When a Warring Party Breaks

Author's Note: I know, I know! It's been TOO LONG! I blame school, homework, the impending doom that is college, and the democrats. PLEASE FORGIVE ME! Anyway, happy tenth chapter! It's a good one! I only foresee three to four more chapters of this little story (not so say there won't be a sequel), so there's some pretty intense rising action. Enjoy! Review! Forgive me!

"War does not determine who is right—only who is left."

- Bertrand Russell

Even as my boots assaulted the sidewalk, I could feel my stomach dissolving into them, where the particles then magically migrated to form a lump in my throat. Black smoke burned my nose as I got nearer to the blaze, and an asthmatic Erica coughed relentlessly from behind me. Sweeny tried to intercept me when I finally got there, but I sidestepped him with an impatient look and searched the growing crowd for Jimmy. I found him standing dangerously close to his burning livelihood as a frustrated fireman shouted for him to move back. I came up behind him, shielding my eyes from the white hot mess of black, crumbling wood and brick. I couldn't see his face, but I didn't have to, to know what he was feeling. Jimmy's not the type to cry. Instead, when I went to stand beside him, his face was entirely emotionless, not as a mask but as a reflection of what Jimmy became without his restaurant—dead.

We each watched mutely as Jimmy's Burgers burned to the ground. We both knew who had started the fire and why, and I was relieved that he didn't feel the need to say it out loud. When the police asked Jimmy if he had any idea who might want to hurt him, he gave the man a surprisingly genuinely innocent expression and declared that, "No, I most certainly do not." The officer moved away, probably searching for a possible witness. Jimmy continued to stare into the inferno, but I doubted he could even see it anymore. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to lay you off, Derek," he said to me, his eyes unblinking and glued to his devastated restaurant as if it would disappear completely if he dared to look away.

Only Jimmy would use the phrase 'lay off' to describe why I was now jobless again, as if, despite the fact that I was responsible for the destruction of his place, firing me would be too discourteous. Then again, it could have been that there was too much fire going around already.

x X x

Eric and I were each trying to rid the world of the other, and, since I was dreaming, I was kicking his ass. The restaurant was aflame as it had been in the waking world, but we danced over the fire as if we were toddler devils and the hellish state of the fighting ring was a familiar aspect of our playground. I swung at the taller man's face for the sixtieth time, but he disintegrated before my fist could find it, blowing through thick ash instead.

I stood for a moment, catching my breath, not thinking to wonder by what source of power my opponent had suddenly been destroyed. The fire continued to crackle around me, but I was numb to it. In fact, my entire body felt suddenly anesthetized, as if every feeling had been sucked away. I considered being frightened by such a dead sensation, but it was such a relief, I basked in it, smiling, laughing, realizing nothing was funny, and laughing anyway.

The numbness followed me into wakefulness, but here it was eerie, a discomfort.

Then Danny's voice rang in my ears, carried by an unnatural echo out to the porch where I'd found a couple hour's sleep. For a second, and only that, my entire body tensed with enthusiastic anticipation to see my brother again—that Danny was sitting just inside, and if I could only—but he wasn't, and he would never be again.

I stumbled into the living room blindly, rubbing the remnants of unconsciousness out of my eyes. Once I could see, I assessed the situation. Davina was sitting Indian style in an old chair that looked unexplainably comfortable after dozing against the outside of the house with nothing but straight cement to sit on. She was trying to be stealthy about wiping away her tears, but the red blotches dotting her face gave her away. I pretended not to notice and turned to the television. Danny's face dominated the shot as Seth's voice prompted my brother from behind the camera.

"I hate the fact that it's cool to be black these days. I hate this hip-pop fucking influence on white-fucking suburbia, and I hate Tabitha Soren and all the Zionist MTV fucking pigs telling us we should get along. Save the rhetorical bullshit Hilary Rodham Clinton cus it ain't gonna fucking happen." Davina paused the video there—Danny's eyes were hidden as he looked down at the table, cigarette hanging frozen in the air, a smile just discernable on the corners of his mouth.

