by Riley Moreno
“Is she okay?” he asked as he tried to take her hand.
“Is… is she…?”
Thinking of the masked man, of what he had nearly done to her, Julie flattened her palm and stuck his cheek hard. Ethan groaned as he fell back to the bed, but Julie was on him before she could speak again.
“How the hell could you?”
“Juliet!”
He tried to bat back her attack as she kept pounding his shoulders, his neck. Sensing that his fight was weak, Julie tugged at his hair, her heart almost shattering when he moaned. But Julie kept striking and slapping his chest.
“What is it with you?” she screamed. “Always have to be the white knight?”
“No!” he said. “What did she tell you?”
“The truth!” Julie cried. “You were with her? You… you wanted to be back in the woods so you could get us both out. Who cares what’ s happening to me?”
Leaving the bed, Julie started to gather her clothes from the floor. As she struggled to dress, Ethan charged forward and tried to touch were when she swat him back.
“Don’t you touch me.”
Ethan did as she was told as Julie dressed.
“You could never let it go,” she said. “Just had to make both of us feel okay to make up for---”
Slapping her hand to her mouth, Julie tried to bite back her words. They were cold and cruel as soon as they swirled around her ears, and Julie nearly took them back when she saw tears starting to brim around his eyes.
“Juliet…”
Ethan turned away from her and retrieved his shirt. Buttoning fast, he kept his back to her as he stepped to the window and gazed out into the night.
“It’s not like you,” he said. “Nothing for me is like you.”
Julie started to relent when he whipped his head over his shoulder, a glare spreading across his face as he spoke.
“But yeah. I wanted her to feel safe. Does that… does that make me the bad guy?”
Searching his face, Julie tried to tell herself that it was innocent. He still wanted the ring on her finger. But was this always going to be the way with him? Now that he had the taste, would he always search for some lost cause to put his greatest failure to bed?
“No,” she confessed. “But it… it also doesn’t make you mine.”
22
Racing away from the hotel, Julie heard Ethan’s voice at her back and pushed the elevator’s down button over and over again. As soon as she heard a door fling open and slam into a wall, Julie twisted her head in the other direction and searched for another way out. She nearly stumbled over a room service cart but pushed it aside, dishes and silver platters falling around her feet as she kept running down the carpeted hallway.
“Juliet, just wait!”
Ethan was there, rushing after her, and Julie turned the corner, her flattened palms bashing against the series of closed doors and the pale yellow walls. At the sight of a metal handle, Julie turned hard and fast. Her feet met the edge of a slanted staircase, and she ignored the railing as she kept moving towards the ground floor.
“Juliet!” Ethan’s voice was there, seemingly growing stronger with each passing second. Was she afraid of him? Did she really think that he would tackle her on the steps and force himself under her skirt if she lost her footing and stumbled?
No. He would never do that. But in this moment, she saw no way that she could look at without picturing him in Kim’s arms, comforting her while she suffered. Ethan had it right; he should have been there to stop it, and Julie paused when her eyes hit a large metal door. Throwing the bolt aside, grateful when no alarm hit her ears, Julie took off down an alley covered in grit and grime. She nearly slipped on a discarded sandwich wrapper, and Ethan’s voice was still there, faint but strong. No way she could face him.
Trying to hail a cab in her frenzied state, Julie tried and failed several times over, her feet still putting distance between her body and the hotel. She stopped for a second when there was no sound of Ethan, and she thought of turning back when a yellow car hit the curb.
“Hey! Hey, Lady!”
Spying a chiseled jaw beneath blue eyes waving her into his back seat, Julie shook her head and kept walking. Fighting the pain flaring from her heels up her legs, she kept looking back, thinking that she would see Ethan just a few feet away. When he failed to show, Julie slackened her pace and sighed at the thought that she had called it. If she was suddenly strong and running away on her own two feet, maybe it wasn’t enough. Was he already trying to reach out to Kim, hoping to heal her and hand over the ring?
Weaving through the streets, unsure of which way she was going and her ultimate destination, Julie stopped her in tracks when a pair of brilliant headlights caught her in their beams. She hid her face and started to curl into the pavement when a familiar voice swirled around her.
“Julie?”
Looking up through her splayed fingers, Julie saw Morales. The cop had her gun at her side, but her face was soft as she extended her hand.
“Thought you were somewhere else for the night.”
Julie started to nod when she burst into tears.
“I don’t know where I am,” she wept. “Or… or what even happened.”
Morales took Julie into her arms. Folding her close, she lightly patting her back as she shushed her.
“We’re gonna find the creep,” Morales assured her. “Now where is Ethan?”
Julie choked on a fresh sob, and she couldn’t form the words to convey the story. Morales shifted modes and lengthened up the back of her neck as she took Julie’s hand.
“Let’s get you somewhere warm,” she said. “Nights are still cold.”
She sat at Morales’ side as they moved through the city streets. The chill growing in the air served to prove Morales’ point, and Julie shuddered when her unmarked care suddenly came to another stop.
