Shooting Scars: The Artists Trilogy 2

by Karina Halle

  “His order you mean.”

  “Yes, his order. I’m sorry if I come across a bit unfriendly, but I have to follow them and that may mean making you go out for the dinner tomorrow. Do you understand?”

  The girl couldn’t seem to go anywhere without someone threatening her.

  “I understand,” she said with a dejected sigh. “Listen, Enrico, can you do me a favor and get me another drink?”

  He walked over to the mini bar and opened the door. “Tequila is all gone.”

  “Then I’ll take the bourbon.”

  “You Americans like to mix it up.” He tossed the bottle to her and she caught it.

  “I like to keep my liver on its toes.”

  “Well, good night, Miss Willis.” Enrico walked over to the door. My breathing started to slow in relief. “I hope you can sleep well knowing how safe you are.”

  She cracked open the bottle of JD and drank it back before she said, “Good night.”

  The door closed. She waited a few tense moments before she went up and locked it. Then she went around to check the patio door again and closed the curtain to that. She came back to the bed and lay down, her legs dangling off the edge. I could see the start of the cherry blossom tattoo snaking its way up her calf. It looked a bit rough and for one crazy second I became concerned that she wasn’t moisturizing it enough.

  She went into the bathroom, apparently forgetting that I was there. I wouldn’t have put it past her. Then she came out, undressed, her top and skirt sliding to the floor and pooling around her ankles, reminding me of the obsidian shape of my dreams, then pulled on a t-shirt, turned off the main light, then the lamp and climbed into bed. Darkness.

  I waited for ten more minutes, wondering if I should take a chance and say anything or if I should just hunker down in the closet and prepare for the night in there. I wasn’t going to chance leaving her room now, not when she was being guarded and heavily watched.

  I pulled out Gus’s cell from my pocket, checking it. He said he was going to see about getting a cell phone from a store in town, but so far I only had the line to his room. I’d have to call him in the morning and fill him in. I hoped he wasn’t sitting up worrying about us too much.

  Finally I decided to risk it and I slowly pushed open the closet door. The room was dark except for the faded orange light of the illuminated walkway outside that came in through the flimsy curtains. I made my way over to the other side of the bed and got in, on top of the covers.

  She rolled over to face me, her legs curled up in the fetal position, her hands clasped under chin. We looked at each other for a few seconds and in that time I wondered how I was ever going to get past this. I wondered how I was even going to try. She could give me her excuses but it wouldn’t make much difference. It didn’t take back what was done and what was done didn’t take the love away. It only made me want to try and compartmentalize it, to tuck it away somewhere deep inside, a hint of hope shining among all the wicked and soulless things. That was the only way I was going to be able to get through this – locking it up and hoping it stayed in there.

  Normally I would have kissed her, felt her body beneath my hands, do all those things to her that I had been dreaming of. I had wanted it, needed it, craved it. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t touch her now, not now. I don’t even think she knew who her body belonged to at the moment. It certainly wasn’t me. And the sooner I got over that bit, the better we would both be.

  “I’ll see you in the morning,” I whispered softly. “They may be out there, but you’ll be safe right here.”

  I could see in the gleam of her eyes that she needed me to come close, to put my arms around her and make everything alright. She was as vulnerable as I’d ever seen her. But I just turned over onto my back and let the tequila and heartbreak take me away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  ELLIE

  I woke up right before sunrise, when the room was a purple grey haze, the air was decidedly heavy. It was a weird atmosphere and it took me a few seconds to figure out where I was and who the man was next to me.

  Camden. He was sleeping on his back, his glasses still on, lips parted. He was like a fragment from my dream, a faded portrait of masculinity, heart and ink. My heart, that beating organ that had been so elusive to me as of late, thumped loudly in my chest as I gazed at him, stirring me awake. How could I have been so careless with him?

  In the end, he was here. Just like he said he’d be.

  My mind fluttered over to Javier and the day ahead of me. I believed that Javier would never put me in any danger that I couldn’t get myself out of but now I was starting to second guess things. How bad was his need for revenge this time around?

  And he knew … he knew this whole time what had happened to Camden, that he was on the run, and he’d never told me. I guess he knew if he had, I would’ve run away, I would’ve found some way to escape. With Camden on the run, Javier had no way of getting to him, of hurting him. I wouldn’t have been coerced into this whole fucking mess.

  He had wanted me to kill my parents. It was a ridiculous notion and I could only figure that it was his way of trying to settle things with the people who hurt me. Maybe that’s why he was doing it to Travis too. Though romantics would argue that was a sign of true love, it sat wrong inside of me, like food that wouldn’t digest. Because as nearly noble as it seemed, why get me to do it?

  I sighed and rubbed my hands on my face. I didn’t know what the fuck I was going to do. Last night, seeing Camden in my room, I was ready to run to him, leave with him and Gus and try to make a break for it. I’m glad that we didn’t. Javier’s men would have shot them on sight. I don’t know what his plans for me would have been. Perhaps, knowing Camden was really gone this time, I would have broken completely.

