Chapter 9
Evan
Luca broke me.
Since he left, I haven’t left my bed. I pet Delilah and listen to an endless playlist of Emo music that I suspect Cyrus has come to hate more than Luca detested the jazz I used to play to annoy him.
I haven’t been able to write. All my words come out flat. I could probably pen one of those first-person confessionals: I Fell For My Bodyguard. I could write the shit out of that.
I’m still not sure if I did the right thing by not coming out of my room when Luca tried to say goodbye. I hadn’t wanted him to see how his announcing he was leaving destroyed me.
When I woke up that morning, I’d woken up hopeful for the first time since pretty much ever. The words Luca had said about me—the words he’d made me say about myself—had latched on.
Then he’d walked in and told me he was leaving, and I realized all of it had been a lie.
You are the most perfect thing I’ve ever had in my life, and that’s why I have to leave.
What in the fuck did that mean exactly? I’ve examined the words in my head a hundred times until they’re tattooed on my brain, and if he really meant them, why did he fucking leave.
A knock sounds at my door.
“Yes?” I call out.
The door opens as Cyrus hovers on the threshold.
I study the man in front of me. He’s good-looking, with chocolate brown eyes, shoulder-length, light brown hair, and a scruffy beard.
He swears both are leftovers from his last job.
Theoretically, I can admit he’s sexy as hell, but I don’t even feel the tiniest buzz of appreciation for the hot man at my bedroom door.
Luca wrecked me.
Besides being sexy, he’s also put up with all my angst and hasn’t run for the door. I think he might be going through his own heartbreak. He keeps going out to the fire escape to talk to his wife, and they seem to be very loud, very angry conversations.
I sit up. “What can I do for you, Cyrus?”
“I’m checking in to see if you are still planning on going to Freedom Fest. You haven’t mentioned it, and we need to go over security protocol if we are to leave in three days.”
Three days? Fuck. How did I let this slip from my mind? Am I in any shape to cover it?
“Let me grab a shower,” I tell Cyrus. “I’ll be right out so we can talk about it.”
It’s not until I’m in the shower that my brain and body surrender to the habit of remembering my night with Luca.
It hurts to remember it, but at the same time, my body has become addicted to reliving the pleasure.
I let my hand trace the places he guided my hand over and hear his words play back in my head, creating a confusing mix of sadness and desire.
I end up coming and crying at the same time.
I can’t do this anymore. I have to take action.
It starts with covering Freedom Fest. I’m a journalist, and I have a job to do.
Heartsick or not, the Reivers have harmed a lot of people, and my job is to expose them until those seemingly unaffected take notice.
Covering Digger Mcree’s political descent amounts to public service, and I won’t miss it.
There, I’m going to do my best work and help take the Reivers down. Afterward, whether he likes it or not, I will find Luca and come up with the courage to ask him why he really left.
Three days later, I’m in disguise with a fake name and false music magazine credentials, and I'm ready to cover the story of the year.
Normally, I would never cover a story that I know to be partially false or manipulated, but Digger Mcree is an evil man who has conned too many people into believing that he is the return-to-the-basics politician instead of the co-founder of a dangerous syndicate responsible for as much violence as any cartel drug lord.
Even worse, his relationship with Patriots Now aligns him with a white supremacist organization that wants to commit domestic terrorism to further its agenda.
He can’t be allowed to manipulate and bribe his way into power.
I’ll bend my journalistic integrity just this once to ensure good has the winning hand over evil.
“Ready to go?” Cyrus asks me.
I am. I travel light when I work. I just need my phone to take notes and a small camera for the occasional picture or video. I lean over to nuzzle Delilah, who rolls over and offers her belly to me for scratches.
“Now I am,” I tell him as he opens the door and accesses the motel parking lot for any security concerns. I’m impatient to get to the festival, and as much as I think the threat everyone thinks I’m under is overblown, I uncomplainingly wait with only the slightest foot tap to show my impatience.
“All clear,” Cyrus says and radios another security guard he’s worked with before, who will drive us today and act as another security guard.
When I’d asked Cyrus why we needed two bodyguards, he’d told me that Luca had insisted there be extra coverage and that he’d also arranged a third guard in the press section of the backstage VIP lounge hosting the press.
My heart pings at the mention of his name.
“Come on,” Cyrus says, patting me on the back sympathetically as he ushers me into the black sedan. “Let’s get you to the festival before I get another text calling into question how competent I am at my job.”
