26. Like Snow
26
Like Snow
Theron
She vanished like a ghost, leaving behind the bones of her sad life for me to pick through as I dared not allow my baser instincts to take over. After making it back to Boston in record time, I found her apartment empty of all life. Her phone was discarded on the table, lying beside the Anne Rice novel she hadn’t picked up since she bought it. Open cracker boxes sat atop her kitchen counter, waiting for her return.
“Theron,” Tabitha said my name gently as I held Ever’s robe to my chest. “It’s Orlo.”
I held out my hand and she set the phone in my palm silently. I didn’t have to speak for my father to know that I was there, that I was listening.
“She’s not coming back, son.”
I winced. His calm voice was like nails on a chalkboard. “You’d make a man kill his own father?”
“Theron — I never touched the girl. She left of her own free will, though I will admit to proposing her inevitable escape before you both went too far.” He sounded exasperated, as if rationalizing with a child.
I chewed the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood, because it was easier than falling into his lies. “She wasn’t going to leave me,” I said with as much conviction as I could muster. The words were bitter in my mouth, like a poison I couldn’t identify.
“Come now, son. We both knew it was only a matter of time before she ran away with all our secrets. And where would that leave us? It’s easier this way —”
“Easier for whom?” I interrupted with a snarl. “You just couldn’t stand the idea that someone could love me for who I am because you were left wanting. She would have loved me,” I insisted quietly. “With time, she would have accepted me.” I felt raw, empty. Without Ever, there was just darkness.
“Miss Knight will be taken care of, be assured.”
I scoffed. “You can’t make this disappear. I’ll find her, and I’ll watch the whole operation burn before I give up.”
My eyes flashed to Tabitha, who was walking about the apartment, her eyes shifting through Ever’s belongings in a way that made me uneasy and protective. This was Ever’s life. The place, though small and dirty, was where her essence remained. The books on her shelf were pieces of her life that with the right amount of attention, you could use to gaze into her soul.
“See?” Orlo said, his voice starting to rise. “That girl makes you irrational. Where would you be without our operation, Theron? Likely in a padded cell — or worse!”
“Where is she?”
“I can’t tell you that, son.”
“Where have you taken her!” I was shouting now, and saw Tabitha jump on the other side of the room. “I’ll cut you into ribbons, do you understand me? There are some things you can’t teach, and I promise you I can show you horrors not even your father could have imagined. Where. Is. She?”
Orlo sighed, not at all deterred by my declarations of violence. Emotion and reaction were not his strong suits, leaning towards the side of psychopathy more than most — even in our profession.
“I don’t know, son. I gave her half a million dollars to get on a plane, and that was all. I wanted nothing more to do with the girl.”
“Where was the plane chartered to?”
“It was an associate from the DA’s office who owed me a favor. I told him the less I know the better. She’s gone, Theron. She took the money and ran.”
“ No,” I insisted, though dread settled heavily on my fragile heart. “She wouldn’t have just left without saying goodbye. She was never after my money —”
“Miss Knight wanted the freedom to enjoy the last year of her life, free from expectations and state benefits. She wanted to be free of you, and I agreed with her. Your obsession would only lead to death. You scared her.”
I couldn’t stop thinking of her sobbing, shaking her head as she told me she didn’t want the heart anymore. That she couldn’t live with herself if she took it. If I’d just kept her at an arm’s length and treated her like just any other patient, I could have found her a heart and she wouldn’t have run. Oh, fuck. This was all my fault.
“Father,” I said over the lump in my throat. “She still has time. I can find her a heart. It doesn’t have to end like this.” I was begging now. I’d never pleaded for anything from him, but was clinging to the phone for dear life. “I’ll let her go afterwards, but please, let me do this.”
“She didn’t want a heart from you, Theron, and she certainly didn’t want your love. It’s best to forget about all this nonsense and get back to work. I have a few targets I can email over to Tabitha and she can –”
I hung up the phone, letting my hand fall to my side. I felt like I was suffocating, the belongings that had brought me comfort only minutes before now sat mocking me. I took a short breath, allowing my rage to replace the sadness. She left me. She’d rather die than be with me.
“Argh!” I screamed and threw the phone across the room where it shattered against the far wall.
“Theron!” Tabitha cried, but I ignored her.
Storming towards the bookshelf, I swept several novels from their shelves, watching them scatter across the floor. My fingers tore into the books she loved so well, tearing page upon page from her Anne Rice novels until the paper fell like snow around me. These books, something I had thought we shared a passion for, she had left them behind just as she left me. Did she care for nothing?
I turned, gaze catching futon, where I’d first tasted her, and felt nothing but disgust at the pile of blankets that held her scent like a poisonous perfume. I reached down to her side table and picked up an old lighter.
“Wow, Theron, wait a minute!” Tabitha tried to stop me, but the silence in my mind was deafening.
I screamed into the black, open hole in my heart that Ever had carved for herself. I tore at the edges, picking at them until I bled, and the tears ran down my cheeks. I’d shared myself with her — the perfect angel I wanted to watch over my grave and she flew away without so much as a backward glance.
I clicked the Zippo open, and let it fall to the couch, as it burned a hole through the cushion, slowly spreading to engulf her blankets. The room was perfumed with lavender when all I wanted was ash, and I felt the rest of my heart turn to ash alongside her belongings. This was not the end. She thought leaving was an option? Oh, rabbit, now the chase has really begun.
Outside now, I stood silent, Tabitha beside me as smoke billowed from the upstairs windows. Families, neighbors and children were screaming as the sirens in the distance grew closer. The whole building would be up in flames soon, along with the evidence of Ever Knight’s life. She had no friends or family to call, and the state would be glad to cut off her benefits rather than waste money or effort investigating her disappearance.
Tabitha sighed, looking at me as if I were a stranger. “You’ve drawn too much attention, Theron. She’d be a fool to come back now.”
I steadied my shoulders, emotionlessly cocking my head. “I’ll drag Ever back by her hair, if that’s what it takes. She belongs to me, and I don’t give up what belongs to me.”