by Ivy Smoak
He slammed my back down against the table. “Do you think you can fool me? Do you think you can try to run from me and suddenly I’ll believe that you missed me this whole time?”
I tried to shake my head, but his hand was holding me in place. I never thought he was stupid. I had always just thought he was a monster.
He tightened his grip.
I had learned one very important thing in my training with Miles. When in doubt, kick your assailant where it hurts. I lifted my knee but Don’s legs were closed.
He smiled. “When in doubt, go for my nuts, huh?”
My eyes bulged. How did he know?
“I’ve been keeping you away from prying eyes this whole time. Did you ever think about why it was so easy to rent your new place? Why the cops haven’t caught you yet? Did you ever think about any of it? You’ve never left my sight. I’ve been listening to you. Watching you.”
I was starting to feel light headed.
“I own you. And you’re not getting away from me this time, doll.”
Chapter 36
Tuesday
The sound of wood splitting made me think the table was about to collapse beneath me. Don was finally going to do it. I’d never be able to pretend to love him. This was how it was always meant to end, with one of our hands wrapped around the other’s throat. I had just hoped it was me.
There was distant shouting. Screaming. But I couldn’t look away from Don. It was supposed to be you struggling to breathe. It should have been you.
We just stared at each other. Maybe he was thinking this was finally the end too. As soon as I was dead, the past that haunted him would be obliterated. My mother’s bloodline would be completely gone. I thought that I couldn’t live until his heart stopped beating. Had it been the same for him?
The splintering of wood sounded in my ears again. The noise pulsed with the blood trying to pump to my head. Everything was muffled, but it sounded like the door had swung open.
Don’s gaze finally left mine, but his fingers didn’t loosen around my neck.
“Get away from her!” someone yelled.
A loud bang echoed in the room. It sounded like a gunshot. I started to close my eyes. I had never been so sleepy before. The room started to blur and tilt in front of me.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Don growled as his hand finally fell from my neck.
I slid off the table, landing on my knees. My fingers clutched my neck as I took in huge gulps of air. The spinning started to subside and I saw Liza and Kins standing in the doorway. There were two men in suits writhing on the ground behind them.
“Walk away and no one has to get hurt,” Don said. He lifted his hands.
No one moved.
“You have to get closer to tase me.”
Still no one moved.
“Why don’t you just drop it?” He sounded so calm. “We can work something out.” He started to walk toward them.
This time I knew it was a gunshot that rang out. Kins was standing there with the gun shaking in her hands and a shocked looked on her face.
“Fucking bitch!” Don yelled as his knee buckled and he fell to the ground. Blood seeped into his pant leg. A second later Liza tased him and his body started to convulse like the guards outside.
“Take that you dirty…pig!” Liza said and kicked Don’s stomach.
“Oh my God, I just shot someone,” Kins said. Her hand was shaking even more as she lowered the gun by her side.
“We have to go,” Liza said and helped me to my feet. She let go of the trigger of her taser and Don’s body slowly started to stop shaking.
“I shot the freaking mayor!” Kins yelled. “I’m going to go to jail!” Her gun accidentally fired again, a bullet slicing through the carpet. She shrieked and dropped the gun on the ground. It fired again and plaster went flying from the wall.
“Stop firing that thing, you psycho.” Liza grabbed the gun from the floor. “Where did you even get this?”
Kins pointed to one of the guards behind her.
“Jesus, your fingerprints are all over it now.” Liza shoved the gun into her coat pocket. “I taught you how to use this,” she said and picked up a taser off the ground. “Not a freaking gun! What were you thinking? You could have killed us!”
“I’m sorry!” Kins said. “Oh God, what have I done?” She stared at Don’s body on the floor.
“It doesn’t matter, it was just his thigh. But we have to go. Now.” Liza grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet.
“Wait,” I said.
“Wait? They’re going to get up any second. And surely everyone on this floor heard the gunshots because someone who shall remain unnamed is trigger happy.” She glared at Kins.
Kins put her hands over her mouth. “I’m going to go to prison,” she mumbled into them. She dropped her hands. “We have to get out of here!” She ran out the door.
“Kins, we have to stay together!” Liza yelled and ran after her into the hall.
I didn’t move even though I knew Liza was right. The guards at the door were starting to stir. The police would surely be coming any minute.
I stared down at Don’s body. I wanted to kill him. I needed to kill him. My eyes scanned the room for the broken bottle. Where had it gone?
“I’m going to spend the rest of my life in jail!” Kins sobbed from the hall.
What the hell was I doing? I wasn’t going to put my friends’ lives in jeopardy. They had come to save me. Not to kill Don. I grabbed my necklace off the table and ran after them.
We burst out of the stairwell into the hotel lobby.
The man at the front desk looked up at us as we ran by. “Ladies are you okay?” He looked down at my bare feet and then at the doors we were running toward. “It’s freezing out there.”
“We’re great! We’re going to leave you a raving review!” Liza said as she ran past him.
“Excuse me!” he yelled after us. “You can’t…that robe is hotel property!”