I sat down on the floor, resting my back on the chair my sister was sitting in and gestured to the television. "How'd you get your hands on this?"

A large envelope fell into my lap, and I picked it up, scanning each blank, white side as if a return address would suddenly appear. "What, are we supposed to put lemon juice on it or something?" I asked sarcastically. Davina laughed once without humor. The anonymity was useless—both my sister and I had been there when Seth had recorded the tape, so the possibility that someone other than the D.O.C. had dropped it into the mailbox was not a possibility at all.

The tape was probably meant to get under my skin, but honestly, it was good to see Danny again. The photographs my mother clutches in blue-streaked hands as if they're her life's sustenance are all liars. Danny hadn't been that kid smiling from behind a mess of long hair that Doris stares at day in and day out for a long time. But then again, the tape was lying too. No one but I would know the silent pact my brother and I had made to turn our lives and those of our family members right-side-up again.

I could use your help, Dan, cus I'm doing a shitty job of it by myself.

"Do you remember that day at the beach?" Davina asked. "Danny couldn't have been older than three, and he was so astounded by everything—the sand, the water, the clouds even." She paused, and the chair stirred as she wiped the tears from her face. I remembered. "And I was too afraid of the loch ness monster to get within thirty feet of the water."

"You were five."

"I know, but that's something I'll never be able to get back! I always told myself the next time we'd go to the beach, I'd play with my brothers, but we only went back once, and we had to leave as soon as we got there because dad got a call, and Dan—." I reached for my sister's hand, and she gave it to me without hesitating, her sobs discontinuing her rant about things she could not change. I squeezed her hand in a comforting gesture and realized that it was an easy movement—easy as breathing.

Okay, maybe I'm not doing as poorly as I'd thought.

x X x

I needed to figure out what to do next, and that was impossible when Erica returned from the grocery store and Lindy returned with some chubby guy who was going to give us an estimate for the windows. I needed room to think, and the house had been cramped enough before the somewhat larger addition. I left the house and shortly thereafter, realized I had no other place to go.

I paced up and down the block, circling it once, twice, thrice before moving onto the next one. I found myself shoving my hands into the pockets of my jeans, the air around my fingertips too heavy, only to find that the cotton lined denim was too restrictive. Somewhere in my cycle of the next block, I got the prickling feeling down my spine, the one that alerts the possessor of being followed. I only tensed up until I heard the familiar click of high heels, at which time I smirked and turned around.

Elizabeth, who had been tailing me by a good twenty feet, stopped dead, looking embarrassed. She fidgeted, pulling at the buttons on her jacket, no doubt debating whether or not to turn and run away, pretend she'd never met Derek Vinyard, drive back to New York, and stay there. She mouthed a curse to herself after awhile and straightened her skirt before closing the distance between us.

"Are you following me?" I asked her playfully, trying to relieve the smallest fraction of the building tension.

"No. Well, yes, but—," she broke off, looking flustered with herself to have stumbled over her words. "I saw you leave your sister's, and I've been trying to figure out what to say." She looked down, her cheeks turning a peach color that used to be adorable.

I didn't know what to say anymore than she did. There were no words. She had played me, manipulated me for the sake of her career… but I'd let her, ignoring any suspicions I'd had, rationalizing until I'd thought that I might actually love her. We were both at fault, but neither of us could be blamed.

I didn't want to be angry with her anymore. I didn't want to fight. I didn't want to blame. I just wanted to understand. But such a feat wasn't possible—I didn't know her any more than I knew the man who was going to fix Davina's windows.

I'd once convinced myself that I loved Beni—Elizabeth was a stranger.

x X x

She walked me home, or, rather, she walked beside me while I walked back to Davina's. It was a surprisingly comfortable walk considering no words—or even glances—were exchanged. That is, it was comfortable until we arrived back at the house just in time to watch the ambulance drive away.

x X x

I walked into the hospital with every intention to find out what the hell was going on, why the windows were now the least of the destruction at Davina's house, and why, when Elizabeth and I had arrived, the place had been empty. We went in via the Emergency Department, where Lindy was speaking with Officer Ward, the second of the two-man ambush Sweeney had pulled in the coffee shop the morning that Danny had been shot. Lindy and Ward both turned to stare at me, the officer's face painted with a look that warned me not to do anything I was going to regret. Now, why would I want to do something like that? My heart went cold.

