Chapter Twenty-One: Peace I Leave With You
"There we go," said Becca's stepfather, Norm. "Much better. Give it to me." He seemed to let up on Becca's neck a little. Her chest rose up and down the tiniest bit with each rasping breath. I put my foot on the gun and slid it towards the man. It stopped slightly behind him. "Take her," he said, flicking his head to Anne, who had been shot in the leg. She was alive and conscious, her big round eyes closed, whimpering in pain. There were no tears on her cheeks. "And leave. Now."
"Do you expect us to let you kill her?"
"Stupid man," leered Norm. "I'd have to kill you all if I shot her, wouldn't I now? No, I'm taking her with me. I'm taking her home. She needs to learn how to be a good daughter, don't she? I only wish her goddamn sister was here too. That girl always knew when to shut up…"
The man continued to talk, loudly and obnoxiously, telling us how stupid we were, and, so fixated on himself as it was, he didn't notice as the pale man lying behind him stirred slightly.
Al pushed himself up and put a hand to his head. He looked around blankly, and froze when he saw the scene. I forced myself to look at the man now pressing a gun to Becca's head, not daring to look anywhere else. I felt Roy tense beside me, and I knew he saw Al as well.
Winnie could have ruined it. She gasped quietly, half in relief, half in still anxious fear. I took her hand and glanced at her, saying, Shut up, and she transformed the gasp into a sob, and the man laughed at her and continued talking.
Silently, with stealth I didn't know he had, Al reached for the gun Winnie had been using before.
He stood up, a painful look of purpose on his face. With a shaking hand, he raised it above his head, as if to hit the man over the head with the butt of the gun.
Then, with a flash of panic in his eyes, he fumbled the gun and it went off.
An agonizing scream went through the warm late afternoon air, and Norm dropped the gun, clutching his bleeding arm. He whipped around, to see Al, who looked duly terrified.
"YOU SON OF A-"
"I'm calling the police!" shouted Roy, just as Winnie dived for the gun that the man had just dropped.
Norm looked around once, twice, three times. He saw Roy running into the office, to a telephone, and Winnie, her eyes full of fire, the gun in her hands pointed directly at his forehead.
He roared, "Damn you all!" and sprinted out of the garage, the arm that Al had just accidentally shot hanging loosely at his side.
Al dropped to his knees and put his arm around Becca, whose eyes began to flutter open. I wanted to comfort Winnie, but Anne needed me more. I quickly kneeled down to examine Anne's wound.
With a flash of blonde hair, Winnie was gone.
"Winnie!" I yelled after her, then I looked at the door, then back at Anne.
Her eyes barely open, her lips barely moving, Anne murmured, "Go."
I paused, then nodded, and stood up, and ran after Winnie.
There she was, her bright hair standing out among the grays and browns of the buildings and men in suits on the street. She was pushing and shoving people out of her way violently, following some invisible trail that only she could see. I shouted her name, again and again, and shoved people just as violently as she, but she didn't stop or pause at all. She refused to even glance over her shoulder, or be deterred at all.
I almost lost her when she took a sharp left, and delved into one of the poorer parts of the city. She slowed down a little then, and I caught up to her. She was panting heavily, running slower, limping slightly with twisted ankle.
"Winnie," I pleaded with her. "Where are you going?"
Still breathing hard, she raised a hand and pointed to a broken and rundown apartment building. "What is-"
Winnie wrenched the door of the building open and went up a flat of stairs, then banged on the fourth door, calling, "Mrs. Miethke! Open the door!"
Before Winnie could hit the door again, it opened, and a woman, with small, delicate limbs and a face of permanent surprise stood in the door way, looking scared to death.
"Please, no, I don't know anything," she said, and she tried to close the door. But I stuck a foot in and pried it open, allowing Winnie to talk.
"Is Norm home yet?"
Becca's mother didn't say anything, only looked at us, a frightened look on her face. Winnie grabbed her and physically shook her by the shoulders. "Dammit, Sarah, where is your goddamn husband!" she screamed.
The woman's mouth formed the words, Not here.
"Sarah!" called a voice from the stairwell, and, for half a second, Winnie and Becca's stepfather stared each other in the eye, and the hate was almost physical, like I could reach out and touch it.
Then Winnie held up her gun and pulled the trigger.
Norm had already began down the stairs again, and she missed by a mile, but, as she threw herself down the stairs at him, she shot again and again and again. I was screaming, yelling at her the whole time, but she couldn't hear me. She was running and he was running – it was impossible for her to get a clear shot, and it wasn't as if she had been particularly skilled with a gun in the first place…she missed every shot.
She chased him, and I chased her farther and farther into the worst part of town – people began yelling at us and some actually whistled at Winnie as she ran past. I couldn't even spare a glare for them. It took all of my energy, all of my focus to keep my legs pumping.
Finally, I she stopped moving, and I realized it was a dead end, and there was nowhere for the man Winnie was chasing to run now.
He was backed up against the wall, sweat pouring off his face, gasping for every single breath, shaking hard. She was breathing just as hard, but there was no fear on her face. Only a cold hatred, and fury, and, pain and grief, overwhelmingly so. Her hand wasn't even shaking, as she held it only feet away from Norm.
"Winnie," I said, between panting breaths. "Don't."
"Give me one reason why I shouldn't." Adrenaline seemed to have kicked in, and despite the fact that she had just stopped sprinting, she didn't seem to need the air. "This… this mockery of a man walks with a gun and threatens somebody I love when he knows, he goddamn well knows what happened to the last man who had a gun pointed at his head in that garage, and he just – just to screw with me – HE DESERVES TO DIE!" she bellowed, and her hand began to shake.
