Chapter Fifteen
Carmen
Things worked at warp speed in daytime television.
Within four days of her audition, Sofia needed to fly out to California for table reads and rehearsal.
While she was there, obviously, her plan in her free time was to lock down a place to live with, of course, Hammy. She became depressed immediately after Sofia didn’t come home the first night. There was no way I could have Hamster stay with me when she missed Sofia so much.
As for me, well, I got a taste of what it would be like if she was gone.
It was… quiet.
I didn’t realize how much liveliness Sofia brought into the house, how much her chatter filled the air—talking to me, talking to Hammy, singing to herself.
I filled the free time I used to spend with her by carefully packing up and labeling everything I knew she would want to bring with her: clothes, toiletries, some favorite books, blankets, and sentimental items.
She wanted me to keep most of the other things around for when she came back. But I knew deep down in my bones that she wasn’t going to be coming back. She was a woman meant for California. For never-ending summers, fellow actors, and people who would appreciate her sunshine.
I knew it.
She probably knew it too.
She just didn’t want to admit it to me yet.
Knowing Sof, she was feeling guilty enough about a temporary relocation. She wouldn’t let herself consider a permanent one. Not until she was there and settled, at least.
As for me, well, I was sad.
About my sister leaving, sure. And Hammy. But it was more than that. It was the lack of a hyperfocus to distract myself from the bottomless well of grief inside me. And, yes, it was also the loss of Rune.
That last one was so absurd that I did everything in my power to tamp them down whenever those thoughts surfaced.
Because how the hell could I feel the loss of someone I’d only spent a few days around?
How was it possible that I was suddenly thinking about him more than my best friend?
More than my sister? More than my mom? And all the losses that linked me to them?
I tried to convince myself it was simply the sexual attraction, that while we got to explore a little, we hadn’t gotten a chance to have sex and work through the lingering attraction between us. Hormones and biology made for a much more compelling case than any kind of actual connection.
Even if I found myself fantasizing more about being curled up with him watching movies than I did about us actually hooking up.
I even found myself occasionally imagining him doing random little life tasks: scrubbing the baseboards, taking out the trash, ordering dinner so I didn’t even have to think about what I wanted.
“I don’t know what to say,” Sofia said, teary-eyed on the porch after we’d already said goodbye no fewer than three times.
She had a trunk and passenger seat full of her belongings and a blanket and pillow paradise on the backseat for Hamster.
She’d only come home for one night. With the shooting schedule, and refusing to put Hammy in the cargo hold on a plane, it meant that she was going to need to road trip it.
And it was a forty-something hour drive to the other coast. That put her on the road, on the low end, for seven days.
If she decided to stop at some attractions, maybe ten. She started shooting in twelve.
It left her just enough time to move into her new place, get it somewhat set up, and work out a plan to have someone walk Hamster while she was shooting.
It meant I got next to no time with her.
We’d spent that precious time we had together mostly talking about how amazing the area she found an apartment in was, how one of her neighbors was going to be her costar.
“I do,” I told her. “I want you to be extraordinarily, can’t-believe-your-luck, can’t-even-sleep-you’re-so-excited-about-life happy.”
“I want that for you, too. And I will be back here for all the bridal party and all the other festivities.”
“Sof, that’s not—”
“Oh, please. I saw you two together. It’s inevitable. And I’m so happy you found the one person you will let take care of you. Okay. I’ve gotta get going. I love you more than anything,” she said, throwing her arms around me.
“Check in every single time you stop.”
“I will. I promise.”
“Drive safe. And you be a good girl,” I told Hammy, giving her head a last pet.
Then I stood there—watching, waving—until the car was out of sight.
Then I walked inside, upstairs, dropped onto my bed, and sobbed as the loneliness overtook me, acutely aware of how alone I was, how alone I would continue to be, how empty my life suddenly felt.
Eventually, not for the first time, I cried myself to sleep.
—
It was the creak that woke me up.
I was intimately acquainted with this house and its quirks: the way you had to jiggle the handle on the downstairs toilet, how the upstairs shower made a strange screaming sound when you first turned it on, the windows that whistled… and the steps that creaked.
I shot up in bed, my heart flying into my throat.
For a second, something like hope swelled.
