by Nikki Chase
This frees up my time to help end human trafficking. I have grand visions of shutting down those operations one by one, until they’re completely gone. But, to be honest, if all my efforts could only save one more person, I’d still do it.
I just don’t want to drag other people into it. Even Alejandra is moving on, now that Walter’s operation is shut down, and that’s okay, too.
I exhale a deep, tired, sad sigh.
I’m going to miss Alice.
I’m going to fucking miss Alice.
But she’ll be happier without me. I’ve risked my life twice to save her, so she’d better live the hell out of her life, which I hope will be completely boring, normal, and safe.
I’d risk my life over and over again to save her, but it would be better for her if she doesn’t have to be in that kind of danger in the first place.
That’s why I knew exactly what to do when I woke up in the hospital. I couldn’t ever see Alice again, or my resolve might break and I might just lock her up and never let her leave my side again.
Alice
I grab my bag from the dining chair and try to suppress my anger as I walk across this damn luxury apartment to the door.
This is a really nice apartment, but I haven’t been able to appreciate it at all, which is a waste, really.
I reach the parking lot, which always has rows upon rows of expensive cars, including mine. A brand-new silver Mercedes. I found the car key on the kitchen countertop inside the apartment one night, along with a piece of paper that told me where it was parked. I stick that same key in and start the engine, then pull out of my reserved parking space.
I didn’t drive myself here. Anthony was the one who did it. He took me here straight from the hospital after that talk with Raphael.
I spent the whole night sobbing. There were so many different emotions, all swirling around inside me and blending into one, expanding and expanding until I was ready to burst.
I still feel all those same emotions, although they’re less intense now, one month after the incident.
I’m sad because our goodbye was so abrupt and permanent. I feel rejected and alone. Sometimes, when I’m feeling especially masochistic, I imagine Seth telling Raphael he doesn’t want to ever see me again. It feels like Seth has punched his fist clear through my chest, grabbed my heart, and squeezed it with all his strength.
I’m scared, now that I didn’t have Seth’s protection anymore. Even though Raphael told me I didn’t need it anymore, I can’t believe it. It just feels wrong.
How can it be right that Seth will never save me again, and yet I’m supposed to be safer? I feel safest when I’m with him.
I’m angry because, after everything that has happened, he still thinks he can run my life and make my decisions for me. He has decided, single-handedly, that I’m better off without him, so he sends me away. He gave me an apartment, a car, and a $200,000 check—presumably my salary for a year’s worth of work.
Really, I should thank him for giving me so much free time. For the first time in my life, I can afford not to work. I can do whatever I want.
Whatever I want, at this moment, happens to involve talking to Seth. So, every day for the past two weeks, I’ve been driving up to Seth’s mansion to try to see him. Really, I should say that I’ve been driving up to the gate of Seth’s mansion, because they’ve never allowed me to get any further.
I couldn’t leave when I wanted to, and now I can’t get in, when it’s all I can think of. Ugh.
Once, I tried to drive into the gate just to see if that would do the trick, and Anthony yanked me out of the car, shoved me onto the passenger seat, and drove me back to the city. I guess he took a cab back or something.
I’ve come to two conclusions.
One, I can beg and plead and demand to see him—I’ve tried all those things, by the way—but ultimately if he doesn’t want to see me, he doesn’t have to see me. He has enough money and power to keep a nobody like me far, far away.
Two, I know how to make him want to see me. I just didn’t want to fight dirty. But I’ve reached the end of my patience. How much longer is he going to play this game with me? So I’m going to use my secret weapon: a guilt trip.
Raphael mentioned it once, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. Seth has an admirable sense of responsibility. Every major thing he has done—helping the farm workers, attacking their boss, kidnapping me—has been motivated by that dedication to his duties.
So I’m going to remind him of his responsibilities to me. What he still owes me. What it would take for me to get closure.
Then, he’ll have to talk to me.
Seth
“Seth, she's here again,” Anthony says as he enters my office.
I run my hand over my hair and massage my scalp, hoping it would clear my throbbing headache.
“I told you to just keep her out and bring her back to the city yourself if you have to.”
“She told me to give you this letter. She wanted me to tell you that you owe it to her to read it.” Anthony places a folded piece of paper on my desk.
“Just go back outside and make her leave,” I say.
“Okay. What do you want me to do about the letter? Give it back to her?”
“No, just leave it.”
“I knew you'd see me,” she says as she sways into my office, looking better than a million dollars in a pair of jeans and a lightweight white shirt, no doubt a good outfit for keeping cool while she stands outside my gate all day. She speaks confidently, victoriously. “You should've let me in from the first day. It would've saved us both some time.”
“What is it that you need, Alice?” After only two weeks apart, it already feels strange to have her name on my tongue.
Lately, I've only been chanting her name in my head, repeating it like some kind of mantra against forgetting. Because I don't ever want to forget the days when Alice lived here and I was happy, even if it was just for a short time.
