Beauty, a Hate Story the End

by Mary Catherine Gebhard

  “Business is good,” Levi said at last, breaking the silence. “I’ve made a new deal with The Institute that they were more than eager to accept.”

  “Good,” Anteros clipped. Anteros didn’t have patience for a chess match. He’d come to Antonio’s for a reason. Pushing past Levi, he continued his exploration.

  Every room looked like a tornado had touched down. It had never been a nice place, each time Anteros had visited had been marked with piles of trash and the smell of rot. It had never been this bad, though.

  Was Frankie hurt? His chest constricted at the thought. It was so much blood, someone had to have died, but he couldn’t find a body. Levi sidled up next to him.

  “Mind if I ask why you’re here?” As much as he wanted to pound Levi’s treacherous face into the dirt until it became muddy, he gave Levi a strained look and continued through the house.

  “Research,” Anteros responded, walking into the kitchen. Then he stopped short so quickly Levi slammed into his back. The body of Gabriella De Luca was on the floor. Footprints led from the pool of blood, explaining why there’d been so many. It still didn’t explain what had happened to Frankie, which was all Anteros cared about.

  The previously cold tension turned hot. Levi ran into the room, a pained scream erupting from his mouth. He fell to the floor, pulling Gabriella to his chest.

  “Gabby,” Levi said, pulling her closer so blood stained his white dress shirt red. Frankie had said they were together, but now he saw there had been love between them. Deep love.

  “I’m so sorry.” Levi tucked her lifeless, lobbing head under his chin. “I should have listened.” He cradled her there, rocking back and forth, knees sinking in a puddle of her blood. Tugging his bottom lip between two fingers, Anteros scanned the rest of the room. No sign of Frankie.

  The fuck had gone down?

  “You,” Levi growled, voice barely human. “You took everything from me.” Anteros’s head whipped back to Levi.

  “Me?”

  “My mother. Gabby. You took it all.”

  “I didn’t do shit to your mother. I don’t know who the fuck she is,” Anteros said. “And I didn’t do this. I got here minutes before you.” But it was fresh, Anteros thought, noting the blood still pouring out of Gabby. Whatever had happened had gone down just minutes before Anteros arrived. If Frankie had been here, she wasn’t far.

  “Tala. Tala was my mother,” Levi raged, holding Gabby to his chest like a doll. “She was taken and sent to The Institute to repay my father’s debt ten years ago.” Anteros paused for a split second after Levi’s explanation then laughed. Levi’s face grew crimson with anger.

  “That wasn’t me,” Anteros said, chuckling. “I didn’t have the power to do that ten years ago. I was still climbing my way up from slave. Your beef isn’t with me, Luchessi. You want the Pavonis.” Anteros smirked, remembering what Frankie had said about who Luchessi was working with. “I hear you’re working for one.” He had to give it to Lucia, she was masterful at twisting people. The woman was an absolute architect at manipulation.

  Levi screamed, dropping Gabby and lunging for him. Levi swung at him, a few punches actually landing on Anteros’s jaw. He might have been a formidable opponent once, but now he was filled with rage and sorrow. It blinded him, made him sloppy. He expended all his energy on uncalculated throws.

  Anteros knew Levi’s life had been tragic, having lost his mother and then been consumed by the world that took her, but Anteros wasn’t sorry, and he wouldn’t show him mercy. Levi made his own decisions and a man had to acknowledge the consequences of his decisions or they’d do it for him. After Frankie left, Anteros finally fucking learned that.

  When Levi was heaving and panting, Anteros swung. His fist collided with Levi’s cheek, both Anteros’s knuckles and Levi’s jaw crunching with the impact. Levi stumbled back and Anteros swung again, then again, and again until Levi’s face was a bloody, crumpled mess. He had Levi on the floor, about to punch him into silence and death, when Levi spoke.

  “The princess will be a whore soon,” Levi rasped. “Just like my mother.”

  “What did you say?” Anteros paused, arm raised and poised to strike.

