Everything I Die For Read online

  As the sleek two-door German coupe glided to a stop, Barbie motioned for Chris to enter on the passenger side. Jessi flung the door open and stepped out as he circled the car, then turned away from him and lifted a lever, sending the seat cascading forward. She then waited for Chris to hop in the backseat.

  “Morning,” he said, closing in, his lips poised for their standard greeting.

  Her head still turned away, Jessi didn’t reciprocate the gesture. “Hi,” she said despondently.

  “Hi? That’s a fine how-do-you-do after not seeing each other for more than a day.”

  Jessi sighed, though she did look his way now, offering him a cross stare through puffy eyes. “A fine how-do-you-do? What are you, like, fifty?”

  “No, I—”

  “What’s that even supposed to mean, anyway?”

  Chris shrugged and tossed his backpack inside the car. “Nothing—just that I missed you, and I assumed you might’ve missed me. I’ve been worried about you. I haven’t seen you since…well, you know what happened.”

  “Chris, I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about what happened. Not now, not today at some point while we’re together, not ever. Okay?”

  Chris frowned. “Okay, fine. Whatever. Am I also not allowed to be worried about you?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “No, you didn’t. But your body language is telling me a lot.”

  “Dammit, Chris,” Jessi spat. “Stop analyzing me. Just get in the car so we can go already.”

  “Jesus, Jess. What’s with you? I don’t even know what I did.”

  Jessi sighed. “You didn’t do anything.”

  “Are you sure? You’re acting like you don’t want me around you today. Do you still want me to go?”

  Jessi hung her head and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Chris, please. Just—get in the damn…fucking car already. I don’t want to argue with you…I don’t have the energy for it.”

  Chris ducked his head under the car’s roof, picking up on a glower Barbie was sending him through her bangs. He straightened and moved closer to Jessi. “I wasn’t trying to argue. I was just trying to express my concern.”

  “Chris!” Jessi shrieked. “I swear! If you don’t shut up and get in, I’m going to lose it with you today!”

  “Hey, Chris?” Barbie’s velvety voice purred. “Please just get in. This day is going to be difficult enough as it is. I implore you, please—just get in so we can go.”

  Chris sighed and relented after a moment, then slid into the Mercedes’s rather narrow excuse for a backseat.

  Once Jessi had gotten in and pulled the door closed, Barbie stomped the gas pedal and sent the car into motion eastward along the two-lane county road. Chris arranged his things and slid to the middle, where he could arrange himself in the gap between the driver and passenger seats.

  He rested his elbows, one on either side together with the plush leather headrests, then glanced at Jessi’s pouting face before observing the brunette driver. It was clear Barbie hadn’t had much of a break from lamenting Robbie’s death. Her eyes were swollen and bloodshot, and her cheeks were splotchy and flushed, and she sniffled often. Still, Chris could not prevent himself from asking how she was doing, though admittedly, he wasn’t sure how.

  “I’ve been okay, just sad,” Barbie said, her voice breathy. “Really sad. Thank you though, for asking, Chris.”

  One of Chris’s eyebrows shot up. He was practically mesmerized by her sincerity, expressly in comparison to the most recent exchange with his girlfriend. “You’re welcome. I’ve been worried—about both of you, like I was telling Jessi a minute ago. It’s nice to see at least one of you can accept that.”

  “You would be doing yourself a favor by zipping it,” Jessi said, her eyes widening. “In case you haven’t already noticed, I’m in no mood for antics.”

  “Oh, I’ve noticed all right. You’ve made that abundantly clear. No translation needed. I speak the language.”

  “What? What language?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do, huh?” Jessi let out a long, lurid sigh. “I love you, Chris. And I know you probably think I don’t. Right now, you think I hate you because that’s your usual knee-jerk, teenybopper reaction to me whenever I’m crabby.”

  “Crabby?”

  “You…know what I mean, moody.”

  “Yeah. I do know what you mean. You’re definitely…crabby,” he said mockingly. “That’s for certain.”