“I just need to talk to you. Isn't that obvious? A conversation. It's the one thing you haven't bribed me with.” She takes a seat across the desk from me without any prompting.
She glances at the letter she gave Anthony earlier. All it says is: “I need to see you. You owe me that, at least, after everything you've put me through. I can't sleep, I can't work, I can't live. I deserve answers.”
I shouldn't have read it. I knew I was going to cave, but I opened it anyway. Now, I’m sitting here in my office with the real Alice, instead of just her ghost, whom I conjure up for company. I should savor this moment, remember every detail, because this is the last time I’ll ever see her.
“What kind of questions do you have?” I ask.
“Will you answer all of them?”
“To the best of my knowledge.”
“Okay. Where's Alejandra?”
“Huh?” I didn't expect this question at all. “This is one of the questions keeping you up at night?”
“No, but you did say you’d answer all my questions,” she insists, defiance flashing in her big blue eyes. She looks so fucking beautiful when she's like this. My blood starts rushing, just thinking about putting her in her place on her knees, my cock jammed in her throat.
I will my dirty thoughts away. I can't think of her that way. That's what got me into trouble the first time.
“She quit,” I answer Alice's first question. I should just focus on answering them so my mind isn't occupied by other things.
“Huh,” she says, mildly surprised. “I always wondered if she was working here or related to you in some way.”
“Well, she was a little bit of both.” I regret the words as soon as they leave my lips. That answer would only lead to more questions. But my guard is always down when I'm with Alice. I can't help myself.
“How are you related?” Alice asks, just as I expected.
“We’re not really related, but she's like a sister to me.”
Alice pauses. “How did you meet?”
/>
“Is this really something you absolutely need to know?”
“Yes. You did agree to answer all questions.”
“Yeah, I did.” I take a deep breath. I can't shake the feeling that she's playing a game right now, and I'm going in blind without knowing any of the rules.
“Alejandra used to help me get people out from the farm,” I answer as succinctly as I can.
“She's not going to help you again now? I thought you were going to continue doing the same work.”
“Yeah, but Alejandra only had ties to that one particular operation. She just wanted to save her friends, and now they're all free. Her job is done and she's moving on. As should you,” I remind her.
“I don't care about the farm, or Alejandra’s friends. All I care about is you, which is why I can't just leave and forget everything.” Her words make my heart skip a beat.
She cares about me? That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but she really shouldn't. I'm bad news.
“So, what did Alejandra have to do with the farm?” Alice asks again, and I wonder how many more questions she has stored in her arsenal.
“She was the boss' girlfriend,” I answer.
“Walter?” She scrunches up her nose in disgust, and I have to laugh. She looks adorable.
“Yeah, Walter.”
“With a girl like Alejandra? Wow, she must be glad that's over. She can do so much better.”
I chuckle. It's nice to finally talk to someone about this. Raphael’s not interested, and Alejandra doesn't like to discuss it, for obvious reasons.
“Are you done with your questions? Did you come here just to ask me questions about Alejandra?” I ask.
“Hey, I’m the one who gets to ask questions here,” she protests. Her full lips form a mischievous smile on her gorgeous face.
“Okay.”
“I haven't been sleeping well at all, Seth. Have you?” Alice asks, her gaze soft with concern.
“Do you need to see a shrink? I can arrange that. I know--”
“No, Seth,” she cuts me off. “Stop trying to do things for me. You’ve already given me everything, you're taking care of me so well, but what I really need is to talk to you. Like, really talk to you.” She gives me a sweet smile. “You’re the only shrink I need.”
“I can't do this, Alice. You know that. When you walk out of this office, that's it,” I say firmly, even though every word feels like a sharp shard of glass, cutting up my insides and embedding pain into my flesh.
“Yeah, well, we’ll see about that,” she says stubbornly.
“What's that supposed to mean?” I frown.
“I have an endless supply of questions, and you said you’d answer every single one of them. We can sit here forever,” she says, determination on her beautiful features.
“You can't do that. I’ll have you removed and sent back to your apartment.” I put my hands together and my fingers start to fidget—something I’ve always done when I'm nervous. I may have painted myself into a corner when I agreed to answer every question.
“Do you hate me that much?” Alice gazes at me with pain in her eyes. Pain that I've caused.
“I don't hate you, Alice. Not at all. The opposite, in fact. I just want you to live your life and be happy,” I say, meeting her gaze. She needs to know that I'm doing this for her own good.
“But how am I supposed to be happy without you?” Her question takes me aback.
“You were happy before me, and you will be happy again someday.”
“Are you happy?” Alice asks in a soft voice that nevertheless hits me like a truck.
“That's not what we're talking about here.”
“But that's a question, and you have to answer. Are you happy?”
“No,” I admit. “But maybe I'm just not a happy person. There's no normal level of happiness I need to get back to.”
“Bullshit,” she says, challenging me with those big baby-blues. “Okay, then, answer me this honestly. Were you happy when I was living here?”
