You'll Never See Your Baby (t.e.c, pt. 1 - Short Story)

On a January morning, I slowly crawl out of bed. My head throbs in sync with my heartbeat, and every time I swallow, a wave of nausea spreads from my throat. Every bodily function feels impossible.

Holding my forehead, I decide for the 4th time this week that absolutely nothing is worth being hungover.

I stumble into the cold hallway of my apartment.

“Uly,” I call out.

I swing his door open, and he’s behind his computer with those awfully orange headphones on.

“ULYSSES!” I yell.

He whips around, startled. “Oh, hey bro!”

“Did you, um—” I point to my bedroom.

“Did I drag you out of Sparky’s last night and drive you home?”

“Man, thank you. I’m sorry. I got you next time.”

“No need.” Ulysses smiles at me. “I usually keep my clothes on when I get drunk.”

My jaw drops. “Uly, tell me you didn’t carry my naked body.”

“That’s what roommates are for right?” Uly turns back to his computer, laughing at me.

After I take a shower, I sit on the end of my bed and check my phone. There are tons of social media notifications about last night’s festivities, and after opening one video of me dancing shirtless on top of a table, I decide it’s not worth it. Before I shut my phone off, I notice a few missed calls from my sister.

I spring up from my bed and curse. Then I see a message from her at ten this morning:

answer ur phone. i think it’s a boy.

“Oh my God, you finally called,” Cris says into the phone when I call her.

“Are you seriously having a boy?”

“No, dummy, I’m only 4 weeks in, I don’t even know the gender,” Cris snaps. “But it’s good to know the only reason you check on me these days is because of my uterus.”

“What do you want?” I roll my eyes.

“Maxy-poo in a bad mood?” she teases.

“I’m always in a bad mood,” I retort. “Talk.”

“I need your help,” she says.

“With?”

“I’m going to kill Wolfie.”

***

When Cris finally makes it to my apartment, Uly comes out of his room and kisses her forehead.

“Hey, babe,” she says to him while staring at me still.

“How’s little U doing in there?” Uly pokes my sister’s stomach.

“We’re not naming our baby ‘Ulysses’,” Cris swats his finger away.

“Come onnnnn,” Uly says, looking genuinely offended.

“Hey, uh, big U? Could I get some time alone with my sister?” I interject.

“Oh!” Uly says. “Sorry. I, um, I’ll be right over here.”

He scurries into his room.

“Rude,” Cris says.

“Cris, are you insane?” I whisper.

“You have to let me explain.”

“Have you been doing deals again?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t say doing deals—”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I ask. “You’re going to be a mother!”

“And that’s why I’m doing this!” She yells. “Do you not want your freedom? You get a nice apartment and some fancy job, start going to parties every other night and forget that Wolfie literally won’t let us leave this city?”

“But we’re safe,” I plead. “We are so safe and we haven’t been safe in so long—"

“Is everything okay out here?” Uly peeks out of his room.

“Well, your girlfriend and I have been in a gang since we were teenagers, and now she wants to assassinate the biggest lord in the city,” I say flatly.

“Right, and I'm Elvis Presley.” Uly laughs.

Cris gives me a death stare, then turns to Uly. “He’s just mad at me about not calling mom. We’ll be fine.”

When Uly goes back into his room, Cris and I walk into mine and shut the door behind us.

“Just because we’re not getting our cars shot up doesn’t mean we’re safe, Max. I don’t want to be his gang slave. We’re trapped here and I want to have the freedom to do whatever I want whenever I want, with my child. Just hear me out, okay? We end Wolfie, frame his men for it, and then haul ass out of this city.”

“Jesus Christ, what about Uly? Huh? What about my job? We have a life here.”

“Starting over was never hard for us before. It won’t be hard this time. I’ll tell Uly everything. The whole story.”

“What if we fail?”

Cris looks at me. She brings her phone from her pocket. “We won’t fail.”

I take the phone from her, and on it is a picture of Eduardo, a well-known Fang. He’s flexing in the picture and tattooed on his bicep is a little Christmas present graphic, the symbol of the Elves. I look up at Cris.

“Eddie switched sides?”

“Keep scrolling,” she insists.

I swipe through the phone and see more and more faces of people with Elf tattoos.

Some of them I recognize from the streets.

“Everyone’s leaving,” I guess.