  “Why do you think this house is empty? Why do you think I’m here? Do you really think I could make a deal with The Institute?” Levi laughed through broken, bloody teeth. Eyes swollen shut, he laughed and laughed, like a broken Jack in a Box. “Gabby tried to warn her but Frankie signed her ticket the day she left Lucia. She’s probably on her way there now.” Levi laughed again but ended up choking on his blood. It was a disgusting, gurgling wet noise. Ice filled Anteros’s veins and he looked around the house as if Frankie would pop up any minute.

  On her way.

  To The Institute.

  What he’d been trying to save her from since the very fucking beginning.

  Fury, hopelessness, and powerlessness poisoned Anteros’s blood. He gripped Levi by the shirt, lifted his head, then slammed it into the tile. He did this over and over until brain matter spilled out, then Anteros dropped him. Levi’s head fell with a thud next to Gabriella’s, their blood mingling together on the kitchen floor.

  Anteros stood back up, shaking out his bruised, bloody fist.

  He would find Frankie. The Institute would not be her fate.

  Sixteen

  One day earlier

  * * *

  The windshield wipers swished back and forth but were worthless against the onslaught of rain. My tears didn’t help much, either. I’d kept it together in the garage and for the first mile, but now I cried with abandon. I couldn’t help it. I thought I’d found home, but now I drove a car I didn’t really know how to drive in the direction of only God knew where.

  I couldn’t go back to Lucia. I couldn’t go back to Anteros. I couldn’t go anywhere. So I drove in the general direction of New York, hoping something would come to me. I tried not to think about what Anteros had revealed, tried not to dwell on the reason I was in the car in the first place. I’d been searching for family since this hell started, but never imagined it would lead me here. Never.

  This isn’t a fairytale, Frankie. Stop looking for a fucking happily ever after.

  I swiped my cheeks. I hated that he knew me so well. Even through all the mud and tar, I had been searching for a happily ever after. I told myself it wouldn’t end well, but in my mind I saw a dad who wouldn’t beat me and a mother who wasn’t dead. And they would love me. Like Harry Potter looking in the Mirror of Erised, I was mesmerized by the vision of them.

  Then he told me the truth.

  And it all shattered.

  I gripped the steering wheel. The car went too fast and was hard to control. It was raining and snowing, combined was more like slush. The car’s bright headlights didn’t really help to see the road, just illumined the wetness and made it look like a tar pit. I tried to bring back memories of driver’s ed, the few classes I’d gone to. I didn’t have my license—hadn’t gotten a chance with Papa and being sick and not having a birth certificate. I’d never needed it, never had anywhere to go.

  Mio cuore, I will show you the world.

  I swiped at my cheeks again, trying to focus on the road and not on the constant loop of the night playing over and over again, but trying to rid myself of Anteros was like ripping out organs. He was just inside me. When Anteros had plugged me at the penthouse, I’d been so determined to show him he didn’t own me that I told him he would never be inside me, no matter what he put in my body.

  What a fucking lie that was.

  Even hating him, even destroyed, he was inside me, owning me, forever. It wasn’t fair that Anteros brought me the most pain I’d ever felt and the most pleasure. Those things should be mutually exclusive, those persons separate.

  “Fuck,” I said aloud, rubbing a hand over my forehead. Where the fuck was I going to go? The one man I’d thought might finally be home had proven again that he was hell. When was I going to stop falling for it? When would I le
arn that he was the enemy?

  When we’re together, it’s not empty. We’re filled. We’re fire. The world isn’t just color, we set the colors on fire—and you know it.

  My face got hot and tight with unshed tears. It was so unfair that his touch, his kisses, his words all felt like home, but his actions said hate. They said betrayal. I removed a hand from the steering wheel and brushed my lid before a tear could fall.

  Everything was black except for what my blue headlights briefly illumined. The brief glimmer of trees. The curving of the street. A slick green street sign with bold white letters that read New Jersey.

  New Jersey, the very first hell I’d called home. Maybe my home still had the key under the mat. Maybe I could pretend none of this ever happened, go back to the closet, and act like it was all a bad dream—that was, if nothing had happened to my house. More tears threatened to fall at the prospect of returning home, of having to return home.