I hesitate, not because I don't know the answer, but because I don't know if it's a good idea to tell her. In the end, I say, simply, “Yes.”
“Then why are you being so stubborn?” Alice's voice grows louder, bolder. “Why won't you just let me come back?”
“I told you, I’ll only put you in danger,” I say quietly.
“That's not true, and you know it. Why do you even say that? You know you can keep me safe.”
“Evidently, I couldn’t.” Frustration brews within me. What am I supposed to do to show her how dangerous it is to be around me?
“That was my own fault for running away.”
“Listen to yourself. You’re telling me it was your own fault you got caught by Walter? You wouldn’t have known he existed if it wasn’t for me.” My voice grows louder, as if a higher volume will somehow drill it into her hard head that there’s no safe way for her to stick around.
“No, you listen to yourself!” She shouts, slapping her hands on the desk. “You’re telling me it was your fault, then? What did you do, exactly? All you did was come see me where I worked once a week. What was the horrible thing you did that makes it such a bad idea for us to be together?”
I purse my lips together, racking my brain for a good response, but I’ve got nothing. She may have finally come up with a question I can’t answer.
“If it was your fault that Walter found out I existed, just because you came to see me so often, then it was also my fault that he caught me, just because I wanted my freedom back.” Alice speaks with quiet conviction, her voice calm but her eyes burning with passionate fire.
My breath catches in my throat, just as it always does when I see Alice being completely focused on something. I’ve never seen her wear that expression when she’s not in the kitchen before.
Could it be that I’m the one who’s bringing out that side of her right now?
“It was Walter’s fault,” Alice says in the same serene voice. “He was the bad guy, and you got rid of him. You’re the hero of this story, so why are you punishing yourself like this?”
Oh, that’s right. She doesn’t know I used to work for Walter. I took part in that whole repugnant operation. I even caused a man, who was already sick and starving and suffering, to die.
She’d hate me if she knew.
Maybe she should know.
Maybe that will do the trick.
Maybe she’ll be so grossed out she’ll finally leave me alone.
“Don’t talk like you know me,” I say. “You don’t. Not really. You don’t know everything I’ve done.”
“I know you killed someone. You killed Walter. And I still don’t think you’re some kind of a monster.”
“He wasn’t the only one who died because of me.” My heart hammers in my chest. But I have to tell her.
“You’re talking about your friend who died at the drug bust?” She frowns, obviously not understanding what I’m trying to tell her.
“No. There was someone else.”
Surprise registers in Alice’s blue eyes, so big they show every nuance of her emotions plainly. She asks, “Who?”
“One of Walter’s workers.”
“You killed him? Wait, did he attack you first?” She narrows her eyes at me, the fight returning to her voice.
“No. All he did was ask me to let him out to see a doctor because he was sick.”
Alice’s lips stay glued together, her gaze locked on my face, studying me. After a few seconds’ pause, she says, “I don’t buy it. There must be something more to that story.”
“Well, believe it,” I say sternly. “I’m a monster, just like Walter was. Only monsters can stand up against monsters. That’s why I’m doing this. Not because I’m some kind of a hero.”
“Did he die at your hands? Were you the one who killed him?”
“No,” I admit. “But if it weren’t for me, he would probably still be alive.”
“So, you wanted to save him,
but you couldn’t. Someone else killed him and you’re still blaming yourself for having failed to protect him. Now, you tell me that’s not true.”
I remain quiet. Technically, she’s right, but that’s not really the point.
“It’s true, isn’t it? That’s probably why you started doing this in the first place. You know how I know? Because I’m the same as that guy, except you managed to protect me, and yet you still blame yourself.”
I stare at her, wondering how quickly the gears are turning in her head, that she has managed to figure everything out, that she has managed to figure me out.
And she’s still sitting here, trying to convince me to take her back.
I look at her right in the eyes and tell her, “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I think you’re just bullshitting me right now. You know how I know? Because I think everything I’ve said is true, and you don’t know how to respond without lying or confirming it. That’s why you’re so quiet now.”
“You’re not safe around me,” I repeat. I sound like a broken record, even to myself. I don’t sound convincing, but I don’t know anything anymore.
“Why?” Alice asks. “Because you bring some kind of bad luck to people around you? You think that guy died because of you? I’m pretty sure he didn’t. In fact, I’m pretty sure he would’ve died, regardless of whether you were involved. I would’ve died, if it weren’t for you.”
These fucking questions just get harder and harder.
“Fine,” I say. “He would’ve died regardless. But you’re different. You wouldn’t have been in danger at all if it weren’t for me.”
“You’re wrong, Seth,” she says, her blue eyes looking back at me sadly. “If you think I’m some kind of fragile little doll who has always lived in some kind of a safe bubble, you’re wrong. I’ve struggled my whole life. I’ve faced all kinds of dangers. I’m strong enough to stand by your side.”
“The kind of dangers you’ve faced before me, they’re nothing compared to the risk that my work will expose you to. You know that’s true.”