CHAPTER 48
Adam
"W hat do you mean she's gone, Ace? Where the fuck is she?" Ace is frantic. She isn't making sense.
"She's gone. I don't know where she went. I tried to run after her, but she's too damn fast. The crowd was so thick, and I lost her." She starts crying and running her hands through her hair. "I'm sorry, Adam. I'm so fucking sorry. Something isn't right. She went somewhere."
"Yeah. I know. That's the problem. Where did she go?"
"No. No. Not like that. In her head. She went somewhere in her head. She was here and then, she just wasn't. I don't know what happened."
Cotton steps in and grabs Ace by the arms. "What happened when she checked out? What happened before that?"
"Umm...okay." She looks away from him, thinking back. "I fell. Some guys ran into me...and I fell. I hit the ground hard, and my beer went everywhere. That's what happened to my face." Ace gestures to her face that is clearly stained red from her dyed drink.
Cotton lets out a heavy breath and closes his eyes.
"What? What the fuck happened Cotton?" I'm furious that I even have to ask. I need answers right now.
Cotton looks at me, then. "Look at her, man.
Look at her face. She fell and got covered in this shit.
It was probably spilling out all around her on the ground.
This shit is blood red. I don't know what, but it must have triggered something.
She only checks out when there's a crowd and something bad happens.
This place was crawling with people and Ace looked like she was covered in blood. "
"That's not all though." Ace has everyone's attention again. "She had this terrified look in her eyes, and she touched the back of my head. It was like she knew right where my scar was."
What? No. She couldn't. How could she?
"She ran her fingers directly over my scar and then she closed her eyes. She was crying and she said my name like she couldn't believe I was here or something. Then, she felt my scar but-" her words cut off like she doesn't want to say them.
"Damn it, Ace! I don't have time for this. I need to find Eve. She could be anywhere. I don't know if she's even herself right now or if she's dissociated again. She could get herself hurt."
"She apologized. She said...she said, 'I'm sorry.
I'm so sorry.' And then she ran. It was almost like.
.." Ace shakes her head as if to shake off the thought before speaking again.
"It was almost like she was apologizing to me for the scar.
I don't know. That doesn't even make sense, but that's just how it felt. "
She's sorry? I never allow myself to think back to that night.
I still feel so much rage about everything that happened.
We never found the guy. Well, not the right guy anyway.
The man who took Ace was nowhere to be seen once we caught up to them in that house.
I look at Cal, and his eyes are already glued on me.
His eyes are trying to convey something that I can't take in right now.
Cotton is staring off. Remembering . He's back there.
He's in that terrible memory. "Let's go.
Ace, you're riding with me. I'll call Eli on the way and see if they've heard from her.
We'll meet at our house. She may already be home. If not, we'll split up from there."
When we get in the car, I call Eli.
"Has Eve called you?"
Eli's response comes out quick and angry. “What’d you do? Where is she?"
"I don't fucking know where she is. That's why I'm calling you asshole?"
"It's the boyfriend. Call Eve's phone." He's talking to Vaughn somewhere in the background.
Eve's phone starts ringing in Ace's pocket.
"Don't you know I already tried that? She left her phone in her seat at the stadium before she took off."
I explain, in detail, what happened and what our plans are now. He and Vaughn are still in Colorado, but they're heading straight to the airport now. It's going to take them too long to get here. I need to find her before then.
"Ace...what do you remember from that night?" I don't have to tell her what night I'm talking about. It was the worst night of our lives. We never talk about it. I'm not sure what trauma she deals with because of it and thinking about it takes me somewhere I can't go again.
"Everything. I remember everything." Her voice is quiet, and I know that she does remember.
Taking in a deep breath, I prepare myself for the answer she'll give to the question I have to ask. "Was it her? Was it Eve?"
Ace starts crying now. Her shoulders are shaking, and tears are rolling down her face. "I don't know. That girl was dirty. Her hair was matted, and she used it kind of like a shield. I didn't get a good look at her face."
