by Lena Maye
I stare at the spots of blood on the door.
I’m not this guy. Or I don’t want to be. Either way, I need to calm the fuck down. I rake a hand through my hair and keep breathing. I need to get out of here. I spin and stop.
Dark eyes. Ella?
“You’re just like your father.” She jams something white into my arm and then steps back. I only have a moment to pull it out before the world starts to swim.
She’s still talking. I try to focus on it, but her words are hazy.
I slip to my knees, then slide forward. My palms hit the pavement.
Mira.
41
Ella
I don’t have time to wonder if I’ve made a mistake by closing the door on Dean. Don’t even have time to change out of my jeans that are clouded in flour. Before the sun is fully up, my phone starts ringing. Signs are going up. Vendors are setting up. There’s broken beer bottles on the walkway around the park that have to be cleaned up before the last of the tents can be set up. Glass everywhere, apparently. And bags of kite string missing from Dean’s ticket hut, where he was working on those little homemade kites for the kids all week. There’s just so much to do—and all of it is the last thing I want to be thinking about.
And no wind. Which is pretty much death for a kite festival.
But I throw myself into it, trying to take care of whatever I can control. An hour before the festival is supposed to start, families are already arriving—before the people hired to direct traffic are here. A town the size of Portage doesn’t have much parking near the Harborwalk, so it becomes gridlocked.
But the next thing I know, Georgina from the coffee hut is out there directing traffic, Joanna’s calling about the glass, Renee says we’ve already sold fifty cupcakes, and Hal from the hardware store is getting more string for the kids’ kites.
A breeze tickles through my hair, and there’s this thought that maybe Dean was right and everything might actually come together.
The first kite goes up. A blue-and-yellow fish that climbs slowly into the sky before taking a fast nose dive. But another follows it—popping up. One after another as the breeze picks up. Little homemade ones.
Larger dual-line ones. For a second, I forget my constantly chiming phone and stand in the park, just staring up as they start to fill the sky. So many colors coming together and bouncing around each other.
And I remember Dean. It comes so suddenly, flicking into my head like a light turning on or a sail catching on the wind. He ran ahead of me, trying to get that red kite to lift. But it tumbled and then he turned, stopping in the grass for me to catch up. Eyes just as blue as they are now.
“Your turn, Elly.” He handed me the kite.
Even though I can’t see them in the memory, I feel my brother there. And Sebastian. We must have played and run and laughed. And then those memories were buried by darker ones.
Just as quickly as it came, the memory flickers away. I scan the park—families filling up the space. Children with their faces painted and homemade kites they’ve decorated clutched in their hands. A snow-cone van pulls up, making its way slowly down the sidewalk so it can set up at the edge of the park.
It stops for a woman who’s standing in the middle of the sidewalk. She’s staring up—just like I was. Dark, wild hair.
Like mine.
A green skirt billows around her legs. The only thing between us is grass and twenty yards. No guards. No glass. No defendant’s table. No brothers or closet doors or boxes of syringes. Nothing but air and grass.
The van turns off the sidewalk to go around her, passing in front of her.
A trickling fear curls down into my legs and makes me want to push away from her. To run—fast and far, just like she always told me to do.
The van drives across a corner of grass and then bumps back onto the sidewalk, and I glance down at my phone.
When I look up, she’s gone.
Just… gone. I scan the area. She can’t be gone. But there’s no hint of her. A woman pushes a stroller down the sidewalk, passing over the exact spot my mother had been standing a minute before.
Did I imagine her? Like my memories that are always so strong? Taking me out of reality and pushing me backward?
My breath catches in my throat. I’m not sure.
But I’m not taking the chance. Just like with Dean, there’s no room for chances with my mother. I take out my phone and call the police.
“We’ve actually been trying to contact you,” Detective Jordan says as soon as I say my name.
“What? Why?” I press the phone close to my ear. An announcer is introducing one of the kite demonstrations, and the speaker keeps crackling. I’ve had too many phone calls to keep up with today, but I would have answered a call from the police department.
“We dispatched a unit to locate you,” he says quickly. “There’s been an incident at Palmer’s.”
“Where?” The name is vaguely familiar, but I can’t place it.
“An assisted living place on Becham Road. I can’t disclose the details yet, but we’re looking for a person of interest.”
The facility Charles is at. Something’s happened to him.
Oh, no. No. She went after Charles. Not me. Not Anthony.
Did she go to the Heroine first? I need to call Dean. But first I need to tell the detective that I saw her.
“I saw my mother,” I blurt. “At the park—”
There’s a rush of talking on the other end of the line. I know he’s not talking to me, so I just stand there and wait, my stomach twisting into knots. Kites bob around me. The world spins so fast that I don’t know how much longer I can keep my balance. I can’t keep waiting on the phone. I need to call Dean.
Then the detective’s back, saying my name. Asking me questions. I answer as briefly as I can. Tell him where I saw her. What she was wearing. Who else might have seen her. I answer every question that I can, giving every detail I can remember.
They have to find her.
