Disclaimer- blah, blah, blah
AN- Forewarning- it's NOT what you think! Don't kill me! And apologies for any grammatical errors... it's late, and I suck at proofreading. lol.
Ericka POV
"Can I help you?"
The repulsive looking man who answered the door looked me up and down, apparently appraising me. I gave him the most innocent look I could conjure up, given the circumstances. My fiancé, his brother, and their best friend are somewhere in this house, and they're either kicking same major ass, or they're getting their ass's handed to them. Judging by the fact someone had actually came to the door, I had a sinking feeling that it was the latter.
I gave the man a sheepish smile, wringing the strap on the bag slung over my shouler. "Um, I was wondering if I could borrow a phone? You know, to call a tow truck? My car broke down a mile or so from here, and well, this is the first house I ran across."
The mantra of Get in, get the boys, get the fuck out of there played on repeat in my brain. That was the plan- or at least the best one I could come up with anyways. I couldn't exactly pull off a Normandy Beach and storm the place, so that left me with the option of sneaking in- And what better way to sneak into someone's house than by waltzing through the front door, right in plain view?
He looked pained. "Sorry, sweetie. Normally I would but…." He glanced over his shouler. "Now's not really a good time." He gestured to the city. "Look, if you keep going down the road, there's some houses down there, I'm sure someone will help you out."He made to shut the heavy wooden door in my face. I stuck my foot in the way, forcing him to keep it open.
"But sir!" I pleaded. "I'm freezing to death out here, and I'm not from Boston." My voice adopted a high pitch as I talked. "Please?" If I had Murphy's nail biting habit, I would've had bloody cuticles at this point. I was so nervous, I was visibly shaking…but then again, that might have been the cold wind getting to me, or maybe whatever illness I had contracted h decided to flare up. Either way, I hoped I had garnered enough skills from high school drama classes and that I looked pathetic and defenseless enough for the guy to take pity on me.
He looked around again and sighed. "Fine, come in, come in." He pulled on my arm, dragging me across the threshold forcefully. I fought the urge to crinkle up my nose- he reeked off onions and garlic.
The house was warm and inviting; if I hadn't known who it belonged to, I would've loved to have spent a night or two there. He steered me through the front room. Another man, looking as Italian as the one leading me barged through a door. He looked lived. "Vito! What the fuck are you doing?"
"Pauli, calm the fuck down! Her car broke down, she needs to borrow the phone is all." The man named Pauli looked like he wanted to deck Vito.
"Well hurry the fuck up, we need you down there." Skeptical, I raised my eyebrows out of pure habit. "Plumping issue, line broke in the basement." Said Pauli at my expression. I nodded and smiled at him, trying to imitate Annie's sweet-than-punch face. "Gotcha."
Plumbing issue? Yeah fucking right. The fucker told me exactly where the boys are.
Pauli ducked out of the room. Vito gestured to the chair and handed me a phone and a thick phonebook. "Here you go, sweetie. Go ahead and make your call, I'll be right back. Gotta check on them, ya know? Can't leave the guys alone for too long"
I laughed with him. "Yeah, I understand. Thank you for letting me use your phone."
Apparently my mediocre at best acting was fooling him. He nodded ferevrishly, looking pleased with himself. "It's nothing. Be right back." He walked out of the room, practically sauntering.
I pulled Smecker's card out of my pocket and dialed the number, twirling the phone chord in my fingers nervously. Remarkably, he picked up on the first ring. "Smecker speaking."I paused, partially trying to figure out where I'd heard his voice before- he sounded like someone I knew at one point- and partially trying to get my words in order. There had to be more than one phone in the house, and who knew if someone was listening in or not.
"This is Annie MacManus, and my car broke down. I need a tow truck as soon as possible."I held my breath, hoping he would get the message, even if he had no idea as to who I was- the last name would get the point across, I hoped.
He seemed to catch on. "Right…..Well, give me the location of your car?"
"About a mile or so south of Boston."
"I'll be there shortly, say… twenty to thirty minutes? That gonna be soon enough for you?" I didn't miss the real question he was asking me- Will you be alright for that amount of time?
"Yeah, that should be fine, thank you." I hung up and then dug through the phone book, dialing the first tow truck number I saw and hanging up after the first ring, covering my tracks in case someone decided to redial the last call.
Vito came into the room. "Any luck?"
"Yeah." I flashed him a smile. "Tow truck should be here in thirty minutes or so. Do you mind if I wait here?"
