30. MILA
30
MILA
ONE MONTH LATER
T ears stream down my cheeks as I drop down on the bench that overlooks the whole of the Seattle cityscape. It’s beautiful during the day, but at night, it always took Siren’s breath away. I’ve always been a landscape girl. Give me a beach or a mountainside any day, but Siren always had a thing for the big city.
She used to drag me up here nearly every weekend, spouting bullshit about how the walk was good for us, but no matter how allergic I was to exercise, she always managed to get me up here. Truth be told, I actually enjoyed the walk. I just enjoyed giving her a hard time more.
She was my best friend, and any time I spent with her was my favorite part of the day. And now as I stare at the little plaque that overlooks Seattle, I can’t help but feel broken. It’s been almost a month since the end of War Games, and the moment I saw the death toll with both Siren’s and Reaper’s names on it, I couldn’t believe my eyes.
My heart shattered into a million pieces, and I haven’t been able to put it back together. She was my only family, my only friend, and while I knew this was a very real possibility, I always saw her as greater than life. She never messed up, never faltered, and despite knowing the chances of her coming home after the games, I believed with every fiber of my soul that she would beat the odds and stride back through my door.
I reviewed the surveillance footage from that house a million times over, watching as Reaper and Siren laid down to go to bed, watching as she fell even more in love with him before Shadow came in and brutally betrayed them.
They wanted to love her as their own, wanted to give her the kind of life that was stolen from her the moment she was born, but her instincts took over. I’ve been so angry, and honestly, I don’t know if I can even blame her. She was raised in a damn training camp. There’s no telling what kind of values they drum into those children, but I think it’s safe to assume it’s nothing good.
She was sent to War Games with one motive: to win. And that’s exactly what she did. I suppose I should give her a round of applause. She won. She outsmarted them all.
Shadow aligned herself with the strongest players in the game, and just when she had gained their trust and manipulated them into loving her, she betrayed them in the worst way.
None of us saw it coming, and that much is clear by the image of Siren’s face when Shadow pulled the trigger. Her expression will be burned into my mind for the rest of my life.
I watched that footage so many times that I could replay the whole thing on a loop inside my head, watching over and over again as my best friend screamed for the man she loved, desperately trying to save him before being shot herself. I can clearly picture the way her body rebounded off the mattress as she fell, the way Shadow dropped to her knees and cried afterward, and the way Reaper bled out onto the white duvet.
It’s not fair. It shouldn’t have ended like that.
I sit and stare out at the cityscape until the night air begins to chill, then just as I go to get up, somebody sits down beside me, a tissue in their outstretched hand.
I suck in a breath, my gaze lifting from the manicured hand to the familiar face staring back at me.
“What?” I breathe, staring at the face I never thought I’d see again, certain I’m seeing a ghost.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to come see you,” Siren murmurs, offering me a small smile.
“I . . .” I throw myself into her, crushing her as I wrap my arms around her slender body. Heavy tears stream down my face as my heart breaks a million times over.
Siren holds me, letting me get my tears out as they quickly morph into deep sobs. “It’s okay, Mills. Get it all out,” she says, her hand rubbing up and down my back, and for just a moment, I wonder if I’m going crazy. If my grief is forcing me to imagine the whole thing, but she’s really here. She’s alive, but that’s not possible because I saw her die on the footage. I saw the moment she took her final breath.
“You were dead,” I say into her shoulder.
“Yes,” she agrees.
My brows furrow, and I pull back, taking the tissues from her hand as I shamelessly try to wipe the tears from my face, only the second they’re gone, they’re replaced by new ones. “I don’t understand,” I say. “I watched you die. I saw your name appear on the death toll right under Reaper’s.”
“I know. I did die, right there next to Reaper. It was as real as it gets,” she tells me, pulling the neckline of her shirt aside and showing me the angry scarring on her chest. “Shadow shot us, but she also saved us.”
I shake my head. “No. No, that’s not what happened.”
“She put the footage on a loop after she left the room. It was the only way. We were being watched so closely. With Graves, Reaper killed him in the hotel, and within six minutes, his name was already on the death toll. We had to move fast, and yes, I have to admit that Shadow surprised us, but she had one hell of a good plan. It needed to look real.”
“I’m not understanding.”
“After she shot us, she called for an ambulance, and as we laid in bed, slowly bleeding out, she looped all the feeds within the house. To you and to anyone watching, it looked as though we bled out on that bed. It looked as though we died. When in reality, the paramedics were already working on us.”
My brows furrow, and I shake my head, understanding what she’s saying but not believing a word of it because I saw her die. I saw every second of it and felt the grief tear through my chest.