The announcer starts talking again, and I tuck the phone close to my ear. Detective Jordan’s saying something about Palmer’s that I can’t hear over the speakers. Then he says that term: person of interest. I start walking toward the other side of the park. Opposite from where my mother had gone. Toward the Harborwalk and the Heroine.
“Can you help us find him?” the detective asks.
“Him?”
“Yes,” he says. “Like I said, we’re looking for your brother. He’s a person of—”
“You already said that, and I understand the words, but I don’t really know what that means. What’s going on with Anthony?”
There’s a long pause on the other end, then he clears his throat. “I’m only telling you this because you contacted us about Mira Jacobs. Anthony’s wanted for questioning. He’s a suspect in the murder of Charles Archer.”
I repeat the words in my head. Charles is dead. Does Dean know?
And they think Anthony did it?
“But I saw my mother,” I say quickly. Except they don’t know why that’s relevant. “Charles was one of her past victims,” I explain. “It has to be her.”
“There’s no evidence of her at the scene of the crime,” he says carefully. “But your brother was seen on the security tapes going into the building. Not long after, Charles was discovered dead.”
“It can’t be Anthony.” My voice wavers. I don’t know what to believe. “Have you talked to Dean?”
“No, we’ve been trying to locate him as well.”
My hands start shaking so hard I can barely hold the phone. Dean. Everything else around me evaporates. Just gone. Like it was never there to begin with.
“Look, Ella, I think we should send a car to pick you up. Bring you down to the station. You can wait there while—”
I disconnect the call.
42
Ella
Dean doesn’t answer his phone. I call him three times, but all ring to voicemail. I call Renee, but neither
she nor Dev has seen him. I dart through the crowd, around strollers and under kite strings. I run as fast as I can, my shaking hands jabbing at the phone, my eyes on the harbor below.
The masts of the Heroine rise over the Harborwalk. She’s always seemed to dominate the harbor before, but now she feels so far away.
I dial Anthony, not expecting him to answer. But he picks up on the first ring.
“Elly.” His voice is muffled like we’re speaking through tin cans.
“What is going on?” I slow to a hurried walk so that I can talk to him. But I don’t stop moving. I won’t stop moving until I find Dean. “Where are you? Did you hurt Charles?”
But he’s not just hurt. Charles is dead. It’s hard to wrap my head around that. To wrap my head around any of this.
“I didn’t want to,” Anthony mumbles. “I told her I didn’t want to.”
Oh, God.
“Where are you?”
“I’m at Mitch’s.” His breath is heavy, like it’s too much for him to push out. He still sounds drunk. Maybe he’s high too. “I was supposed to go back to her. But…”
“Don’t go. Stay where you are.” I turn onto the far edge of the Harborwalk. The lighthouse stands atop the hill. Surrounded by tourists today.
“She’ll just find me again. If I don’t go, she’ll...” He trails off, and I’m pretty sure it’s into a bottle. My brother needs help. More than I can provide. Him living with me isn’t enough. Regardless of what I think about Benny right now, he and Laura gave me a home. A sister who became a best friend. They gave me stability. And I learned that life could be different. Then with Dean, I learned that life could be full and fun and loving.
And safe.
Anthony never had any of that.
Now she’s here to take everything away. I won’t let her.
“Don’t go back,” I say. “You don’t have to be the person she wants you to be. Tell me where she is.”
“At this house. I don’t know. She said it was hers. Gray.”
The one mentioned in the news clippings I found about Mira Audet. It’s only a few blocks away.
“He’s there, Elly.”
I crash to a stop. “Dean?”
Dean
The world is murky gray. It shifts slowly into focus. The faint outlines around me harden into objects. A dresser with a white lamp sitting on it. A rectangular window. Sunlight glints through the vertical slats of the blinds. It’s a small room. Low ceiling. Something I’d usually avoid, but now I try to hang onto it. Pull myself out of confusion and into the space, as if I’m clawing my way out of a storm.
And trying to figure out why I’m here. Why I can hardly move.
My mouth is dry, and I lick my lips. I bring my hand up to my jaw, but it feels like I’m moving underwater. Slow, dragged by the undercurrent. I let my hand fall back in my lap. There are tiny burning cuts along my forearms. Angry nicks like someone’s jammed the tip of a knife into me repeatedly. Red cuts the same color as the folding chair I’m sitting on.
Paint speckles one arm of the chair. It’s my father’s chair. Somehow it got from the ticket hut to here. And I’m sitting on it. I try to stand up, but my legs are as heavy and sodden as my arms.
How did it get here? How did I get here? My heart starts jumping as I pull it together.
Mira.
She was outside the bakery. She drugged me. Dragged me. With… someone else. My thoughts are fuzzy. Ella’s brother.
Ella.
I cling to the image of her that flashes into my mind. Those dark eyes. Her lips parting slightly as she looks up at me. Like she’s about to say something. Or about to kiss me. The two things that I want more than anything right now.
Fuck, I need to get to her. Right now. Keep her safe. Be her hero. Warn her that her mother is here. I’d give anything—do anything—to take her away from this. Throw her over my shoulder like I wanted to do before.
I start to stand, but I fall back. The chair groans under my weight. My breath is coming fast, my muscles twitching. My mind is so clouded.
