• Chapter Five
    Friday, July 10th, 2010. Asher Home

    That night I sit on the top bunk of our bed. It feels weird, being on the top with Del on the bottom, but she couldn’t get up with her crutches. As I lay there I hear Del tossing and turning, and that just adds to my feeling of something being wrong.
    But is something really wrong? I’m starting to doubt myself. But that look in Del’s eyes… could it just be stress from what happened to her? Or is she really lying?
    I start to wonder if what happened to Del is connected to what happened to me. If she is lying. Or even if she isn’t. And the more I wonder about it the more I think it is. Finally, I can’t avoid it any longer.
    “Del?” I ask quietly.
    “Yeah Phoenix?”
    I hesitate, not sure how to say this. “Del, I need you to promise me something.”
    “Sure.”
    I sigh slowly. “Del, I need you to promise me that you’re telling the truth about what happened to you.”
    There’s a moment of silence and Del takes a sharp breath. Normally she would’ve been all over me, asking me how on earth I could think she was lying! But only if she was really telling the truth.
    “You are lying, aren’t you,” I say slowly. “You lied to me…”
    “It’s not like that!” Del says sharply. “I had to do it…”
    I catch my breath. She did lie. I feel like I had believed it, but now I know it’s really true. She lied to me…
    “Del…” I whisper, “…what really happened?”
    Now I’m not sure if I want to know. Not sure if I want to get myself into this… whatever ‘this’ is.
    Del takes a deep breath and I hear her roll over.
    “I can’t tell you,” she says. “I want to Phoenix! Please believe I wish with all my heart I could tell you.”
    I can tell she means it. I feel so bad for her, holding whatever happened to her inside herself. It’s something neither of us is used to, and I know I need to tell her what happened to me just as much as she needs to tell me what happened to her.
    “Del, I do believe you,” I say. “I don’t know what happened to you, and I don’t know if it has anything to do with what happened to me. But I can tell you what happened to me.”
    Del sits straight up below me. “What happened to you?” she asks, the edge in her voice showing the grave seriousness of the situation. I know I have to tell her. And so I do. As I tell her everything from Bret Araus’ call to the gunshots in the parking lot I hear Del lay back down slowly, and I can only begin to wonder what’s going through her head right now. It’s weird, not knowing what she’s thinking.
    “I can’t believe…” she starts, but then stops. There’s silence for a few moments, and I stare at the ceiling, waiting for Del’s response.
    “Something’s going on here,” Del says. “And it involves us and the ring.”
    “The ring?” I ask.
    Del sighs. I can tell she can’t hold back what happened to her any longer.
    “When I went to sell the ring last night no one was there,” she starts. “I was listening to my iPod, waiting… before I knew it an hour and a half had passed. So I left because I figured he wasn’t coming.”
    “I knew you were there!” I interrupt excitedly. “I went there and I found your pen there! I knew it was yours because of the smiley face I drew on it!”
    “You’re such a little snoop!” Del says playfully, but I can hear the pride in her voice. I smile at her praise.
    “So, what happened after you left?” I ask, still on the edge of my seat about the whole matter.
    “Well, I walked for a little ways and it started getting dark. I walked past this driveway and there was a car in it, back a ways. All of a sudden the car turned on and ran into me. I was starting to black out so this part is still a little fuzzy to me, but I remember the guy who hit me coming over and yelling at me about the ring. He wanted it; bad. Then all of a sudden there were… gunshots. The guy got into his truck and ran, and then I blacked out.”
    “That’s awful,” I whisper. So the getting hit by a car part was true, but…
    “What does this all have to do with the ring…?” I wonder out loud.
    “I’m still trying to figure that part out,” Del says. “Anyways, the next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital the next morning. The nurse came in and told me I was hit by a car the night before and that I was at the Messan Hospital.”
    “I’ve never heard of that hospital before,” I say, more to myself than to Del.
    “I think it was planned that way,” Del says. “Then the nurse told me that my dad brought me in, which made no sense whatsoever. Then she told me that she’d go get him, and that just blew me away. Like, ‘he’s still here?’”
    I laugh. “I know, that really sounds out of place.”
