by Helen Scott
I wrench my mind away from the imagery. It's not something I should be imagining with one of my captors, and I shouldn't be kissing them either, but I definitely shouldn't be thinking about any of this in front of my mother. As much as I try, though, my mind continues to swirl with imaginings of us in bed together. I couldn't help but wonder what kind of lover he would be. Tender and sweet or raw and hard? Lordy did I want to find out.
My mother takes a step back at Crax's words, distracting me from the downward, dirty spiral of my thoughts. "You have your debt, I see," she replies coldly. "There's nothing else I owe you or your father."
"We do. And you don't. I want you to know though... You gave up more than you could possibly imagine. Alexis is the jewel of our collection." His eyes flick to me with pride and warmth filling them, but his words turn my stomach. Was I just part of their collection? Just a tool to use while they sought their own freedom no matter what it cost others?
"You're not here for any other reason?" my mother asks again, pushing to verify that we aren't interested in her.
I butt in before Crax can respond, "We weren't, but now I'm wondering what has you so worked up? The woman I knew as Mother wouldn't have been caught dead out here, let alone by herself, and she certainly wouldn't question and berate strangers."
"You're my daughter, not a stranger," she points out when I pause.
"Mother, you may have birthed me, but that was it. I raised myself and I've been completely independent for years, still would be if I hadn't been sold to someone. So let's get one thing straight. We. Are. Strangers. I owe you nothing, you owe me everything, but I'll never collect on that debt because I want as little to do with you as possible." The words are cold and distant and feel like they’re coming from someone else, some other me that is bold and done with bullshit.
"You selfish, ungrateful child. You had the best childhood money could buy!" she screeches, finally losing her temper. My heart finally releases that piece of hope that I'd held on to for years. The piece of hope that wanted my mother to apologize and try and make things right. When it leaves it just about crushes me but I tuck those emotions away, saving them to let them out later.
"All I wanted was your love. I didn't give a shit about the private school or the clothes or toys. I wanted you to be my mom. That was never in the cards though." I turn to Crax. "Can we go? I've had about as much as I can take of her."
He nods and takes me by the elbow, steering me to the car, as my mother and I stare at each other, something akin to hate in both our gazes. The depth of the bitterness that had grown between us surprised me. We seem fated to hate each other, but that doesn’t stop my curiosity.
When we get to the car I say, "Can you drive us around the corner and park?"
Crax nods but gives me a questioning look. I don't know if I am going to go through with my plan yet though so I keep my mouth shut. The beater starts up with a thundering chugging noise before quieting down as he starts to drive. We go around the block and he pulls over, parallel parking like a pro between two cars I'd be scared to touch because they were so expensive.
"I'm going to follow my mother. I need to do it alone, and I need you to trust me. You can either wait here or I'll find my way back to the store, but I need to find out what's going on," I say, my tone leaving no room for him to object.
That doesn't stop him though. "Just let it go, Alexis. You're better off without her."
"No. Something's going on, my gut is telling me so, and I've learned never to ignore that. Just trust me, Crax, please. I'm not going to run, I wouldn't do that to you, or to myself, so just wait for me, okay?" I plead.
"Fine, go. I'll be here when you're done," he grumbles as though he can't believe he's letting me do this.
I don't wait for him to change his mind. I hop out of the car, jogging down the street to the corner we had turned. My mother was walking so she couldn't have made it that far. I spot her pale blue dress a little ways down the street, heading toward a hotel, by the looks of things, which only makes me more curious.
She glances around furtively before crossing the street and going into a different entrance than the one I had expected. I sprint to catch up with her, moving full tilt down the street. The door that she went in leads to a set of apartments, by the looks of things. I ease it open, hoping that it won't make any noise, and am pleasantly surprised when I’m able to enter quietly.
I race up the stairs as silently as possible and catch her back disappearing into another glass door that looks like it's a hallway through the upper floor of the building. Following her, I get to the door she just went through and see her stop at another door, this one wood, I can tell from the darkness against her skin as she knocks on it.
It opens and she disappears inside. Now comes the boring part.
Waiting for her to leave so I can knock on the same door.
I post up on the other side of the stairs so I can watch through the glass door without being seen. Am I in the way of people coming down from the floor above because of how narrow the stairway is? Yes. Do I care? Not really.
I wait. And wait. And wait some more. In reality it probably isn't that long, but with nothing to do but watch for that door opening it feels like forever. A few people grumble at me as they head down the stairs and have to be careful to get around me. I issue hushed apologies but don't move.
After what feels like hours I hear her voice faintly through the glass door. I hunker down, making sure she can't see me as I wait for her to head back out. Her heels click on the concrete of the stairs as she descends.
I risk a peek over the edge of the stairs and see her carrying her bag, which isn't unusual, but she's clutching it to her chest like it's the most precious thing in the world. Was she doing drugs? She didn't look like she'd had sex, or at least not good sex, so I doubted that was it. Also, I was fairly sure that she wasn't in there long enough for anything satisfying to have taken place. So that left drugs? Had this been going on long? I hadn't noticed anything growing up, but then we never spent much time together.
