by Sophia Gray
“Because it’s not your job, Maya! Your job is to help battered women back home, with me, not this private investigator shit. It’s not who you are.”
“And how would you know?” Maya snapped, regretting her sharp tone the second after the rhetorical question left her mouth. She sighed again and walked over to sit down next to Chuck on the bed. “I’m sorry, but you have to understand that this has to come first right now.”
“Why?” Chuck asked, his face looking genuinely confused.
“Because,” Maya began, tying her hair back from her face so she could concentrate on what she was about to say. “Because it’s a part of my life. It’s a big part of who I am, a really big part that I can’t just ignore anymore. I know that now.”
“Then why has it never showed up before?” Chuck asked, and Maya knew he was referring to the past several months of their relationship.
Maya began to pick at her fingernails, digging her nails into her cuticles to punish herself for what she was about to say, even though she knew it was only the truth. “Because I hid it from you. I didn’t…want you to think of me as weak. Or as damaged or broken or whatever. I thought that if I just told you what happened but made it seem like it didn’t affect me anymore, maybe then I could have a normal life. But it’s just not who I am. I will never have a normal life, not really, not one without some reminders of what happened to me.”
“I don’t understand that,” Chuck said. “You were happy with me. You were healthy. Why go back here and get sucked back into all these things that are only going to remind you of the worst thing that ever happened to you?”
“Because the girls need me, Chuck,” Maya said. “And…little me needs me, too. The young parts of me, the parts that still live inside of me, they need to be acknowledged. I can’t just shut them up anymore and pretend that they don’t exist, that what happened to them has to be erased for the rest of me to survive. It’s just not fair to me. I can’t pretend to be the person that you fell in love with anymore.”
Chuck leaned back a little on the bed, bracing his fists on the mattress like he was about to launch himself out of the room. “So where does that leave us?”
Maya couldn’t do anything but answer the question honestly. “I don’t know.”
“Well, that’s just fucking fantastic,” Chuck spat, getting up from the bed and pacing around for a minute before turning to face Maya, looking down at her from his standing height. “Is that really all you’re going to say to me?”
Maya nodded slowly. “For now.”
“ ‘For now?’ What does that mean, exactly? Do you have something more important to do?” Chuck’s tone was sarcastic, but Maya nodded again, causing his mouth to fall open in shock. “What the hell, Maya?”
“I have to borrow your car. There’s something I need to do tonight, and it can’t be put off any longer. And yes, before you ask, it’s related to the case. I need to get somewhere as fast as possible. If you love me at all, you’ll let me use your car, just this once, just for tonight,” Maya said.
Chuck sputtered for a minute, shaking his head before he responded. “Wow, you’re just a fucking piece of work. You know that? You know I don’t want you messing with this shit and then you give me an ultimatum? Who do you think you are?”
“Your fiancée, who needs your help,” Maya said, feeling a little bit stung by the harshness of Chuck’s words. “I just need it for one night. One more night on the case. It’ll make or break the whole thing, but the girls are depending on me.”
“Who are ‘the girls?’ ” Chuck shouted. “Huh? Who are they? The dead girls? They don’t fucking need you, Maya. They’re dead! You’re alive! Start acting like it again or…”
“Or what?” Maya prompted, getting to her feet to stretch up to her full height, staring hard into Chuck’s wide eyes. “Or what? Come on, say it. You don’t want me to give ultimatums but you’re about to give me one right now. Just come out and say it. I already know what it is.”
Chuck blew out his breath and narrowed his eyes at her until he was staring at her through tiny slits. “You’re right. You already know what I’m going to say.” He stepped forward, taking Maya’s hand into his, rubbing the back of her palm with his cold fingers. “I’ll let you use my car, Maya, just for tonight. But if you aren’t back in a few hours…we’re done. Finished. I can’t live this way, always wondering whether I’ve got you or not. It’s not fair to me.”
“You’re right,” Maya said, feeling the sick heat of shame burn its way up the back of her neck as she thought about Arsen. “It isn’t fair to you at all. It isn’t fair to either of us.”
“What are you saying?” Chuck asked, his forehead wrinkled with confusion and fear.
“I’m not going to be coming back here,” Maya said. “I’ll drop your car back off in the lot out back, but I can’t come back. You don’t know me. You don’t know me at all, and the parts that you do know, you don’t like. It’s not fair to either of us to keep up the charade just for convenience’s sake. We’re finished. Goodbye.”
She began to walk around him, grabbing his car keys off the top of the dresser and heading for the door before he stopped her with a hand on her elbow. “Hey, Maya, wait. Stop. Just think about this. You really want to give me up, just like that? You really want to give up our life together?”
There was a part of her that wanted to say no, if she was being honest with herself. That little part was small and scared and shrunken-in on itself, hiding from the world, and Maya understood it well, but she couldn’t afford to keep listening to it anymore. “That’s just it, Chuck. It’s not our life. It’s your life. It’s not mine.”
