Target on Our Backs

  "But I need to make sure you're okay."

  "What about that guy? Dr. Carter?"

  "He's a veterinarian, Karissa."

  "So? That didn't stop you from calling him when you were shot."

  "Don't be ridiculous. You need a real doctor."

  "For what? A few stitches on my foot? I can sew it up myself."

  I wait until we reach another red light before I respond. She's being absurd. I know it's because she's scared, but I can't risk it.

  "You're pregnant, Karissa. It's not just you I'm worried about."

  "I know, but..." She lets out a deep sigh. "How is it going to help us if you get locked up? You killed someone tonight, Naz, and the building... it blew up. What are they going to think if I show up at the hospital, smelling like a fucking meth house?"

  There's no winning this argument.

  I can already tell it.

  She has tears in her eyes, and I can't push her right now, not when she's already so traumatized. Sighing, I pull out my phone, looking through it for Michael Carter's number. He answers on the second ring, his voice hesitant. "Hello?"

  "It's Vitale. I need you to meet me at my house."

  "Is it an emergency?"

  "I wouldn't call you if it wasn't."

  With that, I hang up.

  I told him to be there, so I know he'll come.

  "A compromise," I tell her. "Dr. Carter will look you over, but if he's concerned, if he thinks there might be a problem, we go straight to the hospital."

  "Fair enough."

  As soon as we get home, we head inside, and the first thing Karissa does is call out for her dog.

  Killer comes right away.

  Ears laid down, tail wagging, tongue out, he jumps up on her, and I go to stop him, but Karissa takes it in stride. She slips right down to the floor, plopping on her ass in the living room, and hugs him as she again starts crying.

  I give them a moment, excusing myself to the kitchen. I splash water on my face from the sink before staring at my hazy reflection in the window, running my hands through my hair.

  Please be all right.

  Dr. Carter isn't far behind us. He pulls into my driveway, squealing tires, driving like a bat out of hell. As soon as I open the door, he looks me over, stepping into the foyer, carrying a black medical bag. "What's wrong with you?"

  Hell of a question.

  Wouldn't even know where to begin answering that.

  "It's actually Karissa," I tell him, pointing toward the living room where she's still sitting. "I need you to take a look at her."

  Confusion clouds his expression as he heads that way. Right away, he fixates on her foot. "Ah, why don't you come to the kitchen and we'll get you fixed up?"

  Karissa stands up, making her way toward the kitchen, with Killer protectively right on her heels. I stall in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe, giving them space. Karissa climbs up on the counter, washing her filthy foot right in the sink. Dr. Carter grabs her by the calf and surveys the gash.

  He doesn't ask any questions about how she got injured. He knows better than to pry. Wordlessly, he opens his bag and starts digging out supplies. "You're going to need a few stitches. I didn't bring anything to numb the area, because, well, Vitale never wants it, so if you've got any liquor around here, now's probably the time to break it out."

  She clears her throat, and I can barely hear her when she says, "I can't."

  Dr. Carter looks at her peculiarly. "Oh, right... not old enough, huh?"

  "No. Well, I mean, you're right, but that's not why." She pauses. "I'm pregnant."

  He freezes, eyes widening, like that shocks him. He doesn't comment, though, as he turns back to his supplies. "It'll hurt a bit. Feels like someone pushing a needle and thread through your skin, because, well, that's pretty much what I'll be doing."

  He lets out an awkward laugh.

  He's nervous, working on her.

  I figured he would be.

  The man sews me up all the time without issue. He happily takes my cash in exchange for subpar medical care. He does it, knowing I don't expect perfection, knowing his silence is what really matters to me. I've been through hell and back, dragged myself out of the pit more than a few times, toying with death because I don't fear it.

  But her? She's different.

  He has to take extra care with Karissa.

  "It's okay," she says quietly. "I'm sure I've felt worse."

  Before me, she hadn't. She'd been coddled. People were careful. But I introduced pain into her life. Don't know that I'll ever forgive myself for that.

