by JL Mac
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” I promise breathlessly, finally gathering myself. Even through my shimmering vision, blinking away tears, I can see the doubt on Mom’s face and the loss of color. I take her by her shoulders and walk her backward until she collapses down into the same chair I sat in all those years ago.
“Ena?” she whispers.
“Listen to me very carefully and bare with me, okay?” My voice wobbles and my chin wrinkles though I am fighting to be strong. She nods warily.
“Lan is okay. She’s okay. I found her and she’s okay.” I watch as she sways slightly and for a moment I believe she may faint but she stills and just stares into nothingness behind me.
“Wh—where’d she go? Why’d she leave? How’d you find her? I—I don’t understand,” she croaks, her lip quivering.
“It wasn’t her fault.” I shake my head and sigh, completely forgetting what I had rehearsed before making the drive home. “I lied to you when I said I was travelling. I was actually finding Lan.”
“W—what does that mean? I… ” Mom sags further into her chair and shakes her head completely bewildered by what I am telling her.
“She was taken by some men who deal in… women… human trafficking,” I explain carefully. “I got involved with a man who helped me find her and get her back. She’s with one of his men now and just as soon as you’re ready he’s going to bring her home.”
“Oh my god,” she says pressing the back of her hand to her lips and for a moment I believe she may be sick right there at the dining table but she doesn’t. She blinks rapidly and breathes deeply through her nose. I wait for her to gather herself for a moment.
“Mom, she’s going to be fine. She’s a little shaken by everything but she’s fine and she can be here as soon as you tell me you’re ready to see her.”
“Okay. Yes,” she says resolutely, nodding. “Yes, where is she? I’ll just go get her. I can go pick her up,” she says in a daze of confusion fumbling with her purse on the dining table. She digs down into her bag for her keys then drops them on the floor. They jangle loudly against the tile. I reach over stilling her. Her mouth rounds, her nostrils flare, her eyes bulge and her sob is silent but deafening at the same time. Her body wracks violently and she digs her fingertips into my arms as though this news is a sea that may wash her away. I hold on as fierce as I believe Dad would have. He would have been solid as oak for her. He would have shouldered her relief and sorrow and sadness, he would have done it because that’s what you do for the person you love.
“Mom, shush. It’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be just fine now,” I reassure her gathering her hands in mine. It takes many long minutes, ticking by mercilessly slow with her falling apart in my arms. She sniffles and swipes tears from her cheeks. “He will bring her, but I need you to understand that you can’t speak to anyone about what really happened. There will be no statements to the police. No investigation. As far as the world knows, Lan took off just like everyone assumed she did. You have to make that promise and never go back on that. High Knoll won’t accept anything less,” I warn sternly. I won’t admit aloud that part of my urgency to make her promise is because I cringe at the idea of any trouble coming Carrick or Murphy’s way. I don’t say or acknowledge it aloud or even to myself but I am loyal to High Knoll now and forever for what they’ve done for me.
“Ena, what did you do?” Her knowing eyes search my face for the truth I won’t provide.
“I got her home,” I answer honestly with fresh tears welling in my eyes.
“Oh, Ena,” she cries launching herself at me again. “My brave girl, what did you do,” she whimpers. I don’t bother mentioning that I sold myself heart and soul to the devil. I don’t bother telling her that I hate the emptiness I feel inside when I should be elated. I don’t bother confessing how much I fear the fact that I’m in love with Carrick despite the Beast that he is.
I’m some sort of messed up version of the girl I used to be. My time with Beast changed everything. Like Lan’s favorite childhood movie, I landed myself in the Beast’s castle but instead of me changing him, he changed me.
Completely.
Irrevocably.
Eternally.
