We drank this that first night on Cebu. Do you remember?”

I try to blank out the thought, but the stench of burning sugar cane fills my nose even as I take a sip.

Green couldn’t have hit me harder than the memories from this whisky.

My skin blistering and turned to ash, the farm I hated and loved a red flag among the thriving green.

And no one coming to help. No one coming to put out the flames.

Because they started it. They sat back and watched him burn.

“You were so angry,” Mr. Ato says. “You’d have killed the whole island that night, I swear.”

My hands shake, slopping the thousand dollar whisky over the side of the glass. He’s right. In my grief, and my rage, I didn’t care who I hurt. They all needed to suffer.

“But you listened to me.” Mr. Ato leans closer. “Without my guidance, without me there to keep you from going on a rampage, what would you be today? Incarcerated? Dead? You owe me your life, Talong.”

He didn’t calm my mind, but pointed me like a gun. I was the bullet, taking out those who he told me to. Who he assured me had set my Lolo’s farm ablaze. I didn’t question it. I didn’t think about it. I didn’t feel it until I was alone scraping the blood and soot off my body with steel wool.

“I gave you my life,” I mutter before staring him in the eye. “But you took my soul instead.”

A great smile breaks up Mr. Ato’s dour lips.

He slaps his desk and laughs. “A soul? When has that ever concerned us, Talong? We are not like them. Trapped inside one body, incapable of the feats of strength and stamina a man of the vegetable is. They can piss themselves over the state of their soul. We don’t need one. ”

I agreed with him once. That life was just a serious of misfortunes. Sometimes you were the victim, sometimes the one doing the misfortune. So why not do everything you can to be on top?

“We could use you.”

I gasp and sit up harder, but Mr. Ato’s dead serious as he takes another drink.

“Boss?” Green asks.

“Are you out of your fuck—?”

Mr. Ato glares at Red, silencing him. “He’s made mistakes, sure. Who amongst us hasn’t? Green, your little stunt giving that five-year-old the teddy bear stuffed full of fentanyl? Red, when you beat one of the cops on our payroll to near death? I forgave them. Why can’t I forgive this too?”

Even with his head coated in blood, Red scurries across the floor. “You can’t trust him, boss. How do we know he didn’t tell the Brassicas? Maybe he’s been on their side the whole time.”

“Mr. Bell?” He spins his cane around and slams the blunt end into Red’s chest. Instead of flinging back, Red collapses like a bag of potatoes. “The adults are talking.”

Green crawls over to his brother, his eyes wide. “He’s not breathing! Reddy. Come on! You got to breathe!” He starts shaking the man back and forth.

I move before I realize it. One hand shoves Green away and the other guides Red’s unresponsive head to the carpet. “Compressions on his chest,” I order his brother.

“What?” Green fumbles to the side.

“His heart stopped. You need to get it beating again. One, two, three, four, five. Like that.” I mime doing CPR. The brother slaps his palms over Red’s sternum and starts to pump.

“One, two, three…” While he’s counting, tears flood down his cheeks. “Reddy. This isn’t funny!”

Best I can do is smear the blood off of Red’s face. Pinching his nose, I question every decision I’ve made in my life, and breathe oxygen into his lungs. Three times. “Again,” I tell Green.

He’s inconsolable. I check the pulse.

“Again.”

This is insane. Is he going to die here on the boss’s carpet and no one will lift a finger?

A flutter. Breath glances across my cheek, and I lift up Red’s eyelid. His pupil constricts, and the eye rolls down to me.

“You…” He barely makes a sound, but he’s alive. And he lifts his arms to try to strangle me.

“Brother!” Green intercepts the attempted murder by hugging him. “You’re not dead!”

“There.” The would-be murderer calmly sat on his desk the whole time watching. “Now you see why we need him, Mr. Bell.”

“Ye…” Red coughs, spraying blood everywhere. “Yes.”

“Good. There will be consequences for your actions, Talong. We can’t have people just up and leave for months at a time. But for now…”

“No.”

I rise, bloodied and exhausted, but—instead of rage—a strange peace pumps through my body.

“What was that?” Mr. Ato asks.

“I will not—”

A knock at the door interrupts me.

Mr. Ato’s face twists and he screams at the opening door, “I told you this is a—!”

“Sorry, boss.” Goji walks in first, but the sounds of scuffling rise from just behind the door. “But you’ll want to see this.”

“Gah!” Two men fling a woman in. She falls to her hands and knees and fights to get up, only to be met with the bloodied visage of Red. “We found her sneaking around, and thought you could use her.”

As her mouth opens to scream, her deep brown eyes land on me.

“Sadie…”