“So, what? This is about your ex, Arsen, or whatever his name is? You’re giving me up for him?”
Maya shook her head and smiled sadly, but she felt a little spark of pride flash to life in her chest. “No, Chuck. I’m giving you up for me.” She slipped the diamond ring off her finger and handed it to Chuck, who reluctantly accepted it into his palm. “I’ll bring the car back before tomorrow, I promise. Have a good life, okay? You deserve it.”
And with that, she walked out back into the cold night, back into the city that had raised her, that had shaped her, and that had given her life.
She quickly ran to Chuck’s car in the back lot of the hotel, sticking the key into the ignition and mentally calculating the directions to her destination. She knew where she had to go. There was a feeling in her gut that she should have listened to from the beginning. If she was right, she could have stopped the killer a long time ago. It was the only thing she had to go on, but it was enough, for now.
“Candy apples, huh?” she said out loud as she pulled out of the lot and onto the busy city street in front of the hotel, thinking about what Roxie had told her about the man who’d kidnapped her. “I know who you are, fucker. I’m coming for you.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Arsen struggled to control his breathing as he walked faster and faster away from Chuck’s hotel. He knew that if he hesitated for a single second, he wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to turn around and catch a final glimpse of Maya before he lost her forever. He needed to keep going, to push himself as hard as possible until he was far away from Maya. It was the only right thing to do, the only way to protect Maya from the danger he’d gotten her into.
He finally made it to the subway station, getting on the first car that would take him back in the general direction of his house, clenching his fists hard the whole ride over to focus his attention on anything other than Maya. But it didn’t work. No matter how he tried to shake them off, her eyes, angry and sad, lingered in his mind like two burning spotlights. He knew he had to let her go eventually, but as the subway rolled to a stop in front of his house, he decided to stop trying to fight it. He would hold Maya’s image in his mind like a candle, letting it light his way until he got the killer. Afterwards, he would consider moving on.
For now, he had to get supplies. Other than
the fact that the killer’s phone call originated within the Inked Hunters’ clubhouse, he didn’t have any solid leads to go off of. So instead he decided to camp around the clubhouse to look for the killer, observing the clubhouse’s surroundings rather than tearing it up from the inside out. Once inside his apartment, Arsen quickly grabbed a couple of outfits, some water bottles, and plenty of dry food to tide him over for a few days while he camped out in the woods behind the compound. Based on what Roxie had told them in the hospital, the killer had to have the ability to come and go easily during the day. That meant he was keeping his captives somewhere close to the clubhouse, so he could sneak in and out during the day without arousing any suspicion. Besides, Roxie’s house, which was also near the compound, was close enough to the killer’s hideout that she was able to run home after breaking out. It had to be in the woods. That was the only way the killer would be able to torture the girls without attracting unwanted attention from neighboring houses.
Still, Arsen was aware it was a long shot. There was no way of knowing that the killer hadn’t already disposed of his last captive, successfully finishing whatever perverted religious ritual he was performing. Arsen’s only hope was that Roxie’s disappearance might have knocked off the rhythm of the ritual. He got the sense, especially from Maya’s analysis, that the killer was someone who followed strict rules, conducting himself according to stringent standards in order to please his deity. It was likely that he chose a specific number of girls to kill, and one of them had already gotten away, which meant that the killer would probably try to kidnap at least one other girl to complete the ritual, giving Arsen some time to work with.
For about an hour and a half, Arsen crept quietly through the woods behind the compound, searching for any sign of a multi-story building that the killer could be using. But so far, he had no luck. There was no sign of anyone in the area at all, actually. In fact, there weren’t even any animals that he could see. It was an incredibly lonely place, with tall, bare trees that provided very minimal cover for Arsen as he walked from one area to the next, attempting to find a path without attracting any attention. He thought about the girls, trapped in the basement of the killer’s hideout. I bet they couldn’t even hear the sounds of any birds during the day or crickets at night over the sound of the highway behind the woods, Arsen thought. He wondered if that was what it was like for Lizzie, if she even forgot that wild animals existed during her captivity. She used to love animals, preferring their company to being around other people. In the end, she had neither. She just had darkness. Just like Maya.
Sometimes, he wondered if that was why he loved Maya so much—because she was the only one who could understand what happened to Lizzie. But it was deeper than that, he knew. Some part of him, no matter how irrational, believed that Maya was the only one who could heal him, the only one who could fix all his broken parts and put him back together again. It was absurd, Arsen knew. Maya was broken enough herself. She couldn’t even put herself back together, let alone another person. We were doomed from the start, Arsen thought. Two damaged people acting like it was okay to be who we were. It was never going to work.
