by Scott, Raven
“No.” She reached to brush her fingers along her jaw thoughtfully, and I grunted softly. A knot formed in my chest, but I shook my head and focused on the road. We’d taken the scenic route up through Connecticut, and I managed to avoid most of the highways. “Family is as much a good thing as a bad thing. Just because I don’t have mine anymore doesn’t mean you’re obligated to suffer for yours.”
32
Illya
“I feel like this is the calm before the storm.” Goosebumps blanketed my arms and legs, and I flexed my grip on the door handle as Theo jerked the emergency brake. The cemetery was deathly still and silent, and I inhaled a stabilizing breath before popping open the door. “I don’t like this.”
“What is ‘this’?” I wasn’t sure if that question had an answer yet, and I pursed my lips thinly as I climbed out of the car. We’d been driving for hours, but I wasn’t stiff or tired. There was no apprehension running through my veins. There was nothing except this intense sense of foreboding gorging on my insides. This feeling had been building the past two weeks or so, and I wasn’t sure if it was simply because Carlyle’s grace period was up, or it was something more sinister.
Granted, Carlyle was sinister in himself. Whatever he wanted me to do wasn’t just basic blackmail.
“Is wanting to come here more about starting your job?” As if he read my thoughts, Theo rounded the front of his car to sling his arm over my shoulders, and my expression soured. Glancing around at the beautiful landscaping and bright sun shining down on everything, making headstones glimmer, I only jerked my head in a nod. “Don’t be nervous, Illya. Carlyle’s not so bad once you get used to him.”
“My parents were great people, and this is what I’m doing. I don’t even know what it is I’m doing. Carlyle won’t tell me anything. Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s going to be a baptism of fire.” I rested my cheek on his chest, and we started walking through the headstones, immersing me in a strange sense of surrealism. I’d never thought of being back here, and I thought moving to California would make that impossible. “I don’t feel anything but dread, Theo. I mean, being here . . . my parents and my brothers are dead. They’re not ghosts or up in Heaven. They’re rotted in the ground, and they don’t hold any sway on my life right now. I just . . . I came here because I thought it’d be easier to do it here instead of being trapped in that place.”
“Do what? I’m not screwing you in a cemetery, Illya.” Frowning darkly, I didn’t offer a response to that, and Theo palmed my head as we walked down the path. “Do what, Illya?”
“To figure out my life.” My answer earned me a questioning grunt, and I glanced over at the rows and rows of perfectly trimmed grass. Why didn’t people treat others this well until after they died? Licking my lips heavily, I held back a sigh, and my worries seemed to roll easily off my tongue. “What kind of person am I if I’m not starving and living under a tarp? I don’t know. I thought maybe coming here would help me get some perspective on who I could be because I really can’t picture myself not struggling. That’s kinda sad.”
“Carlyle may be a drug lord or terrorist or whatever they call it these days, but what does that mean for me? How much of it can I ignore, and how much of it should I look at? These past few weeks have been great, but I can’t open the refrigerator without effort. I can’t leave that building without being gripped by an apprehension that I won’t be able to get back in.” Slowly, my tangent came to an end, and I heaved a massive, exhausted breath as Theo kneaded my scalp gingerly. “If I take my bandages off, I can’t put them back on again. I don’t know if I’m ready to take that step, Theo.”
“Illya.” Resting his chin on my crown, Theo sighed heavily through his nose, and I gulped down the dense lump in my throat. “No one really knows anything until they try it. There’s never a sure answer— you can always be surprised by how you react to something. And, yeah, Carlyle’s a dick, but if you stay on his good side, he’s not going to be a dick to you. He says it all the time that he really likes you. I think you should take that at face value and not worry about how he treats others.”
“Yeah, I’m not sure that’s a good thing. Look at what he did to his own brother.” My grumble muffled in Theo’s chest as we turned to walk along the tombstones, and I sucked in a sharp breath through my teeth. “That DVD he gave me . . . I was Sylvie’s best friend for years— half a decade— and when I watched her basically get murdered, there was nothing. I didn’t expect that. I wasn’t horrified or sick or even glad or . . . or anything.”
