Page 21 of Sinister Savior

I don’t blame Mario. I believe his story of wanting to get away from his family and his roots. I believe that he has a good heart and that he doesn’t want to be like his brother. I also believe that no matter how hard you fight against your DNA, you will never be successful. He’s a product of his upbringing, and it will keep him bound without drastic action. The action he took. The action I ruined.

After drying my eyes and blowing my nose, I hang my towel over the shower rod, and with dripping hair, I go to the bedroom to dress. I’m not stupid enough to put on street clothes without first checking to make sure Mario is really gone. I slip into a nightgown and check the house—locked and darkened, as he said. Then I peek out front and see the priest’s vehicle gone, the one Mario has been borrowing.

With my mind made up, I go back to the bedroom and lock the door. All of my clothing is clean, laundered this afternoon after making my decision to flee when Mario left this evening. I take it out and stack it on the bed before going to the closet for my bag. I see his things, suits, jackets, and an extra set of shoes, and it makes my heart hurt. But I can’t stop and think of that now. My pain will be slight, only a light and momentary affliction aimed at ensuring he never feels pain. So, I keep him safe.

My clothing barely fits in the bag. He’s already gotten me enough new things that I have to decide whether I want to take it all. I can’t leave it behind. Those precious reminders will keep me motivated toward my goal on the path forward. So, I cram it all into the bag and sit on it while I zip it so it stays shut. Then I grab my phone and charger. The only place my wire fits is in my pocket, and I almost decide to ditch the phone, but again, I decide to take it.

Paolo’s men won’t be able to track me. It’s a burner. But Mario will be able to call me, and I will be able to explain to him where I am and theentirety of my plan once I’m far enough away. For now, I remove the battery and put the phone into my pocket for safekeeping.

This time of night, there probably aren’t any buses running, but it will likely take me a few hours to get to the nearest bus station. I looked it up and it’s a good haul across town, through a few very rough neighborhoods, too. But I have to do it. Besides, with the shit I’ve been through, those types of places hardly scare me anymore. I plan to move quickly and not speak to anyone, which should help.

After a last-minute sweep to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything—and to snatch the roughly two hundred dollars of cash Mario and I have stashed, I find a gun. And it’s loaded. I stare at it for a moment, not sure I really want to have it on me, but it will help in those dark alleys to make me feel safer. So I take it, making sure the safety is on, and shove it in the back of my waistband for later.

I lock up before leaving, and then I’m on my own. The night is crisp, the air filled with smog, as usual. I head north toward the pharmacy because if I’m going to slip out unnoticed, I have to do as Mario suggested. My first stop will be to dye my hair. And while the idea of being pregnant isn’t ideal, I have to know. I can’t go out on the run being pregnant without a plan for what to do. It will change the course of my life and the path I take.

The twenty-four-hour pharmacy is manned by one middle-aged woman, though there are cameras on every angle of the store. I must look strange to the woman at the register as I purchase hair dye and a pregnancy test, rubber gloves, and a hairbrush. It chips away at my budget, but I have no choice. At some point, I’ll need to stop by my bank and withdraw the cash I have there before the mortgage payment comes out and leaves me with pennies. I just have to do that when I’m far enough away that they won’t have time to catch up to me before I can vanish again.

I thank the cashier and leave the pharmacy, eyeing a ramen shop across the street. Again, being the middle of the night, there are only afew workers. They watch me walk in, so I smile and nod at them as I move directly to the bathroom. I don’t waste any time locking the door and breaking open the container of hair dye and mixing the activator into the color solution. It’s messy, getting all over the sink and my face, but I manage to spread it on my sandy-colored hair. I’ll be platinum blonde when this is over, but I have other things to worry about now.

The dye has to process for at least thirty minutes, and in that time I have to take the pregnancy test. My hands shake as I open the box, then the foil wrapper. In my heart, I already know the answer to this. Tom and I wanted children, but he never believed it was the right time yet. We used protection. But Mario and I haven’t used protection once. There are too many signs pointing to the obvious.

So when the test wand processes and the two little pink lines appear in the window, I’m not surprised or shocked. I’m not happy or sad. This is just knowledge to me. Now I know I have to be more careful than I would have otherwise been. I can’t use alcohol as a means to drown my sorrows. I can’t take unnecessary risks, and one of those risks is walking the streets this late at night. I have a baby to think about now, Mario’s baby, a new little life he will want to know about but one I have to keep from him for now or it will only make him want to fight harder.

