Page 75 of Nothing to Lose: Lost Trilogy: Part 1
“He lied to you,” Shortie insists when she starts spewing information about DNA tests and such. “I saw the results. Wrecker is really the father.”
Sugar grabs Shortie by the back of his head and starts slamming his face into the wall over and over again. “Shut the fuck up,” she screams her head off until she gets tired. When she lets go of him, he just slides to the floor.
“Fuckin’ hell, Shortie,” Wrecker snaps from behind me. “Don’t do it, man!” He then turns to Sully. “Do you have the app on your phone?”
I am so out of it at this point, completely sick to my stomach, I can’t watch, but I can’t look away. The timer for the bombs should have started. We should be close.
Shortie takes his phone out and taps on a few things.
“Fuck!” I hear Sully yelling.
“Are you in? Stop the fucker, Blake!” Wrecker is screaming at my best friend.
“He changed the codes,” Sully’s panicked voice finally penetrates my skull. I turn around and see his stricken face as he is looking at us in horror.
Wrecker grabs his phone, asks for the code and tries entering it to stop the bombs from going off. Nothing works. The robotic voice is calling the countdown.
I bring my eyes back to the screen and watch in horror. Images of my mother overlap what I’m seeing on the screen.
Shortie is still lying on the floor in the hallway at the clubhouse. In my head I see my mother walking across the backyard of the house where I grew up. The grass looks so green, unrealistically so.
Three, the robotic voice calls, and my mother steps on the wooden dock by the water.
Two. She is now turning around, the bouquet of red roses in her hand, smiling at the camera. The flowers fall to the ground to reveal the pistol in her hands.
One. Shortie looks at the camera that had been installed in the corner of the hallway.
In my mind, my mother lifts the gun to her head and smiles at the camera.
Shortie gives us a sad smile and a thumbs up.
“For you,” my mother smiles gently and pulls the trigger.
23
Emily
“Dad!”I take off in a run as soon as I walk into the house and see him standing in the middle of his living room.
I don’t give him time to react. Instead, I just wrap my arms around him and drop my head on his chest.
“Emily.” His hands come to my head, smoothing the hair out of my eyes, then giving me a gentle kiss on the top.
“I haven’t seen you in so long,” I whisper into his shirt, so close to bursting into tears, I can’t stand it.
The last few weeks have been miserable. Steve stopped texting and calling, however, Puck did as well. I am so confused, I don’t know what to do with myself.
“Ah, good to know you actually miss me when I’m not around,” he chuckles. He sounds way too amused for my taste.
I let go and take a step back so I can look at him.
“Don’t joke about stuff like that, dad,” I beg. “You know I love you. And I miss you when we go for long periods of time without seeing or talking to each other.”
He sighs. “I know, Em. I was only teasing you.”
“Where were you anyway?” Not that he ever tells me where he goes on his business trips, but this has got to be the longest one he’s been on. Out of town for weeks at a time, then just a quick trip home, but it was never enough time for us to get together. “Are you leaving again?”
“No,” dad shakes his head. “I won’t be going anywhere for a while. At least not for this long.”