“Cup of coffee?” Morales asked. Julie nodded and followed her into the cluttered café with used napkins and discarded sugar packets speckling every table. Morales honed in on the cleanest space in the bunch, and she still had to wipe the table down with the back of her sleeve as she gestured for Julie to sit as a bloated server in a too-tight apron below a long dark beard flicked a pad from his pocket.
“Two cups,” Morales said, beating him to the punch. “Black.”
“We do a nice mocha latte with almond milk,” the man said like a trained dog, every word perfect without any comprehension of how it might taste or if he had even tried it.
“Save it for the morning rush,” Morales said. “We know what we want.”
As soon as he was gone, Morales reached across the table and took Julie by the hand.
“What?” she asked. “What would make you leave him now?”
Julie started to speak when she took note of the glint in the cop’s eye. Remembering the confines of Leo Barber’s office and what it was to see Ethan squirm from the space of the witness box, she pushed away from the table and fiercely shook her head.
“He wasn’t a part of it,” Julie said. “He only wants to save the world.”
“The world?” Morales asked. “That means you, right?”
“I… I thought it did.”
And she told her what she knew of Kim, how he was with her when she was mauled in their bed. Julie fully expected Morales to slam her hand to the table and call game, set and match. But she stayed silent as the server plopped the coffee to their tattered place settings.
“And she called you?” Morales finally asked.
“Yes. Said she’d been by Ethan’s place and---”
“She said what?”
Julie started in her seat and repeated Kim’s version of events as Morales shook her head.
“Julie… I might be here. But I’ve had eyes on his stoop all night. She never came around.”
“Then… then how did she….”
Her phone buzzed in her purse, and Julie reached for the receiver. She expected, hope to see Ethan’s info.
“
It’s Kim,” she confessed. “Don’t know what she wants---”
“Put it on speaker.”
Doing as she was told, Julie called her friend’s name slowly, her knees pressing together tightly under the table when there was nothing but silence tinged with static.
“Kim?” Julie asked, her voice cracking as she tapped her fingers to the table and peered into Morales’ dark eyes. As Julie started to bring the phone back to her ear, the cop waved her off and nodded for her to just wait and listen. Julie heard a fresh pot percolating and someone asking if the croissants were still fresh when a cold cackle reached her ears.
“How did it feel, Jules? When he told you that he was with me? When you needed him most?”
Julie’s heart seized in her chest, and Morales’ fingers surrounded her wrist as she pried a pen from the pocket and scribbled a hasty note on a stained napkin. Fighting the trembles coursing through her veins, Julie fought to read the words as she blinked back nervous tears.
Keep her talking.
Three little words that might mean everything, and Julie took a deep breath as she asked her next question.
“How do you know what went down, Kim? I mean… why were you at Ethan’s?”
“No, Jules. I was at the hotel. Saw you running. Pick that up in the woods? Must have been harder without him by your side.”
“I… I don’t want to talk about---”
“But I do,” she said. “I want to talk about your father and what those freaks did to me… you know that I took care of them, right?”
Morales gritted her teeth as she nodded, and Julie followed her stare to the man behind the counter. He stopped mid pour and lifted his eyebrows at the sound of dirty dealings discussed in one of his dark corners. Taking note, Morales carefully pushed away from the table, taking Julie under one arm and keeping her phone in the other. With just a few steps, they hid away in a dingy bathroom, and they shared a single stinking stall as Morales nodded for Julie to keep Kim going.
“You… you were the one?” Julie asked.
“Had to be done,” she said in a flat voice. “Don’t even try to tell me that you blame me for it.”
“No, I… of course I wanted them dead.”
“So many prices to pay,” Kim continued. “My mom got wise and beat me to the punch. Kind of goaded her into it or whatever, but what’s fair is fair.”
“Kim… you… you didn’t…”
“No, Jules. Try to follow the plot. My sweet slut of a mother made the ultimate sacrifice and made me the perfect witness. Isn’t that right, Detective Morales?”
The cop tensed and shook her head as she stayed silent. But Julie ran her hand across her scar, and as she lost her fingers in her hair, she mirrored the curve of Morales’ neck and spoke in a ragged whisper.
“Yes,” Julie started. “She’s here with me.”
“Bet she’s ready to put a trace on this call and smoke me out,” Kim said with a laugh. “Detective?”
Julie pushed the phone close to Morales mouth and kicked her heel against the bowl, demanding that she answer.
“Kim, you’ve been through hell,” Morales said. “No one, not even I could ever really fault you for what you did. But the thing to do now is---”
“What?” Kim challenged. “Cry and beg for mercy? Hope for leniency? I had to put down Carter and Geoff. I have to take care of Ethan Graff.”
Julie turned off the speaker and pushed away from Morales in the small space as she spoke fast.
“Where is he?” she asked. “Please tell me you didn’t hurt him?”
“What the hell do you care, Jules? You ran away. And you weren’t even raped. Again. That was supposed to the kicker. So nice. But he was always going to leave you in the end.”
The phone nearly fell from her hands when Morales steadied Julie to her side and strained close to hear Kim’s words.
“You were supposed to push him away all on your own. Would have made this so much sweeter. But… Jules… you were always behind the curve.”