“Everyone’s leaving, Max,” Cris emphasizes desperately. “Wolfie’s Fangs are jumping ship from right under him, and he doesn’t even know. I only have proof because I did a deal to get these pictures. His numbers are dwindling, and if we can get inside the Den, we can overcome him. The Elves on the inside will help us, and we’ll finally be free.”

I stare at the phone. The hungover fog finally lifts from my head, leaving only fear, misery and frustration, and I wonder whether it would be a good change to not have to drink all that away all the time. If we killed Wolfie...

“You have to be considering it,” Cris says. She waves at the apartment. “There’s no way this is happiness. Not for you.”

We have a bit of a staring contest, and I try to understand the mess of emotions in my head.

“Call Nick,” I relent.

Cris exhales in relief and takes my hand. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet.”

***

A week of planning later, Cris and I stop by the Workshop, the hideout for the Elves.

Since Saint Nick, our gang leader would never ever agree on this move, Cris and I had to convince him that we needed guns and money for a heist mission. I secure a pair of Chinese Ring Daggers to my sides, and a taser in my back pocket. Cris stuffs a bunch of rifles into a duffel, and I gather food and first aid from the cabinets and place them in a backpack.

My sister and I get in the car and head out on our mission. As I drive past buildings and lights in the fading afternoon, Cris fiddles with her phone.

“Just do it,” I say.

“Shut up,” Cris snaps. “It’s harder than it looks.”

“Don’t you want him to be in your life?” I insist. “If we come back from this, everything is going to be totally different.”

“I know, I know, I just...” Cris holds her head in her hands. “How do you tell your boyfriend you’re in a gang?”

“You just leave the gang,” I keep my eyes on the road.

“You know, you can just say out loud that you hate being an Elf.”

I ignore her question. Something glistens into view down the road.

“What’s that?” I point ahead.

Cris looks out of the windshield at what looks like a roadblock.

A blue Ford truck is parked horizontally right in the middle of the two lanes, and two other cars are parked on opposite sides of the street. Men stand outside the vehicles.

“Elf checkpoint?” I ask Cris.

“No, all of our help is at the base already,” she reminds. “They move on our signal.”

The road we’re taking is an abandoned area, so it’s not unusual for people to be parked here. High schoolers come on this side of town to smoke and waste time almost every day. But if I’m not imagining it, it looks like these men are waiting for us.

“Just keep driving and hope they move out of the way,” Cris stammers.

“Cris, could the Fangs have known we were coming?” I panic.

“You know me,” she affirms. “No loose ends.”

“Everything is a loose end unless it’s dead,” I mutter.

As I approach the roadblock, I start to slow down, and hit the gas in intervals, so that

the car lurches randomly.

“What the hell?” Cris looks at me like I’m crazy.

“Play along. I need to check for tattoos.” I lift from the gas and pull the car to a slow stop, then get out of the car and slam the door with feigned anger.

“This is the crappiest car I’ve ever driven!” I yell. “Hey, guys?”

The men, now around thirty feet from us, look over at me.

“A little help over here?” I scan intently for tattoos of paws, the symbol of the Fangs, but the men are too far away. Originally, it looked like three, but 5 men come forward, one getting out of the parked car. Cris joins me on the street.

“Need a jump?” One of them asks. He’s taller than me, shirtless and skinny, but athletic looking. He is covered in tattoos, wearing black eyeliner under his eyes, and there seems to be a wicked smile tugging at one side of his face.

“No, I think it could be the transmission,” I lie.

“You don’t know jack about cars,” Cris whispers.

The men are sizing us up now, looking on and muttering to each other.

The skinny one walks up to me and stares in my face for a minute, then side-eyes my car. He moves over and lifts the hood of my car up, and right under his armpit, a hot pink wolf’s paw with black claws.

Damn it.

He whips out a revolver and blows two shots into my hood.

“Well, if it wasn’t before, it’s totally fucked now,” he smiles at me.

He lifts his gun to my head. As fast as lightning, I reach out and dig my thumb into the base of his palm. His shot flies above my head and the man’s hand goes numb. His gun clatters to the floor and Cris lunges for it.

I pull the Fang’s arm forward and twists it so that his back is to me, and I lift upward with all the strength in my back. His shoulder pops out of place and I kick him forward onto the road. He releases a guttural scream, and shots ring out all around us.