  Carter does what he needs to, getting down to business, giving her five stitches right on the side of the foot. The second the needle goes in, Karissa grimaces, but she doesn't make a sound even though I know it stings.

  As soon as he finishes, he takes a step back, eyeing her. I know he can smell the ether. It's a potent stench. Once you smell it, it's a smell you never forget. Reaching into his bag, he grabs a stethoscope, warming it before pressing the metal to her chest.

  He's not an idiot. That's why I employ him.

  He can figure out the real issue here.

  "How far along are you?" he asks, listening to her heartbeat. His voice is casual, like he's just making conversation, but I know he's taking this serious.

  "Eight weeks... or, uh, I guess maybe nine now."

  He motions for her to turn her body as he moves to her back, pushing her shirt up, using the stethoscope to listen to her lungs. "Deep breaths for me."

  Karissa obliges.

  He seems satisfied after a moment and puts the stethoscope away. "No cramping, no bleeding, no other issues?"

  She hesitates. "My head is killing me."

  "We can do something about that," he says. "Anything else?"

  "No," she says. "Nothing."

  He smiles softly, laying a hand on her shoulder, patting it. "You're going to be just fine."

  She looks relieved, as she closes her eyes briefly, returning his smile as she hops back down off the counter, carefully not to hurt her foot more. "Thank you."

  "My pleasure."

  "I'm going to go take the longest bath known to man now, wash off this stink."

  "You'll want to be careful not to get your stitches wet for the next forty-eight hours," he calls after her. "They should come out in about two weeks."

  She nods, acknowledging she heard him, as she limps past me. Killer follows, as usual, giving me a wide berth as he leaves. Carter starts to pack up his things as I stroll further into the kitchen.

  He glances at me. "I'm guessing congratulations are in order."

  I pause beside him. "Give it to me straight."

  "I always do," he says, turning to lean back against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. "Like I said, she'll be fine. A couple Tylenol and a good night's sleep and she'll be good as new by morning."

  "And the baby?"

  He hesitates.

  Hesitates.

  "It's so early on, there's no way to know. Ether effects at a cellular level, and at nine weeks, the cells would be rapidly changing. So much can go wrong at this stage. Chances are, it'll all be fine, but if it isn't, well… not even the greatest doctor in the world could do anything to change it."

  That's about what I expected to hear.

  "I appreciate you coming," I say. "Before you leave, I need you to do me one more favor."

  "What's that?"

  "Check to make sure the mutt is okay."

  He looks at me peculiarly. "What's wrong with the dog?"

  "Let's just say he went up against the same opponent as Karissa and he didn't fare any better."

  "Ah." He motions toward the doorway. "Lead the way."

  Killer is lying in the hallway, right at the top of the stairs. He growls when I approach, but he lets Carter crouch down and look him over, not trying to get away.

  "He seems all right," he says after a moment. "A little banged up, maybe a broken rib or two. The blo
od on him, well..."

  "It's not his."

  Dr. Carter looks at me as he stands back up. "I can tell."

  He's got questions he really wants to ask, questions about what the hell happened tonight, but I'm not going to answer them for him and he knows it.

  "He should probably be brought in for some X-rays," he continues. "Otherwise, he'll be okay."

  "Take him with you, check him out," I say. "I'll come by later and get him back."

  "Sure thing."

  I stand there, watching as he leaves my house with the dog. I'll pay him whenever I pick Killer up.

  I make my way down the hallway, toward the bathroom, finding the door cracked open. Quietly, I push it open further, pausing there as I look in.

  Karissa is in the tub, covered in bubbles, her injured foot propped up along the side, out of the water. She turns her head, sensing my presence, and smiles softly, like she's happy to see me.

  "Good news," I tell her. "The mutt's going to live."

  "That is good news," she says. "And what about you?"

  "What about me?"

  "Are you going to be all right?"

  Something about the way she asks that stalls me.

  People in my world only care about what you can do for them. Friends only need you until they don't need you anymore. But Karissa asks me that like my answer matters, like whether or not I'm going to be okay makes a difference to her.