Once I was sure she was gone I moved out of the stairwell and into the corridor. It stank of old piss and fish with a slight hint of vomit as well. I had thought the stairs themselves were bad enough with the stained concrete that had become mottled after years of abuse, but I suspected that the stairs weren't as bad as the hallway. The carpet is wrinkled and coming away from the walls in places, meanwhile the walls themselves are pock marked from things hitting them and never being repaired.
It felt like my old place before I came back to Sterling City. It had been all I could afford, which meant that if my mother was coming to a place like this then she was desperate for something. Time to find out what.
I knock on the same door she had, but I stand to the side with my back to the wall so whoever is inside can’t see me through the peephole, at least not easily. Someone approaches, their footsteps noisy on the floor inside, but they don’t open the door. I knock again.
This time the door swings open and the sight that meets my eyes shatters my already bruised heart.
13
Alexis
Smith stands there in the doorway looking at me. Alive. Healthy. Well, for the most part.
"Smith?" I breathe his name as though scared saying it any louder will get rid of this illusion that's standing before me. We buried him. I threw dirt onto his coffin. How the hell was he here?
"Get in before someone sees you," he hisses at me as he grabs my hand and tugs.
I stumble into what looks like his apartment. The place is dingy and depressing. I'm fairly sure that mold is growing on the wall on one side. It's a studio apartment, which doesn't surprise me, but the fact that the bathroom is basically part of the kitchen is a bit much, even for me. Why am I focusing on this stuff? Because my brain can't process the other thing, the fact that Smith is alive.
Smith is fucking alive.
My mind feels like it's trying to open a corrupted file, going through the
motions but there's nothing really there. Nothing I understand, anyway. I know I should be grateful that my friend is, evidently, alive, but all I feel is the hot burn of anger and betrayal inside me.
"What are you doing here, Alexis?" Smith asks from behind me.
I turn to face him and I can't stop the tears that spring to my eyes. "I buried you," I whisper.
"Well, as you can see, I'm not dead. If that's all?" He gestures toward the door.
"If that's all? Are you fucking kidding me right now, Smith? Why are you not dead? How are you not dead? I'm not leaving until I get some damn answers and you know how stubborn I can be. Don't make me gold you."
Smith stares at me for a long time, his face blank as he weighs his options. I know he's thinking about all the times I threw a fit and won because he wasn't as stubborn as me. I'm a little hard headed, what can I say?
Finally, he waves at the couch. "Have a seat."
"I'd rather stand," I say, looking at the stained monstrosity. No part of me wants to touch that. It looks like the kind of thing you'd expect cockroaches to nest in.
"Suit yourself," he says as he flops down, immediately picking up his fidget and clicking one of the buttons on the cube, while I wait for the cockroaches to come scurrying out from under him. I'm stressing him out; his fidgets are always a sign that he feels a lot of pressure in that moment. I hate that I’m responsible for him picking up his fidget and clicking it so furiously, but I can’t stop now.
"What was my mother doing here?" I ask, trying a different approach.
"Collecting her payment," he mumbles.
"Payment for what?" I ask, realizing that I am going to have to drag every bit of information out of him.
"We made a deal. She pays her necromancer friend to keep me off the radar of the Stiltskin brothers and I count cards for her." Finally, he looks up at me. "Your parents are broke. Apparently, Daddy Dearest has been spending money faster than he can make it and add that to his gambling problem and you can see where they start to come up short."
"What? How the hell did that happen? And a necro, really? You know those guys are freaking crazy."
He looks at me blankly. "I just told you how, and of course I know, but I didn't have a choice."
"It was just a reaction, not a literal question. I understood what you said, Smith."
He nods once before looking back down at his fidget.
"Why didn't you have a choice? Please don't tell me you faked your death to help my parents."
"No, I faked my death so the Stiltskin brothers couldn't collect on my debt. Your mother helped me do it. In return, I gamble and count cards, giving her the winnings, well, most of them."
"So she was here picking up a wad of cash? That's why she was clutching her purse like a life preserver?"
He nods.
"And what would happen if Rumple's boys found out you were alive?" I ask, thinking of Crax waiting for me in the car.
"They'll take my first born child," he says.
It feels like all the air has been sucked out of the room. He made the same deal my mother did? "Why? Why would you give that to Rumple? What could possibly be so important that you sold another human being for it? Also, you don't even have a girlfriend!" My voice escalates as I go and I know that my anger makes him uncomfortable, judging from the furious pace of his clicking, but at this moment I don't care. I want him to feel every bit of my wrath. He was, or is, my best friend. He knew how much that deal hurt me, how it ruined my life.
"You don't know me anymore, Alexis. Things have changed," he says quietly.
"So what now? You're in love? Want to make little Smith babies and raise them in this shit hole?" I snap at him.
He looks up and I see the lost look in his eyes and I know I'm right, about most of it at least. "I am. She's one of the workers at the casino. The most beautiful woman I've ever seen. She makes me... feel."
