by Callie Hart
I’m gonna throw up. I’m legitimately going to throw up in my own damn elevator. I was so shitty to her. God, I was so fucking shitty to her. I should never have allowed her to leave. I should have grabbed a hold of her. I should have crushed her to my chest. I should have kissed her, and stroked her hair, and told her everything was going to be okay. I should have told her I don’t love Chloe anymore, that none of this is as simple as it seems, but…I’m a shit. I’m so used to shutting down in difficult situations. It’s so easy for me to end a conversation if it’s not to my liking. For the last five years, the only people with access to me have been North Industries yes-men and representatives from other companies, wanting to win contracts. No one’s told me the truth in years. No one’s asked me to be real with them. Beth asked that of me, and I didn’t know how to give her what she wanted. I watched her crying in the elevator after she left, and all I wanted to do was call her back. To sit her down and go through the entire accident with a fine tooth comb, but my pride wouldn’t let me.
“Raph. Raph! Hold the fucking phone to your ear, asshole!”
I barely hear the tinny voice coming from my cell phone speakers over the loud thrumming of my own heart. I hold the device up to my ear, trying to calm my breathing. “Why the hell were you arrested again?” I ask.
Nate’s reply is laced with worry. “Ask your friend, Paxton Ross. That piece of shit called the cops on me. Totally overreacted.”
“Because you stole something from him. And now you think Beth is somehow in danger?”
“She went to meet with him on her own. I warned her not to, but you can bet your ass she did. I’m telling you, you need to find her. And quickly, man. I mean it.”
“I don’t understand how this even fucking happened,” I growl. “I warned Paxton not to talk to her again after he tried to pay her off. He swore he’d leave her alone.” I can’t help the small flash of anger that hits me. It was wrong of me, but I did tell Beth to leave this well alone, too. It looks like the very first thing she did was discard my command and start digging. A part of me dislikes that intensely, but then again it’s also very refreshing.
“Well…” Nate’s tense. Like he’s trying to hide something.
“I wasn’t going to say anything, but…”
I do not like the sound of that. “But what?”
“We stole the accident report. The one Paxton took from me after the crash. And he was obviously unhappy about us removing it from his office. We…we started to think he might have had something to do with the accident.”
“God.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. Paxton did have something to do with the accident. He helped cover up the fact that Thalia was driving. He helped me deceive the police. He’ll be in a shit load of trouble if that information comes to light. He’s an erratic, proud, fiercely mercenary guy; what would he do if he thought he was going to be exposed? I have no idea. Would he hurt someone, though? No. No, there’s just no way.
The elevator dings, the doors rolling back, and my feet are suddenly rooted to the floor. I can’t fucking move. It’s just one step forward. One step, and then I will be headed out into the world. Ever since the house arrest ended, the knowledge that I’m free to leave the Osiris Building has been comfort enough for me. The fact that I could step into this elevator if I wanted to, hit a button and walk out onto the street, has made the act of doing so unnecessary. For weeks after my sentence ended, I would lie in bed at night, sweating, freaking the fuck out, thinking about how the world might have changed since I last found myself out amongst it. And I would think about Chloe. I would imagine walking down a busy street in the city and seeing her face everywhere I looked, and the guilt was too much to bear. I know I wasn’t the one behind the wheel that night. I know it with every fiber of my being, and yet if I hadn’t reconnected with her, if I hadn’t asked her to come with us that night, she wouldn’t have even been in the goddamn car…
It was all too much to handle, so I decided I just wouldn’t go outside. Simple. And that’s how life has been ever since. Very, very simple. Until now.
I swallow, shoving down the urgent need to head back through the glass door to the apartment, locking it firmly behind me. I take a deep breath. Every part of me is screaming to move back, but instead…I take a step forward. There’s only one thing in the world that could force me to do this; Beth is out there right now, and she needs me. Nate thinks she’s in danger. No matter how unlikely it is that Paxton would cause her harm, I have to make sure. She’s too important. She’s my entire fucking world. She’s everything .
