“What’s that you said back then?” I say quietly and give Galaki a sharp look to make sure he’s keeping up. “You said it would toughen me up. I hated you so much, but over the years I began to think you were right. I learned that I could suffer and suffer deeply and still come out the other side alive, and that’s a very valuable thing to understand. I learned how to take pain, but I began to think all I’d ever have was pain. My whole life was suffering, and maybe that’s all life was for everyone, only suffering and misery and death and killing. But I figured something out recently. You know what I figured out?”
“No, son. Why don’t you tell me, since we’re about to die anyway?”
“I learned that life doesn’t have to be fucking miserable.” We reach the end of the park and start down the street. Two blocks to go. “There’s joy to living. There’s good in the world. You pulled a black hood over my head and made me think I was nothing, but I’m something. I’m worth something.”
“Did the girl teach you that? Oh, don’t look at me that way. I’m not an idiot. I noticed how you stared at her at Demetrios’s house.”
“Don’t talk about Adrienne.”
“Women come and go, Peter. I thought you were smarter than that. We don’t have long now, they’ll hit us very shortly, I suspect. What’s the plan, Peter? Just going to daydream about some lovely snatch and hope Rastus gets lazy?”
I look at Galaki. The poor pilot’s pale white and trembling. “When I say run, you run. Understand me?”
He nods quickly. “Yes, but—”
“That’s your plan?” Father laughs. “Run? You think that’ll be enough?”
“Be ready,” I tell Galaki. Father’s right, we’re almost there. One block to go. I can practically feel the Filos closing in.
“I’m so disappointed in you Peter. You had so much promise. You were smart and strong and so damn loyal. What happened?”
“You happened,” I say softly. “The war happened. All my dead friends happened.” I grab Father’s arm and stop him. I make him turn around to face me as I press the gun against his chest. “I’m sorry. I wish it could’ve been different.”
His eyes widen. “Peter—”
Time’s up. In the corner of my eye, I see two men coming at us from across the street.
“Bye, Dad.”
I pull the trigger.
The gun goes off and Father drops. Blood spurts from a wound near his heart. I’m not sure if he’s dead or dying or what, and I don’t have time to stop. There are pedestrians and a full cafe twenty feet away. Patrons scream and panic, and people run in every direction, fleeing from tables, sprinting into the street. There’s a wild stampede, and in the chaos, I grab Galaki’s arm.
We start running.
The Filo thugs have to fight their way through the crowds. I don’t slow down when I hear them yelling. They won’t shoot, not now that there are a dozen people with their phones out recording everything. I’m a wanted man now and I just shot my father, but fuck, I’m still breathing. I go faster, dragging Galaki along behind me, until we reach the little rental car I have stashed at the end of the block. I throw Galaki inside, jump behind the wheel, and fire up the engine.
Gunshots ring out. The back windshield shatters. There are more screams and I slam down on the accelerator. So much for the Filo fuckers being careful. More people scatter in all directions and I nearly run over a young girl in a green jumpsuit. Instead, I swing the car left and speed off, going faster and faster, until we’re blocks away, and the sound of shouting and gunfire disappears in the distance.
Galaki’s sitting in the passenger seat trembling like a dog scared of thunder.
And I laugh.
A crazed, wild, unhinged laugh.
I made it out. I made it alive.
And my father’s gone.
I shot him right there in the street. Maybe he’ll survive and maybe not, it all depends on what the bullet hit and how fast he can get to a hospital, but none of it matters.
The second I pulled that trigger is the second I chose to leave him and everything I used to know behind for good.
I might as well have turned that gun on my own head.
My uncle will come for me now. All my old friends still alive will hate me.
I’m a fucking traitor.