Somehow, Cris is back in the driver’s seat, picking off Fangs with a Glock. I see two go down, and the others hide behind their truck and shoot in our direction. I dive for the ground, and Cris slams gas. Our car zooms forward and T-bones the Ford, and I see a body dive clear, but the other one eats dirt.

I sprint after my sister and get intercepted by an insanely buff black woman with her gun trained between my eyes. She’s sneering at me, every single tooth covered in gold grills. I lift my hands in surrender. Suddenly, blood sprays from the left side of her head as she hits the ground.

“Holy crap, Cris,” I exhale. “I had it under control.”

“Like hell you did,” she calls out. She stumbles out of the car, toward me. “Is this thing going to explode?”

“Wait, there were five of them,” I pant. “You only took down three, and then the first guy—”

“Is going to be real pissed at you if you don’t surrender right now,” says a little boy who can’t be older than 16. He points a gun that looks too heavy for him at us, huddled behind one of the cars on the street.

“Nico!” the little boy calls out.

Down the street, Nico with the popped shoulder stumbles toward us, pure rage on his tomato-red face. Then he starts smiling again.

“Looks like we’re eating FUCKERS for dinner!” he wails.

I look over at my sister.

“Eh, eh!” Nico giggles and wags his index finger at us. “No sudden moves, little Elves. Josue here shot his first AK-47 at 10 years old. His aim is better than a blind dog's hearing.”

“Take us,” I say.

“Max, shut up,” Cris orders.

But I put my hands out in surrender. The Fangs like to tie up hostages like pigs, but when Nico approaches me, he instead swings his nails across my face wildly. I stumble backward from the blow, careful not to retaliate. Holding my bleeding cheek, I look at Cris, sending a silent message with my eyes: trust me.

Josue comes out and gives Nico a pistol to hold with his good hand, trained directly on Cris’s face, then ties up my sister and I. He walks over and pops Nico’s shoulder back into place, which Nico follows with a psychotic sort of scream-then-laugh sound.

They shove us into the backseat of one of the cars and pull off, leaving dead bodies and wrecked cars on the street.

Cris looks at me, and for the first time, I wonder whether I made a mistake. With our old entry plan out the window, there’s virtually no way for us to touch base with reinforcements. I still don’t know whether we’ve been captured because they knew we were coming, or because they just found two Elves on the street and thought that they’d take us home for supper.

It sometimes happens: Fangs threaten Saint Nick to move, or they torture information out of us, or they just kill us slowly because some of them are sick freaks on acid. Like Nico.

I think about the ball of tissue forming into a person in my sister’s stomach. She bickers with Nico, trying to pry answers out of him, but he continues to deflect and degrade her. I know her well enough to know that she isn’t the least bit afraid of what might happen, but that’s the difference between me and her.

“You’re boring,” Cris insults.

“Luckily for you,” Nico smiles. “The excitement’s coming soon.”

A few hundred feet ahead is a building structure large as a factory. Nico pulls the car over to the side of the road. Josue comes to the back with two blindfolds. Right as he’s putting the first one on Cris, she looks at me with a wild look in her eyes, but I can’t decide what she was trying to tell me.

Josue comes over and lifts his arms to tie my head, and I suck in a sharp breath. Right above his waistline, tiny and only evident when his shirt rides up, is an Elf tattoo.

***

After walking until my knees hurt, we are led through what feels like a bunch of tunnels and hallways. I hear footsteps. Sometimes there’s whispering, sometimes people cuss out loud at us. From what I can sense, we are moving upwards.

At some point, we are led to a stopping point. Nico whistles a shrill minor scale as he does what sounds like typing on a keypad. The grinding sound of metal unlocking and rolling fills the hallway, and cool air rushes over me. Doors have just opened.

Nico ushers me forward then shoves me to my knees, but to my surprise, my knees hit carpet.

“Once upon a time, there was a pup.”

Wolfie has one of those voices that sends chills down your spine, and not because it’s creepy or dark. It’s so full and present, that you have no choice but to shut up and listen.

But by the sound of my sister’s angered breathing, she has a lot of other ideas.

“The pup was left all alone at birth, so spent his childhood years running around with a stray pack. The pack was like family, but the more the pup grew, the more he realized his family was... less than righteous. The pup became a teenager, surrounded by spineless, cowardly thieves and murderers.