One week since our return to what used to be our everyday lives and as much as the three of us have been trying to move along normally, nothing is the same. Kevin’s evil, High Knoll’s darkness, Murphy’s impact on Lan, and my love for Carrick has left nothing untouched. It’s all tainted and marked, claimed and morphed into something different. I stayed awake last night wondering what might help and the only thing I could think to do was to stop trying to go backward to what we used to be, three girls getting on with life like a million other families in this country. We have to move forward and carve out a new normal, even if it hurts, even if it’s hard.
I have gone to walk through four different apartments today. None of them are going to workout. The first one was way too expensive, the second was way too small, the third was decent in size but needed many repairs before we would ever truly enjoy living there. I check the address of the fourth apartment location I’m supposed to go have a look at today and notice the address. It’s very close to another address I know. An apartment where darkness engulfed me, and cruelty was the only thing I knew.
When I detour to Rob’s old address instead of to the apartment I am heading to tour, something stirs in my chest. I haven’t laid eyes on the row of four apartments since the day I was driven out of here by Officer Perryman. A strangled noise bubbles up out of me and I press the back of my balled fist to my mouth and clear my throat, willing away the emotion that is threatening. I put my car in park across the street from the dilapidated looking building and look around. The entire area looks so different, yet hauntingly the same. Weeds envelope so much that it’s hard to see—hard to recall what it all looked like when other lousy low income assholes meandered around drunk or stoned, neglecting their kids and responsibilities. It’s a ghost, this place. I get out of my car and walk across the street with a wide crack in it. I step over the curb and begin down the sidewalk shrouded by webs of dried weeds. They crunch slightly under my flats and so do the fall leaves that have covered the ground. I walk to the front of the place I used to survive and stare at the hollowness wondering if places like this soak up the ugliness that happens within their walls. Does it know? Can it feel the bad, the evil? Maybe that’s why neighborhoods like these always fail. The ugliness that hides here is a cancer and society cuts it off and moves along as though it was never there. I walk around the side of the building and note the broken beer bottles and a slightly rusted blue cigarette lighter sitting on a brick. I press my shoulder into a gate that opens reluctantly for me. I walk around to what was once my back porch and stare up at the place. Paint has peeled back, displaying various shades it has been painted over the years. Bricks lie around broken. A planter in the neighbors yard has tilted and looks precariously close to falling over completely like some gravestone in a forgotten cemetery. I turn in a half circle, taking it in and thinking about my life since I left this place. My eyes catch on the wooden flashing at the base of the back porch. The trim is warped and rotted with moisture and mildew. The paint has almost completely peeled away but my eyes find it.
ENA WAS HERE
I stole a kitchen knife from in the house and kept it hidden in the dirt beneath the back steps. I go to the letters and kneel at them. It’s my dais and the little girl that carved letters here is the deity I am praying to for forgiveness. “I’m so sorry,” I croak. The woman I am today would have saved that little girl. She would have slipped that kitchen knife across Rob and Viv’s throats, not the wood trim on the back porch. Beast would have killed them too. He did kill one of them. I swallow my tears and scramble for the small opening beneath the wooden back porch stairs. I recall this space being so much bigger when I was a girl, looking for hiding places to call her own. I dive my hands into the brush and weeds beneath the steps, feeling around frantic
ally through the earth. Maybe it’s still here. My fingers dig into the dirt searching for the edge of something sharp, my stolen knife. I’m certain it’s a hunk of rust by now but it’s my hunk of rust. I dig further into the ground, frantic and overwhelmed with emotion.
“Gah!” I groan swiping my hands at the brush and weeds. I get to my feet and plant my heel against the stairs, kicking and cursing them. I curse that they are here, that I had hidden a knife there; that I ever carved my name here and that I was ever in this awful home in the first place. Anger boils up in me and I spin on my heels. The wheel of the lighter is rusted but I free it up by rolling it back a few times. To my surprise orange flame leaps skyward and before I think better of it, I look around, noting my solitude and then I light it up, the whole fucking place. The dried brush beneath the back porch is an excellent kindling. It catches and consumes the back porch and then the house within minutes. I pocket the lighter and return to my car, waiting around to watch the place burn only until the distant sound of sirens invades my moment. It’s a waste for them to even come along, this place is a corpse, forgotten and dead, and now it will be gone forever.