Where was Davina?

x X x

Lindy

I recited Officer Ward's instructions in my head as I stepped towards Derek, walking so slowly, it felt like slow motion. Tell him about Erica first. That she'd taken a pretty nasty blow to the head but wasn't awake yet. That she could use some support. That they'd find his sister. That the cops would handle it. But I knew something the police didn't, something I'd purposefully withheld. I held it now, my fingertips wrapping a death grip around it as I pulled it out of my sweatshirt pocket—a small piece of paper, a note—a note for him. I hadn't read it. I didn't want to know what it said. But Derek would, and if I had to choose to keep my loyalties to him or to throw Davina's luck in with the police department, then I was sure as hell going to get this ball of paper into his pocket without Ward ever knowing it existed. Because I was quite sure the piece of paper told Derek where he could find the first of his two remaining siblings. I was quite sure that Derek would do what the police wouldn't dare to allow—anything—to get my best friend back.

I was quite sure he was going to do something stupid.

I was quite sure that I didn't care.

x X x

Derek

When Lindy first hugged me, I was shocked, sure she had finally given up on writing my name in the margins of her biology notes and sneaking suggestive glances my way when she thought I wasn't looking. Then I felt her hand slip into the pocket of my jacket, noticed the tears threatening to leak from her eyes when she pulled away. She noticed Elizabeth, and her eyes lit up, not with happiness, but with inspiration. She cleared her throat. "Derek, do you want to walk your friend to her car before we go see Erica?" she asked a bit too loudly—loud enough, I realized, that Ward could just overhear. I searched Lindy's face, finding an intense desperation written across it.

"Sure," I replied, doing my best to seem sincere. "I'll be right back." I took Elizabeth's hand—she had remained silent through the entire exchange, and it was the first time I was thankful that she a damn perceptive woman, that she was a reporter. We walked normally through the doors and were out of sight of Officer Ward before I broke into a run, dragging Elizabeth with me as I headed for her Buick, simultaneously reaching into my pocket in search of whatever Lindy had put here. I pulled out a ball of paper and unfolded it impatiently, tearing a corner in my hurry.

"What the hell is going on?" Elizabeth demanded while she dug in her oversized purse for her keys. So much for staying quiet.

I ignored her for the moment, too caught up in the small letter addressed to me in black ink—dirty with blood.

x X x

Elizabeth

There are many things in this world that I can tolerate, but being ignored is not one of them. I glared at Derek's back, finally feeling the cool metal of my keys and wrenching them out of my purse with enough urgency to send a few neglected receipts fluttering to the ground. I didn't have time to gather them, however, since Derek chose that moment to snag the keys right out of my hand and sprint to the driver's side of my vehicle. "Derek!" I shouted, but he seemed to scarcely hear me. What could I do? So, I got in the car.

I barely had opportunity to close the passenger door before Derek floored it, racing through a stop sign at the entrance of the hospital and coming three inches from burying my car's trunk into the front of the Trans-Am he cut off in the process. It didn't take a genius to figure out that he was heading towards the boardwalk, and I squared my shoulders. "Derek, if you don't tell me what's happening, I'm going to have to cause a very high-speed wreck involving my own car!" He glanced at me briefly before purposefully sailing through a red light and taking a corner so fast, I swear we were on two wheels.

I was tempted to scream before he threw a piece of paper, stained pink and red in some places, in my face. I snatched it from the air with frustration. "What is this?" I asked, knowing that he was too busy trying to get us killed to answer me. I could barely read the sloppy handwriting, and it took me a moment to make sense of it.

Vinyard,

Let's make a trade.

Basketball Court.

Two-thirty.

P.S. Davina says hi.

