Page 63 of Archer
“Hey, someone get me a knife,” I said.
Ripper walked over, and while he headed toward me, I nodded to Ron lying on the desk, looking both ghostly white and blackened with bruises. The wound on his head looked awful and I said, “Ron needs help. I think maybe an actual hospital, not just Vet.”
“A vet?” Rose asked as I cut the ropes around her arms. “You’re taking my dad to thevet?”
“No, not the vet. Wrench’s girl is our designated unofficial medic, but…” Ron gave a loud, wheezy breath and I had to look back to the ropes. “I don’t think we should mess around with that.”
“Yeah,” Wrench said quickly and grabbed his phone from his pocket. “Let me call Samantha. She can take him.”
My knife slipped through the last rope that held her in place, and she broke free, falling into my arms. Once her feet hit the ground, I cupped her cheeks in my hands, whispering, “Oh thank god,” before wrapping my arms around her shoulders, squeezing her tightly. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d hugged someone like that. I must have been a child, hugging my mom before she passed away. That was the last time I was scared for someone’s life. Someone whose life I’d give my own for if it meant keeping them alive.
But we were both alive.
Staring back into her shining blue eyes as I pulled away, I said, “I’m not leaving you again.”
There was a moment where her eyes were squinted, but with a look of relief mixed with hesitancy, and I heard her breathe in sharply. But I couldn’t take a second to clarify my intentions of the line, because Ripper piped up with a question that was more important than my feelings for Rose.
“What are we going to do with…” Ripper looked around the room at Ghost and Shiver’s crumpled, dead bodies on the floor. “Erm, them?”
“Fuck,” I said under my breath and Rose’s eyes widened.
“Am I going to jail?” she asked with a shaky, high-pitched voice as she darted her eyes at the corpses and grabbed her sides of her head in her hands. “Oh my god, there’s a dead guy two feet away from me. Oh my god, I’m an accomplice to murder.”
“You’re not going to jail,” I said in a hushed voice, trying to soothe her but it seemed to do nothing.
Pointing at Ghost’s boots, she said, “Then my dad is! There’s two dead men on the floor of his bakery. Someone is going to jail!”
This time, Crow spoke, which made her clamp her lips shut to listen with intent. “No one’s going to jail.”
“How can you be so sure?” she asked.
Inspecting Ron’s wounds, Tank said, “I know what we need to do.”
“What?” Rose asked filled curiosity, but I knew exactly where they were heading with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“No. We can’t do that,” I said. “We can’t do thathere.”
“What else do you propose, huh?” Crow said. “Wait for the cops to get their hands on the crime scene? Catch all us?”
“It’s the only option we’ve got, Archer,” Rooster said, as he and Wrench began lifting Ron off the desk.
“What are you talking about?” Rose asked, growing impatient. I’d almost forgotten she didn’t know what we were planning. Running a hand through my hair which had become greasy with sweat, I looked at the floor that was covered in blood spatters. They were right.
“Rose, uh,” I said. “With the time we’ve got and the state of Ron, we’ve got to work fast. Once the hospital sees Ron, they’re gonna get the cops here fast. Stuff is going to be happening fast…”
“So, spit it out,” she said, then added, “Fast.”
Crow took it upon himself to answer for me, “We’re burnin’ this place down.”
With a dramatic gasp, Rose asked, “What?”
“Listen, Rose, we know how much this place means to you,” Archer said. “To your dad. But it’s covered in evidence and your dad didn’t exactly get in legal business with the Freeways…”
“Tell the cops it was a random act,” Wrench said once Ron was hanging safely off his and Rooster’s arms. “They looted you and lit the place on fire.”
“The pigs won’t doubt it for a second,” Crow said. “With all the killing they’ve been doin’ lately, they’ll just be relieved to see you got out all right. Play dumb, don’t mention the loan. Bunch of random thugs you’ve never seen before showed up, roughed you and your dad up, then lit the place on fire with two of their guys stuck inside.”
“They do it all the time, Rose,” I said. “Light buildings on fire after committing a crime. They won’t doubt it for a second.”
