Gypsy Brothers: The Complete Series (40 page)

ELEVEN

Despite The Prospect’s threats to kill me after I called him a Colombian, it seems he doesn’t want me to die.

A few hours later, there’s a soft knock at the door, before the key turns and my mother enters the room.

I stare at her in shock. I’m sitting on the edge of the bed frame, my mouth falling open as she enters. Because despite my vague suspicions, I didn’t dare hope that she would actually be here.

She could be my way out.

My mother enters the room with a stack of clothes and a first aid kit. She doesn’t look at me right away. She stops in front of the small wooden table that sits between the bare bed frame and my chair. I watch idly from the corner of my eye, my vision rejoicing at finally having something new appear in front of it. It’s been too many hours of counting the cracks in the floor and alternating between being so hot I want to explode, and so cold I feel like my veins are ice. I’ve stopped throwing up now, because there’s nothing left inside me to throw up, and the bucket next to me now contains only yellow bile.

I’m sick. Really fucking sick.

As I watch her movements, I can’t help but wonder if she’s been taking drugs - or if someone else drugged her. As I catch a glimpse of her vacant green eyes, I guess that it’s the second one. Her gaze is completely empty. There’s nothing there.

“What did they do to you?” I whisper as she moves around. She mostly ignores me, fussing with food trays and piss buckets and cleaning the blood from the floor as well as she can.

And this time is no different. She carries on her tasks as if I’m not there, an invisible girl strapped to a chair in a dungeon of horror and doom.

“Mom,” I say. “It’s me, Juliette.”

She doesn’t give the slightest indication that she’s even heard what I’ve said. I grasp for something, anything that might snap her out of her drug-addled haze and back to me. I search my childhood memories for a story, an event, a stuffed toy that might jolt something within her.

It was a shitty childhood. I can’t think of anything.

“Take your shirt off, please,” she says. I look at her oddly, before shrugging my shoulders. What the fuck? I don’t care anymore. I shrug the T-shirt off and drop it beside me. I cover my breasts with one arm, lifting them up to give her a clear look at the mess that used to be my stomach and hip. Used to be a tattoo, and before that, used to be my scars. But now, it’s just a mess of dried blood and flesh that can’t heal. It’s a fucking mess.

“This is getting infected,” she says softly, taking a piece of gauze and dabbing at my stomach. As soon as she touches the raw wound I scream out, and she pulls her hand back.

“You need antibiotics,” she says. “I’ll get some for you.”

My first thought is to wonder how the hell she can be so drugged, but still lucid enough to diagnose me so effortlessly. Maybe her years of nursing training are imprinted on her brain somewhere, untouched by the heroin. Who knows?

She goes to leave again and I panic, thinking over my options. What do I do? What if she doesn’t come back? Could I take her as a hostage? But instead, she opens the door slightly and speaks to someone outside. I crane my neck, trying to see who it is, but I can’t.

She closes the door and returns to her first aid kit, busying herself with packets of gauze and things while I watch with disinterest.

She turns back to me. “I’ll bandage it in the meantime.”

When she pulls out a pair of surgical scissors, my eyes light up.
Fuck, yes
. A weapon. A sharp one. That I can hide. I fight to keep my face neutral, and watch with painstaking patience as she cuts around a large piece of thick gauze. She places the scissors on the table beside her and kneels in front of me, pressing the gauze to my large wound. I wince—the slightest pressure on my stomach agonizing—and try to focus. I look straight past the traitorous bitch who birthed me once upon a time, and feast my eyes upon the pair of scissors that I could stick in Dornan’s jugular.

She finishes sticking the gauze to my skin with surgical tape, leaning back to study her handiwork. I choose this moment to reach over to my left and grab the surgical scissors, quicker than her drugged eyes can comprehend. At the same time, the door opens, and The Prospect steps in. As soon as his eyes land on me, he’s airborne, launching onto me and crushing my hand with his.

“Drop,” he demands, squeezing my hand. I keep hold of the scissors, his weight on me agonizing as he presses against my freshly bandaged wound. I don’t let go of the scissors, instead trying to snatch my hand away.

But it’s useless. He’s incredibly strong—hell, a five-year-old would be stronger than me right now—and he pulls my arm around, smashing my fist against the hard side of the metal bed frame, sending the scissors flying. “Ahhh!” I yell, as my weapon is lost. I feel tears prick my eyes and angrily blink them away, trying to kill this dude with my eyes alone.

He glares at me, shifting off the bed. “I help you and this is how you repay me? Fuck, girl. That’s the last time I’m nice to you. The big man’s gonna let you rot in here.”

I tear my gaze from him, staring at my mother again. She’s fiddling with her first aid kit, drawing something up into a needle.

“What’s that?” I ask, sliding off the bed and backing away. I don’t want any more drugs. I’ve been numbed enough. I’m sick of floating in a half-conscious void of marshmallowy pain. It’s fucking depressing. And it sure as shit doesn’t help me breathe any easier.

