Five Survive

by Holly Jackson

Oliver’s face rearranged, softening between the eyebrows, a twitch in his lower lip, pulling at his chin. His eyes glazed, almost with the threat of tears, and he looked down before anyone could see. But Red saw, she was watching. And she knew that feeling better than anyone. The guilt a physical pain in your gut, twisting and twisting, like a hunger that never ended. The hot-faced feel of shame. And, despite everything, Red didn’t want Oliver to feel that way, to feel like she did. She wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

“It wasn’t my fault.” Oliver cut her off, the words rasping into empty sounds in her throat. “He hit me first. I was just defending Reyna. He hit me first. It wasn’t my fault.” He repeated it, like it was important she understood that. They weren’t the same, she and him, and she shouldn’t make that mistake again. That was what he meant. But Red hadn’t even got to explain what she meant, who’d died because of her.

“I’m sorry. I loved him,” Reyna whispered, a pair of silent tears. Red backed up another step. Maybe Reyna shouldn’t have said that, not right here right now, but clearly she’d been holding this in for a very long time. It only took a man with a rifle to bring it to the surface.

A flutter in his voice, hidden just beneath the rage. He was frightened, wasn’t he? That was what this was. Underneath those too-wide shoulders and golden-brown eyes, and red-flushed skin, Oliver was scared. By the time it reached the surface, though, it had twisted itself into anger, for cover.

Red lowered the walkie-talkie, glancing across at the other side of the RV, catching Maddy’s eye. They held on for two long seconds. There was something new there, a strange shift in Maddy’s eyelids, a glaze like panic across them. A look Red didn’t recognize, and she knew all of Maddy’s faces. What was wrong?

“Maybe six or seven months. Since the start of senior year.” Why was she answering, why was she helping Oliver? Couldn’t she recognize the danger back in his eyes? Didn’t she feel it up the back of her neck?

“Red,” Oliver said, turning her name ugly in his mouth, full of hard edges. “You have to leave the RV.”

We need to give him what he wants, and he wants Red!”

She didn’t want to die. She wasn’t ready. And, oh god, she’d know it was coming, just like her mom did, lifetimes of regret and guilt and anger and hate in those last few seconds of life. No one’s world would fall apart without her, though, at least that was one good thing.

“On some level. You must have known this was a possibility when you agreed to testify, Red. I mean, this is the Philly mob we’re talking about, what did you think was going to happen?” Not this, never this. No one was ever supposed to find out her name, Catherine told her that.

“You need to accept what’s happening here. There’s nothing the rest of us can do. You know it, don’t you, you know you have to leave the RV to save the rest of us. To protect Maddy. She’s your best friend, isn’t she? You’ve known each other all your lives. Save her.”

“I’m sorry, Red,” Oliver said, voice too flat, too normal in this most un-normal time and place. It happened so fast. Oliver lunged at her, arms coiling around her waist, iron-tight, pinning down her arms.

But Oliver couldn’t be stopped. He wasn’t sorry. That was what he’d said, before he threw Red out of the RV, but he hadn’t meant it. He couldn’t.

“Why are you immune? He killed that old couple out there. He shot at Simon in the mirror. Would shoot any of us if we tried to leave the RV, but he didn’t shoot you, Red. And there’s only one reason why.” “What?” Red said, because she wanted to know too.

If Maddy couldn’t refuse her brother, then Red could do it for both of them. She could do that. Maddy took care of her and now it was Red’s turn.

She didn’t move, hands still raised. Red had known Oliver all her life, but she didn’t know this version of him, the person the red dot had turned him into, pushing him to the farthest point. But it must have always been there, somewhere inside, this Oliver. Dormant, waiting until he was needed. He didn’t even look like himself anymore, hair greasy with sweat, pushed back in chaotic clumps, skin red and blotchy, those puppet strings making his head hang sideways on his neck again as he studied Red back.

His sister was dying and he was the one who sent her out there. Did he feel that guilt, or was he leaving it all to Red? She should have tried harder to stop him, maybe Oliver wouldn’t have actually used the knife. Why didn’t Red try harder?

Red’s eyes stayed down there with the broken walkie-talkie, not looking up. Because she knew that hand, the one that came out of nowhere. Knew the black scribbled check mark and boxes by his knuckles, matching the ones on hers. It was Arthur.