My second attempt to stand is better than the first. I still fall back into the chair, but I’m not going to give up. I just have to stand. Like I stood up all those years ago with my father. I have to stand up and make this end.
“Ella.” I whisper her name and use the arms of the chair to help push me up. I get to my feet, but I’m unsteady. Maybe too unsteady to walk.
I push a foot forward anyway, sliding a shoe along the carpet a few inches and then carefully transferring my weight. The other shoe slides forward.
“I misjudged your weight.” The voice snaps—like Ella’s, but different. Angrier. Twisted. As if Ella’s voice has been stretched and deformed. Turned into something dark. “You’re lucky that all I could find was some ketamine.”
Mira stands in the doorway, and my jaw immediately tenses. She’s in a skirt and a black tank top. Her hair is pulled back, but it has the same color and wildness as Ella’s. She looks like any other woman, except for the hatred that drips from her. It covers every inch of her, leaches across the room to me. She’s not just any other woman.
And she’s standing in the only doorway. Which means I have to go through her or around her. I push my left foot forward a few more inches and then follow with the right, trying to ignore the way my heart is pounding. I’m a foot taller than her. I’m stronger. I will get to Ella.
There’s a low click, and I stop. She points a pistol at my chest. A wash of cold runs over me, but I’ve been threatened before. Never at gunpoint, but it’s almost as if that asshole prepared me for this. My shoulders tighten, my hands fisting.
I push my right foot forward.
“You look like him.” She doesn’t move from the doorway. The pistol doesn’t falter. Whatever that hard, cruel streak that ran through my father was—this woman has it deeper. I can see the way it holds her up and makes her hate. The way he hated us. And the way I used to hate him. Before Ella helped me let it go.
“And you act like him.” She gestures with the pistol as she talks. Still pointed at me, but moving a few centimeters up and down.
“No.” I push my left foot forward. Anger starts to eat away the fear.
“Your father’s dead because of what he did.”
The words are a sudden hit. Like those backhands that left the side of my face numb. I don’t know what to do with them. Don’t even know if she’s telling the truth. So I focus back on the one thing that I know is real.
Ella.
I push my right foot forward. I will get to Ella, no matter what it takes.
“If you take one more step, you’ll be dead too.” Cold, calculating words. But she spits them out with a sneer.
For the first time, I pause. A falter she must see because the gun rises another few inches to point at my face.
The backhands that came from my father were so sudden and out of nowhere. That was just a hand. This could be a bullet.
Fuck. Getting myself shot is not the best way to get to Ella. The thought of never seeing her again—that I could die right here on this gray carpet, in this stale room—it makes me pause. It’s not just me alone on the Neverland anymore, sailing from port to port with little worry for what’s behind or what’s ahead. Ella’s with me, wherever I go.
I need to find a way out of this.
“I’m not my father.” My voice is rough, and I clear my throat. Is he really dead? Conflicting emotions push through me, but all of them are tempered with one thing: relief. That it’s finally over, and I can just… let it go.
“I saw what you did to Ella outside the bakery.” She spits the words in a shaking voice. “He used to do that. Hit things out of rage. And before that, I saw you yell at a woman on that haunted boat of his. You can pretend all you want, but I see the truth. And Ella’s going to see it too.”
“I would never hurt Ella.” Words I’m beyond certain about.
“You already have.” Her hand shakes, and I remain as still as pos
sible. “She’ll be on her way. Anthony will tell her where to find me.”
I don’t want Ella here. This is what she was trying to tell me on the dock. That she didn’t want me here, just like I don’t want her here. I don’t want to take any chance that she could be hurt. And if she sees this woman, it’s going to tear through her. Just like it tore through me every time I saw my father. I don’t want her to go through that.
“Ella doesn’t need to be here,” I say, careful to sound calm. To contain the anger that’s burning through me. But it’s not his anger. It’s mine. And I’ve got control over it. “Just let me go. Let her go. She’s happy now that…” I trail off, realizing what that implies.
Mira clutches the pistol. “Happy now? Did you see that festival? The kites dancing. Just like when she was a child. Don’t pretend like you know what she needs.”
I push a foot forward.
“Don’t move another step.” Her voice lowers into something calmer. “I have to show her who you really are.” Mira tilts her head and eyes me. “And then, when she realizes, she’ll be the one to kill you. Now get back in the chair.”
“No.” The certainty comes from somewhere deep inside of me. Returning to me after so many years with the same surety that I felt the first time I said it to my father.
Mira lowers the pistol, and for a second I think she might be letting me go. Because that’s what should happen, right? She should just let all of this go. We should all let it go. Like my anger. Ella’s fears. Just let it all go.
Instead, she fires.
I flinch, startled by the sound that echoes in the small room.
She missed me. She’s only a few feet away, but she still missed me.
Maybe she won’t kill me after all. She’ll just let me go.
I take another step forward, but a burning starts in my thigh. Wet, hot and really fucking odd. Like my brain knows something is wrong, but my body hasn’t caught up yet. I look down.
Fuck, there’s blood on my shoe.
43