Chapter 17

a/n omg y'all this is the penultimate chapter 😭 I mostly know what happens next, but I need to do a sweep of the whole book before I write the last chapter so I can ensure I'm not missing any opportunities to tie up loose ends. also just need to sleep on it and probably cry a bunch lololol

It's not gonna be an epilogue exactly, but probably a time jump of a few days. this is a series and has always been planned as one, so no epilogue that is may years down the line because the next book will pick up shortly after the end of this, if not immediately after the end of this. I have a basic plot for it, too (squee!) but writing that won't be happening super soon, as I will be deep in the editing process for this one.

I already have beta readers lining up to help with the edit, and I am so excited to get to that stage. I cannot tell you how much your presence here has meant and will continue to mean to me!!!!! I will likely post some short stories and/or a completely different novel in the meantime. I have so many ideas.

Also, it may turn out that chapter 18 is so short that it gets tacked on to this chapter in the final edit. I mean who knows what will happen at all in the final edit, we could restructure everything entirely hehe. but just saying, my "last chapter" might end up being 500 words, I'm not sure yet! I hope you enjoy...

Maxine’s eyes moved between the gun in Orlando’s hand and Jillian’s terrified expression for a beat before being drawn to three other men stepping into the room. She recognized none of them, but it was clear whose side they were on, given the directions their guns were pointing.

Ernie made a little squeak and threw his hands into the air, while Miles and Brooks simultaneously stepped closer to Maxine and Jill.

Orlando looked down at David’s unconscious body on the floor. “Which one of you off’d him?”

Maxine heard Brooks take a breath, preparing to speak, but before he could say anything, Miles did.

“That was me,” he said, stepping forward.

It was then that Orlando turned his gaze on Miles and squinted. “I thought you left, new guy.”

“I could say the same to you.”

“I was just about to until I saw these two creepin’ around the back of the building,” Orlando said, motioning to Jill and Brooks.

“Yeah, thanks for alerting us to the search and rescue mission, Miss Snoopy!” said one of the henchmen.

“Quiet, Benny. Get upstairs and tell the crew to hold off, but come right back.”

“You got it, boss,” was his muttered refrain before he threw nods at the two remaining men standing with Orlando and made his way up the stairs.

Maxine shifted her gaze between Miles and Brooks hoping to catch either of their attention, but they only had eyes for Orlando. 

“So what’s the plan, then? You could’ve locked us down here and torched the place like you planned, but you came down here to give a speech instead? Isn’t this like the big mistake cartoon villains make at the end of the movie?”

Beside Miles, Ernie let out a choked gasp as he gaped at Miles.

“I don’t think now is the time for taunts, darlin’, do you see the size of the man’s gun?”

With that, Orlando shifted the aim of said gun towards Ernie who whimpered in immediate reply.

“I thought I told you to go home, too, Ernest.”

Ernie swallowed hard and then closed his eyes, bracing for imminent attack as a small bead of sweat formed at his hairline. Maxine never liked her kiss-ass former co-worker before her, but still felt pulled to interrupt this exchange on his behalf. Jill, however, spoke first.

“No one calls him Ernest, and while I’m at it no one calls me Jillian, either, so I’m not sure why you do. You don’t even know me, dude. You’ve shown up here every once in a while clearly pretending to be an owner when you obviously have some weird gang ties to this place, and were keeping this poor schmuck in some kinda choke hold. After he disappeared I was sure you did some shady shit. I’m surprised he’s alive, to be honest.”

Maxine heard Jill’s mistake before the girl seemed to recognize it and drew in a quick breath.

“Was alive,” Maxine said with haste. “Before Miles off’d him, you mean.”

Without missing a beat, Jill said, “Yeah of course that’s what I meant.”

Damn, she’s good, Maxine thought to herself.

“Enough!” Orlando said, then turned his gun on Brooks. “Who are you, anyway? Her dad?” he said, motioning towards Jill.

Jill, who continued to seem cool, calm, and collected, let out a scoff-laugh and said, “He wishes.”

“He’s my boss,” Maxine said, “and we’ve been investigating your disgusting operation for a while.”

“Have you?” Orlando said with a raise of his brow. “Well, much good it did ya, since you’re gonna die in this basement with all your little friends.”

At this, the two remaining henchmen stepped forward to flank Orlando on either side, each of them cocking two guns for a total of five barrels aimed at the five of them.

Just then, Benny’s voice sounded distantly from the stairwell. “Boss? Boss! Bosssss!”

“WHAT, BENNY?”

“They left!”

“Whaddaya mean?!” Orlando called back without taking his eyes off Maxine.

“The torch crew! I told ‘em what you were doin down here and they said somethin’ about not bein’ murderers and left!”

Orlando let out an exasperated sigh, shutting his eyes for a moment, while the other two henchmen lowered their guns as they turned towards Benny’s voice with identical audible “Huh?” sounds.