No one speaks for several minutes. I'm the first one to break the silence. "You know, don't you?"
She isn't crying anymore, but the tears have cleaned a path through the dye on her skin. She turns forward in her seat, looking down toward her feet and nodding before speaking. "It's the eyes. No one has eyes like that. Those eyes the color of-"
"Tanager," I say without any inflection in my tone. We saw that bird together and we'll never forget it.
Ace turns to look at me then. "Tanager."
I slam my hands down on the steering wheel.
I have no idea what this means. Why was she down there?
Why did she attack Ace? Why did she attack me?
She didn't remember before. Or did she? What are the chances that she would end up here?
On Ace's team? With me? She couldn't have manufactured our meeting though.
She couldn't have known that I would be at their practice that day.
That wasn't really our first meeting though was it.
The first time we spoke, she came to me.
She ran right into me. I didn't even see her coming.
Sure, I pursued her after that, but she went with me that same day.
She never fought me about spending the night together.
Was this all to get to Ace? To get to the one that got away?
Fuck! No, it can't be. Something happened to her.
I've seen it. I've seen the carving on her back.
I've seen the scars on her body. I saw that fucking basement.
She was as much of a prisoner down there as Ace was.
Whatever she did down there to survive was just that.
It was survival. Eve is a survivor. I saw her check out when she needed to protect herself.
No one could fake that shit. She wasn't in there . I saw it for myself.
I'm so tangled up inside my head that I'm surprised when we pull up in my driveway. I don't even remember taking the route here. Neither Ace nor I move at first after I park the car. "Do you hope she's in there?"
I think about the question before answering.
Is Ace scared of her? The two people I love most in the world and one of them tried to kill the other.
All this time, I thought Ace was the asshole in their relationship, but all along, Ace saw something that she feared in Eve.
She saw those eyes . Those same eyes that haunted her dreams for years after that night.
Instead of answering, I turn her question back on her. "Do you?"
She doesn't hesitate. "Yeah. I do." Her big coal black eyes fill with unshed tears before she speaks again.
"I don't know why she attacked me down there, but I do know that she didn't have a choice.
I also know the person that she is now. She is one of the best people I have ever known, and she became that person despite the shit that she went through in that house.
She was a prisoner down there and for a lot longer than I was.
It was too painful back then to relive it all, but we spoke.
Eve and I. We had a conversation before she knocked me out. "
Ace never mentioned a conversation before. I just knew about the whip and how Eve took her to the ground cracking Ace's head open and giving her a concussion. She was knocked out until we got her to the hospital. I had never been so scared in my life up to that moment.
"She thought I was after her. That man. I think it was the one that took me.
He told her that the air outside was toxic.
Deadly. He told her that she was in a bunker in the ground and there was only one mask to protect them from the gas.
It didn't fit her, so she had never been able to leave.
She had always been down there." Her voice cracks and she trails off.
It's too much. There's too much feeling for the girl in the basement. For Eve.
Cal and Cotton pull in behind us and we get out of the car.
"We drove by her apartment and by Eden House. She's not there." Cotton tells us, explaining why it took them so long to get here.
"I called Eli. He and Vaughn are still in Colorado. They're on their way to the airport, but it'll be tomorrow before they get here."
"Don't you have a tracker on her phone? Did you try that?" Cal's voice is full of hope that's quickly dashed when Ace raises the hand that's holding Eve's phone. Cal looks to the sky, running his hands through his hair.
"Let's go inside. We have something to tell you guys." Cal and Cotton both narrow their eyes as they look at me. Their looks are almost accusing as they consider what I might want to tell them.
I'm the first one through the door, calling out for Eve as soon as I'm through the foyer.
No one calls back and I hadn't expected them to.
I'm walking toward the living room when a man steps out of the hall and into the large open area between the foyer and the living room.
I notice the gun immediately and I turn to tell Ace to run when my blood turns to ice.
There's another man and he has Ace by the throat and a gun to her head.
I turn back to the man standing outside the hall and I recognize him.
He's older for sure, but I'll never forget that face.