"The pup knew he was stronger, and braver, and knew that he could make a wolf pack much better than Saint Nick and all his sissy little Elves. Sadly, when the pup finally emerged into adulthood, there was a falling out—”

“A falling out?” Cris shouts. “You ruined everything and sent the Elves underground!”

Wolfie does not say anything, and for a silent six seconds, my heart beats faster than it ever has before.

Then my sister cries out in pain.

“Cris!” I yell.

But I can’t see. I’m tied up in a knot that I know how to escape, but I’m not sure if Nico is still behind me, so I don’t want to take the chance of untying it. I need the element of surprise.

“There was a falling out,” Wolfie resumes. “The pup alerted the authorities of the corruption happening in Santa’s Workshop, and half the Elves went to prison, and the other half... hmm.” Wolfie chuckles. “The other half were so acquainted with the streets, the backdoor dealings and secreted injustices of this rotten town, that they only place they could go was to the bottom. To rule this city from its underbelly.”

“Then the Elves did unspeakable things to the pup—to his body, to his family. They left him in a ditch to die, and the pup crawled free from an alley. He found people—people he could trust, extensions of his own brilliant mind. His fur grew back, his claws sharpened, and he perfected his bite, with the most valuable asset of all: Fangs.”

All around us, a mimicked wolf howl pierced the room. It was then I knew that we were outnumbered.

“The pup was a wolf now, an alpha. On a fateful day, he finally stumbled across the man who had beat him senseless all those years ago. His first instinct was to kill him, but a Fang told him that the man had children. Twins. Strong, fast, street smart. So, the wolf turned his red eyes on the kids instead; and in order to protect his children, the man promised, I mean swore, that he would be a Fang. He made it his life’s vow.”

“Then he grew a pair—” Cris began.

“Then he betrayed the wolf,” Wolfie corrected. “And the Wolf bit the man’s head off and crunched on his skull. Then he gathered up the twins and told them they were property of HIS. HIS and his ONLY, and if they EVER left the city or disobeyed him, he would claw their eyeballs out and feed them to his pack.” Wolfie was shouting now. “And here the little twins sit. With some really ballsy plans.”

No one says anything.

“Take them off,” Wolfie booms.

A hand slips the blindfold from my face, and I immediately cock my head to the left to scan my sister’s body for damages. There is a bruise on her cheek.

Rage swims in my head. I grit my teeth and try to focus on my surroundings.

We are in what looks like a hotel room. The carpet is cream colored, and the matching walls are lined with three Fangs standing at attention on either side. Wolfie sits on a giant red armchair, and next to him on a curvy-looking silver nightstand sits a book, a cup of coffee, and a tall lamp casting harsh red light. He wears a white bathrobe against his hairy tan chest and fuzzy pink slippers. His face is hard set on Cris: his jaws clenched and pale blue eyes criticizing her.

Josue is behind Cris, and I turn behind me to find Nico. His eyes are fixed on Wolfie at attention. I face forward again and begin to untie my knot, as silent and intentional as a mouse, and pray that Cris does as well.

“The last time I gave you instructions, you both failed.” Wolfie announces. “Cris, I have a special Plan B for you, darling. Max, however, is dinner for the pack.”

“NO!” Cris yells.

The Fangs howl again.

Instead of fearing Wolfie’s threat, I am instead more confused about why he’s splitting me and my sister up.

“A shame, really,” Wolfie continues, unbothered. “You are a really skilled fighter. Or, I guess you were.”

Wolfie lifts his hands to give the signal.

Right at that moment, I pull free from my confines. As expected, the three men to my left open fire, but I have already turned and yanked Nico’s body in front of me as fast as I can. His body pulses back as bullets shred into his torso. Out of the corner of my eye, Wolfie gets up from his chair. I pull Nico’s gun from his side and shoot in Wolfie’s direction with one arm, but the shot flies far from his head. I throw Nico forward into the men and whip out my daggers.

I take a second-long look in Cris’s direction, and she’s already fighting too. Her and Josue shoot at the men standing on the wall, but Josue takes a graze to what looks like his arm. I silently thank the heavens that the kid is an Elf.

Cris pistol whips a guy in the head and kicks him right between the legs. From the

floor, Josue blows the man’s head off.