Clearly, Maxine was not the only one to decide that they should take advantage of this momentary lapse in attention, because all at once the five of them lunged forward.

Maxine was only dimly aware of the struggles on either side of her as Brooks, Jill, Ernie, and Miles all fought to disarm the henchmen. For her part, she summoned up everything she’d learned in jiu-jitsu and lunged forward.

Wrapping a hand around the barrel of Orlando’s gun, she pushed it away from her. The look of shock on the man’s face when he realized all that was happening spurred her on as she struggled against his counter-pressure. Thankfully, she was able to get her other hand on the gun to twist it further away, leveraging his large size against him as her firm twist caused the edge of the gun, cutting into his finger where he held the trigger.

He cried out, and the gun fired, causing everyone to yell. One yell was much louder than the others, however, Maxine couldn’t tell where the shot had been aimed, as she was too preoccupied with the very large man with whom she was now caught in a physical struggle.

“Get back or I’ll shoot!” she heard Ernie yell. In her peripheral vision she saw Ernie’s henchman backing up with his hands in the air.

Then, Miles was there with her, seemingly attempting the same chokehold move Brooks had used on David earlier, but with less success.

“What are you doing? Just shoot him!” Jill cried just as Maxine was able to step back and cock the gun she’d taken from Orlando.

That’s when she saw that Miles had his arms around Orlando’s neck and was hanging cartoonishly off his back as the man tried desperately to grab at Miles with his non-injured hand.

“Do it!” Jill cried, which was when Maxine looked over and saw Brooks crumpled over, drops of blood visible next to him on the poured concrete floor.

Her mind went completely blank, and it was through a tunnel-like filter that she heard Jill say, “Oh, fuck it, I’ll shoot him.”

A gunshot rang out once again. Orlando crumpled to the floor. Maxine’s vision clouded as she landed next to Brooks, her own consciousness being snuffed out in an instant.

𓂃🖊 

Miles shoved Orlando’s body off of him and rushed to Maxine’s side. She’d landed right next to Brooks, who was groaning in pain.

“Okay, but don’t shoot anyone else!” Ernie was yelling at Jill.

“I only shot the one guy, damn! His gun went off and hit Gramps, that wasn’t me!”

Before Miles could do more than turn Maxine’s face towards him, there was a thundering of footsteps on the staircase he’d entered from, and he turned to see Adrienne Gladstone, followed by a swarm of other cops.

The second detective Gladstone saw Brooks on the floor, her entire demeanor shifted from stern and alert, to shocked and desperate. 

“Miles! Who are the innocents?” she said, despite her obvious need to rush forward to Brooks’s side, just as he was presiding over Maxine.

Miles didn’t have to respond, because Ernie and Jill’s hands shot up, even though Gladstone had already met Jill. The henchman who Ernie still had a gun trained on, however, also raised his hand.

“Put that down you numbnuts, you tried to shoot me!” Ernie cried.

The henchman sheepishly complied.

“Get the rest of them,” Gladstone barked, and her men ran forward to restrain Orlando and both the conscious and unconscious henchmen.

With that settled, Gladstone ran over to Brooks and began asking if he could hear her. Miles followed suit, being careful not to jostle Maxine’s head. He knew, probably from all the crime shows his abuela had made him watch, that it was bad to move someone who’d just fainted. She might have hit her head badly and could have a concussion.

“Maxine. Can you hear me?” he said somewhat forcefully.

“What about this one?” he heard a cop ask.

“Oh that one’s off his rocker, I think y’all will wanna question him, he’s been being forced to do that one’s bidding,” Ernie replied, and Miles dimly registered that he was talking about David, still unconscious on the floor.

“Maxine, it’s Miles. Can you hear me?” he said, a bit closer to her ear.

At this, she let out a low, soft moan, and he felt his heart get ten times lighter.

“Miles?” she mumbled. For a split second her eyes opened, then closed again.

“Stay with me Maxine, you’re okay. You’re gonna be okay. Everything,” he said, then felt his breath get caught in his chest for a moment before continuing. “Everything is gonna be okay.”

A small smile appeared on her lips and she let out a small huff of a laugh. Then, quickly as it had come, it disappeared. “You didn’t stay with me, you… you left.”

“What? No, I’m here, Max. I’m right here with you.”

“No you left, I… you tricked me,” she said, and her eyes fluttered open. “You tricked me, you… I didn’t like it.”

With that, she closed her eyes again.

Apparently, Gladstone had already called for medics, because before he knew it, Miles was being ushered away from Maxine as a team came in to assess her situation.

“Sir, it’s crowded down here. I’m gonna need you to come with me,” said a cop voice behind him.

Miles blinked, and the whole room around him seemed to come off mute. Jill and Ernie were frantically telling their stories to two officers. Orlando and the henchmen had been removed. David was being carried up the stairs. Brooks was being loaded onto a soft stretcher with Gladstone by his side.