  The blue gaslight dinged. Fuck. I didn’t have any money and I was still miles from New Jersey. The sign a few yards back had said the exit up ahead had gas. Maybe I could beg the attendant.

  I was nearly running on empty, too. My arms were weak, barely capable of turning the wheel, my head heavy, limbs sore. I needed to get to Jersey or I was going to be a hazard on the road.

  Okay, more of a hazard than I already was.

  I pulled into the exit, still thinking about the night and about what Anteros had said could have happened to me if I’d been sold. Could that really have been my fate? Life with Anteros had been hell. What he’d described was unimaginable.

  I felt sick to my stomach when I pulled up to the gas station and the smell of gasoline burned my nose as I got out of the car. It had stopped rain-snowing but the asphalt was wet, reflecting the fluorescent lights. It was deserted, the station itself boarded up, so there went my idea to beg. There was only one other car in the lot, a sandy-colored sedan that looked dirty. I couldn’t see the owner, and I wondered if it was abandoned too.

  I had no money. I was next to an ostentatiously nice car, with no shoes, in a stained dress that was getting soaked by the wet ground. To top it all off, I was fucking sick. No hiding it anymore. My head drooped, my eyelids were heavy, and I could barely stand.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  What the hell was I going to do? I rested against the car and stared at the lone street sign for the onramp to the freeway. Maybe I could hitchhike. I hadn’t seen many cars on the road with me, and I was pretty sure hitchhiking on a freeway at night in the rain/snow was dangerous, but I couldn’t think of anything else. I rubbed my arms harder.

  “Hey, girlie.” I jumped at the voice, turning to find a man approaching. He wasn’t much taller than me, but he towered like he was. He put his arm on top of the car, on top of Anteros’s car. That shouldn’t have made me angry, but it did. His eyes raked over my body. Slowly. Carefully. Sizing me up like a steak at a butcher shop.

  Not good.

  “I was just leaving,” I said, pushing off to open the door.

  “Now hold on.” I’d partly opened the door but he held my arm so I couldn’t get it all the way. I eyed the little sliver of freedom being withheld from me. I didn’t dare look at him, didn’t dare move.

  “Let go of me,” I said. I tried to keep my voice strong. Screw trying to sound menacing—I was just trying to not sound shaky. To the naked eye, we were evenly matched. He was my height but scrawny, skin tight on his bones. If I had been at full health, I probably could have taken him, but I was sick. I had to be smart.

  “You don’t want to do this,” I hedged.

  “No, I do. I really do.” His whole body shook with the word really like he couldn’t contain himself. He pushed me against the car, and I felt his erection at my leg like an unwanted cockroach.

  “I’ll give you the car,” I attempted to bargain.

  “I’ll take the car,” he said. “Once I’m done with you.” He pressed his hands between my thighs and pushed his gross, unwashed face into my neck.

  “I can get you money.” I tried to stall him, but he was deaf to me. He pawed at my dress and licked slimy trails on my cheek. I needed to come up with a plan—any plan. I couldn’t overpower him, so I needed a weapon. The jagged car key cut into my palm and I realized what I had to do.

  With one motion, I thrust the key into his eye. He screamed as the sharp point made contact with the soft membrane. Blindly, wildly, he swiped for me, but I stabbed it again, and again. Blood poured from his face, drenching me. It splattered all over the pretty glitter on my dress, staining the remarkable blue color. He buckled over.

  His shoe twisted in the fabric at the bottom of my dress as he fell, and I heard a sickening rip. The air licked at my now exposed leg. I shouldn’t have cared—the dress was covered in wine and blood and dirt—but it hurt. It felt like he’d taken a piece of me with him.

  I glanced at his beat-up car and made another split-second decision. I bent down and sifted through his pockets until I found his keys, then stood up and took a final look at him. Body thrashing on the asphalt like a fish tossed into a bucket. Low, inhuman moans fading into the background of the abandoned gas station. Hands red, shiny, and dripping as he clutched his eye.

  I ran to his car.