“She hurt you, but either not that bad or your friendship wasn’t as strong as you thought it was, Illya. Sylvie was around, so you didn’t feel alone, but how good a friend was she, really? As far as Carlyle giving you that DVD in the first place, I think he did it out of what tiny good place he has in his heart. Ignoring everything, she got some rich guy trapped. That says a lot about her character that she’d be willing to put someone through that for her own selfishness.” I knew Theo was talking about the baby, not Mateo, and he tugged gently on my hair. “If you did that to me, I’d probably kill you, too.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I can’t have kids, then.” His grim smirk was so deep I felt it through my hair, and I reached to grab his right hand and press it against my abdomen. Warm and hard, he put just a tiny bit of pressure on my bandages, and his other hand tightened in my hair. “When I was sixteen, two years after the accident, I decided to get a hysterectomy. I was dating my first boyfriend, the one I showed my scars to, and if I did get pregnant by accident, all sorts of horrible shit would happen to my body. Despite all her faults, my aunt was actually the one that pushed it the hardest even before we were told the insurance would cover it.”
“Whatever happened to him, anyway?” Pausing our journey just before one particular headstone, I turned to Theo as rage blazed in his eyes and tightened his tone.
“I don’t know. He never talked to me again, just disappeared despite having the same circle of friends. My mom always told me that if a guy does that, not to get hung up on him.” Gesturing to the light-colored marble, I smiled sadly as Theo’s gaze flickered to it only to jump back to me. “She used to talk about guys a lot, and how I should never compromise myself. I should never move for a guy, even across the street. I should never let a guy do anything that made me uncomfortable, from paying for something and up.”
“Your mom’s a badass.” Turning to the gravestone, Theo tightened his grip on my shoulders and head as I hummed in agreement. “She raised you to get through this shitstorm. It always amazes me how normal you are, Illya.”
“Normal.” My mom’s headstone glowed in the bright sun of late morning, and I sat down to cross my legs in the lush, green grass. I didn’t understand the concept of considering the dead just because they were dead, and no emotions tightened my chest as I stared at the name scrawled elegantly into the marble. “I guess that’s a good word to use.”
Theo dropped down behind me, draping his legs around mine, and I leaned back against his chest to soak up his warmth. Today was beautiful, but I couldn’t enjoy it as my gut rot intensified. Tilting my head to stare at my dad and twin brother’s stones, I licked my lips heavily as anxiety gnawed at the back of my throat.
“Things have been normal, haven’t they? Am I just waiting for something awful to happen?” My murmur earned me silence, and I closed my eyes to lean heavier against him. Settling his hands on my shoulders, Theo squeezed and rubbed softly, and I wished that just a little bit of his security would seep through my skin. “What if I’m not cut out for normal?”
“Then we’ll just have to find something you’re kickass at. That’s what life’s about, Illya— it never stops. Only the lucky ones find that security.” My lip twitched up, and Theo buried his nose in my hair to breathe a heavy, hot sigh that rolled down the back of my neck. “We’re just lucky to be alive.”
33
Theo
Today was apparently soul-searching day, and I reached to rub the back of my n
eck absently as Illya poked around in the gas station. Springfield was nice, everything was clean, and this was definitely a place I’d like to come vacation if the urge ever took me. Leaning on the checkout counter a little ways from the register, I watched her carefully, so carefully, pick up every single item on the shelf, look at the ingredients, and decide she didn’t want it before putting it back.
“Your girlfriend’s really picky, isn’t she?” The Boston twang of the cashier wasn’t laced with snark or anything. In fact, she sounded kinda sad, and I glanced over with a curt nod. Her teenage face kinda fell, and I frowned under furrowed brows before turning back to Illya. She picked up a protein bar and rocked back on her heels, but my mind caught on the cashier’s question.