He shook his head. "Nah, I don't mind at all. A girl as cute as you shouldn't be out in the cold anyways." I made a point to giggle impishly like a schoolgirl. He rubbed the palms of his hands together. "Would you like a drink to warm you up?" he asked.
"Sure." I said, taking the arm he offered me as we walked through the highly ornate house to the kitchen. He plucked a bottle of wine from a cabinet and poured us each a glass. I accepted it and took a sip. My stomach instantly started to roll. I willed myself to not puke all over- I could do that later.
"So, miss, you know my name, what's yours?" Vito asked, initiating the game of twenty questions.
"It's Annie."
"Annie what?"
"MacManus." I said. His face instantly grew tight. My mouth went dry. Shit. "Where are you from again?" he asked warily.
"I'm from Texas. I'm just up here, looking at a couple grad schools. I already have my bachelor's degree, but I want my master's." I improvised on the spot, thickening the natural southern accent i had, and trying hard to buy myself some time. It seemed to work because he relaxed instantly.
"Ah. What's your Major?"
"Nursing." He nodded. "That's cool. Always wanted to be a doctor, but ah well… What can you do?"" he drained the last of his glass in one gulp. "So what's the deal? You're a cute little thing, where's your boyfriend? Why are you travelling alone?"
His voice seemed so far away. My ears were ringing and my neck felt stiff. "Well… I did have a boyfriend. But he died. Horrible car wreck. Drunk driver clipped him, killed him instantly." I felt a burning sensation in my eyes as I forced tears to pool up and threaten to spill over.
Vito cleared his throat. "I'm so sorry. That's…that's horrible." I heard him say.
"It was awful." I whispered in agreement, tears sliding down my face. He looked helpless. "Don't cry! Don't cry!" He wiped the tears from my face with a sweaty hand, frowning down at me. "You're burning up there, your face is red. Are you okay?"
"Must be the wine." I sighed, trying hard to focus on the situation at hand. "Um, do you have a bathroom I could use?" I sniffed. "You know, fix my makeup and such?"
"Yeah, yeah, of course I do. Right down the hall, there you go." He pointed me in the right direction. I nodded and walked into the room, shutting the door behind me.
I waited until I head his footsteps leaving the kitchen to pull out guns from the bag that had been clinging to the whole time, loading them as fast as I could. The weight of the metal in my hands was reassuring. I glanced in the mirror and took a real look at my appearance for the first time in weeks. My cheeks were flushed, sweat beading around my hairline. My hands shook a little. I look like hell. Fuck, I feel like it too.
Sudden loud noises came through the vent. Or maybe they weren't sudden and I had just finally tuned into my surroundings. I crouched down and put my ear to the vent, listening hard. It was mostly incoherent screaming, but I knew exactly who it was.
"Roc! God no!"
A single gunshot rang through the air and the agonizing cries met my ears. My blood ran cold as I realized what just happened. They killed Rocco. My head reeled, and I stood up slowly, trying hard to shake the desperate need to cry.
Rocco. The man who had invaded my apartment night after night, who had raided my fridge for beer and cooked pasta in my kitchen, the man who kept me from going nuts when Murphy and Connor were at the Russian bar, he was dead, lying somewhere in the house with a bullet lodged in him.
I heard the doorbell chime. It broke me out of the trance I had been in and brought me back to reality. Roc was dead. But my boys weren't. I could hear them screaming obscenities and curses.
Ignoring the slight tremors passing through my body, I opened the door to the bathroom and walked out, guns drawn.
It's on now. It is fucking on now.
Murphy POV
Somewhere in the house, a doorbell rang. I didn't really give two shits who it was. I didn't care that I was bloodied up and hurt, lying on the ground and handcuffed to a chair. I didn't even care that Connor was in the same condition as me.
Rocco was shot, bleeding out- as good as dead. I curled up next to him, face only a few inches from his. I heard him breathing hard, choking on the blood that was pooling in his mouth.
"No! No! No!" I heard Connor yelling the word over and over, as if he could reverse what had just happened, as if shouting his protest repeatedly would somehow magically heal Roc's wounds and bring him back from a surefire death.
Roc looked up at us with glazed eyes, fighting to get his last words out. "You can't stop. Get outta here." He gasped. "Don't stop. Don't ever stop." His eyes closed and his body went limp; I couldn't hear his breath coming in ragged, short bursts like they had been. I buried my face in his shoulder and let out a scream.