"Are you afraid?" uttered Norm, that same toothy grin appearing on his face. "I knew it. Just the same with all of you. Too nice. Too weak."
I stepped forward, and, with every ounce of pure strength I had left in me, I punched Becca's stepfather in the head. He slid to the ground, out cold.
Winnie followed me forward, and pressed the gun against the man's temple, turning her face away. "Our Father, who art in Heaven…" she whispered, eyes closed tight.
"Don't do this, Winnie," I warned her, as she continued to whisper her prayer. "It's not worth it. It won't make you feel better. This won't solve anything. You'll be hurting the people you love. Don't do this. Please, Winnie, stop now."
"…now, and forever. Amen." She opened her eyes, and faced the man she was about to kill. All of the hesitance, if there had even been any, from before, disappeared.
I took her other arm. "Winnie, please, think about this!" I implored her. "Think about what you're doing! I know you're angry and I know you're hurt but don't do this! It's not worth it!"
"Who are you to tell me this!" she shrieked at me. "You don't know anything about me! This is – this is something I have to do!"
"No, it's not!" I cried. "Don't do it, killing this man will not give you the satisfaction you think you'll get." She was silent, silently beseeching me to continue. "I should know," I said softly. "I know how you feel, Winnie. And I know how it feels… after you've done what you can't undo."
"You've… you've killed someone before?"
There was a sharp pain in my chest. "Winnie…yes."
There was a moment of silence. Then she snarled, "Like hell you have!" and pressed the gun harder into the man's head, but I could see her resolve was crumbling. She didn't want to do this.
"Think about your family!" I said. "Think about the people you love! No one wants you to become a murderer!"
"It wouldn't be murder!" she said, and her voice was weaker now. "It would be… justice."
I took her hand. "You're using his words now."
She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "No," she said. "He used mine."
She pulled the trigger.
There was a dull pop and the man's head knocked against the brick wall once…but otherwise was not harmed. Winnie had used all the bullets chasing after him.
For a moment, we stood there, stunned, staring at the unconscious man lying in the street.
Then Winnie dropped the gun, and fell into my arms, weeping. I held her, stroking her hair, whispering words of comfort, supporting her as she sobbed into my shoulder.
"Don't be sad," I spoke into her ear. "…it's what Michael would have done."
She only cried harder.
When the police finally found us, Roy and Becca's mother Sarah were with them. Roy immediately came over to where I was holding Winnie, and took her hand and murmured, "Come with me, you're safe now, we're all safe… let's go home."
With one hand holding hers, and the other gently resting on her back, he led her to a car, and, as policemen swarmed over the scene, and Sarah Miethke began to sob, repeating over and over again, "I didn't know, I had no idea, please make him go away, he beat me, he beat me," I finally realized something.
It wasn't Winnie I wanted. It was Winry.
But that didn't mean I had to exclude Winnie from my life. The truth was, I didn't want her, but however I tried to push her away, I needed this Winnie in my life. I needed her to be there as a friend, as a confidant, and as a pillar of rock that can never be shaken. But at the same time, I realized that she needed me as well. There was no way I could ever separate myself from this life, because I was already closer to Winnie than I had been with almost anyone else. I needed her in my life. She needed me in hers. There was love there – there was so much love, but it wasn't the kind I had been fooling myself into believing in. It was the kind of love that gave life meaning.
It was the kind of love that Winnie had been craving so much since her brother died. And it was the kind of love I had lost a thousand times already, with my father, my mother, my friends, my brother, my true brother, and a hundred other people who I missed so much. But the funny thing was, I didn't need any of that anymore. I didn't need to see their faces, to hear their voices, to even know they were alive. That wasn't to say I didn't want to – I still wanted to, more so than anything ever.
The knowledge, the feeling that a single person loved me and needed me was enough. It was like – I didn't have to tear my hair out at night, or wish for death because of my regrets and the years that I couldn't get back. It was acceptance – the acceptance that some things I couldn't change, and I just had to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving, and know that one day, these things would be alright.
I went up to the roof that night. Before I even washed the sweat out of my hair and Winnie's tears off of my shoulder, I went up onto the roof. I sat on the edge, just like I had seen Shauna do, and I didn't have any sudden urges to throw myself off and end my suffering, because there was no suffering to end.
The ache in my heart hadn't disappeared. But now, it was…different.
I wished I could have said goodbye to them. I wished I could have explained to them all that I couldn't stay in their world, I had to go…
Their world. Not mine. Not anymore. I smiled bitterly.
There was a creaking sound, and I heard the sound of feet padding over to me on the roof. I didn't move as someone leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.
"Thank you," whispered Riza. "For everything." I nodded silently. She disappeared.
And someone else walked up behind me, then slowly sat down. She had a small blanket around her shoulders, but she still shivered in the night air.
Winnie rested her head on my shoulder.
No words were exchanged between us that night. I don't think any were needed. I had finally realized what she had understood all along, but refused to accept.
Together, we looked up at the stars, and we shared something, something that wasn't exactly happiness, but… contentment. Peace. Trust. In each other, and in the world. Something she hadn't had in a long time.
Something that, that night, I discovered I had in me all along.
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Oh, jeez. If you don't hate me after this, just wait until next chapter.
On another note, I start a new school in two weeks. Wooh.
Thanks so much for reading.