Was Illya my girlfriend? We’d never talked about it— we just ate together, practically lived together at this point. I fingered her, and she blew me, and then we fell asleep together.
What the fuck kind of dumbass question was that? Of course, we were together.
“This one.” Illya sauntered over to set her protein bar on the counter, and I didn’t bother pulling out my wallet just so she could tell me to fuck off. She paid the stupid dollar easily, and my gaze flickered to the check folded neatly in one of her wallet pockets.
“Do you want to stop somewhere and grab some lunch, and you can eat that on the way home?” Posing my question as we left the gas station, I swung my arm over her shoulders as Illya shook her head. “I’ll get something somewhere. I’m starving.”
“I thought you’d try to talk me out of going to my uncle’s house.” Shrugging as I pulled my keys out of my pocket, I flexed my bad hand as tension zinged up my arm. “Why not?”
“Why would I? Honestly, Illya, I don’t know enough about your shitty uncle to have an opinion. If you want to avoid being home and the fact that you work on Monday with this shit, which option is worse? That’s how it looks to me, at least.” And it was true— I didn’t know, and I didn’t really care. Illya came here on her own suggestion, which meant that her anxiety over Carlyle was worse than her lifelong teenage trauma. “I’m having a nice time, though.”
“Oh, that’s good.” A smirk tilted my lips, and I squeezed her to my side as I remotely unlocked my car. “I don’t even know if they still live there. Maybe they moved. I don’t know which I want more— them to be there or not.”
“I guess we’re gonna find out.” There wasn’t much else I could say unless Illya said it first. What little I knew about these people, they were scum. Parting from me to head to the passenger side, she furrowed her brows troublingly, and I pursed my lips thinly. This wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do with my day off, but I wasn’t stupid. Illya and I both had our ups and downs. We both had moments when we wanted something bad enough to say it, and then regretted it.
Like fucking her brains out. When she told me so many weeks ago that she’d work with Carlyle, I couldn’t think of anything but how accessible she’d be to me. We’d turn up the heat, do the thing, bump the uglies.
But it didn’t turn out like that. For all that talk, I wouldn’t blow her back out just because I wanted to. It had to mean something. It had to be special. Maybe, my not having been laid in a couple years made the notion more romanticized, but that was the easy way out.
I was in love with Illya, and I wasn’t going to fuck her until I knew she was in love with me, too. What kind of bullshit is that?
“Hey, Theo?” Humming softly in acknowledgment as I pulled forward, I glanced at the road under furrowed brows, and Illya sighed before continuing. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Do you not want to go?” My probe gave me the exact reaction I was expecting— nothing. Illya sort of shrugged, her expression unchanging, and I wasn’t sure if she was talking about working or visiting her uncle. “A bad feeling about what?”
It took a lot of time and effort to get a straight answer out of her. I was always surprising myself with how much patience I had with Illya. Her vague, dodgy replies and general lack of understanding of herself was something I’d grown accustomed to. After all, she never had an opportunity to know herself, and that’s what this whole trip was supposedly about.
“I don’t know. I just have this . . . this vague sense of doom. Like something is going to happen.” Anything that’s not a direct threat to her, she doesn’t know how to handle. “Things have never gone this good before. Maybe, I’m just overly pessimistic.”
“Illya.” Pausing to take a turn at a green arrow, I scanned for any fast food place as her self-doubt distracted me from the fact that we’d fought instead of having breakfast. “Okay, I’m not saying you shouldn’t be cautious and thorough, but the whole doubting yourself bullshit has to stop. If you feel like that, there’s usually a reason. You should trust yourself a little more when it comes to personal shit. I mean, you held your own against Carlyle the first time you met him, and he blindsided you and is generally pretty menacing regardless. Where’d that go, huh?”
“He can kill me. That’s straightforward, Theo.” I couldn’t argue with that point, and Illya ran her hand through her hair absently with a groan of frustration. “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just accept that I’ve got it as good as it can be and not trying to ruin it by psyching myself out?”
