Burnington Gaol

S E V E N | Adeline

"Dad," I said, "just tell me what's going on. Where's Billy? Is he okay?"

We walked past the front building into the cold, piercing wind, approaching the road running by my school. Dad kept on, crossing the road without an upward glance. I followed him to the car, heart thumping in my ears as the anxiety grew in my stomach, bubbling up like some chemical concoction from a science class.

"Get in," he said.

I jumped into the passenger's seat.

"What the hell is going on? Tell me!"

Dad turned the key in the ignition, a hard look on his face, and the engine roared to life. He pressed his foot down and the car lunged forward, speeding faster and faster.

"Dad," I said. "Where is my brother?"

Dad turned his head ever so slightly and met my gaze with a look of agonising pain. My eyes watered, and a single tear slipped down my cheek.

"Is he dead?"

"No, not yet." He said. "You need to listen to me very carefully, Adeline. Something's happened. Billy... he's being held hostage as Sully's Diner with several other people."

I sucked in a breath, my mouth agape and my father pressed down on the accelerator.

"He's alive, and unharmed, as far we can tell. But the gunman. He's the one who got away – the criminal who escaped."

"Jimmy Dawson," I whispered, echoing the bathroom conversation.

My father nodded.

"He walked into the diner with an AK47 and started shooting the place up. He says that nobody has been harmed – "

"He said?" I interrupted. "You talked to him?"

"Briefly."

A car pulled out in front of us and Dad suddenly jerked the steering wheel right. My body was thrown into the door, my head cracking against the window. I winced, rubbing my temple as Dad straightened the vehicle.

"He told me," Dad continued, "that he'd let them all go under one condition."

Dad hesitated, biting his cheek.

"What?" I asked. "What does he want?"

"You," he said. "He wants you. He said he had something he needed to discuss with you and if we sent you in, he would let everyone go."

Ice swept through my body, meeting the fire in my belly and the anxiety in my lungs, causing a tornado of emotion to rip through me. I stared at him uselessly, my jaw hanging open, unable to comprehend what he was telling me.

"It's up to you, Ad. If you want to go in, I... I'll let you. If you don't, the police will storm the diner. Save as many as they can."

"Why me?" I asked. "I-I'm a nobody. Just a high school girl. It doesn't make any sense."

"I know, sweetie. But I need you to decide. Do you want to go in?"

I looked up at my father, his torn eyes looking right back at me.

"If I don't go in," I started, picking my words with care. "And the police storm the diner... will people die?"

My father pressed his lips together.

"Yes."

"And if I do go in, then what?"

"I don't know," he said. "He might keep his word, release the hostages. But he's just as liable to turn around and kill everyone anyway. There's no way to know."

I leaned back in the seat, my head resting against the leather, with a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. There was no good option, no right or wrong answer. Everything was this ugly, grotesque shade of grey.

I looked at my father one more time. I knew that if I went in, and Billy and I both died, my father would be ruined – so cut open, so ripped apart that he would barely be recognisable. However, I knew that if I didn't go in, and Billy was shot during the police raid, I would never forgive myself; knowing there was a chance I could've stopped it. That kind of guilt can never be scrubbed away, can never fade, and would never stop haunting me. And perhaps it was selfish, but I would've rather died than be forced to carry such a burden.

"I'll do it," I whispered. "I'll go in."

My father looked at me with such heaviness in his face that it hurt to look at him.

"If that's what you want."

© A.G. Travers 2018