Chapter Eight
Ava Anderson
The lights overhead flicker and a shadow rises from behind me.
I'm staring down the dark elevator shaft in the hotel. I cannot see the bottom, but I can hear their screams as they plummet to the bottom. The elongated shadow of a man appears from behind me. I turn to look in his shadowed face.
Every noise around me ceases and eerie silence rises in the whole building. It’s echoing silently. The man sucks in a huge breath, growing larger and larger. His silhouette growing larger than his shadow.
“Next time is here, love,” he says, and it echoes through the whole city.
His laughter rumbles like thunder through the whole of New York and a scream pierces the air like an arrow. Darkness explodes as though a vacuum burst, staining everything with pitch blackness .
“Ava!”
The darkness gets sucked back in and…
I bolted up from my bed, a piercing scream spearing out of my mouth.
A glass shatters in another room.
Wade is holding me by the shoulders.
“Ava.” He shakes me. “Calm down. There's no one trying to kill you. Deep breaths.”
I hyperventilate for a few seconds before I start breathing steadily.
“Mommy?” A small voice comes from the open door. “Mommy.” DJ repeats, his bottom lip wet with a layer of spit. He holds up a finger and…
“Blood,” I whisper and jump out of bed. Wade makes it to his side before I do.
I examine the cut while Wade leaves the room to do something. When he returns, I'm already opening the first aid box now sitting on my vanity and tearing out a piece of cotton wool with some spirit.
“He broke a wine glass and cut himself,” Wade says, holding up a glass shard.
That explains the sound of glass breaking sound I'd heard .
“He must have picked it up from the table when I came to check if you were all right. I’ll go clean up.”
I nod, dabbing at the blood to reveal a tiny cut. I could tell he'd bent down and poked his finger with a glass shard then come to show me. I laugh in relief through the tears welling in my eyes. “You silly boy.” I put a bandage on his wound after cleaning it up.
“Boo-boo,” he says, shaking his head so that his black hair dances across his forehead.
“Yes, DJ. You went and got yourself a boo-boo. Do you think that's a nice thing to do?” I baby-talked to him.
“Mommy. Boo-boo,” his shout is high pitched, and he laughs delightedly.
“Naughty child.” I pulled him into a hug, relieved that he's safe.
For a moment there, I thought he'd been in some kind of danger, and he was trying to warn me of who hurt him. I play with him for a while and leave him to play on my bed with some toys. The Queen-sized bed is enough space for him to play on while I keep an eye on him.
Wade is standing by the door with a thoughtful expression on his face. “Nightmare?” He asks.
“Yes. The first in a very long time.”
In a very long time.
“This has to mean something. ”
Wade shrugs. “It could mean anything. It could mean that your subconscious is trying to warn you of something. It could mean that your fears are becoming more visible and they're seeping into your dreams. I'm not an expert at things like this.”
We stay in silence for a while, the sound of DJ's toys making a bit of racket behind us.
“I’ll check if the house is secure again,” Wade says.
I give a gentle nod in response.
The only thing I can think of is pulling DJ close and ensuring that he doesn't hurt himself again.
* * * *
It's been a few weeks since the elevator incident, and so far, there's been no threat or any more funny accidents. I still have my guard up. The events leading up to that ghastly sabotage—Wade already confirmed that it wasn’t a coincidence—were too laser focused to be coincidences.
I remember the night when Janet and all the rest plunged to the ground in that elevator. It's something I try not to think about, but I still end up spending hours of the day dwelling on something I couldn't have changed. Still, what if I'd told them not to get into the elevator? What if I'd tried harder to convince them to use the stairs with us?
But I hadn't tried. I'd simply obeyed Wade and stayed outside of it. Somehow, I feel as though I have as much blame to carry as the elevator cable does for snapping. But Wade has told me not to blame myself for anything. Assassins will go to any length. It didn't matter how much pain it would cost.
* * * *
Wade Cooper
I hear DJ's high baby laughter as I return to Ava's room and stand by the door. Ava is sitting cross-legged on her bed watching DJ playing. The boy keeps hitting a knight action figure with a colorful truck in what looks like a fixated attempt to see the knight shatter. She's smiling fondly at him. I can tell her mind is troubled, but she chooses to stay with her son, watching him and fondly smoothing back his hair every few minutes. I stand sentry, watching the bond between mother and son grow as they play with DJ's toys.
As much as this is the most heartwarming thing to watch, it reminds me of the kind of bond I wished to have with my own kids. Sadly, I never got around to getting one even after five years of marriage with a woman that…
At least, we divorced.
Each time I think of it, a pang of betrayal hits my chest and I have to distract myself to keep the anger from rising to the surface. Now, I feel nothing when I think of it. It's like a part of my past that once mattered so much but now, it doesn't. At least, that's what I tell myself. But I've succeeded in defeating the feelings of anger and sadness that used to control me when I think about it. It's lost that power over me.
Ava's gasp draws me to the present. She raises her phone to show me a text and a picture, and I stop dead in my tracks.
* * * *
“I thought he'd be safe. Don't they want only me? Why are they threatening my son?” Ava is panicking, visibly shaking as she pulls DJ close to her and wraps her arms around the small boy. “I can't let them take him. He hasn't done anything.”