  “Consider this your final warning,” Jessi growled. “If you say anything else that pisses me off even to the slightest degree, I’m getting out of this car.”

  “No, you’re not,” Barbie intervened. “You’re not getting out of the car, Jess.”

  “Well, whatever. You can just…take me back home, then.”

  “I’m not doing that either. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Ridiculous? I’ll tell you what’s ridiculous,” Jessi spat. “Ridiculous is not letting me have a damn cigarette when I need one.”

  “Stop. I don’t care if you do, in fact, need one, you’re not smoking in my car,” said Barbie. “Do what you want in yours; you’re not making mine smell like an ashtray.”

  While halfway listening to the cousins’ back-and-forth, Chris’s thoughts soon took over, washing them out. Jessi was his girlfriend, and he had never doubted his love for her. She was beautiful in every way a girl her age could be. But then again, so was her cousin, but he was finding that Barbie’s attractiveness struck him in all the ways Jessi’s didn’t. If Jessi decided not to go along, he figured it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, all things considered.

  Chris would enjoy the trip and maybe even the alone time with her cousin, just the two of them. And those possibilities were endless, especially in her state of mind. She was forlorn and vulnerable and had even referred to him as a hero to his father the other night, and no one had ever complimented him in such a way before. Chris could be in a grand position to provide her with…consolation, if given the chance, and sometimes, though not always, that position had a habit of leading to…other things.

  He shivered and tried pushing the thought away, but Chris couldn’t prevent his young mind from running wild with all the delightful possibilities. He felt like a man on top of his world sometimes. He was a talented athlete and he had a bright future in store for him. He was smart, mildly popular, and his girlfriend was both beautiful and popular—and so was this cousin of hers. And right now, he was sitting in a vehicle in the company of both of these head-turners. The errant deliberations made him smile inside.

  “Hey, Jess,” he began. “Look…I’m sorry. I’ll leave you be for as long as you like. I just wish you’d tell me what was up. You seem more bothered by what happened than you did the last time I saw you.”

  Jessi didn’t respond, only gritted her teeth and narrowed her eyes.

  Barbie sniffled. “Chris, we’re all bothered by what happened. And I’m…devastated. But I think Jessi’s responses could be due in part to other…exigent circumstances.”

  Chris cocked his head. “Exigent circumstances? What does that mean?”

  Barbie rolled her lips between her teeth and glanced at him momentarily. “I shouldn’t say…I should let Jessi explain.”

  Jessi folded her arms. “I’m not talking to him. Tell him whatever you want. I don’t care.”

  Chris’s eyes darted back and forth between them. “Tell me what? What’s going on? What are these circumstances?”

  “Jessi’s parents were involved in a car accident on their way home sometime late last night,” Barbie said. “They’re both in the hospital.”

  “Jesus—are they okay? Jess, why didn’t you just tell me?”

  Barbie placed her hand on Jessi’s thigh and squeezed it. “They’re alive,” she said. “They totaled the car, though, and were both admitted into the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. But they’re pretty messed up.”

  “Da
mmit,” said Chris. “I had no idea. Jess, for what it’s worth, babe…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make it worse for you.”

  “Chris, can you please just shut up and leave me be?” Jessi begged. “I don’t want to talk about it right now. All I want is to get this day over with. I want to get my car so I can go see them and then go back home and go to bed. These past few days have been too much.”

  “You can say that again,” Barbie commented.

  Chris placed his hand onto Jessi’s shoulder. She jerked away from him at first but soon gave in and nuzzled closer to him, allowing him to massage her shoulder and neck.

  “And to top it off, I got my fucking period today,” Jessi griped. “Like I needed that shit.”

  Chris chuckled inwardly. Now her behavior was starting to make sense. Jessi could be a provoked bear during her time of the month, and he wondered why he hadn’t considered that a possibility based on her reactions thus far. Then he recalled the last time they’d been intimate.

