Chapter 20
ALENA
Day five.
Or six? I don't know. Maybe only hours have passed.
The days had bled together like the scratches on my back—raw edges blending into one endless wound.
I couldn't remember the last time I'd slept more than an hour without the whispers dragging me back to consciousness.
Couldn't remember the last meal that wasn't vodka poured straight from the bottle.
The apartment wasn't home anymore. It was a tomb.
Walls pressing in, shadows stretching longer even in daylight, every corner hiding eyes that weren't there but watched anyway. The air tasted stale—blood and wine and unwashed despair.
Kitchen to living room. Living room to desk.
Desk to bedroom. Bedroom back to kitchen.
My feet had worn a path in the carpet—uneven, frantic, a map of my unraveling.
The bottle in my hand sloshed with each step, vodka warm now from my grip.
I took another swig. The burn barely registered anymore.
Just wet heat sliding down a throat scraped raw from screaming.
My nails were down to bloody nubs. I'd started biting them yesterday—or was it the day before? Couldn't stop now. The sharp pain of teeth on skin was something real, something I could control when everything else had spun off into chaos.
Where is he?
The question looped in my head, endless, merciless.
I grabbed my phone off the counter—screen spiderwebbed with cracks from the third time I'd hurled it at the wall in frustration. Unlocked it with shaking fingers. Dialed Lucy.
She picked up on the first ring. "Alena? You okay?"
"Anything?" My voice came out shredded. Barely human.
A pause. Too long. The kind of pause that meant no but she didn't want to say it.
"No, babe. Marcus called his office again this morning—nothing. His assistant said the last contact was that 'work trip' email, but no details. No itinerary. We tried his old pit contacts again—still nothing. Hospitals say no one matching his description has come through."
My chest constricted. "He's gone, Luce. Actually gone."
"Don't say that." But her voice shook. I could hear the fear bleeding through. "We're not giving up. Marcus is—"
I hung up.
Couldn't handle the hope in her tone when mine had run dry days ago.
Called Marcus next.
"Alena." He answered like he was already braced for bad news. Like he'd been waiting for this call.
"Tell me you found something."
A sigh. Heavy. Defeated. "I wish I could. Called every shady bastard I know from the old days—no one's heard from him. No chatter. No sightings. It's like he vanished into fucking thin air."
Vanished.
The word hit like a blade between my ribs.
"Thanks," I muttered through deadened lips and hung up before he could say anything else comforting and useless.
Bottle to lips. Swallow. Burn. Repeat.
The carpet path burned under my bare feet as I circled faster, walls blurring at the edges.
The whispers started low—familiar gravel scrape against my skull, like nails on bone.
"He left you."
I covered my ears with both hands, bottle clinking against my temple. "Shut up."
"He saw your madness and couldn't stomach it."
"Shut up!" I screamed it this time, voice cracking.
A scratch opened across my forearm—hot, shallow, warning sharp. I barely felt it. Everything was hollow except the panic chewing through my chest like acid.
I started dialing anyone who'd ever known him.
His architect partner—straight to voicemail.
An old pit fighter contact I'd met once—number disconnected.
Even his fucking dentist—closed for the day.
Nothing.
I texted him for the hundredth time, fingers flying over cracked glass:
Where are you? Please. I'm scared. Just tell me you're alive.
Sent.
Delivered.
No read receipt.
No typing dots.
Nothing.
The bottle was empty. When had that happened?
I grabbed gin this time—anything to drown the cold spreading through my chest. Unscrewed the cap with shaking hands. Drank straight from the neck. The gin scorched like swallowing thorns, herbal and vicious, burning all the way down but still couldn't touch the frozen void where he used to be.
The whispers grew louder, multiplying, overlapping.
"Without him, we own you completely."
"Lies," I hissed through clenched teeth, nails digging into my scalp now, abandoning biting for clawing. New pain. Same useless distraction.
Another scratch carved across my thigh—deeper this time, blood welling hot through denim. I didn't look. Didn't care.
Cried instead.
Hot tears streaking down my face as gin sloshed onto the floor. Sobs hitching in my chest—ugly, guttural, animal sounds I didn't recognize as my own.
"Why?" I screamed at the ceiling, at the shadows thickening in every corner, at whatever gods or ghosts were listening. "Why him? Why now?"
No answer except another scratch—collarbone this time, sharp enough to steal my breath.
My knees buckled.
I collapsed against the wall, sliding down until I sat on the floor in a heap—knees to chest, bottle cradled like a dying thing. Blood soaked through my shirt in warm patches. The cold tile pressed against my legs.
I rocked slightly. Covered my ears tighter. Hummed nonsense to drown the whispers—nursery rhymes, Mamma Mia songs, anything to fill the silence.
But they slipped through anyway, insidious and sure.
"He chose death over this—over you."
"No," I sobbed, voice breaking into pieces. "No no no—"
The room spun—gin hitting hard on an empty stomach, blood loss making everything fuzzy and soft at the edges. The shadows weren't just watching anymore. They were moving. Creeping closer. Reaching.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Please come back. Please don't be dead. Please don't have left me on purpose.