Someone bangs on the door and shouts at me in a foreign language, probably Japanese. I can tell they’re asking me to leave their bathroom, but I can’t leave. My hair is still processing. It’s been all of ten minutes.

“Occupied!” I call out, but I know they’ll be back. Tossing the pregnancy test into the trash, I wipe and straighten my pants, then wash my hands. My bag sits on the floor next to the door, and I feel my phone in my pocket. I have an urge to put the battery in and check what time it is, but I don’t. All I know is that I have to stay in here as long as I can, let this hair dye lighten my hair as much as possible.

But only a few minutes later, someone new is here banging on the door again. “Ma’am,” they say in a thick Eastern accent. “Bathroom is for paying customer only.” The banging continues, and I want to hide from it. It triggers my PTSD, making me begin to panic. They’re going to throw me out, and I can’t even wash this shit off my head.

“One second!” I call out, wondering if I should buy a soda or something when I leave the toilet just to make them happy. “Almost finished…”

I lean into the mirror and pull some of the thick, sticky strands of hair away from my head. It’s substantially lighter than it was previously, but it should really process some more. So, instead of leaving the bathroom, I pace, biting a fingernail. I wonder what Mario would do if he were here, but then if he were here, he’d be munching on ramen while he waited for me to dye my hair and I wouldn’t be having this issue.

The third time the people come back, it’s louder. The banging and shouting come with threats to call the police, so I stoop over the sink and rinse my hair as well as I can before using brown paper towels from the dispenser on the wall to dab as much of the moisture as I can out of my locks. The shouting continues the entire time, making me frantic to just get the hell out of here, and when I hoist my bag to my shoulder and lug it out of the bathroom, I hear sirens in the distance.

“Sorry, I’m so sorry,” I mutter, waving with one hand as I leave behind the mess of packaging and other trash while I slip out the front door and disappear into the dark alley around the corner as quickly as possible.

So much for not making a scene so people aren’t attracted to my trail. Now I don’t dare walk across town to the bus station. The police will be searching for a woman who annoyed the poor owners of the ramen shop, and I will be on the top of the list. If they see me, they’ll want to question me, which means they’ll have to know my name and identity.All of that is traceable, even if the only thing they do is warn me to be more respectful of ramen shop owners.

And I don’t even know if they’ve figured out a man was murdered in my home. I haven’t heard anything about it, and they haven’t had my face on the news, so Mario’s Family must’ve been the ones to answer the calls when my neighbors heard the shots going down. That means if any police run my name for any reason, they’ll be alerted.

I can’t let that happen.

So, I dash into the subway and buy a ticket headed north, and only when I’m safely seated on the train do I finally breathe a sigh of relief. I’ll feel much better when I’m out of this town and far, far away. My heart can’t take much more of this.

16

MARIO

Alice is acting strange, but tonight, of all nights, I don’t have time to worry about it. I lock the door and head out. I have a meeting with Ervine and a man he says can arm my entire brigade well enough to take down my brother’s full forces. He may even be able to supply us with enough C4 to make anyone think twice about coming against me ever again. The police included.

I’ve been borrowing Father Thomas’s car this month, but this evening, I only drive it to the subway station. I can’t be seen in that car when I’m going to meet an arms dealer. I don’t want any of this to come back on the man who has been gracious enough to shelter us for so long. He understands how drastically his life will change once my plans are enacted, but he also understands how necessary it is. The last thing I want is for him to be suspected in conjunction with any of it. It all has to fall a different way.

The subway ride is quiet, as is the short walk to the bar on the corner of Fifth and Main where I meet Ervine. Then, in his panel van, we trek west toward the coast.

“Everything is lined up?” I ask him, not sure what all he has in motion but trusting his intuition and skills. He’s gone from an afterthought to a primary player, and even my brother will be shocked to see how I’m utilizing Ervine’s skills.

“It’s all working out smoothly. We have an entire shipment of fully automatic rifles and handguns. I did what you told me, taking the money from the accounts you mentioned. There was no problem at the bank, either. They didn’t even question me.”

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