I'm looking at the text. It's a slashed physical photograph of DJ taken with a mobile camera. The threat to his life is loud and clear. It's no wonder Ava has gone into a mild state of hysteria.
“Calm down,” I say. “I understand that you're afraid, but don't let the panic make you take your guard down. Look at me.”
She looks at me, her cheeks already stained with tears.
“I’ll make sure you're both safe.”
It's no longer a duty I have to fulfill. Now, it's a promise. And I would stop at nothing to fulfill it. I picked Ava's phone from the bed and left the room to call the station. Once I'm off the phone, I forward the text to the station so they can track down where it's from. But this doesn't feel sufficient, and I decided to phone an old friend who used to work in the military police.
If there's anyone that can track down anything in the world, it’ll be him.
* * * *
Ava Anderson
It's been three hours and I'm trying to distract myself because Wade suggested that I do. DJ is still by my side. After getting a text like that, him leaving my sight would be over my dead body. I'm trying to write, but all I've managed to do is create countless dots on the left margin of the paper.
I decided that doing some chores will help me get my mind off things. But when I stand at the sink to wash plates, I end up leaving the tap to run while I allow the worst-case scenarios to play in my head. Singing is impossible. When I sit at the piano, all the keys I touch end up being discordant and I cannot string a proper tune even though I can do that with my eyes closed on a normal day.
Useless.
Here and to keep my son safe. I'm absolutely useless. I burst into a fresh round of tears, and I feel strong arms close around my shoulders.
“Why don't we walk around the house for a bit?”
It's the most welcome suggestion anyone can provide.
At least, my legs haven't failed me yet.
“DJ—”
“He’s sleeping now. The house is safe so no one can harm him. You need something to occupy your time.”
I offer a grateful smile.
* * * *
“Who would have guessed it? You look like you grew up in a mansion with your parent's workers at your beck and call.” I'm looking up at Wade.
Maybe I'd been a bit too hasty in saying that.
On second thought, he looked like a man hardened by life and its experiences, except in such a way that refined him and fine-tuned his finer qualities rather than make a rugged man out of him.
I look around at the grounds and it feels like I haven't been here in years. My car isn't even parked outside anymore. Neither is it in the garage.
Ever since this whole thing began, the outside world has begun to feel strange to me.
I feel like I don’t know myself anymore. Who I am or what I live for. Singing has always been what I do. From the moment I open my eyes till I head to sleep. I sing, practice, and sing even more.
But now, singing feels like a chore. A war is going on between my vocal cords, the rhythm, and my mind. My mind which is filled with thoughts of who wants to kill me. Who wants to harm my son?
“Do I look like such a spoiled brat?” Wade’s playful tone pulls me from my thoughts and I look up at him with a smile. And him, my mind is filled with him .
“Well, you try to hide it but,” I shrug, and we both laugh out loud.
“What about you? Only child?” He wiggles his eyebrows at me, and I stop to look at him.
“I was an obedient child. Over-obedient, I should say.”
“Yeah, I can see that very well.” he says, obviously sarcastically and I hit his arm playfully.
“What do you mean by that?” my cheeks are hurting now from laughing hard.
“Oh, should we start with Mrs. I-am-so-independent-that-I-am-not-going-to-listen-to-my-bodyguard or maybe Mrs. I-do-not-like-Wade-and-I-want-him-out-of-my-house?” He places his hands on his hips which makes me laugh out loud.
I have never seen him act this way around me and I should say, it is pleasing. He seems more relaxed and more…human. He has been like a robot so far.
I guess last night helped him open up to me a bit? Even though we haven’t really talked about what transpired between us— or what was about to —since that night, our bodies have said enough. In fact, too much at this point.
I still don’t know. I don’t know if what I feel for him, what is between us, is good. I don’t know if this is right.
“I love seeing you smile. Your laughter is like music to the ears.” Wade says as his eyes stare into mine .
“Oh, wait till you hear me sing.” I joke, wanting to get rid of the tension in the air. But my mind doesn’t help, a flash of his muscled chest against mine fills my head and soon enough, my breath gets shorter.
“Ava, last night, I—”
Whatever he was about to say next, I didn’t hear it because my lips are already on his, kissing him passionately as though this is the last time I will ever get to do so. His arms wound around my waist and he pulled me so close, there was no space to breathe.
My heart beats grow faster, and my knees get weak as his tongue plunges into my mouth. I moan against his lips, and that makes him grab my hips, pushing his groin closer to mine. His hand snakes under my shirt and with his cool palm grazing my belly, I nearly ask him to take me right here and now. What is he doing to me?
Wade moves back a little, taking me with him and the next thing we know, we feel rain falling on us, but I look up and it’s not raining. It’s the sprinkler in the grass that is splashing water all over us.
A laugh of disbelief springs out of me unconsciously and I shake my head as Wade moves over to turn off the tap. I laugh so hard that tears start to leave my eyes as I remember the last time I laughed this hard was when I was with my friends.
The same friends who are no more now. Because of me.
And now, that bastard is after my son.