I looked at the clock on the dash. It read 2:23. I moved my attention back to Derek, a million questions fighting for center stage in my head. Who had his sister? The D.O.C.? Let's make a trade? I cleared my throat, which was abruptly too dry. "What do they want?" I asked, fearing I already knew the answer. He glanced at me again, and this time, I saw his rage—the fire gleaming in his eyes, the determined clench of his jaw, his milk-white knuckles as his hands strangled the steering wheel.

"Me."

x X x

When we got to the basketball court, Derek seemed more composed. It frightened me more than anything I'd ever seen. More than when he had shoved me in my office. More than when Cameron Alexander had walked into Jimmy's Burgers. More than the idea of what must have happened to Davina. This composure wasn't calm—it was the farthest from it a person could possible get; his jaw had slackened until his mouth hung slightly ajar, as if breathing through his nose no longer provided enough oxygen. His hands were relaxed, hanging limply at his sides. When he told me to stay in the car or he'd shoot me, his voice was clear and steady. When he climbed out of my Buick, his pace was tranquil, as if he had all the time in the world. His demeanor was that of someone at peace.

His eyes burned with the flames of Hell.

I got out of the car and made to follow Derek, but he looked back at me with a silent plea to stay where I was, so I did, halfway around the front of the car, watching as he approached Stacey Fairchild and Seth Ryan, who were standing side by side about fifteen feet away. The boardwalk was all but deserted, with only a couple of other vehicles even around, one of which was a black van parked just behind the two of them. Derek stopped just out of arms reach of either of them, and Stacey smiled, winking in my direction. "Hey, baby," she remarked to Derek. "I haven't seen you in awhile. How's the family?" It was obvious that she was baiting him, but Derek didn't move except that his hand edged ever so slightly towards his back.

"They're doing a lot better than you will be in a second," he said. The entire movement took no more than a second to take place; Derek's right hand reached around his back and pulled a pistol from his waistband while the left grabbed Stacey by the shirt collar, dragging the woman away from Seth just before the gun was placed to her temple. Seth took a step forwards at the same time that I did.

Derek pushed the gun more forcefully into Stacey's temple until she winced, and Seth froze. "Come on, Derek, you don't wanna do that."

"Where's my sister?"

Seth tried again, his own hand moving towards his waist. "Why don't you let Stacey go? You know what they say about killing the messenger."

"Unless you want the messenger to develop another hole to breathe out of, I wouldn't go for that gun just yet." Seth froze again, starting to look panicked.

"Bloody hell, just let the bitch go already!" Stacey screamed, her eyes locked sideways, starring at the deadly weapon holding her captive.

There was a second's pause before the door of the van slid open and Davina was pushed out. She fell onto to pavement, and when she raised up, my hand shot to cover my mouth as if doing so might erase what I was seeing. Her face was bruised and swollen, and she was clad in a long nightshirt that was torn and soaked with red and yellow stains. Neither of these aspects of her appearance was as disturbing as the trails of blood that lined her thighs, running racing stripes down her legs to her feet, which left small pools of blood when she took a few stumbling steps towards her brother. He wasn't even looking at her. Seth had drawn his own pistol, and Derek was starring it in the face.

When Davina fell again, I abandoned my post to help her up. Derek, Seth, and whoever was in the van all ignored me while I wrapped Davina in my jacket and towed the mutilated woman towards the car. We were the other parties in this war, and we weren't needed any longer. I helped Davina into the back on my car and turned around just in time to watch Derek hand his gun to Stacey. Seth took that chance to swing his own into the back of Derek's head. I screamed as he fell, taking a few hasty steps towards the van. "Derek!" Two gunshots rang out and I shrieked, throwing my hands over my head. When I looked up, Seth and Eric Bane were throwing their unconscious prize into the back of the van, and both of my back tires were useless.

Author's Note: Hey, look at me! My twin sister, who is a fantastic little graphic artist, decided to do a title page for this fanfic. It's pretty awesome. I'm going to post a link to it on my profile, so check it out!