As the doors close, shutting me inside the elevator, my ears are ringing—a high-pitched buzz that drowns out all other sound. It feels like my heart is flat-lining. I don’t breathe. For seventy-one floors, as the small silver box I’m standing in plummets to the ground, I don’t take a single breath. Every second that passes is torture. If I hit the emergency stop button, I can override the system and redirect the elevator back up to the penthouse. It would be easy. It’d be so damn fast, the alarm wouldn’t even have chance to register with the North Industry security teams. I close my hand inside my pocket, clenching it hard into a fist.
It feels like a forest fire is blazing out of control in the pit of my stomach. I’m trapped inside the inferno, voluntarily holding my hands over the flames, and I can’t do anything about it. In fact, I must venture further into the fire. I must deal with the fear of being burned if I’m to make sure Beth is okay.
Her dark hair. Her dark eyes. Her flushed, delicately pink cheeks. The way she laughs. The way she smiles. I’ve fallen for the woman. I love her more than I thought my heart capable, and now I will literally do anything to save her. No price is too high. No cost is too great.
The elevator barely makes a sound as it reaches the ground floor. There’s a soft hiss as the doors roll back, and then I’m faced with another wall to overcome. The small waiting room I find myself in leads to the parking structure below the Osiris Building, where Nate keeps at least three or four of my cars on hand. The parking structure is reserved for the more high power heavy hitters who lease office space in lower floors of the tower. It’s late in the afternoon already, so there’s every chance most people will have gone home now. There’s always a couple of people who linger, though, working late and burning the midnight oil. I don’t want to run into anyone, but what choice do I have? I pull up the hood on my sweatshirt, tugging the material low over my head, hunching over, trying to make myself invisible.
God, Raphael. Get your shit together. Get your fucking shit together, man.
Walking out of the waiting room feels like I’m stepping out of the airlock of a spaceship without a suit. The air is muggy and stifling as I beeline for the bay of cars at the very back of the parking lot, already scanning the area for potential hazards. I press my thumb up against the fingerprint lock I had installed on the red Tesla in the middle of the bay. I had the scanners fitted to all of my vehicles, so they’ve all been primed to recognize me. I never really envisioned using any of them, honestly. The prospect of climbing into another car after what happened to Chloe has always been enough to make me break out into hives. It’s amazing how much the body remembers, though. How weirdly normal it feels to slide into the driver’s seat, put the vehicle in drive and pull out of the space.
How long has it been since I went to Thalia’s apartment? Way more than five years. Our little group had kind of drifted a little in the years leading up to the night I was arrested. College and our studies pulled us all in different directions. When we did meet up, it was generally at a restaurant, or, selfishly, I made them all come to me at my parents’ old residence. I was so different back then. I was another person entirely, full of my own self-importance and utterly oblivious to other people’s needs or desires. I was a lightning rod that attracted so much energy. People gravitated towards me, and I let them. I did nothing to meet anyone halfway. Didn’t see the need to. Why would I, when I was the great Raphael North, the man who tur
ned North Industries around? The man who saved three hundred jobs in a day. The man who earned more money while he slept than most guys earned their entire lives. I thought I was fucking invincible.
Despite the years and the events that have so violently altered our lives, I still remember the way to Thalia’s building. Being inside the car feels safe somehow. I can pretend the lights, the other cars, the thousands and thousands of people swarming on the streets, aren’t really there. They’re not real. They could easily be a part of a simulation, nothing more than expertly rendered pixels all programmed to react and interact with their environment. I manage to convince myself of this as I turn through side streets, burning through red lights, my foot leaning on the gas pedal, the tires screeching as I grow closer and closer to my destination. I enter some sort of numb state, where nothing happening on the other side of the Tesla’s windshield can effect me. I’m protected here. I’m strong. I am capable. I’m going to find Beth and make sure she’s okay. I’m going to hold her in my arms. I’m going to tell her how much I love her, and everything is going to be okay. This bullshit with Paxton is going to be resolved, and we’re all going to sit down and figure this shit out once and for all. Beth will know everything there is to know about the accident, and she’ll leave well enough alone. Paxton will see Beth cares for me just as deeply as I care for her, and that she’s not after my money. As for me… I’m going to put the past behind me. Somehow, I’m going to learn how to forgive myself. No more running and hiding myself away up in my high tower. No more shying away from reality. Life is short. I’ve allowed too much time to pass me by. Now, I need to look forward. I need to work on building something truly special with Beth.