“Fuck if I know.” Flicking on my blinker, I reached to rub my jaw absently as my mind whirred. “Make a decision and stick to it, for better or worse. That’s my best advice.”
“It was a lot easier when I did things out of necessity instead of just wanting to do it.” Illya sat up, straighter at her own grumble, and I turned into McDonald's smoothly as she slapped her hands together. Arching a brow quizzically, I pulled up into the drive-thru lane before casting her a look. “That’s it, isn’t it? I can do whatever I want now. I don’t have to do anything if I don’t want to.”
“You’ve never done anything, like, at all, just because you wanted to?” Skepticism thickened my tone, and Illya frowned under furrowed brows for a long moment before shaking her head. “Seriously? Are you fucking with me right now?”
“As an adult, no. I only did what I had to. I worked, slept, woke up, repeat. Until I moved here, I never had downtime. One time, I worked three jobs— that was while I was at the women’s shelter.” Scowling darkly at that, I covered my mouth as disgust coated my tongue. Suddenly, I wasn’t hungry, but I was in line, so . . . “Carlyle must’ve known that. That’s why he gave me two whole months with nothing to do. I’m not used to doing nothing.”
“He gave you time to go crazy with boredom? So you’d want to do something you like?” I mean, that sounded like something Carlyle would do. He talked all the time about Illya being so pathetic and how he felt sorry for her. Why would that be limited to after meeting her if he really did do all he could find out all about her? “It took you long enough to figure it out.”
“This is the first time I’ve left my apartment since moving there, though.” No wonder he feels that way. She is kinda pathetic. “All I’ve done is hang out with you or watched TV or tried on clothes. I have so many clothes, and I’m not even done yet.”
“I’m flattered that I’m the defining factor on your sanity.” Still, it seemed like such a simple concept, and Illya was looking for the one farthest from it. Downtime? Rest and relaxation? She smiled as I inched my car up the lane, and I gripped the wheel with my good hand to reach over the center console. “Even if that was the reason, how does that help you now that your time is up? You start on Monday.”
“I-I don’t know that, yet. Maybe, just the realization is enough. I mean, it took me two months to figure it out, right?” Rubbing her smooth cheek, I pursed my lips and simply accepted that. Illya looked for the worst of the worst in most situations, so ignoring the most mundane reason wasn’t so out of character. It might’ve made her feel like an idiot, but . . .
That was something I liked about her. Now if I can just get her to be a little more self-confident.
34
&nbs
p; Illya
Music pumped through the house, and I leaned on the driver’s side door of Theo’s car as I stared from across the street. That gut-churning, sinking feeling hadn’t gone away, but it’d lessened enough not to make me projectile vomit. Scratching my head as anxiety tingled my fingertips, I inhaled a deep, calming breath. Vehicles lined this section of the street and crammed in the driveway, but everything looked exactly how I remembered.
“So, are you gonna go inside?” Grunting at the question, I nodded even though I just continued to gaze, and my lips twisted in a frown. “Don’t make me drag you in there, Illya. I drove all the way here because ‘why not,’ so you better get something out of this.”
“It looks the same as it did ten years ago.” If I held up a picture from back then, the only difference would be the car in the open garage. The suburb itself hadn’t changed much, either— a few trees here and there, a new sign. Focusing on the house, I exhaled slowly and nodded again before pushing myself off the door. “They’re having a party. Let’s go crash it.”
Striding across the street, I could picture my cousins when I blinked— when they were eleven, of course, and pudgy-faced and happy when their mom bought their attention. Walking up the concrete path, I clenched my hands into tight fists as the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. The music was loud, bracingly so, and I had to bang on the door to get any sound to come back at me, let alone inside.
Pressing his palm against my back, Theo stole some of the tension gripping my spine, and I rolled my lips between my teeth to gnaw hard. The door swung open with no warning, and I stiffened as my uncle’s bright smile filled my field of vision. It took him a moment to recognize me, and his smile dimmed but didn’t disappear as I awkwardly held up my hand.