Like maybe Sofia got a few hours away, decided she didn’t want this new life after all, turned around, and drove back to me.
But no.
No.
I’d gotten my text updates as I’d been grieving. Each gas station stop, places she stopped to eat and walk Hammy, most of them with pictures.
Even if she had turned around, she wouldn’t have made it back the same night.
That wasn’t her on the steps.
But it was someone.
The windows had been alarmed, and doors had been locked. Rune had gotten through the locks before, though, while reminding me that they shouldn’t be so trusted.
Could it have been him?
Did he come back?
If it was, why wouldn’t he just knock?
No.
It wasn’t Rune.
The other thing about knowing my house so well was that I knew my bed. My secondhand metal bed. With its rusty supports and loose headboard. It sounded like the damn thing was about to fall apart when I simply turned over in my sleep.
If someone was in my house, just getting off my bed to try to get to my gun was going to alert them that I was awake.
Another step groaned under someone’s weight.
My stomach flipped.
A cold sweat broke out over my skin.
Was this related to the drive-by?
If it was, why would they come for me?
No.
No, it was most likely not related to that.
I remember hearing once, though, that if someone was in your house during the day, they were there for your stuff. If they were there at night, they were there for you.
Fuck the bed.
I needed my gun.
Sucking in a deep breath, I flew off my bed and across my room, grabbing the drawer of my dresser and yanking it open.
My hand was still fumbling around inside when my bedroom door burst inward, cracking against the wall.
A helpless cry escaped me as footsteps thundered into the small room.
I knew I needed to focus, but I felt helpless but to look over, to see who was in my home.
Two men.
Big.
Dressed all in black.
Bandanas over their faces.
All I could say was they had dark hair and dark eyes.
A whimper worked its way up my throat, and I had to press my lips together to keep it in as my hand finally—finally—closed around the cold metal of the gun.
As I was pulling the gun out, the drawer slammed shut, crushing the bones in my hand, making pain scream up my arm as tears flooded my eyes.
There was no stopping the shriek that escaped me.
But it was silenced in seconds as a giant hand slapped over my mouth, the pressure hard enough to make my teeth hurt, as another arm went around my center, squeezing hard enough to make my ribs scream and my breath catch.
“Get her fucking feet,” the man holding me snarled as I kicked off the dresser, trying to break his hold on me as my lungs started to burn, my face feeling weird and fuzzy.
The other guy lunged toward my feet, making me kick off the ground and bicycle them, kicking as hard as I could.
“Fucking bitch,” the guy snarled as my heel landed somewhere between his lips and nose.
The man holding me pulled me tighter, the stitch in my ribs making sparks flash in my vision.
“Get it the fuck together,” he snarled, his breath hot in my ear.
I tried to strike out again, but my legs were grabbed around the knees, making it impossible to do anything but try to pull them in and out.
“Get her to the bed,” the one behind me demanded.
The words renewed my fight.
But no matter how much I writhed, kicked, and scratched, there was no overpowering two men who were stronger than me.
I was shoved down face-first into my bed, a hand holding me by the back of my neck to keep my mouth against the mattress, silencing my screams.
My arm was wrenched behind my back, pulled viciously up, making my shoulder burn.
A body came over my lower body, making me try to crawl away, but he was too heavy, his weight pressing into my upper thighs, holding me still as the other guy secured something cold and hard around my wrist. A handcuff, maybe?
My other arm twisted back, a hand grabbing my throbbing hand, making more pain slice through me as the cuff slid around my wrist.
“Move up here,” the guy who just cuffed me demanded. The other one slid up my body, knees pressing into my arms and back as his friend slid something else around my ankles. Hard still, but not as hard as the metal cuffs. Zip ties, maybe?
All I knew was when they tightened enough to cut into my skin, I was completely helpless.
The man moved off of me, and I was flipped onto my back, making blinding pain shoot through my hand.
But even as I tried to cry out, a hand slapped over my mouth again. Only this time, it was with a piece of tape.
I could do nothing but lie there staring up at them as the one who’d grabbed me walked over to the dresser, pulling the drawer open, and reaching inside.
“She almost had us,” he said, showing the other guy the gun.
“Don’t think she’s gonna be using that hand against us anymore,” the other one said.