140 - Silent Lucidity

“Daniel, stop it!” Petey gasped, trying to get to a groaning Jon, but Daniel’s harsh fingers at her throat propelled her back into the wall.  She could only suck in a breath and hope that Greg or Rocco heard the commotion, but she had a sinking feeling of desolation. 

I do not like

green eggs and ham.

I do not like them,

Sam-I-am

They’d known she and Jon were having a ‘miscommunication’ when they came out of the dining room, so unless it was a more pronounced ruckus, there was every chance they would give them some space.  Dammit. “Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you, just stop!”

I do not like them

in a house.

I do not like them

with a mouse.

Jon was swiping a hand across the side of his neck, where the stun gun had grazed – merely grazed! – him, sending him to the floor.  There was now no doubt that Daniel’s little toy would wreak serious damage if it was held against flesh for more than a second.  The mental image of Jon lying on the penthouse floor from Daniel’s last visit was the only thing that kept her from screaming until Greg and Rocco were forced to come and investigate. 

That, and the look on Daniel’s face when he released his stranglehold on her.

I do not like them

here or there.

I do not like them

anywhere.

The man standing between she and Jon wasn’t one she knew.  The cold, dank eyes were devoid of any emotion or humanistic qualities.  They were no more than lifeless specks of light in a face grotesquely contorted with loathing.

“I want you dead,” he said flatly.  “And as soon as you are, those hedonistic pictures will be released to the media so that you can’t even die in peace.”

Not in a box.

Not with a fox.

Hatred blossomed, backlighting the empty eyes with an eerie glow akin to fire.  “You’ve ruined my life the last three years, played me for a fool and left me at the mercy of the Russian Mafia over this asinine creation of yours.  They may not be very bright, but they’re quite impatient and physically demonstrative of that impatience.  Those are business skills that I have learned quite… brutally.”

Honestly, she no longer cared about the damn photos.  They would figure out something.  Living was more of a priority.  From her trip through Daniel’s email three years ago, she had known there was international ugliness involved in this mess, but she hadn’t been aware of the extremity of the participants. 

I would not, could not in a tree.

Not in a car! You let me be.

“The fuckin’ Russian mob?” Jon croaked, his face crumpled with pain.  “Dumbass prick.  You deserve what you get for swimmin’ in those waters.”

Staunchly ignoring Jon, for which Petey was grateful, Daniel continued to address his commentary to her.  “They’ve been detained thus far with my ‘minimal’ improvements on the fabulously useless mess you left me with.”

“What do the – “  She stuttered over her words as the very top of dark head became visible through the railing at Jon’s left hip.  Someone was coming up the stairs.  Jesus, it was probably Tony coming back.  She had to warn him what he was about to walk into and keep Daniel from seeing him.  “Daniel!” She plastered her back against the wall, grabbing at his jacket with one hand.  It forced him to face her and keep his back to the stairs.  “Russian Mafia, really?”

Not on a train! Not in a tree!

Not in a car! Sam! Let me be!

She flicked the briefest of glances toward the stairs, relieved enough to pee herself when she caught the shine of Tony’s glasses.  Gripping Daniel’s jacket more tightly, she could see Tony holding a silent finger to his lips and the gentle wave of the gun in his opposite hand.

Daniel’s disparaging eyes slid down and pointedly gazed at the blunt-tipped nails curled into his tweed lapel.  “Do you not recall what happened to your rutting partner a moment ago, you vapid harlot?”  The stun gun hovered  near her carotid artery in warning and she immediately released him, the rough material scraping at the pads of her fingers.

I would not, could not, in the rain.

Not in the dark. Not on a train

Jon pushed his palm to the floor and struggled to rise even as Petey shook her head vehemently. “Listen here, mother fucker, you talk to her like that again and I’m throwing your ass over this railing and hope you fry yourself on the way down.”

“Jon, no,” Petey pled holding her palms aloft to urge him to stay.  If he didn’t stay still, he would draw Daniel’s attention toward the stairs.  A quick glance affirmed that Tony was steadily creeping up the landing, and that there was another dark head not far behind – that of Henry.

Petey wanted to cry with relief.  If anyone could – would – get them out of this, it was their brothers. 

“I am not gonna sit here and listen to that shit,” her stubborn fiancé grumbled, still struggling, unsuccessfully, to get to his feet.

Tony’s head had stopped moving, and she could read his mind.  He was concerned that Jon’s movement would draw Daniel’s attention to floor level, which he was just now peeking above.

Petey’s anxiety level spiked dangerously, and she prayed she could keep it together.  She hadn’t passed out from one of these in twenty-five years.  She wasn’t going to start now, for this deranged psychopath.  Her mental rambling spilled onto her tongue as she battled her body’s reaction to the overwhelming situation. 

I could not, would not, on a boat.

I will not, will not, with a goat.

Daniel’s head snapped up, his attention drawn from the railing and to her.  To Petey’s surprise, his features softened affectionately, the incongruence ramping up her anxiety.  The man was completely disconnected from reality. 

“I will not eat them in the rain.

I will not eat them on a train.”

He pressed infinitesimally closer to her, the hand not bearing the weapon lifting to finger the tendrils framing her face.  “That’s so reminiscent of old times, Darling,” he cooed fondly before his expression deteriorated into one of vile loathing.  The hand that had been in her hair banded once again around her throat.  “I wanted to kill you even then, you mentally unstable imbecile.”

“Not in the dark! Not in a tree!

Not in a car! You let me be!”