    “So the nurse brings in this guy. He says something to her and she leaves and shuts the door. He’s tall, has ginger colored hair, blue eyes and light skin. He starts talking and he has a Russian accent. He says his name is Yassen Gregorovich, and that’s all he can tell me. I ask him if he’s the one who shot at the guy who hit me and he says ‘maybe yes, maybe no’. He tries small talk, you know, ‘how are you feeling, does your leg hurt much,’ but I’m still wondering about who this guy is. But any questions I ask him he kind of slips out of and changes the subject. Finally I give up and ask him what happened to me. I guess when that guy hit me he broke my leg. The doctors had put me under- more than I already was- and fixed me up that night. But from what I can tell Yassen is the one that brought me to the hospital posing as my dad and admitting me under a different name. After we talked in the morning he let me be and I rested for most of the day. Probably the drugs still wearing off is my guess. But I got the feeling he was still there, even when he said he was leaving. I remember seeing him walk by a couple times, getting coffee, walking by again. It was weird, knowing that he was there but not really seeing him. The next day I was more awake, and the nurse and doctor had me walking around on the crutches. Yassen walked me through the hospital for a while, and again I tried to find out who he was. When that subject didn’t work, I turned back to the night I got hit. I knew he was somehow involved, and I still think he’s the one that shot at the guy. But he wouldn’t give me any direct answers. He kept avoiding the subject or giving these really vague answers that didn’t make any sense. At one point I said ‘someone out there tried to kill me, and it all has to do with the ring. I want to know who it was, and how you’re involved in all this.’ He told me there was nothing for him to say about the matter; again one of those vague answers. I got angry at him. I was really frustrated. We were outside and there weren’t any people around, so I yelled at him. He turned to me and he had this look on his face… He… It scared me, Phoenix. It really scared me. He said ‘As you say, you don’t know me. I don’t want to hurt you or your sister or any of your family. But keep in mind that I can.’ I was scared, Phoenix. He knew that. He told me never to talk about what happened again, not even with you. The next day the hospital discharged me and Yassen drove me home. When we were in the car near the house he asked me if I could manage to the door from where we were. I said yes. Then he reminded me not to tell anyone what had happened. I told him I wouldn’t. I got out and he drove away.
    “I have to tell you Phoenix,” Del says slowly, “when I saw you running out of the house I almost told you everything. I wanted to so badly. But I knew Yassen was serious about this. I’m so sorry… I just couldn’t risk it.”
    I sigh slowly, rolling over. My head is spinning from what Del just told me. Once again I feel like this is all something out of a movie. It’s just too strange to be true. But the worst part is it’s all true, every last word. And I know that.
    “I can’t believe you went through all that,” I whisper. There’s a small pause as both of us think about what Del’s been through.
    “You’re good at lying, you know that?” I quip. Del tries to smother a loud laugh and snorts. That gets us both going of course. We giggle and tease each other for a while, just like we used to, just like we always will; just like we would if things were back to normal.
    Will anything ever be normal? As that thought goes through my head I try to crush it out, try to ignore it. But it still lingers somewhere in the back of my mind.
    “Phoenix,” Del says, shaking me from my thoughts.
    “Yeah Del?”
    I hear Del chuckle slightly. “You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?”
    I nod. “Yeah, I do. But go ahead and say it anyways,” I say, leaning over the side of the bed so I can see Del. She looks surprised.
    “Are you sure?” she asks. I nod again.
    She shakes her head. “No, I don’t think we’re thinking the same thing.”
    I smile. “You want to find out who tried to kill you to get the ring and who shot at him. You want to find out who Yassen Gregorovich is and what Bret Araus has to do with all of this.”
    Del looks flabbergasted. “And… you’re okay with that?” she asks, dumbfounded.
    I nod slowly. “Before you came back I knew I had to do something. With you gone I was completely lost. But I knew I had to do something. Now that you’re back, you know what to do. And I’m ready to do it.”
    Del starts to smile, and it just gets wider and wider. “Alrighty then,” she says. “So I do the planning and you do the doing!”
    I reach my hand down to shake hers. “Deal?”
    Del smiles and grabs my hand, shaking it hard.
    “Deal.”