The Prospect shoves my shirt back at me. “Put that on,” he says. “While you’ve got the chance. It’s the middle of fucking winter, cholita, you’ll freeze to death before Dornan gets back.”

I pull the T-shirt over my head, his words hitting me a few seconds later. “What did you say?” I whisper.

He just stares at me. “Hurry up, nursey. We gotta clear out of here.”

I back away, trying to get away from the needle. The Prospect puts his hands up in a placating gesture. “It’s fucking medicine. You don’t let her do it, I’ll flip you over and stick it in your bare ass.” My eyes go wide, which seems to amuse him. “The medicine, I mean. Damn, girl, he’s really done a number on that pretty little head of yours.”

I roll my eyes. I’m backed into the corner of the room, and there’s nowhere I can go.

My mother speaks softly, her words devoid of any emotion. “You need antibiotics. Your cut is infected.”

I hold my arm out to her, shaking my head in disbelief. “It’s not a cut,” I say, tears in my throat like a tight, hot lump of bitterness as I speak angrily. I wince as she jabs the needle into my upper arm and presses down on the plunger. It stings.
A lot
.

“Fuck!” I yell, snatching my arm back.

She shrugs. “It’s thick medicine. It needs a big needle.”

Now I wish it
had
been heroin.

“Fuck!” I repeat, massaging my arm. My entire upper arm is on fire, reminding me of the tetanus booster I had to have before I went to Thailand for my plastic surgery. Just a few short months ago. And that reminds me again.

“It’s winter?” I ask The Prospect. “What month is it?”

He waggles his eyebrows. “Now that would be telling.”

I roll my eyes, clutching my arm. “I’m gonna die down here, and you can’t even tell me what fucking month it is?”

“It’s November,” my mother says softly. “November third.”

November third. I count back in my head, certain she’s lying. Because if it’s November, that means I’ve been in here for three fucking months.

I choke on that, trying to suck in air as my throat closes in panic. I grab at my throat. “Three months?” I scream. “I’ve been here for three fucking months?!”

I’m suffocating. I’m going to die down here. Three. Fucking. Months? It can’t be right. The Prospect reaches a hand out to me, maybe to help me, I don’t know, but I hit it away, pummeling on his hard chest with my pathetically weak fists. He catches my wrists easily, slamming me back against the wall. I look across to see my mother standing there, first aid kit in one hand, her job apparently done. “What the fuck are you looking at?!” I scream at her. I’m suddenly so fucking full of rage. I’m drowning in it. “You fucking traitor!”

“Hey,” the guy says, but I ignore him, addressing my mother. “You’re meant to be my mother and I’ve been dying in here for three fucking months?”

My words barely pierce the drugged fog enveloping her, but they do. She frowns ever so slightly, tilting her head to the side.

“Hey, girly” the guy says, wrenching my chin toward him. More tears flood my eyes as I glare into his cobalt blue eyes. “Say my name!” I scream at him. “I’ve been down here for
three fucking months
, and she’s my
mother
, and you can’t even call me by my name?!”

I’m exhausted. I let my hands drop to my sides, and in response, he loosens his grip on me slightly.

“Juliette,” he says in his thick accent. We stare at each other for a moment, his eyes impossible to read, until eventually he breaks away, addressing my mother. “You can go now.”

She leaves just as gently as she came in, bumping into the doorframe on her way out. The door closes with a soft click and as soon as she’s out of earshot, we’re staring at each other again.

“You could help me,” I say desperately. “I have money.”

He smiles reluctantly, letting me go as he steps back. “No, no, no,” he says, waving a finger in my face. “I cannot help you. I’m a Gypsy Brother. And you’re a Gypsy killer.”

I snort. “Oh, really, you’re a gypsy brother? Where’s your tattoo? Where’s your leather cut? Huh?”

He smiles, his eyes gleaming, and lifts his shirt up, turning around so that I can see his back. A huge, freshly inked tattoo adorns his entire upper back in a curve, identical to the tattoo Jase sports on his back. GYPSY BROTHERS.

Fuck.

“Oh,” I say. He gives me a knowing look over his shoulder, dropping his shirt so it covers his torso again. Turning back to me, he stares at me for a long while before he speaks.

“Don’t try to get her to help you,” he says, jerking his thumb toward the door. “She might look like your mama, but there’s nothing between her ears anymore, girl. Nothing but Gypsy Brothers.”

I lean back dejectedly. He’s absolutely right. She’s completely fucked up. Beyond help. Useless.

“How’d you get involved in this life, anyway?” I ask, attempting to continue the conversation. Suddenly, I’m terrified to be alone in here. I don’t want him to leave. He’s easier to cope with than Dornan.

His tattoo flashes in my mind and all of a sudden, my heart sinks. I’d been clinging to the hope that he might be able to help me, but he’s one of them now. A motherfucking Gypsy Brother, complete with the obligatory ink to seal his fate..

