Bear by Lily J. Adams
Chapter Twelve: Terror Strikes
Delphia
The calls stopped. It had been two weeks since the last harrowing one from Rocky. I was reaching for some hope that he’d leave me alone and that I’d be able to move forward in my life without fear.
I wanted my own life, and I wanted to thrive. Me and Bear were good, so good. I was starting to feel like maybe I did deserve him and that we were a good match.
I steadied my hands over my coffee as the memories of my brother’s funeral cascaded in. My mother, who was normally a put-together woman, was a mess as my father tried to hold her steady. The chilling howl she released as her shaky fingers ran over the top of the casket still made me flinch. That day was burned into the recesses of my skull. I watched other family members gather around her and my father, but I just stood there, numb, not wanting to believe that my brother was gone.
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” That’s what my father whispered in my mother’s ear, but it wasn’t. People shook my hand at the funeral and said the usual things that people say.
“Sorry for your loss.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Be strong. Your brother’s watching over you now.”
I wanted to tell them all that if hell was a place on earth, then it’s where I was ensnared. Even after all the therapy sessions and trying to get a handle on Deon’s death, I felt couldn’t cope with it all.
A rap of knuckles on the door jolted me out of my dark space. I opened the door, plastering a smile.
“Hi, I’m here…” Angie’s emerald eyes pierced mine as I let her in.
Not wasting any time, she spread out a bunch of scribbled notes on the table. “I want to show you what I’ve written so far. Take a look over my notes and tell me what I’m missing. I want to make sure everything is accurate.”
My heart started beating fast in my chest. Dread washed over me, combined with a fresh dose of fear about the retaliation I would face from Rocky. I knew Rocky suspected I had information about the money between him and Deon, but even I didn’t know what was in the locker that Deon gave me a code to. My stomach churned as I pictured the bleak end of my life. “This is—this is so much. I don’t know if I can do it. What if Rocky comes after me again? I keep seeing my brother in the river. I want you to do the article. Can you leave it with me and I can read over everything?” My throat was tight, but I was doing my best to be brave.
“I can understand that. These are my rough notes. Mainly, I want to be accurate about the times and dates on the tapes he gave you. If the case does reopen, you are aware that it’s highly likely you'll be called up to testify.” She cast me a pained look as she put her hand over my wrist like a cuff.
“I can only deal with what’s in front of me now. When that comes up, I will deal with it then,” I said sharply.
“Okay. You’re right. I won’t bombard you with that. I do want to know about your brother’s life outside of his dealings with the Road Warriors and the cartel. Can you tell me more?”
“Sure. My brother was funny, he was always cracking jokes and goofing around. He liked to fish and play cards with his friends.” I felt like I was going into a trance because I started to think of my brother and his face showed up in front of me. I could hear his distant laughter. “He also liked get rich quick schemes, which was annoying. I think that’s what got him killed. He wanted to be involved with dirty things. He had this bad-boy thing going on.”
Angie sat with her hands folded in her lap as she listened.
I started to smile when I thought about how he treated me. “We were best friends… and I know it’s rare to be best friends with your brother, but we were. We didn’t fight much, but he would fight for me. I remember when I was out with my friends and we had these guys trying to hit on us. They kept trying, and that’s when my brother punched one guy in the nose. There was blood everywhere. It was crazy.”
“Hmm. I don’t want to paint him as a thug because that’s not going to help serve you and it will confuse the public with regards to what sort of person your brother was. I do want to talk about him being a protective energy, though. Are you okay with that?”
“Yep. I’m okay with that. He was protective. That’s something I want people to know about him.” I affirmed.
“Cool.” Angie thumped her pencil on the paper as she bit down on her bottom lip. “Is Rocky still hanging around? I don’t know… I was thinking maybe I could start showing up at the gas station a little more just to see if he would take the bait and we could catch him in the act of harassing you. I’m so sick of this guy. I do know that my last article worked and the Road Warriors are being heavily monitored. I can’t wait for them to get busted.” Angie’s face lit up when she spoke about the downfall of the Road Warriors.
“I hope so. They seem like they’re hard to beat. I just want my life to go back to normal. I want to be a normal Holbeck girl.” I put my face in my hands as the misery resumed.
Later that night, I showed up to work with a feeling of intense dread. I had no reason for it. A flat, heavy feeling took residence in my stomach as the double automatic doors parted and I took over the shift from Brendan. “How is it tonight? I’m pretty sure it’s going to rain. What do you think?” I asked him.
“Yep. I think Holbeck is going to get a downpour, and I’m pretty damn happy that I’m going to be at home playing on my Xbox instead of here.” He snickered, not unkindly.
“Enjoy. Any jokers I need to know about?” I called out as I dropped my bag off at the back office.
“Nope. Just me,” he responded cheerfully.
Smirking at Brendan’s self-deprecation I walked out to the front, cracking my neck from side to side. “That’s the truth if you’ve ever spoken it,” I joked.
Brendan flipped me the bird in jest and swept out of the gas station.
I was left standing behind the counter with this feeling of dread still hovering over me.