“I’m right here, Mills,” she says, taking my hand and squeezing it. “We all are.”
Siren waves to a spot behind me, and I glance back over my shoulder seeing both Shadow and Reaper leaning against the hood of a black SUV. Reaper gives me a small smile and a chill sails down my spine. I watched this man fall in love with my best friend for a month, and despite seeing every part of him on those surveillance cameras, nothing could possibly prepare me for seeing him in the flesh. He’s simply terrifying.
As for Shadow, she looks guilty as shit.
“Wait. There’s so much I don’t get,” I say, looking back at Siren. “You said you died.”
“I did. Technically,” she tells me. “In the ambulance and again in the hospital. My heart gave out a few times, but I was revived. Same with Reaper.”
“Shit. But how though? The number one rule is to avoid hospitals and cops, and that would have brought both. Your identities—”
“It’s complicated,” she says, “and had it been my own plan, I probably would have done it differently, but our backs were against the wall, and we did whatever we had to do to get out of there. But we posed as the real homeowners of that house, claimed a murder/suicide gone bad, just like my parents, and while the cops were left with more questions than answers, it was enough for them to go on and not watch us so closely. Besides, the cops and FBI agents in Blue Springs were already so busy with the aftermath of War Games and all the bodies that came along with it, that our incident easily slipped through the cracks.”
“Shit, Siren.”
“You’re telling me,” she mutters under her breath. “We slipped out of the hospital the second we were up for it and have had Shadow taking care of us this whole time.”
“Wow.”
“She’s incredible,” Siren says, glancing over my shoulder and smiling at the girl who I thought ripped my heart right out of my chest. “It had to be timed so well, and she pulled it off incredibly. I think she must have been planning it for a while.”
I let out a heavy breath and lean back against the bench, holding onto her hand in a death grip, terrified that she might just disappear and I’ll never get her back. “So what now?”
Siren fixes me with a heavy stare. “I want to come home, Mills. Seattle is where I belong. I want to go back to my apartment and start a life with Reaper and Shadow. I want to go back to work. I want to be here with you, but I can’t.”
I shake my head, not seeing the bigger picture. “Why?”
“The second our identities are flagged, we’ll have a bounty out on us that we can’t escape. The prize money Shadow won would look like child’s play, and we’ll be hunted by the kind of people who make Reaper look like a fairytale. I can’t risk it, and the only way to avoid that is to take out the asshole behind War Games.”
I suck in a breath, my heart hammering in my chest, knowing exactly what she’s asking me. “I . . . I’ve tried, Siren. A million times. I’ve searched every corner of the web. He’s invisible.”
“Mills—”
“I’m sorry,” I say, tears filling my eyes. “You have no idea how desperately I wish I could help you, and you know I’m going to start searching the second I get home, but I’m not good enough. I can’t find him, no matter how hard I try, it’s not possible.”
“I believe in you, Mila,” she tells me, clutching my hand again. “If anybody can find this guy, it’s you.”
I let out a shaky breath, haunted by the idea of letting her down and being the reason she doesn’t get to come home. But more than that, being the reason she might end up with a bounty that not even the likes of Reaper could shake. “I’ll try,” I promise her, vowing to myself that I will do anything it takes and cross any boundary I have to finally find this guy. I won’t let her down.
My mind begins to swirl with a million different options I could try when a deep voice sails through the night. “Kienna. It’s time.”
My back stiffens, and I gape at my best friend. “Did he just call you—”
“Yeah,” she says with a dorky smile, swooning over the guy and making me realize just how much his love for her has healed her from the inside out. “It’s kind of a thing now. I’ll tell you all about it when I see you next, but I have to get going. We can’t stay in one place for too long. It’s too risky.”
“Okay,” I say, my heart slowly piecing itself back together as she leans in and pulls me into a tight hug. “I’ll get you what you need so you can come home.”
“I know you will,” she tells me. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Siren pulls back and gets to her feet, and I can’t help but notice the way she glances down at the plaque I had made in her honor. “Well, that’s kinda morbid,” she laughs before giving me a small smile. “Thank you.”
I nod and with that, Siren walks away, and I watch as she joins Reaper and Shadow before falling straight into Reaper’s waiting arms. He presses a kiss to her forehead then opens the door like a perfect gentleman.
The three of them get into the car, but Siren pauses a moment, glancing back over her shoulder and offering me a beautiful smile. “I’ll be seeing you, Mila,” she says, and not a moment later, she gets into the car, and the three of them drive away. Then as I watch the car go, I promise myself that even if it kills me, I won’t stop until l bring them home.