Part 16- Miss You by Trentemoller
"Douse it," Billy commanded. Immediately, his boys set to work covering any available surface of the house in gasoline. They started from the back, flinging the flammable liquid along the walls, counter tops, and various pieces of furniture as they made their way to the front door. They didn't bother with the upstairs, but instead made their way outside to flood the front porch.
The receding sunlight threw deep shadows cross the property, leaving the eight of them feeling safe in their delinquency. Not a car passed down the street and the only movement that they could find besides their own was the soft bustling of the late spring wind.
"Two of you, get the cars ready," Billy ordered. Bodie and a now ever obedient Heco promptly made their leave to ready their quick getaway. Billy reached to snatch a gasoline can out of Spink's hand and started trailing the foul liquid down the front steps and into the yard. The rest followed suit and soon they were standing behind him as he flipped open his lighter. He waited for the roar of two engines before he knelt, setting the damp grass ablaze. The guys jumped back as the flame grew and raced toward porch steps.
They headed out into the street, getting into the two mustangs as the flames entered the house, consuming the first floor. Billy stood at the open passenger door, marveling at the display before him. They had come back to the house to find the guns, ravaging the house and searching any place they thought she might have hidden them, but coming up with nothing. As a last resort, Billy decided to burn it down instead; figuring a little arson would destroy the guns if they weren't able to find them.
Billy turned, sitting down in the passenger seat of the mustang and shut the door closed just as it peeled away from the curve. Leaning back in his seat, he lit a cigarette, taking deep drags and watching the embers burn with each pull he took. Soon, Ramona Stone's house would be nothing but ashes, leaving her homeless and orphaned. Everything she loved, cherished, or found familiar would be lost to her forever. Just like her parents were, dead and cooling off in the city morgue… Much like his own baby brother.
The dad, that son of a bitch, had found Heco's gun. He had fired before any of them even knew he had it in the first place, hitting Joe square in the chest. They had scrambled out of there, no one quite aware he had been hit until they had successfully avoided being caught by the police. He had toughed it out for as long as he could, coughing up blood and going pale before finally slumping down in his seat. Hearing him whimper, feeling him cling to him as he bled to death in his arms, Billy had never felt such aching loss like this before. Not even for his mother.
It was a whole different ballgame now and he wasn't playing for shits and giggles anymore. The only thing he could see in his sight was Mona and her blood on his hands, washing away Joe's, redeeming him. He just had to wait until he could get her alone so he could finish what she had started.
He wondered what she was going through right now with the loss of her loved ones. How did she feel? What did she think? Did she feel herself going crazy with the pain of their absence? He hoped her agony was infinitely worse than what he currently felt, though he doubted she had ever known what it was like to be as close to someone as he had been with Joe. She would never know the pain that haunted him.
"An eye for an eye," he said to himself, and flicked his cigarette out the window.
"I want to see my parents!" I screamed at the doctor and Detective Wallis. At the current moment, I was being held against my will in a hospital bed and I was far from happy about it. I had woken up in the ambulance, the wailing siren pulling me out of my deep slumber. My head had hurt horribly and my vision was murky, but my thoughts had been clear about what was going on. Ever since then, I had been demanding to see my parents. It was now one day later.
"We know, Mona, but they are in recovery and you need to rest, too. You have a concussion and skipping around this hospital is not going to help you heal any faster," the doctor said. It was a woman this time, Dr. Castile; a colleague and shadow of my former doctor, Dr. Roderick. All cheers and smiles, it was obvious she didn't have the same bedside manner as he did, but then again that could be a misjudgment. Blame it on my raging temper.
"I couldn't care less if I was bleeding from every orifice in my body! I want to see them now!"
"Mona, you need to calm down. Right. Now," it was Detective Wallis who spoke this time. Her voice had a hard edge to it, and I could see her jaw muscles flexing when I looked at her. She came and sat at the bottom on my bed, perching on the edge of the mattress.
"I just want to see them. Please!" I cried pathetically. My fury at what Billy and his gang of idiots had done kept me in a tight vessel of suppressed violence. My body itched to strike out, to hit anything with enough force to atomize it. I wanted to beat the walls of this building and watch it crumble down to its foundation, turning it to nothing but dust and rocks.
"Honey, we know this is tough for you right now, but everything will turn out A-okay," Doctor Castile patted my arm, smiling sweetly, "But for the moment, we cannot allow you to see your parents. They are doing fine, both in stable condition and they are under twenty-four hour surveillance, so nothing is going to happen to them, all right? Once I think you are healed enough, I'll seat you in wheelchair and roll you down there myself! How does that sound?"
Right now, I'd give anything to take a swing at Dr. Sweet-Smiles. I moved my arm out from under her touch.
"How about I let you roll me any damn where you please if you stop patronizing me like I'm some fucking child and start treating me like a damn adult?"