He's fucking….gone.
Tears came to my eyes and I let them fall. If there was a time for mourning and for shame to surface, then this had to be it. This was entirely my fucking fault. He shouldn't have been dragged into this shit…and yet I was the one who let him in on everything. I wanted to punch, kick, maim something, anything. I felt myself thrashing around on the floor, unable to do anything else.
"Murph. Murphy! Look at me." Came Connor's hoarse voice. I looked up and saw his face, eyes burning with unvoiced emotion. "We need to get out of here. Get up." When I didn't move, he starting shouting. "Murphy for god sake's! Get the fuck up! Please, get up!"
Begrudgingly, I got on my knees and rose to my feet, sitting the chair down on all fours. Connor leaned his chair back and after a couple attempts, managed to get his cuffed foot free. Catching on, I turned my chair around and pulled tight on my cuff encircling my left. I bit down hard on my shirt collar, knowing from the numerous times Connor had broken his wrist how bad it was going to hurt. "Do it!"
It took a few tries, but Connor managed to break my wrist, making it possible to get the cuffs off my hand. Unchained, I looked around, trying to find something to use as a weapon in case they came back in suddenly, adrenaline numbing the pain in my arm. My knife was tucked away in a corner, thrown away carelessly after they captured us. I grabbed it and suddenly the door opened. One of the pricks that had been beating on us walked into the room, looking dumbfound to see only one of his prisoners cuffed to a chair. "What the fuck?" he asked, mouth open wide. I pounced on him, sinking my knife deep into his back; he fell to the floor and Connor stood up from his chair, kicking him with a steel toed boot.
Maybe we got too carried away. Maybe his death was too painful, too brutal. Maybe I should have slit his throat and let him bleed out- a nice quiet, quick death. But for some reason, we kept beating on the poor bastard, until his own mother couldn't have recognized him. Once he was dead we searched him, looking for weapons. We found two guns- our guns of all fucking things, on him, along with the keys to the hands cuffs. I got them off of Connor and threw the damned things against the wall, glad that I was at least able to spare him the pain of breaking his wrist again.
My eyes fell on Rocco. At the same time, Connor and I picked up his chair and set it upright. I pulled the only two pennies I had on me out of my pocket, handing one to Connor. We each placed one over his eye and dropped to our knees in front of him.
After a moment of silence, we started to pray in low voices, trying to show the man even a modicum of the respect he deserved. He was rash and impulsive, rude and harebrained, but loyal to a damning fault. His body in front of us was proof of that.
"And shepherds we shall be for Thee, my Lord, for Thee. Power hath descended forth from Thy hand-" a soft click came from behind us. At once we turned around, guns aimed at the source.
It was the geriatric gunslinger, as Ericka had nicked named him. Instead of pointing his guns at us, he was pointing them away. He spoke in raspy voice, around the cigar in his mouth. "Power hath descended forth from Thy hand, That our feet may swiftly carry out Thy command."
Wait, what the fuck? How does he know our prayer? I put my gun down and stared up at him, anger boiling underneath the surface. Who the fuck is this guy?
"So we shall flow a river forth to Thee. And teeming with souls shall it ever be. In nomine Patri, Et Fili, Spiritus Sancti." He crossed over Roc's body and looked to us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Connor looking at him in disbelief.
The man slowly lowered his hands and touched them to our faces. I didn't dare move for fear of setting the guy off.
He has to be stalking us, following us, what the hell. There's no way….no fucking way…. He's not… We're not…
Connor POV
"My boys." Whispered the man. He took off the shades he was wearing and pulled the cigar out his mouth. I saw it then, saw the connection crystal clear. He had the same eyes as us; the same body build as me, the same smirk Murphy wore.
Holy fucking shit.
"Da?" I asked tentatively. The bearded man nodded, eyes crinkling as he smiled down at us. As much as I wanted to punch him for smiling in the presence of Roc's dead body, for trying to kill us, I couldn't move.
This is our….father? The one that's been missing our entire lives?
What are the fucking chances we turned into killers like him?
"Boys." The man slipped on his shades. "We have much to talk about."
"Damn right we do." Muttered Murphy under his breath, glaring at him hatefully.
The man- or Da, rather, pretended not to hear him, finishing his thought without missing a beat. "There's time for talk later. We need to leave. Find a safe place to stay. The man you're looking for isn't here anyways."