  The tank in the asshole’s car was halfway full—better than what I had before, at least. I adjusted the rearview mirror, catching a look at myself.

  Blood.

  On my dress, on my face, drying on my hands. I waited to feel guilty like when I’d killed Big O, but it didn’t come.

  In the mirror, the asshole was getting up, murder in his other eye. Swallowing, I reversed so quickly the smell of burning rubber filled the air. The man’s body got bigger and bigger in the rearview until he was almost up to the bumper, until I could almost hit him.

  He put his hands up to his face just as I hit the brakes. I waited, watching him in the mirror. My heart beat fast, blood rushing through my body. He’d tried to rape me. I wanted him under my wheels, but I didn’t know the first thing about disposing of a body, and I’d been lucky Anteros had cleaned up my mess the first time.

  I sped off in the opposite direction. I was invigorated, and this time I didn’t shy away from the feeling. I reveled in it. I let the power in darkness course through my veins.

  Rip it off. Keep it off.

  When I got to Jersey, the sun was just coming up, streaks of orange shooting across the cobalt sky. I parked the stolen car in the driveway. The rusted car door creaked and the sloping driveway was so steep that I had to push hard against gravity to keep it open.

  I stumbled toward the door, officially out of energy. I was worried the bank would have foreclosed and sold it, but for the time being it was still the same shit hole I’d grown up in. Cracked steps, overgrown grass, peeling roof.

  The key was under the mat where I’d left it and I shoved it into the lock, opening the door. I might have hated this place, might have resented having to return, but a few months before I’d been carted out the door a prisoner. Now I was returning covered in another man’s blood, free. I could at least acknowledge the power in that.

  I shut the door behind me, key falling from my hand to the floor with a clang. I would lock it tomorrow, I told myself. No one would come to this house—there was only one person who had, and he wouldn’t come for me. I’d made it explicit he shouldn’t. I ignored the pang in my heart and stumbled through the rooms, barely able to stand, to see.

  The smells were too familiar. It wasn’t nostalgia, it was trauma. Rancid, twisting in my brain like rotten meat.

  Frankie get your fucking ass over here, you ungrateful cunt. I do so much for you and you can’t do one simple thing? Why isn’t my picture working? You’re just like your fucking useless mother. I have a game to watch—what the fuck are you crying for? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU CRYING FOR?

  I pushed past the TV room, trying to get to the closet. I couldn’t pass out in the TV room, in Papa’s room, where he’d sat da
y in, day out, barely moving to piss. I’d brought his meals to him. I’d brought his paper to him. I could still see the indent his ass made.

  I stumbled to my closet, pulling open the small, irregularly shaped door that marked the entrance. I fell onto the mattress without any ceremony, feet sticking out into the hallway.

  Later, when I had more energy, I would change clothes. I would shower. I would switch so I was lying vertically on the bed. Later, when I had a good amount of energy, I would do all of that.

  I stared up at the wrinkly pictures still taped to my wall. The room was a time capsule, and I was inside it. Still sick, still me. I lifted my arm, studying the blood caked in the little hairs.

  At least when it really hit me, I was home, really home. Because Lucia wasn’t home, Anteros wasn’t home.

  This was home.

  The blood on my clothes was another lie.

  Nothing had changed. I would always be the sick Jersey girl sitting in her closet.

  I never did get up and change. I vaguely remembered getting up to eat something. Let me rephrase, I remembered attempting to get up to eat something. My vision blacked, I fell back down, and I’d been sitting in bed, staring at my pictures ever since.

  I was fucking hungry. I wanted a fucking shower, but I was too tired. I used to call this a waking coma. I was aware of everything that was happening, but I couldn’t do shit about it. I was too tired to move. I just had to lie in bed and deal.

  Had to think about Anteros and his betrayal. About Lucia, my grandmother, actually being my mother. About how I was the product of incest. I had to wonder if that was why I was like this—a king and a queen had fucked and made me, a sick, twisted princess. Charles II of Spain had been so deformed from inbreeding that he was the last ruler of his line. Sort of like how I was the last Pavoni.