"Mona," Detective Wallis warned. She looked at the doctor who cleared her throat, then smiled, excusing herself. When the doctor had shut the door behind her, Wallis turned back to me. If looks could smack you in the face…
"I'm gonna say this only once because I'm gonna be working with you for the next couple of weeks and I don't want to have to be looking out for eggshells the entire time… Every person who comes into this room, talks to you, or glances in your direction is not your enemy. I understand that the past year has been a rough one, but that does not merit you the excuse to act like you are the only one who is worth a damn. We are trying to help you, Mona, and your parents need you to be strong now more than ever."
"So, what? You want me to pretend life is nothing but a ray of sunshine and that I should forget what happened to me and my parents last night? I'm sorry if my initial response to the whole damn situation isn't to sit here and mewl over what a great fucking paradise this hospital is and grateful I am for it."
"Okay, so you're angry. A natural response, but that doesn't mean you have to treat every person you come across like they are the ones who did this to you," she shifted, turning her body to face me. "It's okay to be scared, Mona. To feel vulnerable. You can't go through life with this constant weight of hostility. It'll break you down and take everything away from you…"
I looked down my sheets, trying to block out her voice. I didn't want to admit that she was right, because I could feel nothing other than anger. Even if I tried to let it go and feel normal again, it only doubled, protecting the fragile girl I used to be. I couldn't forsake it for the virtue of forgiveness either. Allow Billy and his men to have my consent that what they did was okay and no hard feelings. That they had lived much more troubled lives than I, my parents, or Delia had, making their actions plausible in what I was supposed to consider morally correct. No matter how hard I tried to see it that way, I just couldn't make myself throw up my white flag of surrender.
"Mona, don't you think that it's already taken enough?" Detective Wallis asked. I thought she meant my happiness and peace of mind, but what she said next made the breath catch in my throat. "This heedless anger and guilt, you've turned it into vengeance, haven't you?"
"What?" I whispered, snapping my head up to look at her.
"There's no other explanation that I can see. Darley and his gang show up at your house late at night and start attacking your family after almost one year of your first encounter… How does that make sense? What provoked them? You didn't take Joe Darley to court, setting him free. That should make them thank you rather than want to pack you chock-full of bullets. What did you do, Mona? What did you do to make them try to kill you and your family?"
I wanted to say that I hadn't done anything. That they had just shown up, out of the blue, looking for an easy fight. That it was in their nature to hurt innocent people, terrorizing and murdering them. Of course, I wouldn't be lying if I told her that, but I also wouldn't be telling her the truth. The truth being that I had been following them, plotting their demise, buying illegal guns and then killing a man for no reason other than he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I had been the one to stir everything up and pour it out, creating a mess that I couldn't seem to clean up. I wanted to say that I wasn't responsible for my parents' injuries, but that lie didn't sound real, even to me. I took in a shake breath, feeling the cool air fill my lungs.
"I… It didn't turn out how I thought-"
"Detective Wallis!" a young officer burst into the room with widened eyes. "We got a situation."
"What?" we both asked at the same time.
"Hold on," Detective Wallis said, and walked out the door, the young officer trailing behind. I sat up in bed, leaning on shaky arms as I tried fruitlessly to hear anything through the closed door.
What the hell did he mean by situation? What had happened? I know my parents weren't in immediate danger at the moment, because they were here, under twenty-four hour surveillance, right? I swung my legs over the side of the bed, resting my bare feet on the cold tile. Before I could even attempt to stand up, which I would have been a no-win situation considering how weak I felt, the door swung inwards and Detective Wallis stepped back in.
"Get back in bed," she ordered.
"I want to know what the hell is going on," I demanded right back.
"I think you need to get back in bed before I tell you," she stood in front of me and the look she gave me made me slide my legs back under the scratchy covers. Albeit, ever so slowly.
"What?" I asked, and I could feel the heat drain out of my body when her scornful look turned grim.
"We just got a call from the station. Apparently, there's been a fire."
"A what? Fire? What does that have to do with anything?"
"Well," she sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and index finger. She met my gaze again, "The fire was at your house."
"What!? My fucking house burned down!?"
"Just be thankful you weren't in it when it happened. We're suspecting arson, but no one in the neighborhood saw anything."
"Ha, of course they wouldn't," I started to laugh.
"Get a hold of yourself, Ramona. You need your sanity and right now. I do, too. You still haven't answered my question."
"I'm sorry, what question? I'm having a bit of trouble wrapping my brain around anything else other than the fact that I was nearly orphaned and now I can officially call myself homeless. And Dr. Shit-For-Brains said everything was going to be A-okay! No, I think you need to leave."
"Mona, we aren't fini-" she started to say.
"I said leave!" I screamed at her and finally I was in charge of what was being said and done. She looked at me for a moment, seeming to ponder if she should continue to interrogate me, but she shook her head in defeat and walked toward the door. When she had it opened, she paused and turned back to me.
"I'm gonna get my answer. I can't help you until you start to cooperate. Think of your parents, at least," then she turned and walked out. I grabbed an open coke can, sitting on the table beside me and flung it at the door just as it slammed shut.