"Have you actually asked her out?" I ask, wondering how much Smith has really changed. When I knew him he was terrified of speaking to new people.
"Yes, we have been dating for a while now." His shy nature makes this news surprise me.
"Have you brought her back here?" I ask, hoping the answer is no. I can't imagine anyone in their right mind seeing this apartment and wanting to stay with the person that lives in it.
"No, we go to her place. I'm saving up to get somewhere better."
We both fall silent for a moment. After a while I say, "You've broken Parsilla's heart. They all really believe you're dead. I really believed you were dead."
"That is the point, Lex," he replies, using the nickname he gave me as a child, the one that made my mother lose it every time she heard it, saying in that snobby tone of hers, I didn't name you Lex, I named you Alexis. The memory almost made me want to smile. Almost. "You can't tell them. I know the only reason you're still in Sterling City is because of them, otherwise you never would have found out. You have to promise me you won't tell them."
"I won't, not unless it becomes absolutely necessary, but Smith, you have to realize how fucked up this is."
"I know. When they stop collecting debts I'll let my family know I'm still alive, or at least Parsilla."
I pace the room, not knowing where to go from here and not wanting to sit down. Lying to the guys is going to be hard, I know that down to the gold in my magic.
"You can't tell them, Lex. If you do you'll be selling my child to them," Smith says as he watches me move around the room.
"Oh, no, don't put that on me. You did that yourself. It's going to come back to you eventually, you know? It always does, I mean look at me. I was out, on the run and staying in places as shitty as this, but I was free. Now? Now, I'm fucking helping them because it reduced how long they would own me. The only reason they have me at all is because they were waiting for me at your funeral, which never needed to happen."
"I'm sorry, Lex. I didn't mean for any of this to happen."
"I know that, but that doesn't mean you haven't landed us both in a heaping pile of shit," I say as I pause my pacing in front of him.
"You've changed," he says as he watches me with those eyes that see too much.
"I had no choice. It was change or die or lose my freedom, which I ended up doing anyway, so I guess it was all a waste of time."
"It wasn't. I like the new you. You're bolder, more assertive." He smiles up at me sadly. "Everything's different."
"Truer words have never been spoken," I mutter before adding. "I should get back. Crax is waiting for me, and he will hunt me down if he thinks I've made a run for it, or if he thinks I'm in trouble. He's hard to read, they all are."
"You like them," he says, confusion sounding in his voice.
"What? They are my captors, and Hyde is a certified, grade A asshole. I don't like them." The heat creeping up my spine tells me I'm lying to myself.
"Don't lie, Lex, it doesn't suit you," he says with a grin.
I flip him the bird and walk out.
14
Zard
Hyde and I followed a dozen different leads before we’d found the location of his house. It was at the edge of Sterling City in a neighborhood full of houses that are a little more spread out than in most of the city. Massive, old oak trees separate the houses, giving an even greater sense that we’re out in the woods, verses just on the edge of a city.
“You think this is the place?” I wonder aloud.
“If not, I’m going to fucking pay a witch to track this asshole.”
“She’ll want your blood in exchange.”
“Maybe she won’t be left alive to ask for it,” Hyde says, his voice almost a growl.
I roll my eyes. Hyde acts like such a badass, but he’s more bark than bite.
“Let’s just hope he comes back home tonight and no one tips him off.”
He huffs in response.
I see Crax’s name pop up on his phone, and he sets it back down without checking it. “How long are you going to keep punishing him
?” The words come out of my mouth before I consider how dumb it is to piss him off while stuck in a small car with him.
Hyde’s eyes flash with rage. “I’m not punishing him.”
“Like fuck.”
“I just don’t want to be here.”
“None of us want to be here, but that’s not where your attitude is. Your attitude is personal, directed at Crax, and you have to let it go.”
He leans back in his seat and the fingers on one hand tap the steering wheel. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
The slight vulnerability in his voice tells me this is the time to push. “I was there with you, Hyde. I know how bad things got with Rumple after he left. I know how much you protected me, and I appreciate it, more than I can ever say.”
“But…”
“But it wasn’t Crax’s fault.”
His eyes squeeze shut and the veins in his neck stick out. I know he wants to yell, but then he lets out a deep breath. “I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah.” The word is harsh.
“You want to let him know, so he doesn’t keep your hatred on his back, along with the rest of the world.”
He scoffs. “You sound like he’s had it so damn hard.”
“He didn’t have it easy,” I say softly.
Neither of us speaks for a long time, and the dark settles around us. I sense some of the tension leave his shoulders.
“I think it would’ve been easier if we’d come that day...”
He tenses, and I curse myself. Maybe it was the wrong thing to say.
“Do you regret it?” I ask.
He takes a long minute to answer. “I don’t know.”
The truth was, Rumple had called all of us the day he had died, afraid and begging for our help. And none of us had come. I don’t know if they felt the way I did, like Rumple was immortal, like no matter what he said he’d be fine. It was like imagining a childhood monster dying; it just didn’t seem possible. Or if, like the other part of me, nothing could’ve convinced them to face that man again. Come hell or high water.