  I shouldn't be surprised about it. She loves me, after all. But it's been a very long time since somebody else gave a damn about how I was feeling. A very long time since someone asked me those words.

  "My heart's still beating," I tell her. "That tells me I'm going to be just fine."

  A cold front moved in.

  That's what this morning's newspaper told me.

  I found it crumpled up, tossed in the trashcan beside Naz's desk in the den, hastily—angrily—thrown away. He was sitting at his desk, staring at his books in silence. I had no idea what he was thinking, but I didn't ask.

  Instead, I fished out the newspaper and glanced at it, seeing the front-page headline: Corlears Hook Park Murders

  I skimmed the article, my stomach dropping when I encountered my name. Karissa Vitale. Lone survivor of the first attack. That was all it really said about me, but looking at Naz, I knew that was already too much.

  The cold front had come overnight, the temperature dropping into the fifties instead of the usual seventy-five this time of year. I could feel the cold deep within my bones, like if we don't do something quickly, I may never again be warm.

  "I'm ready," I told him, throwing the newspaper away again.

  He tore his gaze from the books, meeting my eyes. "You're ready."

  I nodded carefully. "I'm ready to go."

  An hour later, here we are, sitting in his car as he drives through the city, in no hurry to get anywhere. It's not like we really even have somewhere to be, anyway. Time to wrap up a few loose ends before we can leave the city.

  We're starting over. A clean slate.

  When we reach Greenwich Village, Naz pulls over, swinging into the entrance of the parking garage beside the old dorm I used to call home. He puts the car in park but leaves the engine running.

  I look at him, surprised. "What are we doing here?"

  He nods toward the building. "I figured you'd want to see her."

  My gaze drifts that direction, and I see her. Melody. She's standing in front of the building, leaning back against it, shivering. She's wearing shorts and a t-shirt, like she thinks it's still summertime, refusing to embrace the cold. Of course. She looks like she's waiting for something, or someone... I don't know… but I can guess. For now, though, she's just standing there, quiet, all alone.

  I watch her for a moment.

  I don't move.

  I never gave much thought to this part of it all.

  "Should I?" I ask quietly. I'm just not sure. "Wouldn't it be better to just... disappear?"

  Naz doesn't answer that right away, the car still running, his gaze out the windshield. I'm not sure if he even knows the right answer.

  "Someone she loved disappeared once," he says finally. "It shouldn't happen again."

  Paul.

  It took her a while to recover from that heartbreak, although I know some part of her probably never truly will. The what if's broke her, fracturing off a piece of her soul. Melody always lived a life of privilege, where everything was beautiful and nothing hurt. She didn't know pain and suffering. She never learned what it was like to have to let go. Love, to her, was innocent and pure. It wasn't until Paul that she realized that sometimes, no matter how hard you fight it, love is just going to hurt.

  It's hard to get over something when you don't know what happened, when you don't understand what went wrong. Without closure, the wound remains open, and it's hard as hell to get it to heal.

  I get out of the car then, wrapping my arms around my chest. I'm wearing a scarf and a sweater with a pair of black leggings, my usual getup, but I couldn't put on my boots.

  Hurt foot and all that.

  So I'm wearing a pair of black slippers, the padding softening the blow from my footsteps on the sidewalk. Ugh. I look absurd. I shuffle over toward Melody, and she looks up when she senses me, plastering a smile on her face. It's genuine. Nothing about her is fake. Quirky as she may be, Melody wears her heart on her sleeve.

  "Kissimmee!" She pushes away from the wall, looking me over, her smile dimming when she spots my feet. "Oh my God, are you sleepwalking?"

  I pause in front of her. "Nope, definitely awake."

  She meets my gaze, horror twisting her features. Instantly, her hand darts out, smacking me right in the forehead. "Jesus, girl, do you have a fever? Are you delirious? This is Manhattan and you're going all People of Wal-Mart on us, wearing slippers out of the house!"