The distinct feeling of being watched fills me as I leave the scene of my crime. I should be nervous. Something like this would not only end my career before it even begins it would put me behind bars for arson. I can’t bring myself to care though.
I found a place and somehow convinced Mom that us moving out would be a good opportunity to start over. She was a lot less reluctant than I expected her to be. We still have things all over the place and with me fresh at the Academy I don’t exactly have an abundance of free time—something for which I am grateful. Free time only leaves me thinking about Carrick. I drop my bag on the counter and look around the apartment for signs of Lan but she’s not home yet. Mom had said she was taking her to her favorite Italian joint, Gino’s. I kick off my shoes and head for the kitchen when I hear a knock at the door. I freeze in place and can’t help the trepidation I feel in my gut. I go to the apartment door and peer through the hole.
Beast.
I smooth my clothes and privately chide myself for caring. The swing of the door brings his scent in with it and I inhale. “Carrick,” I say despite my suddenly dry mouth. I wave him in and trying my best to look relaxed. “Come in.”
He prowls further into the small apartment Lan and I share. His stormy eyes surveying everything, looking over the modest place. “Should I bother asking how you know where I live now?”
His eyes drift over my body and come to a stop at my wrist. I immediately clasp my hand over the thin bangle that is still fixed around my wrist. “Should I bother asking why you’re still wearin’ that?” he asks with a raised brow. I don’t want to answer him. I don’t even want to think about it. I’m a sad woman clinging to something that I feel tethers me to the man I fell so helplessly in love with.
“We—uh—don’t have much furniture yet but you can sit here,” I say apologetically, choosing to ignore the topic of the bracelet. I drag a wooden stool from the small breakfast bar facing the kitchen. He eyes me, ignoring the seat I’ve offered. The way his eyes look through me make me feel on edge, exposed and transparent, and desperately needy for his touch.
“I’m going to be a cop soon. You shouldn’t be here,” I mumble, thinking aloud as I get lost staring at him.
“I won’t be long,” he clarifies as cold as ice. My heart squeezes and my throat burns with stubborn emotion that refuses to remain locked up inside. “Thought you should know, Teeny is dead,” he says adjusting his cuff links, his tone disinterested as though this news is an afterthought.
I gasp, my eyes widening and my legs immediately stepping closer to him. A muscle in his cheek twitches as though he can’t stand being close to me and I ignore the blow. “How did he die?”
“Can’t say for certain, because as you know, I of course would have nothing to do with such a thing but if I had to guess I’d say…” he pauses, giving his words consideration. His hypnotic eyes peer upward in thought, his full, pillow soft lips pursed. “… Painfully. Alone. Slowly.” His eyes snap to mine, all pretenses of nonchalance vanished, the hard set of his jaw telling me that he’s deadly serious. He declares his three words with certainty I know he possesses and it’s a reminder of how I shared many of my secrets with him, how I shared my body with him too. “Real fuckin’ slow. But that’s just a guess.”
“Where was his body found?” I ask ignoring that fact that news of Kevin’s untimely demise has pleased me. Tremendously. He deserves death and a thousand times worse for his betrayal. Hearing Beast deliver the news, knowing he’s the one who has done this, makes me feel… so much more than I’m prepared to.
“They haven’t yet but I’m willing to bet that,” he says eyeing the sleek Rolex on his wrist. “Come daybreak there’s gonna be cops all over the southeast end of the docks,” he shrugs. “Teeny quit the force and has been a junkie for some time now and he got caught up in a drug deal gone bad. That’s what the cops will say, that’s what their report will conclude and that’s what the coroner will corroborate.” He really does run this city. Every aspect of it.