“Sir?”

Miles spun to see a kind young cop with his hand out, inviting Miles to walk on ahead of him up the stairs.

“Uh, is it possible I could stay with her? At least where I can see her?” he said, motioning to Maxine.

“Oh, is she your, um… er, are you two…”

Miles turned to look at Maxine, then back to the cop. “Not exactly, but my God do I hope so.”

The cop’s mouth turned up in a small smile on one side. “Say no more, we can talk right over here.”

𓂃🖊 

There were people talking, but this time, Maxine was pretty sure the voices weren’t in her head.

She’d been having a series of insane dreams, including one where she’d awoken in her apartment, only for it to meld into a Willy Wonka-esque hellscape as her bed became a boat she was sent drifting down a river of chocolate. Scenes from her life played on old-timey projectors on the walls of the cave as she floated past, primary among them being the break-in she’d foolishly attempted to find out information about her father, and her subsequent time in juvie. Then there was Gladstone’s face, informing her that she was aware of these incidents, yet didn’t seem totally disapproving of who Maxine was as a person. Brooks was featured, a scene from the day she finally saw him after he’d disappeared, telling her there was no way he could ever be kidnapped. Then there was Miles, telling her he’d left his card in her wallet after he’d returned it to her.

Her dreams were melding into reality, however, because what caused her to know she was awake in real life was the recognition of familiar voices in the room. She opened her mouth to speak, but her throat was so dry that all that came out was some kind of death rattle.

“Eenie! Oh my gosh don’t try to talk. Arden, give me the water!”

Maxine blinked her eyes open. The room swam into view slowly and she could make out four figures moving around like fuzzy blobs. One of the blobs mumbled something before moving out of the room, and she felt a pang of panic but didn’t know why. Soon, a cup was being held to her lips and icy water flooded her mouth. She drank it like it was the elixir of life.

A new blob hustled into the room, a loud one. It turned out to be a nurse who’d been brought in to check her vitals. A hospital. She was in a hospital.

“Alright, you all need to clear out, I’ll let you know when you can come see her.”

“Oh, but her husband can stay, can’t he?” a male voice said.

Maxine felt her brow scrunch. Maybe she was still dreaming.

“If he sits over there and keeps quiet this time, sure.”

There were some mutterings Maxine couldn’t make out, and then the shuffling of feet and a door closing.

The door opened again almost immediately and other medical staff members came in to begin doing all manner of poking and prodding. 

Through it all, Maxine managed to open and close her eyes enough to clear her vision a bit. With each blink, the former blob seated in a chair in the corner came into sharper focus.

She felt her heart swell at the sight of Miles, staring worriedly back at her.

Suddenly it made sense. She wasn’t dreaming, she was in a hospital bed and Miles was there, having pretended to be her spouse just to be allowed entry.

A smile tugged at her lips. “Hello, husband,” she said.

She watched as he took a deep breath, then let it out on a huff as his face fell into his hands. Then, he was looking at her again with a watery smile.

The moment was interrupted by nurse whoever saying, “Well, her memory seems good if she recognizes him, that’s a great sign. Betty, can you call neurology and have them come run their protocol?”

“Sure thing,” said Betty, whom Maxine hadn’t even seen the face of because she was too focused on her would-be husband staring at her like she was some ineffable sunset.

“Sorry, handsome, but they’re gonna kick you out when they come in, so you better say your goodbyes for now.”

As Miles stood and moved towards her, something else occurred to Maxine and she sucked in a startled breath.

“Brooks!”

“Is fine,” Miles said, holding up two hands. “I promise, I know it looked bad, well, bad enough that you fainted, but it was just a flesh wound. Aside from being grumpy, he’s all good.”

The tears that flooded Maxine’s eyes were instantaneous and unstoppable. She scrunched up her face and let out shuddering breaths as swirls of relief coursed through her. Then there were warm lips pressed against her forehead, and a strong hand in hers.

Next to her ear, Miles’s soft voice whispered, “You did great. Everyone is okay. Gladstone got the bad guys. You’re awake and everything’s gonna be okay.”

Maxine couldn’t respond verbally, so she just nodded repeatedly, continuing to let the tears flow out of her.

A knock at the door announced the arrival of the neurology team.

“Oh yes, tears are quite normal after a concussion,” someone said, but all she could focus on was the sudden loss of warmth as Miles stood.

He still had her hand in his, which he squeezed gently before saying, “I’m gonna go let him know you’re okay, though I bet Eash and the crew are already up there.”

“They’re here? My roommates?”

With a small laugh, he said “Yeah, ain’t that some shit? They were just getting discharged when we arrived.”

“Alright, that’s enough story-time, let’s let the doctor do her job, hmm?” said nurse whoever.

Maxine watched him walk away, and as the neurologist began asking her for her full name and the current year, she delayed answering as she leveled a soft smile at Miles until he disappeared through the door.