Crunch. The sound of a heavy foot pressing down on a pile of leaves tore Arsen away from his inner monologue. His entire body stiffened with anxiety and anticipation as he quickly moved behind a thick, tall tree that was wide enough to hide his form from anybody walking from the other side of the woods. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Whoever was coming had accelerated their pace, coming straight towards him. Beads of sweat began to course down Arsen’s neck, disappearing under the neckline of his shirt.
“You’re never going to get away with this, you know,” a low, feminine voice hissed.
“Shut the fuck up,” a male voice said. “Shut. Up.”
“Or what? You’ll kill me faster?” the woman whispered before laughing loudly, the sound of her bitter cackle ringing out in the empty spaces between the trees.
That sound was so familiar… Arsen knew that noise. He’d had that laugh directed at him a thousand times before. It always felt like it was cutting him in two every time he heard it. It always meant that Maya was mad at him…
Maya!
Arsen peeked around the edge of the tree to see Maya being dragged across the woods in a man’s arms, a blindfold wrapped around her head and a large sharp knife pressed against her neck. The man’s face was turned away from Arsen, but the shape of the man’s body was familiar, too. But it wasn’t until the man spoke again that it clicked.
“You’re going to taste so good. Bitches always taste the best,” the man growled into Maya’s neck.
That’s when it hit him.
Zane Havens was the killer.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Maya was well-aware that this whole mess was her fault. Confronting Zane was a bad idea by itself, but doing it alone was even worse. After she figured out that the killer had to be a chef, she’d cornered him in the kitchen of the Inked Hunters’ compound, but before she could even get two words out, Zane turned a knife on her, covering her eyes with a blindfold then dragging her out to the woods. And now he was taking her into a cabin surrounded by trees, which she could just barely make out through the blindfold if she squinted as hard as she could.
So I’m going to die here, she thought, the words feeling distant and faded in her mind, like her thoughts had to fight through a layer of fog to be heard. She felt weirdly calm, like some part of her always knew that this was going to happen. She was always going to end up here, back in the darkness, back in a man’s arms, a sharp knife pressed against her throat.
It felt so easy to just accept it, to lean back into Zane’s arms and let him slice her up into meat. That’s what she was, right? That’s what she always was. It was always going to come back to this. Her whole life was one long, protracted prologue leading up to this hopeless moment where she was revealed to be as weak as ever. She was a victim, and she would always be a victim. Trying to be a hero only made it more inevitable.
No. No, no, no! Some voice rose from deep inside Maya’s heart, starting out softly and then building into an internal scream. I am not a fucking victim. I am not just a piece of meat. I’m not just a hunk of useless flesh. I am strong. I am powerful. I do not die like this. Not like this.
Maya bent her spine backwards, elbowing Zane in the stomach, causing him to drop the knife from her neck. She took the opportunity to blindly turn around and knee Zane in the crotch as hard as she could, making him groan out and clutch his balls for a second. “Help! Help me!” she screamed, trying to kick him again but missing this time. Zane quickly recovered, picking the knife off the ground and digging it deeper into Maya’s neck, breaking her skin a little bit so that a line of blood dripped down onto her shirt.
“Stupid fucking bitch. You thought you could come here and interfere in God’s work?”
“You’re not God. You’re just a tiny little man with an inferiority complex,” Maya said before spitting in Zane’s direction.
Zane hesitated for just one moment before smacking her across the face. Hard. Her cheek stung like it had been burned by the force of the impact. But she refused to show Zane that he’d caused her pain, instead grinning at him as wide as she could. “You’re going to fucking pay for this, you know,” she said.
“I’m going to be rewarded,” Zane said before pushing at her shoulders, shoving her closer to the cabin nestled within the trees. “God will grant me good things for wiping the earth clean of dirty bitches like you.”
“That’s what it’s about, isn’t it? Hurting women? Making them smaller so you can feel big? That’s what the whole thing has been about this entire time?” Maya said, and tears burned her eyes, but it wasn’t out of fear or sadness or resignation. They were angry tears that got hotter and hotter as she thought about all the young women who’d paid so this man could preserve his fragile ego.
“It’s about making bitches like you pay,” Zane said before kicking Maya, sending her tumbling to the
cold, hard ground, bruising her chin in the process. He pressed his foot down on her back, keeping her down on the ground for a long second, making her feel like her spine was about to snap in half. “Stay down,” he hissed at her, leaning down to grab her hair in his fist, yanking her head up while pressing her back down.
“Never,” she grunted out, digging her fingers into the dirt beneath her body to brace herself as she pushed up, knocking Zane’s foot temporarily off her back as she crawled forward on her hands and knees. I’m going to die here, she thought again, but this time, her inner voice wasn’t defeated. It was strong. I’m going to die here but not on my knees. And not on his terms.
Maya rolled over onto her back, catching Zane’s foot with her hands before he could stomp on her face and pushing him backwards, causing him to fall over, giving her time to scramble to her feet and run towards the nearest opening she could make out through the blindfold. She was going to die on her feet, with air in her lungs and blood in her veins. She was going to die like a woman.