I didn't question how he knew who were looking for. For all I knew, the guy was God himself; I wasn't about to ask any unnecessary questions of the man. "We've got a place already." I said, standing up on sore legs. "My fiancé knows about…everything." I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat, knowing all too well the hell I was walking into once I got home, knowing how hard she was going to take the news about Rocco, knowing she was going to blame herself somehow. I looked back at Rocco, expecting to see him grinning cheekily back at me and laughing. "Gotcha!" he'd say, and this nightmare would be over.
Except he was still sitting there, pennies over his eyes, blood congealing as I stared at him.
Da cleared his throat. "C'mon. Let's go." I didn't need to be told twice. I couldn't stomach another second in that pit of a room. I walked out without looking behind me. Murphy took a minute to catch up with us; I heard him whispering another prayer in Gaelic as we left the room.
We entered the kitchen; I wasn't prepared for the sight in front of me. The guy that smelled horribly like onions was lying in the middle of the floor, holding a wine glass in his hand with a bullet in the middle of his forehead. Murphy looked at him impassively, slipping through the room.
"This one of yours?" I asked Da in a low voice. He cocked his head. "No. Must have been the woman I saw earlier."
"There was a woman?" I asked sharply. "What'd she look like?"
"Tall, brown hair. Didn't see her face. Knocked her out before she could look at me." I breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't her.
Something caught my eye as I walked past the dead man on the floor. A small silver lighter was lying on the floor. I picked it up and stared at it, the emblem of crossed rifles etched into the side of it. I had never in my life seen it before, but it seemed so out of place in an Italian man's home. I slipped it into my pocket, following Da out of the room.
In the next room, there were a few bodies' two of them dead, the other one a female with poofy hair sprawled facedown on the floor. Murph glanced down at her. "You sure that's a woman?" he asked slowly. "She's got some manly hands."
"Only one way to find out." I grabbed her shoulder and rolled her onto her back. My mouth fell open.
"What the fuck? Smecker?" Murphy looked from me to Da then back to back to Smecker, his face perplexed. "The fuck is he doing here? He knows we were coming here." Murphy knelt down and started slapping his face lightly. "Paul. Wake up. Wake the fuck up man." He said in a stern tone that would have rivaled Ericka's. Smecker groaned lightly and after a few minutes was awake and rather shocked to see us.
"What the-" he sat up, pulling off the wig he was wearing. It was a rather disturbing sight to say the least, but he seemed rather unabashed by the fact he was wearing a dress and makeup. "You guys are alright?"
"Yeah. Kind of." Said Murph, his tone clipped. Smecker's eyes flickered over all of us. "So, he's not actually out to kill you?" he pointed to Da. I shrugged. "He was. He's on our side now."
"Ah." He got up off the floor, standing upright in six inch heels. I was impressed- I didn't know many women, let alone men who could do that gracefully. "Well, where's the girl?" he asked.
My stomach dropped. "What girl?"
His eyebrows raised. "Got an SOS call from an Annie MacManus. Doubt that's her real name, but I assume you know she actually is."
Murph shook his head. "We didn't have a woman come with us. We had Rocco, but.." he stopped and cleared his throat. "But the only Annie we know works at the same hospital as Ericka."
"Who is?"
"My fiancé." I had forgotten that I hadn't mentioned her in all of this. By the time we made the contact call to Smecker, we already decided that Ericka wasn't going to come with us.
At least, we had decided that. I felt a cold wave pass through my body. What if Ericka had other ideas?
"Fuck!" Murphy grabbed my shoulder. "She's here. She's fucking here. Shit!" I knew he was right as I reached for the lighter in my pocket, knowing that it belonged to her.
But I didn't want to believe it. "No fucking way it's her-You drugged her!" I protested.
"I'm fucking aware of that fact, it was my idea! I must not have given her enough of the shit." And then he was off in the direction we had just come from, bellowing her name at the top of his lungs. I followed after, shouting along with her.
Good God, don't let her be dead. Don't let her die too.
"Boys?"
I stopped dead in my tracks. "Ericka?" I yelled frantically. "Ericka? Where are you?" Slow shuffled footsteps came from behind us. I turned and saw my angel staring at me, splattered in blood. I grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her to me, relief washing over me.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" I asked, face buried in her hair.
"You were here." She pulled away from me and looked around, raking her hair back. I didn't notice until later how flushed her cheeks were, how much effort it took her to talk, how she shook just standing there. "I heard it through the vents in the bathroom… Roc's dead, I know." She looked at me miserably, eyes glistening. "He was a good man."