But he helped me. He let me shower. Brought me clothes. Brought me medicine. Brought me my stupid mother. I’m so jarred by that, so confused by his random acts of kindness despite the fact we’re supposed to be enemies. My head aches.

He grins, flashing a mouth of beautiful teeth. “It was a woman,” he says, opening the door and stepping out into the hallway. “It’s always a woman.”

He shuts the door, and I’m alone again, with his words stuck in my head.

TWELVE

Dornan comes in one morning a couple days later. I’m mid-vomit, my head buried in a bucket. He looks annoyed.

“I thought you said she was better,” he says to someone behind him. He steps to the side, and behind him I see my mother standing there, her expression once again blank and droopy. Fucking druggie.

She doesn’t answer him, and he snaps his fingers. “Caroline!”

She scurries forward, collecting the bucket in the corner, its only contents my urine. I’m not even embarrassed anymore that these people are handling my body’s waste. It’s all become disturbingly familiar.

He glares at my mother until she leaves the room, the urine sloshing in the bucket as she passes me. I consider sticking a leg out and tripping the dumb bitch, but then I’d be the one with piss all over the floor. And it’s bad enough in here as it is.

He waits beside me as I finish hurling my guts up, my mother scurrying back into the room with a clean bucket.

“Caroline,” Dornan says, his tone impatient. “What the fuck is wrong with her?”

I sit up, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

“Apart from the obvious,” he jibes, glancing down at me dismissively.

“I think her wound is septic,” she says hurriedly, not meeting his gaze.

“You think?” he asks. “Or you know?”

“I’m ninety percent sure,” she says. “Also, she’s developed pneumonia. The mold doesn’t help.”

He nods, running his tongue over his teeth. “Will the sepsis kill her?”

My mother shrugs as I listen with interest. “Yeah,
mom
,” I ask, my tone like acid. “Will it kill me?”

She looks utterly confused, looking between Dornan and me with those pathetic drug-filled eyes that I wish I could just tear out and squash underneath my heels. Dornan laughs. “Give her the fucking medicine and get out, Carol,” he says shortly. “Don’t listen to what she’s saying. She’s mad like you.”

I laugh mirthlessly, drawing a knee up in front of me. As my mother readies a syringe full of antibiotics, I start to hum, a song from my childhood, from before my mother was completely fucked in the head and she still knew my name.

Dornan glares at me.

“Shut up,” he says.

My mouth curves into a
fuck you
smile as I continue to hum the lullaby from my childhood. And I can tell I’m distracting her.

She stands in front of me, her movements unsure, as she fixes her gaze on me and listens to the sounds coming from my mouth.

“Here,” Dornan snatches the needle from her and leans down, using his free hand to cover my mouth. I try to pull away, but his grip against my face as he pushes my head against the wall is like concrete.

“Tell me, Caroline,” he says, acting bored. “What happens when sepsis goes into your bloodstream?”

She blinks slowly. “Uhh…”

Dornan raises his eyebrows expectantly. “Yes?”

“There’s…Um…acute blood poisoning. Septic shock. Gangrene.”

His eyes light up when she says gangrene. “Ooh. And how do you chop off the middle of somebody’s body?”

She frowns. “You can’t.”

“So if this wound gets gangrene, how do we fix it?”

She shakes her head. “We can’t. Nobody can.”

Dornan grins. “And then?”

My mother appears flustered. “Septic shock—”

“You said that,” Dornan says sharply.

“Organ failure, massive shock, coma, and death,” She finishes flatly.

He shrugs his shoulders condescendingly as if to say,
Oh well!

“And will it be painful?” Dornan asks.

She nods. “Oh, yes. Very.”

He chuckles, pushing my face and realizing his death grip around my mouth.

“Well, have fun,” he says, standing upright and ushering my mother from the room.

“What?” I ask, dumbfounded. He doesn’t answer, just slams the door closed. He didn’t even give me the fucking medicine after all that. I have to wonder if he knows I’ve already had a dose – unless The Prospect told him, I doubt my mother would volunteer any information. She’s practically mute.

I roll my eyes, pissed I allowed him to get to me once again. I’m so annoyed. At myself, at him. At my stupid fucking mother for not even knowing who I am, let alone helping me. Even as a small voice of reason in the recesses of my mind tells me she’s beyond helping someone else when she’s a prisoner here herself.

Still.

If it weren’t for her, none of this would have ever happened.

If it weren’t for her, we’d still be okay.

If it weren’t for her, and her fucking drug addiction, my father wouldn’t have been a Gypsy Brother, and we’d all still be alive. Maybe she’d be dead, from the heroin, but hell, she’d deserve it for everything.

I hate her more than anyone. Including Dornan.

That thought is so fucking depressing; it’s enough to make me want to burst into tears.

But I don’t. Tears are for the weak. Tears are a luxury.

If I ever get out of here – the massive
if
– then, and only then, will I let myself cry.

Until then, I bite down on my lip, tasting blood, and continue to bite down until the lump in my throat slowly fades away.