Chapter 34 Alex
Alex
Alex was lying face down in the red dust, the burning shed several feet behind him. He watched sideways as smoke billowed out and was quickly taken by the desert wind.
Where was Ana? Had she made it out?
His head hurt where Ellis had smacked him hard with something. He could feel gravel burns on his legs and arms from being dragged. Everything was blurry—inside and out, all the pieces missing, jumbled up in his head.
Wriggling awkwardly onto his side, he tried to sit up. His hands were roughly tied behind his back with a lamp cord. The old lamp was still attached and banged against him when he moved.
Slowly, awkwardly, he maneuvered himself into a sitting position. He must have been lying there a while; the fire was burning itself out. Wind sucked ash out of the building, sweeping it skywards, momentarily giving him a clear view of the hole where the door had been.
He stared into the darkness, searching for movement, willing Ana to come out.
Where was she? Was she okay? Had Ellis got to her? Where was Ellis?
“An…” He spluttered into a round of violent coughing. His chest hurt—he’d breathed in so much smoke, it felt like someone had put their hands around his neck and tried to choke the life out of him.
It took minutes for the coughing to subside. He sunk back onto the ground, lightheaded, everything spinning. It was all he could do to lie there and try to hold on. A wave of nausea followed the dizziness.
Just sit it out. Hold on.
It was hard to know how long he stayed like that. Time was passing in waves. Tentatively he opened his eyes, red and smarting from the fire.
A pair of disconcertingly clean sneakers were inches from his face. One reached forward and nudged him hard in the shoulder.
“You awake?” Ellis said, his voice clear and untouched by the smoke.
Alex felt his senses snap into place. Ellis was alive; they were still in danger. He tried to sit up again. This time it was a little easier.
“Where…Ana?” He broke into another fit of coughing.
“She didn’t make it,” Ellis said calmly.
The words hit Alex before the meaning could sink in. Didn’t make it. What did that mean? Didn’t make what?
“Ana…?”
“She’s gone, doofus. Which just leaves the three of us. You, me, and Jade.” Ellis watched him as he spoke, his expression cold.
Alex shook his head, trying to wake himself up, trying to make sense of the words. Gone. Ana didn’t make it. Ana was gone. She was gone.
It was as though a bucket of ice-cold water had been thrown over him, cutting through the mess in his head, smacking him hard between the eyes.
A sensation crept over him—a familiar one, something he’d hoped he would never, ever feel again.
Not after the first time, last year, in that hospital corridor when the doctor told them that Danny had died.
What was it? Fear? Grief? There wasn’t one word that summed it up.
It was as though the pit of your stomach was being ripped out of you and there was no hope, no light left. No breath.
Ana hadn’t made it. Danny. Raya. All gone.
They had lost. Ellis had won. The game was over.
Alex closed his eyes, sinking back to the ground. The fight left him. The horrors of the last day melted into an emptiness that he willingly accepted. The raw burning in his throat could take him. He could just stop breathing, just let his struggling lungs give up and die.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, stop feeling sorry for yourself,” Ellis barked, kicking him with the toe of his shoe. “You may get a reprieve for now. I’m honestly not sure I can stand another hour with Jade. She’s gone completely mental.”
Alex felt tears well in his eyes, stinging as they mixed with ash. He wanted to hide his face—not give Ellis the satisfaction of seeing him cry, but he couldn’t move or turn away. He had nothing left in him.
A sharp laugh, and something grabbed him roughly by his shirt, pulling him up.
“Snap out of it.” Ellis shook him. “Don’t get me wrong, I like men who cry. Shows strength of character to wear your heart on your sleeve. But we haven’t got all day. I’ve got a game to win, then I’m going home. So, get the fuck up. We need to find Motel Barbie and end this.”
Alex was no match for the point guard’s powerful basketball-trained physique. He was manhandled to his feet and dragged, half-stumbling after Ellis, the lamp swinging wildly off the cord, bashing into his legs.
No need to guess where they were headed.
Ellis’s handcrafted place of execution.
As they rounded the corner of the pool fence, they got their first unobstructed view of the death machine, instantly stopping them in their tracks.
Jade was standing near the rusty old tractor, her feet inches from the line, muttering to herself.
Her platinum-blonde hair was standing up in a bird’s nest on the back of her head.
Carefully constructed make-up streaked her face in morbidly fleshy colors.
She shifted from side to side, a grimace of a smile plastered on her face.
“Like I said,” Ellis half-whispered. “Completely fucking mental.”
Alex instinctively nodded in agreement.
They walked forward. Ellis waved at Jade with his free hand.
“Oh my god—is that Alex?” Jade’s words sounded strange, disjointed, almost childlike. “We thought you were dead.” She was pulling at the bird’s nest with one hand, taking great handfuls at a time. It must have hurt.
“Not dead yet, but don’t get too attached,” Ellis said.
“Oh…no, no. We don’t like that. Don’t like that at all.” Jade turned back to face the desert and started muttering to herself again in a baby voice. She kept staring at Jax’s phone. The small rectangle lay where he’d dropped it, where he’d died, about ten feet beyond her.
When they got close to the death machine, Ellis pushed Alex to the ground and sighed.
“What do you think, Jade? Shall we let Alex cross the line next, or stick with tradition and go with ladies first?”
Jade seemed flustered. She kept moving around, uncomfortably close to the line. One hand was firmly knotted into her hair; the other swatted the air in Ellis’s direction, as though she could magic him away.
“Not nice…not nice…” she muttered. “…is too hot…we want boba…no sugar…always too much sugar…”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Ellis muttered under his breath. “Some people really don’t handle stress well.” Ellis squatted down next to Alex. “She’s talking herself into a one-way ride over the line. I’m not putting up with this shit for another hour.”