Silence fell between all of us. Finally, Murph cut through the tension, pulling her into a hug, wincing as he jostled his arm. "You're fucking stupid sometimes, know that?" He muttered, voice cracking. Da cleared his throat. "We need to leave."
Ericka nodded at him. "Yes, Da."
We stared at her. "How did you know-?"
She smiled at us weakly. "Got your eyes." She took a couple steps in the direction of the front door before stopping suddenly. "Connor…" she whimpered, collapsing. I caught her before she hit the floor, staggering under her dead weight. Murphy's eyes met mine in horror.
"Connor. She's bleeding." He said in a shaky voice. I glanced down at her legs; there were dark crimson stains pooling on her inner thighs. I didn't want to think about what may or may not have happened to her; I just wanted to get her help.
We ran out of the house, Smecker's heels making loud, rhythmic click-cloping noises on the floor. The situation might have been hilarious on the silver screen- two guys running around and carrying a passed out girl, accompanied by a trigger happy old man and a cross-dresser- hell, it rivaled Weekend at Bernie's as far as hilarity. This wasn't the least bit amusing however; I felt the panic clawing at me, threatening to consume me.
Smecker stopped us as we made to cross the lawn. "Give her to me. All I have to do is show my badge and they'll treat her, no questions asked."
I shook my head. "No, no I can't just leave her-"
Murphy, for once, was the voice of reason. He put a soothing hand on my back. "We're covered in blood, Connor. They're gonna ask questions. Just do as he says, alright?" Slowly, I nodded and followed Smecker to his car, placing her carefully in the passenger's seat.
Smecker handed me his pager. "Wait for me to contact you. Find a motel and stay there. Got it?" he locked eyes with me, making sure I understood. I nodded and stepped back from the car, relinquishing control to someone, anyone else as I watched Smecker drive off. Da took us to his vehicle and Murphy climbed into the backseat with me. I felt him watching me like a hawk.
The streetlights were a blur from the cold car window. I was numb. I didn't want to think, feel, or sense anything- I just wanted to sleep for a long, long time. It felt like we were in the cars for hours; time had lost all meaning. Somewhere along the lines, Da pulled into a motel, and we checked into a room. He left Murphy and I alone, forbidding us to leave the room. I had no idea what he was doing or where he was going or where the hell we even go. Frankly, I didn't care.
Murphy ducked into the bathroom as soon as Da left and showered. He took an unusually long time, though if I listened hard enough, I could just make out the sounds of muffled crying; I made an effort to not listen. I laid on one of the beds and stared at the ceiling, counting the moldings, trying to find shapes and pictures in them.
Murph stepped out of the bathroom, cradling his wrist, not looking at me. I rolled off the bed and went to the bathroom to shower, all in the name of having something to do, something to keep my mind off things. I washed the blood off my skin, watched it circle and go down the drain. I stood under the showerhead until it ran cold, staring unfocused at the tiled wall.
There was a knock on the door. "Connor. You okay in there?" came Murph's voice.
"Fine. I'm fine." My own voice was so unfamiliar- it was never that scratchy sounding, that defeated. I got out of the shower and pulled on my jeans, leaving my bloody shirt in the trash, wishing I just could burn it.
Murphy threw a shirt at me. "Found this in my bag." He muttered. I pulled it on; must have been one of his shirts because it didn't fit me right.
"Thanks." I sat down on the other bed opposite of him, face in my hands. I heard the shift of bed springs, cautious footsteps, and felt the weight of another body next to me. I looked over at Murphy and lost it completely.
"Fuck Murph...Just… fuck…." Sobs wracked my body. Tears spilled. I couldn't stop, no matter how hard I tried to calm down. It all was so much to take in. "Roc's fucking dead. Ericka- God, I don't even know. What…why? Why would God do this to us?" I looked at him for an answer or solution, but he looked as lost as I felt.
"I don't know." He didn't bother to disguise the sorrow or hopelessness in his own voice. He wrapped his good arm around my shoulder and I leaned into the embrace, grateful for the physical comfort. "I guess it's in the Lord's hands now." He muttered, voice so quiet i could hardly hear him.
That's the sickest part of the whole thing- it's always been in his hands. Always.
Wearily, I closed my eyes as I rested my head on Murph's shoulder, holding out for a phone call or for the pager to go off, or for God to strike me down where I sat.
Because all I could do at that point was wait. Just wait.