One sniper. One gun. One red dot. And one liar. This whole time. Red stared at him but he looked like a different person now.

“My name is Arthur,” he said, pausing, eyes flicking to Red, latching on. “Arthur Gotti.”

“She’s not because my father did not kill Joseph Mannino. He wasn’t there that day, on the waterfront. And neither was Red.”

But she was, if he put it like that, and so was Red. Weren’t they all, in some way? Had Oliver forgotten that they all knew his secret now? That he’d killed someone four months ago. How could what she and Catherine did be worse than that?

“You okay?” Arthur asked her. “You don’t care,” she replied. He looked hurt by that, a flicker by his mouth.

But Red needed the money, and she needed somebody else to blame, and there Catherine was, giving her both. Everything she needed, to fix herself, fix everything. But now the plan was gone, dead, it only worked if no one knew.

Arthur, who had been lying to her from the moment they met last September? Because he’d needed to meet her, for his own plan. Of course he’d shown interest in her, laughed at her jokes, offered her rides home, charmed her with kind words and kinder eyes, she’d been his mark. What an idiot she was to think there was anything else there.

But something was stirring in her gut, hot, sharp, goring through her as it climbed her spine to whisper in her ear: Catherine betrayed you, Catherine gave up your name months ago. No, Catherine couldn’t be the one who gave up her name just days after coming to her, asking her to be the witness. Catherine would know what giving up Red’s name meant; that they would kill her.

She didn’t want to believe it, but it was there, it was all right there and Red had to face it. It was never a plan that belonged to Red, they weren’t in it together, the two of them; it was one of Catherine’s win-win plans, and Red had just been a pawn, thrown away like she was expendable, disposable.

The exact sound she’d heard during that last phone call with Mom, the phone call that changed everything, ripped the world apart. This was it. It wasn’t a doorbell, because the police were right; it couldn’t be. It was a ringtone. Catherine Lavoy’s ringtone.

“Your mom was there. You must have called her when she was there. Why did she never say she was there? Mom was dead within ten minutes, so your mom, I don’t…”

Arthur looked across at Red, eyes wide behind his glasses, arm shifting at his side like he might reach out to wrap it around her, hide her away.

“Mom was investigating the organized crime group when she died,” Red said, the words coming out as she thought them. “Your family, Arthur. Maybe she realized there was a leak from the DA’s office, maybe she figured out that it was Cather—”

It was Catherine Lavoy. Catherine Lavoy murdered her mom. Made her get on her knees. Shot her twice in the back of the head with her own service weapon. It was Catherine. Mom’s best friend.

It all made sense now, all of it. The way Maddy flinched whenever the word mom was said in front of Red. Because she knew what had happened to her. She might have had doubts, but she knew, deep down, she knew who had taken Red’s mom away. Maddy always took care of Red, paid for her lunch when Red couldn’t, found her lost things, so many lost things over the years, mothered her, all because she knew. Her job, her responsibility.

It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know what would happen after that phone call. She didn’t hate her mom and Mom must have known that, there on her knees at the end of all things, as Catherine aimed the gun at the back of her head. Mom was Red’s world, her whole world, and she must have known that, she must have felt it somehow, because that was how love worked. It wasn’t Red’s fault.

She’d replaced her mom with the guilt and the shame and the blame. They’d become part of her, a limb, an organ, a chain around her neck. Red thought she needed them to live, but she didn’t, because it wasn’t her fault and she didn’t need them anymore. She cried and it wasn’t all because of Maddy or because of Catherine and the truth. She cried because she could finally forgive her mom for dying, and forgive herself too.

I’m sorry for every hurt I caused you. I’m sorry I didn’t try harder to protect you. I’m sorry I never got to tell you. I’m sorry I never kissed you. I’m sorry that I’m writing this letter and it’s all too late. I’m sorry I left you there, bleeding on the road. I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I ran, I should have stayed and held your hand. It should have ended with you and me.

That’s why I did it, Red. I always promised I’d never kill anyone.

I don’t know if you were just saying it in anger, because Oliver was there, but you said you wanted her to die on her knees, scared and alone, like she did to your mom.

That was my goodbye, I guess, my way of fixing it, taking her out of the world, so at least if you were gone then she was gone too.

I’m sorry if I made the wrong choice, I’m sorry if that’s not what you wanted. I’m sorry that any of us had to make these hard choices in the first place.