I pull up outside Thalia’s apartment, and a wave of panic lights up my nerve endings. I feel it all over my body, from the roots of my hair down to the tips of my toes. What are my friends going to do when they see me outside of the penthouse? I don’t know what the fuck I’ll do if I find them arguing like children with one another.
I don’t give a shit about leaving the car on the side of the street. I keep my head down as I hurry across the sidewalk. I don’t make eye contact with anyone. I don’t even raise my head. My hand’s on the polished brass handle of the entrance when suddenly the sound of breaking glass and crunching metal fills the air.
“Oh my god!”
“Holy fuck!”
People on the street start screaming. I spin around, and…
What the fuck ?
I can’t…
My eyes aren’t processing what they’re seeing.
Can’t.
Can’t breathe.
My body is made of lead. My skin is prickling, a thousand fire ants biting at me.
The Tesla…
The Tesla I just got out of…
The roof is caved in, the metal crumpled, the windows shattered…
And there’s a body lying on top of the roof.
A woman.
The body is a woman.
A line of blood trickles from the corner of her mouth, crimson and thick. Her eyes are open, staring at right at me. Blue. Familiar. So familiar.
Thalia.
Thalia.
My friend…
…dead.
Seventeen
Beth
“Y ou did this . This is your fucking fault, you stupid cunt!” Paxton’s face is a rictus of rage. He stalks back and forth in front of the balcony, tearing at his hair with both hands. His cheeks are almost purple. I don’t care, though. I don’t really notice. I don’t register anything bar the fact that Thalia, who was standing on the balcony two seconds ago, is now gone. She was there. She was standing there, staring at her cigarette, hurt all over her face, and the next…the balcony was empty. I didn’t see her decide. I didn’t witness the moment when she made up her mind that dying would be better than living. I would have stopped her. I could have tried. Despite the cruel, terrible thing she did to Raphael, I would have—
Something tightens around my neck, jolting me out of my thoughts. My eyes flash—a bolt of pure, brilliant white light—and I try to suck in a breath of oxygen, to let out a scream, but I can’t. My airway is completely closed off. I reach up, scrambling, my fingers trying to loosen whatever’s around my neck, but it’s impossible. The length of wire around my throat is already biting deeply into my flesh. There’s no way for me to free myself. My fingernails scratch and graze my skin, stinging brightly, but my brain barely registers the pain.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid …” Paxton’s voice is in my ear, hard and filled with hate. His lips press up against my ear as he hisses and spits, and I want to shrink away from the vitriol, but he has hold of me, one arm wrapping around my chest, pulling me back, pinning me in place. I’ve done multiple self-defense classes. This is what they train you for: being attacked from behind. They teach you how to stomp on your attacker’s foot. How to twist and pivot, to strike to the groin, to rip yourself free and to run like fuck. None of that matters in this moment, though. It’s easy to go through the motions, to practice the repeated movements over and over again, but the reality of being assaulted like this is nothing like those scenarios. There’s no crash mat to break your fall. There are no pads to punch. No gloves protecting your hands. There’s no instructor, watching on from a couple of feet away, giving you pointers and clapping you on the back when you get it right. This is terrifying . This is your heart surging and faltering at the same time. This is your vision failing you, your mind seizing, all coherent thought and problem solving capabilities flying out of the window. This is the difference between living and dying. This is the moment that defines all others, and you feel powerless to do anything about it.