We pushed through the doors and ran down the front steps of the hotel. I didn’t feel the icy concrete on my feet or the wind against my bare legs. All I could feel was fire. Everywhere Don touched me was aflame. I stood there, gripping my robe shut as Liza hailed down a taxi.
She pushed me and Kins in before climbing in after us. Kins started crying hysterically as soon as the door shut. I sat there frozen. Liza calmly gave the taxi driver directions to somewhere near our apartment.
He eyed us from the rearview mirror. “Look, I don’t know what kind of party you girls were at, but I’m not…”
“We’ll double the fare. Please just go,” Liza said. “Now!”
He stared at us for another moment before he finally pulled out onto the street.
Liza clapped her hands together and squealed. “Girl power!” She lifted her hand for a high five.
When Kins didn’t offer her hand, Liza reached across her, lifted mine and proceeded to slap it.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe we just pulled that off! Can you believe it?” She nudged Kins with her shoulder.
Kins lifted her face out of her hands. “We’re going to go to prison for life, right?”
“Sh!” Liza hissed.
“Longer? Oh God, what if it’s longer?”
“It can’t be longer than life, drama queen. Besides it’s not like we killed someone.”
The driver scrunched down in his seat a little, but kept driving.
“I said we didn’t do that,” Liza said and tapped the cab driver’s seat. “We definitely didn’t do that. Don’t tell anyone we did that.”
“I’m not going to say a word,” he said. “I swear.”
“Good.” She laughed and clapped her hands together. “I wish there was a sunroof in this thing. I’d stick my head out and scream at the top of my lungs. That was so exhilarating! I can’t wait to do that again!”
I didn’t feel exhilarated. I touched my neck where Don’s hands had been. I was still breathing. My heart was sti
ll beating. I was alive. And I desperately wished that I wasn’t.
How could I go back to our apartment without Miles there? This wasn’t right. None of it. One of the last things I had said to him was that I wanted to be with Eli. Because Eli was filled with light.
Yet, I was the one that had pulled Miles into the darkness. He became V for me. It was my fault that he was dead. And all I wanted was to take his place. I’d give up my breaths, my heartbeats, my life in a second and give it all to him.
“I’m too young to die,” Kins said. “Are shivs a real thing? Am I going to need to learn how to make one? I barely know how to sharpen a pencil. I always use mechanical ones. Or pens. Can you make a shiv out of a pen?”
“Snap out of it,” Liza said. “Tell your friend to get a grip,” she said to me.
I barely even heard them.
“Summer?”
“Summer, are you okay?” Kins asked.
I looked up. They were both staring at me with concern etched across their face. I shook my head. “No.” Tears started streaming down my face. “I’m not okay.”
Kins pulled my head down on her shoulder and patted my hair.
Liza reached over and squeezed my knee. “Everything’s going to be fine. We’ll be home soon.”
But she was wrong. I’d never be home again. Because Miles had always been home to me.
Chapter 37
Tuesday
“Drink this,” Liza said and handed me a glass filled with an amber liquid. “It’ll make you feel better.”
Nothing was going to make me feel better. But I drank it anyway. I immediately coughed. For some reason I thought it was some magic elixir to take away my heartache. But it was just whiskey.
She smiled and sat down next to me. “Now tell us what happened in that room.”
I shook my head and handed her the glass back. There was nothing to say. I had squandered the best opportunity I had ever had.
Liza snapped her fingers. “Refill!” She tossed the glass at Kins.
The glass almost fell as Kins struggled to catch it. “A heads up would have been nice.” She grabbed the bottle off the coffee table and handed me the whole thing instead of a glass. “Careful with that, a little goes a long way.”
Nothing would ever be enough to numb the ache.
Liza tilted the bottle up to my mouth.
I just wanted to die. I wanted to be with my parents again. With Miles. Miles. I lifted the bottle up to my mouth and took a huge sip. And another. And another.
“Okay, that’s enough liquid painkillers.” Kins snatched the bottle back. “Summer, you have to tell us what happened.”
“Did he…” Liza’s voice trailed off. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and looked away from me. “I was looking up rape kits online and if we could get a sample of his…”
I shook my head. “No, he didn’t have time. You guys…you…you saved me.” The only problem was that I didn’t want to be saved. I wanted revenge. I wanted justice. Damn it. My chest ached. What if I never got another chance to kill him? I should have taken more time to find the broken bottle. Why had I run after my friends? What the hell was I thinking? I was so close.
“That’s what best friends are for,” Kins said and squeezed my hand.
Liza glared at her. “Excuse me?”
“I said that’s what best friends are for.”
“Oh, no, I heard you. But I’m her best friend. Not you.”
Kins laughed. “I’m pretty sure that I’m her best friend.”
“Keep dreaming.”
“I met her first!”
“Well she shared all her secrets with me,” Liza said and folded her arms across her chest. “Tell her, Summer.”
I hadn’t shared my secrets with Liza. She had just done a ton of research on me behind my back. That was completely different. But it was true, she did know more about me than Kins did. I had purposefully kept Kins in the dark.
My mind was foggy. What was I even thinking about? Was I seriously debating who was my best friend right now? It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. I laughed. My life was over. I started laughing harder.