He steps closer to me fully invading what little personal space that remains between us. His eyes are turbulent, the hard set of his jaw a stark contrast to the gentle way his scarred hand lifts to my face. On instinct I nuzzle my cheek into his palm, savoring the feel of him. “Keep your fuckin’ hands clean or so help me, Ena,” he whispers as though it’s an endearment he’s just whispered in my ear. He reaches to the breakfast bar and snags the blue lighter and holds it up to me with those invasive, brilliant gray eyes digging into my head. He knows what I did. He drops it down into his pocket. “Bye, Ena,” he whispers then turns away.
“Carrick,” I blurt urgently, my voice suddenly thick with emotion and the tears that I can feel welling fat and hot in my eyes. He halts where he is but he makes no move to turn back to me. His head droops tiredly then he glances over his shoulder to me. I step forward and my mind reels but my lips refuse to move.
I miss you.
I need you.
I hate you.
I love you.
He nods as though he knows exactly what I am thinking and it rips the wound open all over again.
“Why?” I demand feeling suddenly fortified by the well of emotion within me. “Tell me why.”
“Because I fuckin’ can,” he grits, then disappears without ever looking back at me. Just like that, my high, my adrenaline rush that news of Kevin’s death sparked in me has completely evaporated. Just like the dominating presence that follows Carrick around. Here when he is, gone when he isn’t. Kind of like all semblance of life inside me. Here when he’s here. Gone when he isn’t. I step back to the stool and collapse against the cool wooden surface and cradle my head in my hands, feeling destroyed all over again.
I didn’t sleep last night. Seeing Carrick is a nasty wound to pick open. I feel as though I am on a rollercoaster of emotions. I cycle through them all. Choking on sobs I refuse to set free then shaking with anger. It’s difficult to think of how I had confessed my feelings to him before he ghosted on me. I offered up my heart and he simply discarded me, plucked me from his life he didn’t have the balls to do it himself. He dispatched Murphy to neatly excise me. Maybe he just doesn’t give a shit. Maybe what I feel for him is a one-way street. Maybe I was a stupid woman to ever think that he might have truly felt something substantive for me. My head hurts and I need a drink.
Several drinks in at the nearest neighborhood bar, and I find myself in that sublime state between buzzed and legitimately drunk. It’s also the level of intoxication that makes people overly emotional. I’m barely holding myself together by the time I get back to my apartment. I’ve just settled myself in front of the TV with a slice of cold pizza when there’s knocking at my door. It startles me from the awful nineties martial arts movie marathon I have been mindlessly watching for the last hour. Lan is sleeping on the futon in her room I ass
ume or she could be glued to her cellphone, either way I haven’t seen her yet today. I drag myself to the door paying no heed to the fact that my heart hopes that it’s Beast, even if it hurts to breathe the same air as him. Even if I want to punch him right in his gorgeous, lush mouth.
“Yes?” I ask opening the door enough to see a burly looking man in a polo shirt and jeans with black boots on his feet.
“Gotta a delivery for Ena Devlin,” he says checking the clipboard in his thick hand.
“Uh… ” I trail off confused. “I don’t think so,” I say squinting down at the pink and yellow carbon copy papers fixed to his clipboard.
“Says right here,” he jabs a finger at the invoice. “Ena Devlin, 726 Mabry Street, Apartment 1C.”
“Yeah, I mean, that’s me but I didn’t order anything.”
“Two bedroom suits, living room suit and a dining suit. Here’s the receipt,” he says flipping through the papers on the clipboard clearly bored with having to explain. I scan the copy of the receipt and see it.
C. Ferguson.
I sigh, ignoring the tightening in my throat and the simultaneous tension in my jaw. I step aside and wave the man in, directing him to the two bedrooms. The men unload everything and set it all up then split in a hurry. No doubt they were tipped generously and advised to get in and get the hell out.
“What—what the hell?” I huff to myself looking around at the gorgeous things he chose. Or maybe it was Murphy.