I was wrong about Paxton. I thought he wasn’t the kind of guy to kill with his bare hands. It seems he’ll happily kill me at close range. Something shatters behind me, the sound of breaking glass filling the room, and for a brief second, a mere heartbeat, the tension on the wire around my neck loosens. I react without even thinking; it appears I still have some common sense. Enough to turn around, anyway. Paxton’s back is up against the wall, the back of his head butting up against a photo frame still hanging crookedly on the wall. The glass is smashed, and small shards are falling down onto his shoulders, dusting them like tiny diamonds. Paxton snarls, baring his teeth, one hand grappling, trying to regain his hold on the noose he has around my neck. It’s not wire; it’s a cord, a power cable, thick and strong. Our faces are close. He grimaces as he spins the cord, taking hold of it from behind my head and pulling. The action has little power now, though. He only manages in sending me stumbling backward, out of his grasp, and I go crashing to the floor.
“You had no right to mess with us,” Paxton grinds out. “You had no goddamn right to push and pull and poke.” With every word, he lashes out with his two thousand dollar Italian leather shoes, kicking at me. He hits me in the ribs, the stomach, his last kick landing hard, impacting with the side of my head. The blow makes me see double for a second, but it’s not hard enough to knock me out. It’s a wake-up call, in fact. If I stay here, he’s going to kill me. If I continue to lie here sprawled out on the floor, I’ll never be able to defend myself. He has the position of power. From his vantage point, he can pretty much do anything he pleases with me. He can hit and kick and punch to his heart’s content. I have to act. I have to rally and fucking defend myself.
Paxton raises his foot, about to bring it crashing down on my head again, but I manage to scoot back. Pain sings through my body as my head hits the coffee table behind me. A wet, warm sensation begins to travel down my neck, down my back. I should be worried about that, I know I should, but there’s no time. No time at all. Paxton growls under his breath as he advances toward me again.
“You think he loves you? You think he really fucking cares about you? He barely knows you.” Paxton scrubs his hair back out of his face; his usually perfect, slicked-back hairstyle is in complete disarray. The action does nothing to help. His hand leaves a
streak of blood behind on his face, fresh and bright and startling. He looks like a madman. “You don’t know anything about him , either. You weren’t there on his first day of high school. You didn’t visit him in hospital when his appendix nearly exploded. You didn’t travel all over Asia with him when you were twenty-one. You didn’t console him for weeks after both his parents died. You weren’t there for any of that. I was. Thalia was. You were rolling around in the dirt in some nasty little farm in the boonies, probably fucking your cousin. You’re just like her. You’re just like Chloe. You have no damn right trying to live like us. With us. We are your betters! ” There’s a crazed look in his eye as Paxton reaches out, his hand searching for something on the counter top.
I get up.
My whole body is thrumming in agony, but I separate myself from the pain. I have to. There’s no ignoring it altogether, but I somehow manage to box it up. To construct a wall in my mind between myself and my nerve endings. This is what my mother should have done when she was being attacked. She didn’t have the strength, though. She froze like a rabbit in headlights. She allowed what happened to her to take place. I will not do that. Paxton’s standing between me and the exit. There’s no way for me to sneak past him or get around him. I look around for something to defend myself with, but it’s hard to think straight. There’s nothing suitable. I need a gun. A knife. Something sharp, something heavy, something lethal. Thalia wasn’t exactly the type of person to keep lethal weaponry scattered around her living room, though.
I snatch up the first thing I find: a heavy silver candleholder.
Paxton’s holding up his weapon of choice now, and his selection is much better than mine. His fingers are blanched white, closed into a fist around the handle of an ornate letter opener. It doesn’t look particularly sharp, but that doesn’t matter. Its point is sharp enough for the task Paxton has in mind. I’ve toyed aimlessly with that very letter opener a hundred times before when I’ve been hanging out in Thalia’s open plan kitchen, leaning against the counter, talking to her while she cooks or cleans. I know that piece of silverware well. It’s heavy and weighted, perfect for plunging into a person’s heart. I never once imagined that it would one day be used to end my life. Suddenly, I’m filled with anger. It’s a weird reaction to have to the situation, but I can’t help it. It’s a living, breathing thing inside me, roiling and churning, filling every part of me.