Rivals

Rivals Page 18

Brent would have driven Grandma to the hospital, learner's permit or not, but Maggie had taken the car. He didn't know what had happened between her and Grandma but it had to have been bad.

Really bad. Grandma's fingers were sticking out in random directions. He was pretty sure all of them were broken. "I'll carry her," he told Lucy. "I'll just pick her up and run to the hospital - I can get there faster than with the car, anyway."

"Sure," Lucy said. She was very calm. "Except, when you were carrying me before? You were just walking, and still I bounced up and down with every step. If you run with her, she'll be shaken up like a bottle of soda. I don't think it would help."

"There must be something I can do! What good are these powers if I can't help my own family?"

"Chill, Brent," Lucy said, and pulled her cell phone out of the outside pocket of her backpack. She dialed 911 and told the operator what was going on. An ambulance was there five minutes later.

Grandma was screaming the whole time. She couldn't seem to stop. She was in a lot of pain. When Brent climbed up into the ambulance beside her, she lifted her head and looked down at Lucy, who was about to get in, too.

"Your little girlfriend should go home, Brent," Grandma gasped. "I don't want her seeing me like this. It's bad enough the doctors will see me."

Brent apologized to Lucy with a look. "I'll see you there," she said. She shrugged good-naturedly and started hobbling home as the paramedics slammed shut the rear doors of the ambulance.

There was more screaming. A lot of it - until the paramedics gave Grandma something for the pain. When she settled down and her eyes started drooping behind her thick glasses, she reached for Brent's hand with her good left hand and he felt the diamond scratch his skin.

Oh no, he thought. Oh no. Not today - not when Mags was so upset already.

Grandma must have hit Maggie with the diamond. Just like she'd threatened to do so many times. What had Maggie done that was so awful to deserve that? Brent supposed it didn't matter. It could have been anything. As far as Grandma was concerned Maggie couldn't do anything right. "Grandma," he said, softly, "you have to forgive her."

"I'm going to press charges," she told him. "You saw what she did."

Yeah, but you hit her first. Except - that wasn't good enough, was it? Perkins the bully had hit Ryan Digby first. That hadn't made it okay for Brent to beat him up. Still - it was his sister this time. That made it different, somehow. Not in a way that was fair, but a way that mattered nonetheless. "If you don't forgive her, how are we going to work as a family? You don't know what she's going through. Please."

"I won't have her in my house anymore," Grandma insisted.

Our house. Not yours.

"She's wild. Like an animal. Just like her father."

Our father. Our father who just died.

"She's a spoiled little brat and she needs to learn discipline or she's going to get herself in a heap of trouble," Grandma finished.

Too late, Brent thought.

The ambulance reached the emergency room and there was more waiting, and the pain medication wore off and Grandma started screaming again. Eventually, though, a doctor came and took her away. A nurse took Brent by the arm and lead him toward a waiting lounge. "Your friends are already here. They'll take care of you," the nurse told him. He pushed open the door and saw Lucy inside - talking to Weathers.

"Brent," she said, and jumped up to hug him. He gently pushed her away.

"What are you doing here?" he asked the FBI man.

"Investigating an assault on an elderly woman. That's the kind of crime I take pretty seriously," Weathers told him. "I might have to make an arrest."

"Not unless she presses charges. That's - that's how it works, right? She has to actually accuse Maggie of a crime."

"So you're definitely certain it was your sister, Maggie Gill, who broke your grandmother's hand?" Weathers asked.

Brent frowned. That was a weird way of putting it.

"Are you recording this?" Lucy asked.

The special agent smiled and opened up his jacket to show them a miniature voice recorder in his breast pocket. "Yes," he said. "Very astute, Ms. Benez. I have a terrible memory, you see, and this helps me recall everything exactly as it was said. In case, say, I need to provide evidence in a court of law."

"Don't tell him anything, Brent. Not until you have a lawyer," Lucy said.

Brent shook his head. "It doesn't matter. It's not like he doesn't know exactly what happened. The question is what happens next. Look, Weathers, I can fix this. I can talk my grandmother out of pressing charges. And I can talk to Maggie, make her understand that we can't go on like this. I'm the only one she'll listen to. But you have to help me, too. You have to promise you'll go easy on her."

"I just want to make sure nobody else gets hurt," Weathers told him. "Alright. You have a deal. If you can defuse this situation, if you can bring your sister in so I can talk to her, I'll make sure she gets full marks for cooperation."

That wasn't what Brent had been asking for, but maybe it was the best he was going to get.

"Of course, you'll have to find her before you can talk to her."

Brent scowled. "You don't know where she is?"

"As I've said before, the Bureau don't waste its time following around American citizens. Though in Maggie's case that may have to change, now. No, I have no idea where she went after leaving your house today."

Brent bit his lip. He had no idea, either. He tried to put himself in her shoes. Where would Maggie go if she felt like everything was crashing in on her? Mom's grave? Starbuck's? Nothing seemed right.

Lucy put a hand on his arm. "Where would you go, if you'd just hurt your Grandma?" she asked.

He closed his eyes and tried to imagine it. He had to fight his own instincts, which told him that he would never, ever hurt a member of his family. He had so few of them left. But when he got past that, the answer was clear.

"I'd go see you," he told Lucy.

She nodded. "So who's your sister's best friend?"