  I was being yanked in different directions and it was tearing me up inside. I never fell back in love with Javier, my body spoke a different language than that, but he still tricked me. He still made me believe in the lies. How deep did his feelings for me go? I knew they never went all the way to the roots, I’d told myself that, but some tiny part of me hoped for his redemption, that I somehow held the key to his soul.

  Perhaps that was exactly what my ego wanted to hear. Like it wanted to hear Camden tell me I was good. I didn’t think I was going to get that either.

  He was different, too. His body shot, his heart blown out by what I had done. Last night I was so sure he was going to hold me close to him and make me feel the safety he was promising, I thought he was going to give me the protection I’d associated with him. Instead, he stared at me like I was a burden to him. A lost little girl he’d come after to bail out and now was stuck with the task. Camden was also a man of his word, and for better or worse, I knew he’d be there for me till the end – even if he didn’t want to be. That’s the thought that really stung, that dug deep, that he’d be there for me out of deep-seated devotion, a sense of obligation, not because he really wanted to be. I was afraid he’d start to resent me.

  He slowly opened his eyes and tried to move. He stopped, groaning pitifully, face scrunched up in anguish.

  “Do you want some Tylenol?” I asked.

  He grunted and shook his head slightly. “No, I have some better shit than that. I just hate how happy it makes me feel.”

  I swallowed. “Maybe I should take some then.”

  He tilted his head, eyes on me. “Sometimes it’s better to deal with the pain than mask it. It always comes back.”

  His lips were begging me to meet them with mine. Another spear of shame and regret rocked through me. I got up, went to the sink, and got him a glass of water.

  When I came back he was sitting up looking like he was in incredible pain.

  “Is it your back?”

  He nodded, took the glass of water from me. He fished two pills out of his pocket and finished the water. He wiped his mouth and exhaled. “Unfortunately, I won’t be able to deal with this pain. Not today. Not when we have to figure out
what to do.”

  I went over to the window and peeked through it. No wonder the air felt so heavy today. The sun was gone. Those dark clouds I had seen hovering over the sea for so long had finally rolled in and smothered us with a low, claustrophobic ceiling.

  “What do you think I should do?” I asked, my eyes now searching the courtyard for anyone patrolling it. It was quiet, dead as anything, all the guests still asleep in their rooms or having their morning coffees and shaking their heads at the one day the weather decided to be a bitch. Well, it was still hurricane season. They should have known better. We all should have known better.

  “I know I have to lay low here until you go,” he said. He laughed and I turned to look at him. His eyes looked glazed, a lazy smile on his lips.

  “Good shit?” I asked, taking a seat beside him on the bed.

  He nodded, still smiling. Oh god, his dimples. I wanted him to keep taking these drugs, over and over again, so I could see them, so he could be happy and not hate me. I wanted him oblivious and loving me. I wanted my image in his eyes to be pure and good and untainted.

  He sighed, leaning back against the headboard. “Ellie, I have something for you.”

  I waited while he went into his pocket and pulled out a small box that looked like a tin for tiny mints. He put it in my hand and told me to open it, his words slurring slowly.

  “Shouldn’t we do this when you’re not high?” I asked.

  “It’s pretty self-explanatory.” He waved at it.

  I shrugged and opened the tin. It was a tiny red dot of plastic, no bigger than the end of a pencil.

  “What is this? Wireless mic?”

  He shook his head. “One more guess.”

  “A tracking device?”

  He smiled again and my heart jumped. “Bingo. Put that on the underside of your necklace.”

  I looked down at the razor blade and lifted it up.

  “I’ll help you in a few,” he said.

  “I’ve got it,” I said, taking the dot out of the tin, sticking it to the back of the necklace. From Javier’s mic the other day, to the tracking device, I’d turned into a walking instrument. I guess it was better than being a walking weapon.

  Camden fished out his cell from his pocket and waved it at me. “I’m not really sure how but as soon as I bring it to him, Gus has you in the system so we can start tracking your every move.”

  “What was the original plan?”

  He shrugged his one shoulder, head rolling to the side. “We didn’t know. We weren’t sure if you’d come with us, if you’d want to leave. If you’d even come back from Travis. We could only hope.”

  “And what do you hope?”

  He straightened his head and gave me a steady gaze. “I hope we can all be here together.”

  I looked at my hands, wringing them together. “I have to go with Travis tonight.”

  He swallowed hard. “So you’ll go with Travis. And then you’ll escape.”

  I raised my brow. “How?”

  “Well, you said you’ll be going out for dinner. We’ll be tracking you. We’ll know where you are. You go to the bathroom window or through the kitchen or however you can figure it and we’ll be there waiting for you. We’ll find you. And we’ll all leave together.”

  I shook my head roughly. “No. He’s got people everywhere.”

  “I know. We saw them. But he’s got his people looking out for him. They won’t be watching you. Once you’re there with him, they won’t have a reason to. You’re just an American tourist to him, one hot piece of ass. He’s going to work on impressing you and you’re going to be impressed then he’ll have no reason to worry why you’re taking so long in the bathroom.”

  The way he was telling me what I had to do was familiar. But this time, it was comforting because I knew he had my best interests in mind. I knew I could trust him one hundred percent, because I’d left him in the dust in Palm Valley and he was here with me now. This could work. I could get out of all of this.