He takes the front passenger seat and introduces me to Barry, a tall red-haired bear of a man who happens to have a Hello Kitty tattoo on the back of his neck that I can’t help noticing from my vantage point behind him.
Barry looks into the rearview mirror and notices where my eyes are focused.
“Henna,” he says, laughing. “It made my niece happy.” He shrugs helplessly.
“That little girl has me wrapped around her pretty little finger.”
“What’s her name?” I ask as Barry pulls the Sedan onto the road, which is deserted this early in the morning.
“Amili,” he answers, and I’m about to ask him how old she is when, out of the corner of my eye, I see a Hummer heading straight for the driver’s side of the car.
There’s the horrendous sound of metal hitting metal as the impact of the Hummer sends us into a dizzying spin, and we careen into a cement half-wall.
A loud bang sounds, and it feels like a kick to the head as my airbag deploys. A smoky haze fills the car, and the smell of burned rubber almost chokes me. My stomach clenches, and I think I’m gonna be sick.
The smoke starts to clear and I realize my air bag is the only one that worked. Barry is leaning against the shattered window, his neck at a weird angle. Cyrus is covered in blood and slumped against the dash.
I call their names, but neither one answers me.
Struggling to get loose, I try to maneuver myself out from under the airbag and undo my seatbelt so I can go for help, but I’m jammed against the driver’s seat and can’t get out. I can’t even reach my phone.
“Help,” I scream again and again.
Both of the front doors of the sedan open, and I sob in relief. Thank God. Maybe a medical professional came across the accident and can help Cyrus and Barry.
“Help them,” I plead. “My airbag is the only one that worked, and I think they’re really hurt.”
I see a man bend over Barry and check his pulse. “This one’s dead,” he says in a cold, emotionless voice. “Check yours.”
Another man leans over Cyrus. “He’s alive, but probably not for long.”
“Good. Saves us time and a bullet.”
My door opens, and a man stands above me.
He’s tall, blond, and blandly good-looking.
I recognize his look as a stereotypical Patriots Now member.
He pulls out a knife, and I try to jerk back, but I can’t move, and I’m left to his mercy.
He rolls his eyes at my fright and stabs the airbag, cuts me free from my seatbelt, and drags me out of the car.
It finally hits me. I’m the target here. All of Luca’s warnings about the danger I was in seemed overblown and reactionary, but Barry lost his life trying to protect me. I have to convince them to help save Cyrus.
I struggle against the man holding me, trying to drag me to the van that just pulled up. “Please, I’ll go with you, but you have to call him an ambulance,” I beg.
“We don’t have to do anything. You’re going with us whether you struggle or not.” I bite his arm, and he punches me so hard I throw up on his shoes.
“Little bastard,” he spits out and hits me again. I feel myself falling toward the ground, and then I’m scooped up and thrown into the van, where everything goes dark.
I desperately yank at the handcuff that has me secured to the rail of the empty press box, but only end up scraping my wrists bloody.
Even if I could somehow break myself free of the cuffs, I’m surrounded by two of the Patriots Now henchmen as the sniper sets up to shoot Digger as soon as Jonah Reeves finishes his set and Digger begins his speech.
I’d always told myself that if my life were ever threatened again, I’d fight back. I wouldn’t race off into the night and let someone burn my parent’s house down and destroy my life. I’d be strong and brave.
I was lying to myself.
With the exception of the useless struggling against my handcuffs and yelling at my captors that “they wouldn’t get away with this,” I haven’t fought back at all. And even worse, I’m not strong or brave as I face my fate. I’m scared.
I’m gonna die. I’m twenty-four years old, and the only mark I’ll leave on this world are the articles I wrote exposing the wrongdoings of the Reivers.
And thanks to Patriots Now, those articles will be used as evidence to paint me as a psychotic malcontent who assassinated Digger Mcree and then ended his own life.
My parents won’t doubt the narrative. My father will probably provide sound bites to the media about how he and my mother did everything they could to help their troubled son.
Jonah ends his set with thunderous applause, and Digger and the Reivers storm the stage as planned. It signals the fact that we both only have minutes left to live.
Thoughts pinball around my head. Is Cyrus okay? Who will take care of Delilah once I’m gone? I wanted to win a Pulitzer one day. Screw the Pulitzer. I wanted someone to love me.
The Pulitzer was probably a more realistic goal.
A vision of Luca enters my head. I would have wanted it to be him.