  If the studies he’d read in Maxim and Men’s Health held water and normal men thought about sex upwards of twenty times per day, Chris knew for certain he wasn’t normal in that regard. He thought about it all the time. It had been one of the reasons his relationship with Jessi had been so highly coveted. His previous girlfriend wasn’t interested in intimacy and had disclosed on numerous occasions her intention to remain celibate until graduation, or even marriage. Chris hadn’t minded at first, at least until conversations with his closest friends concerning their sexually active relationships had begun to weigh on him, and he’d felt urged to entertain similar relationships himself.

  He and Jessi had only gone on a couple of dates before she’d willingly given herself to him. After that night, Chris felt as though he’d become a card-carrying member of some elite club of which so many friends had been members far longer than he had. He’d reached some enigmatic age of carnal majority, and from that day forward, even if he and Jessi didn’t work out, Chris told himself he would never date another unless she was willing to entertain the aforesaid concept. To him, it was a coming-of-age thing—a rite of passage, an integral step of transforming from an adolescent into a man. And to date, he’d had no regrets.

  Chris’s hand slid to the base of Jessi’s neck, then to the back of her head as his fingers combed through and caressed her hair. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to her, his mouth beside her left ear. “I didn’t mean to upset you. And I’m sorry about your parents. You’re my baby, Jess. I love you.”

  Jessi hung her head, reaching for Chris’s hand. “I know, Chris. And I’m sorry, too. I’m just really stressed out right now, and I don’t need anything else burdening me.”

  “I won’t burden you, I promise. But I want to be there for you, and for that to work, you have to let me.”

  Jessi squeezed Chris’s hand. “I know. You’re right and I’ll try, but this day is going to really suck, and I’m not looking forward to it.” A long pause. “And…I love you, too.”

  Mission accomplished. Inferno extinguished. But he needed to watch everything he said for the remainder of the day. On certain days and during some…periods, Jessi’s irrationality knew no boundaries.

  Chris counted his blessings. At least he knew she wasn’t pregnant.

  Seven

  Clarke County, Virginia

  Nihayat al’ayam plus 1 day, 10 hours

  I knew we’d been trying our luck parading around in a grandiose, damn near Yakuza scale, domestic sport utility vehicle I’d boosted to facilitate our getaway. I was also thereby cognizant of the need to ditch the damn thing in all haste to facilitate covering the moderately audacious tracks we’d made in so doing. The Yukon g-ride, as it were, had merely been an impermanent solution to an unforeseen and undesirable set of circumstances.

  I would’ve preferred for us to be further along in our travels than where we were at this point. A stroke of bad luck more or less pulled out in front of us, and ever since, I hadn’t been able to part with the notion that my own newfound sentimentalities had in some way led to this. This sudden conscientiousness that had pervaded my soul like some freeloading, alien entity was something I had neither asked nor planned for. But it was here, and its presence was undeniable, particularly after Natalia had alluded to noticing it herself. One trivial act of thoughtfulness on my behalf had been enough for her to zero in on it. And knowing her, she had probably seen it coming from a long way off.

  Operating without a conscience had served me well thus far, and after this development, I couldn’t help wondering if my luck was destined to run out. Fate rarely favors anyone in particular, but by permitting myself to consider the other person, would I now appear weak in some manner to Mother Nature? And would that revelation give her cause to demote me several ranks on the food chain? I truly fucking hoped not. Talk about an exemplary ninja punch to the gonads.

  The timeline of inopportune events since our departure from Germany had imposed upon me a bit of introspection. For the first time in my life, I’d begun considering my own impermanence. More to the point, I was starting to feel progressively more like a standardized mortal. And that, well…just wasn’t like me.

  I’ve always considered myself to be a seasoned motorist. Throughout the span of my life, I’ve been behind the wheel of nearly every make, model, brand, genus and species of rolling vehicle conceivable, from Fiats to Ferraris and Harley-Davidsons to Humvees.

