He turns to Blake, sneers, and says through his teeth, “Now you.” He points over at me.
Blake laughs, a loud and obviously fake laugh. “What? I’m not apologizing to her.”
Dexter and Deacon both take a step toward him, as does Decker.
He holds up both hands. “Fine, I’m fucking sorry, can I go now?”
I glance around at all of them. “Sorry for what?” I genuinely don’t know.
Blake starts to walk off, but all three brothers surround him.
Dexter says, “You heard the lady. Sorry for what, motherfucker?”
He turns to me, shaking his head. “God, you fucking people here.” He scoffs, holds up his hands, and says, “Sorry for leaking the story to the reporter, may I be excuse—”
Decker shoves him toward the elevator, right past me, so hard he damn near stumbles head-first into it, effectively cutting him off mid-sentence. “Don’t ever step foot in my building again. And tell Bennett Cooper I’m coming for every last one of his clients.”
What the hell is happening? Blake works for Bennett Cooper?
This time Blake’s shocked look turns into a grin, and he slow claps. “Whatever you say, Decker. This place is a joke.”
Decker shakes his head. “No, we’re a family. Something you don’t know a fucking thing about.”
Blake scoffs, steps on the elevator, and disappears.
When I turn around, all three brothers are holding up a middle finger at the elevator.
“What in the hell is happening here?”
Decker’s eyes land on mine, and then he seems to snap back into character, still looking utterly ridiculous. “My bearer bonds, Miss Rains.” He glances to both of his brothers, then bends over and picks up his toy gun.
Deacon and Dexter snap to attention and start herding me toward one of the corner offices, past my old cubicle, and the hallway where Matthew took me into the supply closet. Those old feelings that aren’t really even that old start to filter to the surface again, just being here.
I just go along with them because to hell with this. I’m tired of fighting everything. I’m mentally exhausted and just want to get this over with.
Then, it happens.
Decker nods to someone I can’t see, and I hear some whisper-screams.
This is maybe the shittiest live-action reproduction of Die Hard in history. It’s an insult to the movie at this point, but part of me deep inside still finds it slightly humorous and endearing, and I hate myself for that. I’ve spent the last week or so dehumanizing all these people in my mind, and this is ruining all the hard work I did trashing them mentally.
The lights in the hallway start to flicker, but really shitty like someone’s just flipping a switch up and down. I make out a silhouette at the end of it.
I roll my eyes it’s so over-the-top cheesy.
“Hansssss!”
I blurt out a laugh before I can stop myself, then quickly school my features, because I am not enjoying this. No amount of humor or satire is going to redeem Decker or Matthew or anyone else at this firm. It’s not going to happen!
Sure it isn’t.
Shut up, brain!
I stand there, knowing what’s about to happen, and I still must look utterly gobsmacked, because he looks even more ridiculous than I thought he would when the light hits him.
Matthew hobbles out, with fake bandages taped all over him, some kind of fake blood that looks more like bright red sharpie scribbled on him. When he comes more into the light, I have to fight back a snort, because he has on a flesh-colored swimming cap, with brown Sharpie hair scribbled all around it. It’s almost identical to the one I told him about, from my Halloween costume.
“Ahh, Mister Graham.” Decker, Dexter, and Deacon all train their fake guns on Matthew.
Matthew has a fake machine gun in his hands too.
I start to wonder how Matthew is going to fake throwing Decker out the window. That might be something I wouldn’t mind seeing. Or maybe I wouldn’t have minded an hour ago, anyway.
Stop humoring this!
“Hanssss!” Matthew yells again, like he’s struggling to breathe.
“Jesus Christ.” I can’t stop shaking my head and I face palm—hard.
To their credit, both of them do their best to remain serious and stay in character.
Deacon and Dexter, however, are barely holding it together.
Decker looks at me, as if he’s summoning his strength to go on with this performance, then looks back at Matthew. “What was that you said earlier, John? Yippee kiyay, motherfucker.”
My eyes widen, because Decker actually tried an accent that time, and he sounded oddly convincing. Like it was far better than any of the other’s. Matthew’s eyes widen a little too like where the hell did that portrayal of Hans Gruber come from?
Decker shrugs a little, like it’s no big thing, then gives the cockiest wink I’ve ever seen to both his brothers, like when Doctor Strange winks at Tony Stark in Infinity War after he clears all the dust from Thanos’s ship in Manhattan.
Matthew looks over at me, then turns his back a little so I can see he has a gun duct taped to it. He makes a show of dropping the machine gun on the ground.
I can’t help myself, and I say, “May I just point out that this is so historically inaccurate within the film.”
All of them turn to me at once, and Matthew says, “Can you just…” He holds a hand out. “We’re doing a thing here.”
I show him both my hands. “Sorry, boys. I’m just going to go back to being a little ol’ hostage over here.” I fight it as hard as I can, but I know there’s a grin threatening to break through on my face. There shouldn’t be, but there is.
Matthew says, “Thank you.”
When he turns back for the big showdown, he throws his hand back to get the gun, but he can’t reach it. This is the moment where I damn near die of laughter. He spins around, slapping at his shoulder blade furiously.
Decker’s eyes get big, like he doesn’t have a clue what to do.
“Fucking hell,” Dexter mumbles, his cheeks poofed out, trying to suppress a laugh.
Deacon fails entirely and turns and covers his mouth, then his entire body starts to shudder like he’s about to piss himself.
“Gotta be shitting me.” I just stand there, shaking my head at all of this.
Matthew finally grabs the toy gun on his back and in his haste, yanks it off. When he does, it rips part of the white tank top in half and I’m pretty sure it takes off some of his skin too.
“Son of a fuck!” he screams.
When he pulls the gun in front of him to point it at Decker, or Hans, or whatever the hell is going on, the duct tape is wrapped around the end of it. He shakes the gun wildly at first, trying to throw it off, then claws at it. When that doesn’t work, he finally just points it at Decker, with the duct tape on, and pulls the trigger. There’s a soft click.
About half a second too late, Decker flops onto the ground.
I face palm, just utterly embarrassed for everyone involved. I can’t believe Matthew got them all to humiliate themselves like this, in front of the entire firm.
He got them all to do this.
When I uncover my face, and look up, Matthew is standing there in front of me, his eyes locked on mine. A new wave of some emotion I didn’t know I had inside me takes over. It’s so intense and just, the most potent cocktail of anger, resentment, love, happiness—all swirling together, so that I don’t know which one is going to hit me when. It’s like boxing an emotional ghost.