“Great, you just got her drunk,” Kins said. “Now she’ll never tell us what happened. All we’ll know is that she stole a bathrobe and dyed her hair red for some reason.”
“As her best friend, I know that her natural hair color is red. Ha! I win.”
“Oh my God, you’re relentless, Liza! There was no way I could have known that. When I first met her she was a brunette.”
“Same. But as her bestie I knew that she was originally a redhead. Therefore I win. You lose.”
“You’re insane, you do realize that, right?”
I laughed again. “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.”
“She’s right,” Kins said. “Just drop it, Liza. It’s not important.”
“It’s important to me,” she mumbled.
Ignoring them, I slowly stood up and walked into our command center.
“What are you doing?” Liza asked. “We’re trying to talk to you.”
I grabbed a gun off the wall.
“Whoa, calm down there, killer,” Kins said and ran over to me. “You’ll regret shooting that. Trust me.” She tried to take it from me but I pulled it away.
“Mr. Crawford isn’t my father,” I said. “At least there’s that. One positive on a list of a million awful things.”
“How do you know?” Liza asked
“Who’s Mr. Crawford?” Kins asked as she tried to grab the gun away from me again.
“An old family friend. He was being held in the hotel room next to mine. I finally got some answers.” I cocked the gun. “I’m going to go get him out. And then I’m going to end this.”
Kins grabbed my arm. “That hotel will be swarming with cops now. You’re not going anywhere.”
“Plus you’re still wearing a bathrobe,” Liza said. “I’m sure they have a warrant out for your arrest. You won’t make it 5 blocks.”
“I have to try. Don’s down right now. I need to get him while he’s down. It’s my only chance.”
“It’s not you’re only chance. We can come up with a plan.”
“I don’t need a plan! I don’t need to do this by the book!”
“You’ll go to jail for homicide!”
“He killed my parents!” I was gasping for air. “He killed everyone I ever loved!”
“We don’t know that for sure…”
“He told me! He told me.” My voice cracked.
Tears appeared beneath Liza’s glasses. “Summer.”
“He called my mother a slut. He said my dad was weak. Weak until his dying breath. Like me.”
Liza shook her head.
“I was too weak to save him.”
“You were just a kid. It wasn’t your fault.”
Kins sniffed. I looked over at her. Her hands were pressed against her chest like hearing this was hurting her. If only she knew how much pain I was in. She’d let me go. She was more compassionate than Liza.
“I have to do this,” I said. “I have to. It feels like my heart is in a million pieces. I can’t breathe. I need to do this. You have to let me go. Please.”
Kins’ lips parted, but she didn’t say anything.
“You have nothing to prove,” Liza said. “You were a child. There was nothing you could have done to save your parents. Nothing.”
No. I wasn’t talking about my parents anymore. I was talking about Miles. “No, Don’s right. I’ve always been weak.”
“You’re not weak, Summer,” a deep voice said from behind us. It rumbled in the most perfect way. In a way that had always made me want to hear the real voice beneath.
I looked over at the ghost standing in the living room. The dark blue hoodie pulled low over his eyes. The sweatpants. The converses. A fragment of everything that was gone.
“You’re made of steel, remember?” Miles said.
And as soon as he said the words, he d
isappeared. I blinked and stared at the empty living room.
Chapter 38
Tuesday
I had lost my mind. I was officially crazy. Liza’s words had floated right over my head. But Miles’ memory? It hit me like a punch in the gut. I remembered the first time he had said that I was made of steel. It was empowering. I was better when I was with him. I was whole. And I was strong. It was easy to believe when he was by my side.
I stared at the spot where I had envisioned him.
“Summer.” He reappeared, a little closer to me. “You’re okay.” His voice sounded strained, like he couldn’t believe it.
I was definitely hallucinating. V never called me Summer. He refused to. But he looked so real. I tilted my head to the side as I stared at him.
“Is she having some kind of nervous breakdown?” Liza whispered from behind me.
“You just let her drink too much,” Kins said. “And she’s still in shock. Maybe we should give them a minute or something?”
I looked back at them. “Wait. You see him?”
“Um…yes? He’s standing right there,” Liza said. “Why wouldn’t we be able to see him? I wear glasses but I’m not blind.” She folded her arms across her chest.
“Come on. Let’s give them some privacy.” Kins pulled her out of the command center.
I just stared at him, expecting him to disappear. “I saw you die.”
He stepped closer to me and I saw him wince. “I wanted to come help get you out, but I…” he grabbed the side of his stomach. “I was giving myself stitches and I must have passed out. They left without me.”
I shook my head. “You’re not real. I saw you die.” I wanted to reach out and touch his face, but I kept my hands to myself. I didn’t want him to disappear.
“I landed on the emergency escape ladder. Well, I woke up on it anyway. I’m not exactly sure how I got there but I must have fallen. The last thing I remember was being on the roof of our old dorm looking for you. I got pretty banged up, but I’m still breathing. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you today.” His eyes dropped to my neck, which was surely bruising already. “I’m so fucking sorry, Summer.”