  Laughing, I shove her hand away. "I hurt my foot, so it was either this or go barefoot."

  "Barefoot," she says right away. "You could pull off the whole bohemian hobo chic look. But this? Nobody can pull off this."

  She looks seriously distressed, like she's going to burst a blood vessel over my choice of footwear. Rolling my eyes, I playfully shove her. "Yeah, well, unlike you I choose comfort over style."

  "I know." She sighs dramatically, her smile returning. "It's your only flaw."

  My only flaw.

  Yeah, right.

  "So how'd you hurt your foot?" she asks.

  I hesitate for a moment before answering. "Kicked out a car window."

  That horror is back on her face before she cracks. She thinks I'm joking… or maybe she just hopes I am. "Seriously?"

  "Yeah," I tell her. "Thought I was being kidnapped."

  "Really?"

  "Really. But Naz came and got me, took me home… called a veterinarian he knows, who sewed me up with a needle and some thread. Hurt like a bitch."

  "Wow." She shakes her head. "Sounds like you had one hell of a night."

  "You don't know the half of it," I tell her. "You see, before I thought I was being kidnapped, I actually was. So they kidnapped me from my kidnapper, who I'm pretty sure was actually just suicidal. He was going to blow us all up."

  She laughs. "Wow."

  "Right?"

  "So… how'd you really hurt it?"

  I pause, smiling softly, looking down at my foot. "Cut it on some glass."

  She stares at me for a moment. She's still smiling, but there's concern in her eyes. She's trying not to let on, but she's worried. "But you're okay?"

  She's not talking about my foot, not directly. Melody knows so much more than she wants anyone to believe. If they think she's oblivious, that means she's not a threat. She avoids scrutiny. It keeps her safe. But I know her well by now, and she's proven time and again how smart she is.

  She probably had this all figured out before I even did.

  "Yeah, I'm… okay."

  I realize I mean it as I say it.

  I'm okay.

/>   Things aren't perfect, and I'm more than a little scared, but I'm okay.

  It's going to be okay.

  I believe it.

  "Well, that's all that really matters," she says, scrunching up her nose. "And I guess I'll forgive your fashion faux pass, since you obviously just don't know any better. I mean, two years later and you're still wearing that damn scarf."

  "I like my scarf," I say defensively, reaching up and stroking it. "At least I'm not running around half naked with a cold front moving in."

  She makes a face. "Don't hate the playa."

  "Hate the game."

  "Exactly. See! Finally, you're getting it! There might be hope for you yet."

  I laugh. Unlikely. I'll never be someone I'm not.

  "Anyway," I say, turning around, glancing at the idling car. "I should probably get going. Naz is waiting. I just wanted to stop by, to see you, to…"

  To say goodbye.

  Fuck, this is hard.

  Melody looks past me, straight at the car, and I can see her expression change. Somewhere, deep inside, she knows.

  She knows what this is.

  Call it intuition, or the bond between friends. She can sense the shift in the atmosphere. Everything's changing all around us as we stand here. The world is shifting on its axis, the magnetic poles pulling us apart, slowly but certainly. It won't be the same anymore.

  I used to sense it with my mother.

  I guess that part of my mother lives on in me.

  "You're moving on," she says quietly. "Is that what you're telling me?"

  Yeah, it is.

  "It's just… time, I guess." I don't know how to explain it. "After everything that's happened and with everything that's going on, it just feels right to get out of New York for now."

  "For now," she says, "but not forever, right?"

  "Do you think I could actually leave forever?"

  "No, I wouldn't let you."

  That's what I thought.

  I don't have a chance to respond to that, as she pulls me into a hug, wrapping her arms around me tightly, almost painfully.

  "Promise you won't forget about me," she whispers.

  "I promise," I say right away. "Don't have to worry about that."

  "I'll call you seventy-six times a day," she says. "I'll write you letters with those smelly glitter gel pens like they had back in middle school. I'll draw you pictures in the margins. BFF's and all that gushy shit. I'll even dot my i's with hearts."