“We like boba…right? It’s our favorite. Right, Jax?” Jade was clearly talking to the phone.
Alex looked up at her. Had she said Jax? Wow, she was really out of it.
Ellis seemed to have noticed too. He stood up and walked over to her; as he got close, she wrapped her arms around her body defensively.
“Jade, can you tell me where Jax is?”
Jade just looked at the phone; its broken screen caught the bright sunlight. She didn’t need to say what she was thinking. Ellis gave a short bark of a laugh.
“Well, I guess that wouldn’t surprise me. If Jax did come back to haunt us, he’d probably be reincarnated as an iPhone.” He was grinning.
Alex looked down at the dirt; it was like rubbernecking the scene of an accident.
He wouldn’t feel sorry for Jade, he told himself.
Even if she had completely lost the plot and thought she was talking to her dead boyfriend.
She was with Raya the last time they saw her alive.
Whatever happened, whatever Ellis did, she must have sat back and let it happen. She wasn’t a victim.
“Oh, look! There he is.” Ellis waved at the phone. “Hey, Jax—looking good. What’s that…? Uh huh…sure…okay.” He turned to Jade and leaned forward conspiratorially. “Jax says you should go to him.” He caught Alex’s eye behind Jade’s back and winked. “He says he’s waiting for you.”
Jade shuddered. She kept her face firmly turned away from Ellis.
“I’m not…” Jade looked at the phone. Somewhere inside the mess in her head, she must still be registering danger. Alex felt relieved.
Ellis must have picked up on the same vibe.
He stopped grinning and slipped his hands into his pockets, his brow creased in thought.
He was alert, looking around, taking in everything.
Jade’s proximity to the line, her body language.
Alex was in no doubt—Ellis had chosen his next victim.
The only thing left was deciding how to do it.
Did Jade understand what was happening? Did she know that Ellis was coming for her? Would she fight it? Alex’s eyes searched Jade’s face for something, anything. But all he saw was fear and confusion.
“Ja—” Alex broke off into a violent, hacking cough. His throat felt raw, each cough sending a spasm of pain through his chest. He fell back, struggling to catch his breath.
Ellis watched him dispassionately for a moment, before turning his attention back to Jade. “Jax says he wants you to come to him. He wants to tell you something.” Ellis feigned a kind of sad-awkward expression. “He says…he forgives you.”
This was low. Even for Ellis.
Jade’s lip quivered; her eyes filled with tears. Her entire body was shaking violently.
“I’m so sorry…so sorry…I never meant…” Her whole fragile figure seemed to shrink into itself—like a lost child. She started to cry.
“It’s okay, I know.” Ellis stepped forward and gently, almost tenderly, placed his hand on her shoulder.
Jade instantly recoiled, spinning around to face him, her expression taut with fear.
Her tears were flowing freely now, her heels pushed deep into the line’s white paint.
Ellis dropped his hand. “I know you didn’t mean to kill Jax, or let Raya die to save yourself.
No matter what everyone else will think, I know you’re not a murderer.
You’re just doing what you have to, what we all have to.
You’re not a bad person.” Was he talking to himself?
It was like watching a snake carefully coil itself around an unsuspecting victim.
“Don’t listen…” Alex’s words were barely croaks. Awkwardly, he shifted himself forward, onto his knees, the lamp cord cutting into his wrists as he pulled against it.
Ellis shot him a dark warning look before turning to check the time. A steely expression crossed his face. They must be down to the final minutes of the hour by now.
“You need to go to Jax now. Go to him and this will all be over,” Ellis said, moving incrementally closer to her. His voice had a new urgency.
Jade was transfixed. Her sobbing dried up; she was staring at the phone as though she could see Jax, smiling his big smile, filming the moment. A strange look of calm flickered across her face.
“Go,” Ellis whispered encouragingly. “Jax needs you.” He had her. Alex could see the trap close. So smoothly, so easily. He had her.
“Jade, stop…” Alex pushed himself to standing, dragging the lamp behind him. “Jax isn’t there. Jax is…”
In two steps, Ellis covered the distance between them. He grabbed Alex by his shirt and flung him back down on the ground, locking his arm firmly around his neck. Alex gasped for air, struggling against the tight grip, choking.
“Jade, listen to me.” The sweetness was gone.
Ellis was done playing. In one of his hands, he was gripping a plastic zip tie.
Plan B. “It’s easy. You have two options.
You can turn around and walk across the line to Jax.
You can ride off into the fucking sunset together.
Just the two of you. No more pain, just love.
Or you can stay here…with me.” He held out the zip tie like an offering.
Time almost stopped as Jade looked at Ellis, then the phone, then back to Ellis.
There wasn’t much to choose between. She could stay here with her guilt and fear—with Ellis and his death machine, until he strapped her to it and dragged her over the line.
Or she could walk over to the phone, to Jax, who loved her, who forgave her.
If she wanted it to be so, it would be. Jax was waiting for her.
He was smiling and waving, calling to her.
Did anything else matter? Did the truth matter?
Right here, in this moment, this was her truth.
As it turned out, Ellis was right. It was easy. She chose Jax.
The shaking stopped as she stepped over the line, a soft smile on her face.
She seemed for all the world like vintage Jade Clark again, every inch a movie-star’s daughter.
As she walked towards the phone, her hair caught the late afternoon sunlight and rippled softly in the wind.
She was golden, immaculate. Everyone wanted to be her, everyone loved her, desired her. She was one of the beautiful people.
She didn’t look down. She didn’t look back. No hesitation. Jax was smiling. They were magnets. She could feel the pull of him, the need for him. They couldn’t fight it. It was her place. Her destiny.
Alex closed his eyes and slumped back against Ellis’s grip. He couldn’t watch.
Ellis had won, again.