  “I just …” he began and trailed off.

  “What?”

  “I just hope that once we leave, that you can leave it for good.”

  I gulped. “You think I’d return to this place?”

  “Not this place. Not this city. The place inside you. The place where killing Travis still sounds like a good idea. I know you want him dead, Ellie, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But once we leave, we have to let it go. Everything and everyone.”

  I know he meant Javier by that. I nodded. “I will do that. I will leave.”

  “You will, but does that mean you can?”

  Outside thunder rumbled ominously.

  He exhaled loudly. “Looks like a storm is coming. You better get ready for your day. You never know when Enrico will stop by with a new message.”

  “You better get back in the closet then,” I said.

  “If only my father could hear that,” he said, attempting a joke. His brow furrowed in pain and I had to wonder how he was dealing with everything. Not only me or his gunshot wound but Sophia turning on him and being wanted by the police. His father had to know too, the man Camden could never be good enough for. My poor, poor Camden. He’d taken enough.

  He got up and used the washroom quickly, had a banana and went back in the closet. I got ready and waited, waited long enough so that when there finally was a knock at my door, I was ready for it.

  It was Enrico. I opened the door and a gust of electric air came in.

  “Just checking in on you,” Enrico said. “Any problems last night?”

  “No, I went to bed. Looks like a storm is coming.”

  “There’s a category one hurricane off the coast. Nothing to worry about, just no sun tanning today.”

  I smiled politely and stared at him until he cleared his throat.

  “The other reason I am here is that Javier has a message for you.”

  My gut twisted.

  “What is it?”

  “He wants to meet here at this café at 11AM today.” He handed me a business card.

  “Is this a good idea?”

  “That is not for me to say. Have a good day, Miss Willis. I will have the cab waiting for you out front a half hour prior.”

  Enrico turned and walked away. I knew Camden was in the closet, catching all of that. At least then he could finally come out after I left, assuming that Javier’s men would be trailing after me. Then he could activate the tracking device and I would have his protection.

  I got ready for the day, feeling slightly self-conscious with Camden there, hiding out of sight. I put on a simple strapless maxi dress and fluffed out my hair with my fingers, doing a quick sweep of makeup.

  At twenty after ten, I grabbed my purse and left the room, whispering, “See you later,” to Camden, hoping he had heard me. Hoping that I would see him later. I had no idea what Javier had planned for me now. Everything was turned on its head.

  The café wasn’t a long cab ride from the market, and I got there early. I didn’t see Javier anywhere. I sat down at one of the tables inside, the threatening clouds producing wind that whipped scattered loose napkins around on the streets like white tumbleweeds.

  I waited there for an hour at my table, finally indulging in a crêpe and some fruit, when the waiter slipped me a note. It said “mujeres baño andale” in unknown cursive handwriting, perhaps the waiter’s.

  I looked up at the waiter but he was already walking past and delivering food to someone else. I got up and made my way through the café to the woman’s bathroom, trying to stay cool. Suddenly I was very afraid.

  I opened the door and stepped in. There were only two stalls. Both looked empty but both stall doors were closed.

  “Javier?” I whispered tentatively.

  A pair of shiny shoes stepped down from one of the seats. I held my breath as the stall door opened and Javier stepped out. Everything felt so fucking different now. I had to keep it cool.

  He nodded at the door behind me. “Loc
k it.”

  “Okay,” I said and turned around to do so.

  When I turned toward him, he was right there behind me, grabbing my head and kissing me hard. His tongue snaked around in my mouth, his hands going down my sides, cupping underneath my ass until he pressed me up against the door.

  It was different now. It had been wrong before and I knew that but now it was another shade of wrong that was about more than just me. It was about Camden. I couldn’t do this to him knowing what I knew now, what I should have always, always known. Even if Camden didn’t want anything to do with me after this was all over, it couldn’t even be an option. This had to stop.

  “Ellie,” Javier whispered as he pulled his lips away and started biting down my neck. I felt powerless, frightened and cold. “Ellie, I need you. I missed you.”

  Lies, lies. Too many lies. His fingers went down to my thighs, gathering up the length of my dress. His other hand went to his pants, started undoing his fly.

  “Javier,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “This isn’t the time.”

  “There’s always time for this,” he said, nipping at my collarbone, near the edge of the razor blade. I held my breath, dying inside.

  “No,” I said. I ducked under his arm and went to the opposite side of the bathroom, hands at the wall.

  He had his cock in his hand, stroking it, the look on his face one of lust and madness.

  His smile was lopsided, wickedly amused. “No? You don’t get to say no, Ellie.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him, pulled down my dress. “I’m saying no now. Don’t you want to know how my fucking date with Travis went last night? Don’t you want to know if he touched me, threatened me, hurt me?”

  He looked taken aback, enough so that he put his dick away and zipped up his fly. He walked over to me, smoothing back his hair. “Okay. If it’s so important for you to tell me, but I already heard it from Enrico.”

  I swallowed down the anger that was building up. That he could send me off to be with such a monster, the monster who did those things to Javier’s own family, and not even care to hear about it.