17. Avery
AVERY
PLAYLIST: PAPAOUTAI – STROMAE
The burner rings as I walk down the path leading to the fountain. Gravel crushes softly underneath my feet.
Of course, she is calling me back.
I don’t even know why I did it, but I just couldn’t stop myself. Now that I am breathing the air of freedom, feeling like myself again, having some distance between her and me, things appear different.
“Did you eat?” I ask her when I answer.
“No,” she says. “Where are you?”
“Not telling you,” I say.
“You know I can track this phone?”
“Then why don’t you?” I ask her to challenge her.
“Come back, and we'll sort everything out.”
Her voice is almost pleading.
“I can’t,” I say. “There is something I have to do.”
“You know where Hedda is, don’t you?”
I could lie. But then, what’s the point?
“Yes,” I say silently.
“Don’t do it,” she almost pleads with me.
“I have to,” I say.
“There is no way back from what you are about to do,” she says in a sad tone.
“Shaw,” I say. “I have to. I need the hat. I need peace.”
There is a moment of silence on her end.
“What was her name?” she asks me, and goosebumps spread over my arms. She is too good. She figured it out. I gave her too much.
Words don’t come over my lips. Instead, my heart races faster than it can beat.
“Whose name?” I bark out because my throat closed.
“Come on, Avery, we’re done with the games.”
I stand at the arc, leaning against a column as I stare at the fountain. The last time I was here, it was with her. Almost ironic, Shaw asks me about her now.
“Emily,” I finally say as I spot the slim woman with the grey hair sitting by the fountain, her back to me.
The water shimmers in the morning sun, reflecting the beautiful shades of the autumn trees in yellow and orange in it.
“What happened?” Shaw asks.
“She died,” I say coldly.
With that, I hang up.
I walk up to Hedda and sit next to her.
“I must say, it took me a moment to figure it out,” I say without looking at her.
She chuckles darkly.
“It was a brilliant choice,” she says.
“No,” I say. “It was predictable.”
“What gave it away?” she asks.
“You were always a sucker for hiding in plain sight.”
She smirks slightly.
“I have raised you right,” she says.
“No,” I say coldly and look directly at her. “You didn’t raise me. You used me. All I am today is because I am stronger than anything you could ever do to me.”
She scoffs.
I pull the gun.
“You will never find it if I am dead.”
“Tell me where it is.”
“Certainly not,” she says, laughing derogatorily. “What you don’t understand, kiddo, is that you’re searching for redemption with something that was never real.”
“What do you mean?” I say.
“Emily was a con artist, just like you.”
My hands start shaking.
“No. You’re lying—“
She’s trying to manipulate you like she always did, tells me a voice in my mind. Don’t listen to her. Don’t believe a word that comes out of her mouth.
“I am not lying,” she says. “You can find the proof yourself.”
“You’re manipulating me,” I say. “Tell me where the hat is right now, or we’re done here.”
“5773 Green Oak Drive,” she says. “If you want the truth.”
But I am not to be fooled. I use that tactic myself whenever I try to wiggle myself out of a tight spot. She taught me that lesson.
“Goodbye, Hedda,” I say. “May you burn in hell.”
“FREEZE!” shouts a voice.
Reid Shaw’s voice.
“Put the gun down, Avery!”
A smirk hushes over Hedda’s face.
She believes she has won.
But I am willing to die if it kills her.
I don’t care.
I stopped caring years ago.
I turn my head.
There she is, walking slowly towards me.
Her gun drawn.
She moves around me.
I look her straight in the eyes.
Those eyes that softened the moment they met mine.
She came alone.
For the same reason, no BOLO was issued.
She believes I can be saved.
“You cannot save me, Shaw,” I tell her.
“Put the gun down, and we’ll take her in the right way.”
“And then what?” I ask and bark out a laugh. “Just so she can escape yet again?”
“There are other options. Higher security, isolation.”
I laugh derogatorily as I get up my gun, now pointing directly at Hedda’s head.
“Don’t you understand? She can’t be contained, can’t be held anywhere, she won’t stop until she is dead.”
“Avery,” says Shaw in a pleading tone. I stare into her eyes; she has hopes. Hopes I might be reasonable, might change for her. But I don’t change for anyone.
I am Avery Zayne.
I don’t care.
I don’t feel.
The only thing I feel is this hate.
And I need to release it.
My hands shake as I press the gun harder into Hedda’s head.
I have to do it.
I have to.
My finger trembles on the trigger.
But I can’t do it.
I have to.
My breathing flattens.
It feels like I can’t breathe.
Tears flood my eyes.
I don’t cry.
I don’t feel.
I don’t care.
Suddenly, there is a hand on mine.
I glance over my shoulder and into her eyes.
The corners of her mouth tug into the hint of a warm smile.
She takes the gun from my hand and stores it away.
I let her.
It is one last look as I stumble a step back, trying to breathe.
“Hedda,” she says and holds her own gun against Hedda’s back. “Show me your hands.”
Hedda does as told and raises her hands in the air.
“Hedda Lagner, you are hereby arrested,” Shaw says, and more words follow, but I zone out.
I stumble away.
One foot in front of another.
Because I couldn’t do it.
I couldn’t do it because of her.
Reid Shaw.
FBI Art Crime Special Agent in Charge Reid Shaw.
The person who is everything I stand against.
And yet, I could not do it.
I failed once more.
Because of her.
So I run.
Run before anyone can stop me.
I run until I slip under an archway and press myself into a wall.
Too many thoughts in my head.
Memories stream into my consciousness.
“Go! I’ll be right behind you.”
That smile.
The blonde hair up in a high ponytail with the dark eyes.
“5773 Green Oak Drive”
“She was a con artist, like you.”
“One day we’ll run away together.”
My head twitches, but I can’t stop the memories. I need to get them out of my head.
I dig my face into my hands.
“Always know your target,” he says. “And when you know it, you make them love you, or hate you.”
“But Dad, why would I want someone to hate me?”
“Because love makes them take everything from you, while fear makes people respect you.”
The images in my mind blur.
“Look at that,” Emily says and holds the crown to her head.
“I’ll make you my queen one day,” I say as I kiss her.
“I love you,” she says. “To the moon and back, sky is no limit,” Emily says, with the most epic smile on her face. I am happy. For the first time in my life, for this one single moment, I am happy. And then, shots are fired from behind her.
“Noooooooo!”
I hear myself scream, in my mind—and in reality.
I want to scratch my eyes out because the images don’t vanish.
I scratch with my fingernails over my skin.
I need to feel pain.
I need to numb whatever is going on in me.
My heart is pumping into my throat as I get up.
I run out of Central Park, stop the first cab, and am at my studio twenty minutes later.
I race into my studio and find it in complete chaos.
I don’t care.
It could burn down, and I wouldn’t care.
I head to my closet and get my equipment.
I need adrenaline.
Steal something.
Feel like me again.
I turn, and then my eyes fall onto the wall next to my bed.
Written in red.
I’m sorry I messed up your place.
Why would she be sorry?
Why would she leave me a note?
Why would she do this to me?
How am I ever going to be with her again?
I am rooted to the spot as I stare at what she wrote.
Unable to move.
Unable to act.
Unable to do what I have always done.