  I’ve driven on roads, streets, highways and paths all over the world and have had to ascertain the traffic laws of various countries and continents on the fly. From the mountainous, single-lane serpentine pathways in Nepal, where sudden death lurked around every turn, to the vast stretches of Germany’s speed-limitless autobahn, I’ve put hundreds of thousands of miles of rubber to road, while only having been tangled up in a handful of collisions, most of which were unintentional, all of which were inconsequential. Our crash this morning had thankfully been no different, though it hadn’t been without its victims.

  Though it hadn’t come about as I’d preferred, ditching our getaway vehicle was officially a done deal. The beast was hereby totaled, owed to the truckload of drunks who’d intersected our path without so much as looking. I suppose they hadn’t been able to see past the half-empty bottles of discounted bourbon in their clutches.

  I’d seen the rusty beater they were piloting approximately fifteen minutes before T-boning it at the base of the hill. It had blown past us not long after we’d pulled over in a small lot at the crest of Paris Mountain to make a call. Granted, I’d been somewhat preoccupied with what had already happened: the abomination our op had become, a chance run-in with the agency, the Ukrainian execution squad, and the terror attacks yet to take place as perpetrated by ISIS. But the last thing I’d wanted or expected was a collision with an Isuzu filled to the brim with ripe rednecks. And I certainly hadn’t intended to become the cause of their deaths, untimely as they might have been or otherwise. Just goes to show, no matter who we are and no matter how we go about our lives, we all have it coming to us. Nothing in life is ensured, notwithstanding its end. Chalk up three more stiffs for ole Elijah Craig.

  Natalia and I had thankfully been left unscathed. After peeling ourselves from the wreckage, we’d assessed one another, collected our gear, and were all set to exfil into the woods and vanish without a trace. That is, until a passing ambulance chanced upon us. They’d been working an airliner crash not far away and, upon witnessing the scene, dutifully responded in kind. And that response complicated matters quite a bit for us.

  I wasn’t particularly concerned with the rescue personnel themselves. Rather, it was their communications capabilities—expressly, the two-way radios they carried in their vehicles and on their person. By way of mountaintop repeaters, which by design received transmissions on one frequency while concurrently retransmitting them on another, rescue crews maintained contact with other units, together with their dispatcher. Characteristically, the dispatcher was physically located withi
n the same building and possibly even the same space as every other 911 operator and public safety dispatcher, including law enforcement. And from there, the interminable web of inter- and extradepartmental communication only began.

  Upon responding, they would no doubt call the scene in, and the dispatcher would then make a call for first responders—fire apparatus, additional rescue crews, the on-duty chief and, ultimately, law enforcement. The latter would respond to secure the scene, direct road traffic, and maybe even write a few tickets. The consequent, preordained accident scene investigation would unquestionably involve the Denali’s license plates and vehicle registration. And if the monstrosity’s titleholder, the aforesaid dummkopf who’d left us with a mere quarter tank of gas, had reported it stolen, it would only serve to further complicate matters.

  It had taken about a microsecond to come to this realization. It was intuitive—a reflex, and I hadn’t bothered saying a word to Natalia; I knew our thoughts were one and the same. We’d sent each other a few ‘here we go again’ glowers while observing the scene unfold and arranging ourselves for what we were deeming to be inevitable.

  One look at the deputy who’d responded to the scene had told me he was green. He ticketed speeders, directed traffic and wrote reports. He hadn’t seen his share of genuine criminal activity over the course of his career and conceivably never would. That said, if the opportunity presented itself for him to bag two suspects on felony charges of grand theft auto, he’d probably jump, vault, or hurdle a fallen tree at the chance. It would likely serve to brighten his career and maybe send him headlong into local politics, augmenting his plans to run for the next county sheriff.

  Either way, there had been zero doubt in my mind concerning an ample response to whatever move he’d make, had that been the case, and I’m certain Natalia was tuned in to my wavelength. If either of us had sensed that something was about to go down, every living, breathing human being on the scene, up to and including the benevolent rescue first responders, would’ve had to meet their maker. No witnesses could be left alive to tell the tale.