Bony fingers dug into her neck, seemingly intent upon ripping out her windpipe.  She vainly struggled to get a breath as the lyrical cadence of Dr. Seuss gained momentum until it sped like a runaway train hurtling down a steep incline.

I do not like them in a box.

I do not like them with a fox.

I will not eat them in a house.

I do not like them with a mouse.

I do not like them here or there.

I do not like them ANYWHERE!

Her vision tunneled and her ears began to ring incessantly.  Knees literally knocking together, she felt them give way and, with the piercing fingertips painfully gouging under each side of her jaw, the world went black.

Jesus Christ, Jon thought as Daniel’s hand sprang open and Petey hit the floor with a sick thud.  It had all happened so quickly that he hadn’t been able to do a damn thing.  Scrabbling across the floor, he pushed a forearm across Daniel’s shins to shove him out of the way, desperate to make sure she was still breathing.

“Petey…”  A light tap to her cheek brought no response.  Or so he thought, until the fucking psychopath pulled him to his feet by the back of the shirt and slammed him face first against the wall to their left.  Turning his head at the last second saved breaking his nose and subjected his cheekbone to the impact. 

Now what the fuck am I going to do?

Tony crested the staircase as Jon’s face met the wall and his brother swore nastily at the man who put him there.  Tony silently and swiftly pivoted around the bannister, putting him in position at Daniel’s back.  The would-be killer hadn’t spotted him as of yet, nor Henry, who hung back on the staircase.

Daniel was snarling threats and jeers as he hovered the stun gun just above Jon’s jaw.  Tony couldn’t make them out, save a pithy  “… and you’ll watch her die.”

Not fucking likely.

Grateful that he’d learned stealth at a much younger age, courtesy of sneaking in the house after curfew, Tony took the final soundless steps that placed him in front of Petey’s prone form and within arm’s reach of Daniel.  Close enough to ruthlessly jam the gun’s nose into the base of his skull. 

“Let him go, you piece of shit, or I’ll blow your brains out.”

He’d never killed a man, but he wasn’t above it.  Family first.  Period.

But the guy was either crazier or ballsier than anybody he’d ever run across, because – never wavering his grip on the stun gun at Jon’s neck, he declared loftily, “This is none of your concern.”

“You fuck with my family, you fuck with me.  Now let him go.”

There was a commotion on the other side of the stairwell as someone exited the dining room, but Tony never lost his focus.  Even as he recognized Dorothea’s voice shouting, “Tony, no!” he didn’t falter or flinch.  What he did was dig the muzzle more deeply into the psycho’s occipital lobe. 

Unfortunately, his mind didn’t follow suit.  He had just gotten his life to a good place – a really good place.  Did he want to chance ruining that by splattering this guy’s brain across the wall?  Yes, it was defense, but not self-defense.  If it came across the wrong way to the wrong people…

All hell was breaking loose around him.  Dorothea tried to rush to his side, only to be roadblocked by Henry, whose mammoth size served him well against a frantic karate instructor.  He took the blows she dished out with only a grunt of pain, keeping her locked up in his arms, safely away from the action.

Those security guys were mounting up at his back, alerted by Dorothea’s shout, and it sounded like a stampede as everyone else in that room threw their chairs back and clambered toward the door.  There was a quiet cacophony of “What the fuck?” and “What’s going on?”  while his mother was bellowing out, “Jonny!  Anthony!”

“You’re not going to do it,” the bastard under his gun taunted, rearing his head arrogantly into the weapon.

Petey heard screaming, but it wasn’t her own, even though her throat was sore.  Dorothea screaming Tony’s name?  Her nose wrinkled with confusion.  Then Carol crying out for both Jon and Tony? Dazed eyes fluttered open to see three pairs of male feet surrounding her. 

Tony heard Jon’s muffled, but confident, “The hell he won’t,” and it was all the additional incentive he needed to release his pent-up anger on the man who’d been wreaking havoc in his family for too long.

He abruptly pulled the gun to the right, shooting cleanly through Daniel’s right hand, causing the stun gun to plummet uselessly to the floor.  So did Daniel, for that matter.  He clutched at his wrist, screaming, and dropped to his knees as the blood cascaded from the open wound.

Petey  involuntarily flinched from the loud gunshot and felt, more than heard, something hit the floor next to her before the floorboards quivered under Daniel’s collapsing weight.  Glancing to the source of the first sound, she saw the stun gun lying next to her arm.  A quick look upward found Daniel’s face ashen as he was engrossed in his wound, anguish being wrenched from him in near sobs.

Before she could think about it, analyze it or make any type of formal plan, she curled her fingers around the blasted weapon that had been the source of so much anxiety in such a short time.

Stretching her arm out, she shoved the damn thing up under Daniel’s pant leg, until it came in contact with the bare skin of his calf.

“Jesus, no, Petey!”  Jon’s cry came to her through an eerie haze of tranquility, but she couldn’t pay it any heed.  She had started this and she had to end it.

The trigger depressed easily under her touch and she felt Daniel’s body convulse under its application. 

One…

Two…

Three…

Four…. 

Five. 

Five ticks of the clock passed before the convulsions stopped, and his body lay disconcertingly still.  It was only then that she would allow her finger to fall away from the trigger and the gun to tumble harmlessly onto the floor.

Petey’s eyes closed as a sick relief clutched at her heart and pumped out through her arteries, filling her body with its liberating and heady intoxication. 

A final quote flickered across her consciousness as bedlam reigned around her.  The difference was that, this time, it was borne not of anxiety, but peace.

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done: it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.”