I turn and throw one of my blades into the neck of a Fang and he falls to the ground. I dive for his firearm, but the two other Fangs on my side have already recovered. They shove Nico’s corpse from on top of them and train their guns on me, but one of them goes down again, thanks to a shot from Cris’s side of the room. I tomahawk my second dagger in the direction of the last man standing, and it slices straight up his arm. His gun falls free. I sprint in his direction.

The man shoves the tips of his fingers into my left eye, and pain blossoms all the way to the back of my head. In an instant, I reach out and close my hands around his jaw and the top of his head and twist it like a bottlecap. His lifeless body crumbles at my feet.

I spin around for Wolfie, ready to attack.

Then my right thigh explodes. The alpha shoots me two more times: once through the same leg, and then one right above my waist. All three bullets fly clean through my body.

Wolfie throws his gun to the ground and walks toward me. I look at my sister, the color drained from her face. She looks like she’s screaming out to me, but the pain has literally disabled my senses. Josue holds her back from running toward me.

I fall to my knees, and Wolfie holds me up by my hair like a spoil of war. He fishes my dagger from the floor and sets it near the base of my throat.

“THEODORE!” Cris screams. The sound is piercing and full of authority.

I don’t know who she’s talking to, until I realize it’s Wolfie himself.

My sister trains her gun on her own left temple.

Somewhere from under all the pain, panic surfaces in my brain. So does confusion.

“I’ll do it,” she says shakily. “If you hurt him, I’ll do it.”

“I am not a fool, darling.” Wolfie spits. “I know a bluff when I see—”

“I’LL DO IT THEO I SWEAR I WILL BLOW MY OWN BRAINS OUT.” Cris is crying furiously now. “You’ll never see your baby.”

“He’ll... he’ll what?” I manage.

Wolfie looks down at my bleeding face, then laughs wickedly.

“That’s right.” He mocks. “Tell your brother your dirty little secret. Our secret.”

“Cris...” I look at my sister with begging eyes.

“Max, don’t speak,” Cris cries. “You’re losing blood, fast.”

“Faster than a bitch in cycle,” Wolfie confirms.

“The baby,” Cris huffs. “It’s not Uly’s.”

At that moment, the world pauses for a second. Then my body tenses like a cramp, and I throw up everything in my gut.

Vomit and blood swirls at my knees.

It becomes crystal clear in my pounding head why the Fangs kept us alive, why Wolfie was so fixated on my sister.

Why she suddenly called me up to help her kill Wolfie. The thought of this man, with my barely 23-year old sister...

I retch again.

“Cris,” I spit blood and bile from my lips. “He killed our father. How could you—”

“I can’t explain right now,” Cris tries. She seems angrier now, her teary face fixed on Wolfie’s. “Let him go. I’ll go anywhere with you. I swear. I’ll do anything.”

I can’t see Wolfie’s face, but a moment of silence passes.

He throws my body to the ground, my face splashing into the spew.

My sister rushes forward and turns me over so that I am on my back. She rips her shirt

off and begins to tie it around my stomach wound to stop the bleeding, while Wolfie looks on at us with disgust. Then he turns to Josue.

“Coward,” Wolfie spits.

Josue lifts his gun and a shot rings out. Wolfie roars in agony, holding his crotch. Fast as lightning, Cris dives into the alpha and they crash to the ground together.

“No,” I croak weakly. Tears stream from my face. I try to move, but my body burns like fire.

Wolfie is on his front now, Cris riding him like a bull. She pulls her piece of fabric around his neck, wraps it like a knot and pulls sideways. Her muscles tense with effort.

The alpha shuffles wildly under her, losing air. Just when I think she’s going to lose, she screams, crying and pulling, and I hear a distinct crack.

Wolfie’s dislodged head falls to the ground.

Josue pants and looks between us like we’re crazy. Two neck-breaking twin Elves.

I turn my eyes back toward the ceiling, sure to pass out in a matter of minutes.

“You’re going to be okay,” Cris says, wrapping my wounds. “You’re going to be okay. Stay with me.”

Josue gets on the phone, talking to what sounds like other Elves about rescue and first aid.

“You haven’t lost too much blood,” Cris says calmly.

Her voice is steely and confident now.

Now, my sister lives in a world with no Wolfie. I can see in her eyes that she’s imagining plane tickets. Uly. Her baby. A new home for us.

She looks back at the father of her child, reprocessing his death and her victory.

“He’ll never see his baby,” she confirms.