And there it was again. Were they ever friends, or did Julie simply exist in Kim’s world to prop her up and play the mouse to her tiger? For the first time, Julie pictured Ethan with the chance of saving them both. But at the last second, he would have to make a choice. Select one girl over the other and take off under the trees and into the night.
“He… he always would have picked me, Kim,” she finally said. “I’m sorry, but that’s the way it was. The way it is.”
Kim laughed through the phone, and Julie gripped Morales’ arm for strength.
“Care to return the favor?” she teased. “Got him right here, right now. Nothing to knock him out cold and get him in a car.”
Her voice fell away, and Julie listened intently as she heard the groans leaving her lips, and she shivered, felt as if she would swoon when Morales caught her back and pressed her fingers into her flesh.
“Try to find out---”
“No need to keep your voice so low!” Kim said, cutting into Morales’ whisper. “I’m taking him back to where it all started.”
“You… no, Kim,” Julie begged. “Not back there. I… you can’t---”
“You want him, you come after him. Give yourself a chance, and you might have a fun time.”
Julie bit down on her lip, and Morales reached for her phone, appearing ready to call for all kinds of backup when they both froze at the sound of Kim’s clicking tongue.
“But no funny business,” she cautioned. “I see or hear one fucking siren, and I slash his throat. No happy reunion then, Jules.”
The call died, and Julie fought to catch her breath as she tried to push away from Morales.
“Hold up! You’re--- you’re not actually going to---”
“I have to!” Julie said. “He didn’t leave me. He… he would have been there tonight if Kim hadn’t---”
“Julie, it never would have happened tonight if she hadn’t put all of this into play.”
Her shoulders sagged, and Julie had to wonder what would have happened if she had let him explain, if she had trusted him enough to take the ring back and slip into his arms. Wouldn’t have stopped Kim. She had too much hate in her heart to let her plans stop now. And Julie had fallen right into her hands.
“It still could have,” Julie murmured. “Going back there in chains…”
Leaving the stall, Julie went for the sink and splashed her face over and over again. Her scar blazed bright in the mirror, and she thought she saw the girl behind the glass pleading with her to run, to try to forget and stay safe. Like Ethan was always meant to die in the woods, and Kim was just helping fate along to its natural conclusion.
“No!”
Drawing her hand back and ready to smash the mirror, Julie almost felt the shards cutting into her fingers when Morales brought her back and grabbed her face.
“Now don’t be stupid!” she said. “I can get a dozen men and call her bluff.”
“No. No you heard what she---”
“And you’re what? Just gonna roll over and let her hurt him? Hurt you?”
Looking back to the glass, Julie fingered her scar and felt as if she would vomit. Matt would have done more than shred her flesh and send a stream of blood into her mouth.
“He… he would have killed me,” Julie said as she pushed her hair behind her ears and straightened her shoulders. “But Ethan was there….”
Turning back to Morales, she grabbed the cop’s arms and pressed her body close.
“Please. I have to try to find him. To finish this.”
Morales held her as she tried to run and fought to reason with her.
“You can’t just go after him on your own. You don’t know what---”
“Then come with me.”
Watching her face carefully, her soul sank at the sight of Morales hesitating, and she pushed back with a great groan.
“You always said that you would help me.”
“I---”
“Then help me now. I need
him back. And I… I have to stop her from hurting him.”
The cause seemed lost as Morales went for her phone and started to dial. Julie watched her with sad eyes and started off on her own when Morales grabbed her arm.
“Shit,” she murmured. “I’m gonna catch all kinds of hell for this.”
23
“Keep moving, you fuck.”
Ethan tripped over a fallen stone and crashed into the ground. Dirt caught in his mouth, and he struggled to breathe as Kim brought her foot to his side and spat in his hair.
“On your feet,” she ordered. “Let’s see you run through these woods for me.”
Struggling to his feet, Ethan’s wrists worked around his ropes, but the ties were too tight to give any hope of breaking free. Kim’s laughter hit his heart like a tray of falling ice, but he batted back the chill as he brought one foot before the other. And then another. With each move, he remembered fighting to hide Juliet among the trunks and the branches. The moments when she still doubted him, when even he didn’t realize how far he would go to lay down his life for her. But now his mind made no mistake; he was doing it now and hoping for something more than a quick death. He hoped that his corpse would quench her bloodlust and allow Juliet to live.
I never should have tried to help her. Even on that night…
“You got something to say?” Kim demanded.
She brought the butt of her gun to the back of his head, and Ethan was dazed as he sank back to the earth. Even in is stupor, he knew enough to fear that Kim would not stop here.
And his mind flashed back to the call that he had been forced to make.
“I only did it to help her,” he said. “Because… because I love her.”
“Now isn’t that just so sweet!”
Kim struck him again, and Ethan wished that he had been able to say something, anything different. It was the one thing that made her hate him with all the confusion lurking in her heart, and his mind clasped around the memory.
“You… you said if I played along she’d stay safe,” he started. “Are you as good as your word?”
She fell to his side with a laugh and curled her fingers around his chin.
“I’m not better than you,” she said. “And I’d bet that Juliet is making tracks to get back to you right now.”