Lone Runner (On HOLD)

Chapter 8

When I woke up all three of them were just watching TV. Gabe was laying with me and Robbie and Gabi were sitting on the other bed.

“Hey babe, you good?” Gabe asked right after he kissed me.

I tapped his nose and watched it wrinkle, “Yeah baby.”

“Oh yeah I’m good too, thanks for asking honey cakes,” Robbie was smiling and staring straight at Gabe.

Gabi pushed him off the bed and said, “Leave them alone you idiot.”

I got up laughing and Gabe ran to Robbie and they started play wrestling. Gabi and I started talking about Victor now that we were both calm.

“Gabi… did he ever uhm record you guys?” I asked curiously.

She thought about it for a while, “Once he did, but then he burned it up. Like that day he was panicking, actually it was the same day Lydia died.”

“Oh my god…” I said as I pulled out the note Lydia had left the day of her suicide.

Gabi looked at me weird, “What?”

I handed her the note and said, “She left it for the family and I never gave it to them, I kept it because I felt like she was trying to send a message, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it! And now that you told me what happened that day, I know what she meant in the part that says that Victor had won the battle.”

“How?” She asked curiously.

“She lost all hope, she felt like that was the only chance they had.. and they lost it.” I couldn’t help but feel so shitty, that if I would have listened to her the days she needed me… but I didn’t.

It’s like Gabi knew what I was thinking and she said, “Listen, don’t hurt yourself by blaming it all on you for not being there for her. I knew a lot more and I didn’t speak up when I had to. I beat myself up thinking about how I could have been with her that night and she would still be here.. but It wasn’t good for me to do that to myself. Now all that I can do is prove this Son of a Bitch did all this shit to us and he has to pay for it.”

I sighed loudly, “You’re right.”

“Hell yeah she is right,” Gabe started as he walked over and put his arm around my waist and pulled me close into his body. Then he continued, “He wanted to fuck with you, but he couldn’t so he went for Gabi once he had Lydia.”

Robbie was standing behind Gabi just nodding at everything we were saying. I couldn’t help but notice that he was getting really mad every time one of us said something. “Robbie, what are you thinking of?” I asked him and both Gabe and Gabi looked back at him.

He looked up and was I guess sort of surprised I put him out there like that, “Well uhm, there’s just one thing that I can’t put my finger on.”

“What is it?” I asked confused, because we had covered a lot already that there was nothing left to say.  

He looked at Gabi who was now facing him completely, “Why didn’t you ever say anything. Like I hear you say you wish you could have done ‘this and that’ but why didn’t you?”

Gabe spoke up now and he tried not to mean when he answered pointing out the obvious, “Bro… do you not see what happened to me and Rosa?” Gabe had me in front of him now pushing me towards Robbie, “She could have been dead and you’re asking that type of question?”

I got sort of mad now because Gabe ended up being a big douche about it, but I didn’t say anything because Robbie was also being a douche.

Robbie got closer and now I was in between both of them arguing, “Listen I understand that you guys got hurt, but that was because RosaLinda didn’t go home.”

“It was because I slipped her that stupid note!” Gabi pulled me out of the suffocating space I was caught in. But then she put herself right in the middle and continued talking, “I told her they were watching me, I just didn’t think they were watching me as close as they were. When I got home that day, I had to do the usual, get ready for VIctor to pick me up. When he did we didn’t go to his office, he took me to some alley and started yelling at me. Guys he had a gun in his hand just waving it around saying ‘I swear Gabriela if you said a fucking word to anyone I’m going to kill you, and I literally will.’ He just kept pacing back and forth mumbling words to himself. Then he got inside the car and told me to wait where I was.He made two phone calls and I tried to make words out of his mouth moving and all I got was the very last sentence of his second phone call, ‘Kill them.’ He came out told me to get in and took me back home.”

“Kill who? Who’d he call?” Robbie asked.

Gabe was just standing there with his arms folded thinking, and you could tell that he was lost in his thoughts.

I was trying to put everything that she just said together, “Us.”

“What?” Gabi asked looking at the guys and then at me.

Gabe looked straight up and knew what I meant, “As in not just my dad or me, but you too.”

“Uhm guys fill us in please,” Robbie said walking closer to us.

I realized we had been standing near the door for the past half hour and he kept moving from where we were to the other side of the room. I looked up at Gabe and told them, “Kill them… kill us,” I said pointing back and forth at me and Gabe.

Gabe continued explaining, “This morning my dad told me that Victor had called him asking for Linda but he told him that she wasn’t there, not long after we get shot up.”

Gabi was facing Gabe with her hands were on her mouth, “Your dad was the first call.”

“And that guy I stabbed and shot was the second call,” I was talking but I felt like I was out of it.

“Damn,” those were the only words that came out of Robbie’s mouth.

I just kept thinking about everything, going over everything we knew, everything we had been through in just a few days. I looked around the room and met with the stare of all three of them. “He knew we were on to him, he knew I was on to him. He knows me better than I know myself. He knows that I’m capable of finding everything I need to put his ass in jail, even if I don’t know how yet. He knows, he’s scared, he’s at his weakest point,” I knew that we had to set up a trap now, I had to put my own life at risk with what I was thinking… but I didn’t care. I continued, “He wanted me first, he want me ONLY. Dead or alive, he didn’t care he just wanted me… and that’s what he’s going to get.”