A crack across the sky made me jump out of my skin as lightning struck like a whip. An illuminated jagged fork of energy lit up the sky momentarily, causing me to gasp. The violet and navy-blue skyline was so beautiful to look at. Beautiful and ominous.
Not a single car or bike was at the pumps. The clock sounded like a time bomb for some reason and my throat started to thicken and coat as discomfort ran through my system. I opened the cash drawer and checked the money. Raking my hands over the quarters, I counted them up to calm myself.
My dread abruptly flipped to horror as a large, bulky man in black with a balaclava moved like a shadow across one of the pumps. I knew it. Rocky. Without hesitation, I pressed the emergency button. He was hunting his prey, but I wasn’t going down without a fight.
The doors slid open and he moved toward me, holding a gun at eye level.
My body trickled with ice cold fear as my breath stilled. I didn’t dare move a muscle. I stood rigid staring back into the vacant, bleakness of a killer’s eyes. Ever so slowly, I raised my hands above my head as my arms shook. “Don’t shoot. W-want money? What do you want?” My voice wavered with intense layers of panic. I was seconds away from being shot. If I didn’t act quickly, I was about to join my brother in the afterlife. I didn’t have any confidence that the plastic divider would save me from a bullet.
A muffled sneer passed across his lips.
All I could see was a pumped up mouth with teeth bared and the gun holding steady. I wanted to take a sip of water so my throat could work but there was no way in hell I was going to move.
His arm was firm. No shakiness. This maniac had done this before. “Don’t play dumb. You know who this is,” more muffled admissions from the cloaked gunman.
Sweat rolled down to my eyebrows as thunder swept over the sky. “Rocky. Put the gun down. Put—it down!” It seemed hard to get my voice past the lump in my throat.
“You give me all the fucking money now. Here, use this bag. Make it quick or I’ll shoot you right in the middle of your forehead at close range. I know your dummy brother made a profit from our little deal and I wanna know where the money is.” Violence rang in his voice as he threw a canvas bag at me.
I opened the cash register, my fingers fueled with adrenaline. I could barely get the drawer to come out far enough. I dug out all the money and put it in the bag. I stared at him in horror as he glanced outside the window, bouncing around on his feet. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Rocky. I don’t know where any money is. My brother never told me any of that,” I shuddered as I spoke, willing the cops to come faster.
“Hurry up! Get it in the bag now! Quit stalling. Since you don’t wanna tell me, this is compensation. And as a little bonus I’m going to reunite you with your brother.” Rocky grunted. “I know you’re talking to fucking Angie Carmichael, and now I got the cops sniffing up my ass all the time. You think I’m going to let you get away with this?” He waved his gun around. “Do you, bitch?”
I yelped, as Rocky declared open war on me. But I listened for the cops. “Rocky, I had nothing to do with that.” This moment is what I feared. I told Angie that it would get worse and now it was the worst scenario I could have imagined.
Money dropped to the ground as Rocky’s wild eyes pierced mine.
“Can I get that?” I asked shakily.
“Hurry up! If you try anything while you’re down there I’ll shoot now instead of later. And you have plenty to do with it. You know the Rebel Saints. I’ve seen you.” Rocky was growing more agitated by the minute.
My head was spinning. I was seconds away from passing out. “It’s not like that. Please.” I repeated, hoping it would drum into his head.
He’s been watching me.
“Shut up!” Saliva flew from his lips as his red-rimmed eyes stabbed into mine. His evil darkness covered the whole gas station like a heavy weight.
I slipped down, picking up the money. I wanted to keep him talking so there was enough time for the cops to arrive. More now than ever, I wished for customers to come in droves but there were none. How could this be? I chalked it up to the torrential downpour. How fitting that Rocky was a part of that. I rose up and handed over the canvas bag to Rocky. “Here you g-g-g-o.”
Rocky snatched the bag so fast from my fingers that the velocity of the yank dragged me forward. “Bitch!” He sprinted past the counter.
Then I heard the sirens from the cops. The pounding sound of my heart filled my ears almost like a whooshing sound from the ocean.
The sirens stopped as the tires screeched and water flew up from underneath their wheels. One of the cops ran in through the doors as the emergency alarm from the back door exit erupted.
“He went through the back!” I yelled as one of the officers jogged in with his hand on his gun and another trailed behind him to the back door.
I didn’t hear a bike at all. I heard nothing. The pounding in my heart was thundering so loud that I dropped to my knees to slow down my breathing. I could hear the cops talking and strategizing out the back of the door.
“Where is he? Did he go left? You saw the back of him?” one of them addressed me directly.
“Yep, I saw him. He went left, right over that fence.” Tears started to flood as a feeling of powerlessness washed over me. Rocky was coming for me no matter what and when the article comes out, I would be screwed. He had his mind set on killing me and that was that.
Time to leave Holbeck. To me it was the only way out, even though I didn’t want to go. Footsteps from the cops running to the back sounded off in the distance.
One of them stayed out front. “Ma’am. Ma’am, are you okay? Do you need some water? Can you tell us about what happened here? Start from the top, and don’t leave anything out. I’m Officer Martin Close, my partner is working the perimeter right now. Tell me what happened…”
