No Way (#Wattys2015)

Chapter 18

Antonio

Ella is nervous and I can tell in the way she's chewing her lip, the way she's squeezing my hand a little bit tighter than she usually does, the way she's staring straight ahead. But she's not nervous for herself or even her friends. She's nervous about me.

"Where're we going?" I ask for nearly the fifth time.

And for nearly the fifth time, she answers, "Somewhere safe."

I sigh as she once again goes quiet. As we walk by a garbage can, she uses the bottom of her shirt to pull out her cell phone and drop it into the garbage can.

"What are you-" I attempt to ask but she groans and cuts me off.

"Will you please, just shut up and trust me?" she snaps, looking up at me, frowning.

I nod, realizing that I was only succeeding in making her even more nervous and even more tense. After a couple more blocks of walking, Ella drags me into an alleyway and gestures for me to remain quiet as she unlocks a heavy metal door then ushers me in and props the door open with a trashcan. Inside, it's dark and I can't see anything until Ella flicks on the lights.

I blink a couple times, taking in my surroundings.

There's a round table in the middle of the room and on the left side of the room there's some beds and some cots. On the other side of the room there's a couch and stuffed chairs with a TV and radio. The room is dimly lit by only one light that's right above the table. And off in a far far corner, is a refrigerator and a stove and a microwave. Everything looks dingy and poorly kept and old.

"There's a bathroom over there." Ella points to a door that I didn't notice earlier. "Make yourself at home."

I look over at her, wide eyed, as she drops the backpack on floor but pulls out all of the things they had bagged at my house. I haven't got a chance to look at any of them. She sits down at the table and begins to look through the papers and files again.

I'm still standing in the same spot, watching her, wondering how she's so calm.

I say her name.

She doesn't look up.

I say her name louder.

She squirms in her chair some.

I shout her name.

She looks up.

We stare at each other.

She stands up and hugs me tightly as I begin to sob, burying my face into her hair.

"It's okay, baby. It's okay. I know it hurts and I know it's scary, but I'm here for you. I won't let anyone hurt you." she whispers. She walks me over to the couch and sits on my lap, stroking my face and looking at me, softly. Her blue eyes watch me intently, in them, I can see she's worried about me.

"La-" I try to say, still crying.

"Shhh, baby." she mutters, still stroking my cheek. She kisses my tears away, softly, gently, as if she'll hurt me. She always acts that way with me: carefully. Her touches and looks and kisses are always soft and tentative, as if she's afraid she'll actually do me harm.

"Ella, stop." I whispered into her ear.

She jerks her head back, looking at me, slightly hurt, slightly offended, sort of angry. "What?"

"Stop acting like I'm breakable, like you'll hurt me or break me or something. Kiss me like you mean it. Act like I mean something." I brush hair away from her face, leaning my forehead against her's.

"Antonio," she breathes. "You don't just mean something. You mean everything to me."

And with that, her lips crash against mine. And I kiss back. And even though so many people are dead, we kiss and we kiss like we mean it. My fingers tangle in her hair and her hands grip my shirt tightly. In this moment, no one was dead, no one was trying to kill each other. In each other's arms, we're safe, we're at home. Even though there's a gun and illegal money just a few feet away, we manage to forget about it, we manage to let go.

When we finally pull away, taking deep breaths, still tangled in each other's arms, I smile at her and kiss her head.

"I love you."

I look at her, surprised.

I expect to see her face, shutting down and her pulling away, claiming she didn't mean to say it. But instead, I see her smiling at me, her blue eyes honest and shining bright, staring directly at me.

I relax and kiss her nose. "I love you too."

She lays her head on my chest and I stroke her hair, humming softly. Ella's breathing slows down and becomes evener as she fall asleep in my arms. I kiss her head and whisper, "Goodnight, sweetie."

The sound of her breathing and our hearts beating sync manages to lull me to sleep too.

"Yes, cause that's smart. Sleeping when there's some gang leader that wants you dead."

Ella and I jolt awake and nearly falling off the couch, causing Sam, Jamie, and Adam to howl with laughter. Gabriel laughs, Caine chuckles and shakes his head, Claudia just looks around wide eyed, and Jamie and Shauna glare at all of them, disapprovingly.

"You do realize that this is no joke. We are being hunted by our own gang leader. They shouldn't be sleeping on the couch and you shouldn't be laughing about it. Table. Now." Shauna snaps, slipping off her jacket, sitting down. Ella crawls off my lap and sits next to her.

Back to business.

After everyone is sitting down, Ella explains the situation but then everyone starts to ask questions, shouting over each other. Ella raises her eyebrows and waits and waits. Finally everyone realizes what's she doing and becomes silent.

"Okay. So. The plan is tomorrow I'm going to meet with Gilver and confront him and then I'm going to go the boxing match that he was going to pull me out of and we'll see what we can get out of those, okay?" Ella tells them.

"That's your brilliant plan?" Claudia asks, looking partially angry and very frustrated.

Ella raises her eyebrows. "What? Do you have a better one?"

Claudia sputters and stammers but doesn't say anything more. Ella smiles, standing up, nodding at Shauna who announces, "Dismissed! Go get some sleep! Tomorrow will be a long day!"

Ella walks over to me, wrapping her arms around my waist and kissing me.

"It'll all be over soon, but for now let's go to bed." she says and I smile, laying on the couch with her, burying my face in her neck and closing my eyes, drifting off to sleep.