Forty-One
Kat
Wasted Years – Iron Maiden
Leather sticks to my bare legs as I adjust myself on the couch for the hundredth time, trying to get comfortable. Gilmore Girls plays on the screen, but I’m not paying attention.
I was angry when Elias insisted I stay home to rest. I pleaded with him to take me along, not to exclude me anymore.
But he didn’t relent. He did promise to tell me everything when he got back.
That was three hours ago, and since then, I’ve organized his refrigerator, changed my clothes twice, and I’ve somehow managed to get through a few episodes of the show.
I even tried reading the news on my phone.
That lasted five minutes before the headlines started to hit too close to home.
Three hours is a long time when you’re waiting for bad news.
I flick my good wrist absentmindedly, flinging the feather toy around for Freddie, who’s chasing it with far more energy than I think I’ve ever had in my entire life.
He’s happier here, there’s more room for him to play.
If he gets bored with Elias and me, he finds a quiet corner to sleep in, or he goes to the window and watches the birds on the pine tree outside.
We’re both happier here.
Freddie proves that point by sprinting down the hallway and skidding across the hardwood floor. He slams into the wall, shakes it off, and sprints back. Cats recover from everything.
After a while, Freddie gets bored and saunters into another room.
I breathe out a sigh of frustration and decide to make another coffee.
Elias has been in touch with Kaycee. He told them that I was sick and that I would be back in a few days.
I’m quietly thankful for his meddling—I don’t know what excuse I would have made.
Kaycee would have asked too many questions.
All it would have taken was them to look at my face or hear my voice, and they would have instantly known something was wrong. Kaycee always does.
I pour some beans into the hopper and hit the button.
My mind drifts to the file sitting on the kitchen counter.
Elizabeth Miller. Twenty-one years old. Lived just two blocks away from me.
I walk over and open the file, and her photo stares right back.
She’s pretty. She has a bright smile, deep brown eyes, and ice-blonde hair like mine.
She’s holding up a drink, and she looks happy, like the type of girl with a full social calendar for the next six months.
It should have been me. Elias and Cain can deny it all they want, but it’s too big of a coincidence, and I know they know that too. I can only hope she’s dead—sometimes living is a death penalty in itself. A lump forms in my throat at how true I know that to be.
The sound of Elias’s car pulling into the driveway brings my thoughts back to the here and now.
I snap the folder closed, pour my coffee, and make my way over to the front door to greet him.
He looks like the boss of a syndicate. There’s a hard line on his jaw where I’m sure he’s been clenching it for the last three hours, and his suit is immaculate, fitting him like a glove.
“I’m so sorry that took so long,” he says, grabbing me by the waist and pulling me into him. He places a small kiss on the top of my head.
“It’s okay. How did it go?” I ask, pulling him closer, careful not to spill coffee on the plush white rug.
He loosens his grip and lets out a breath. He reaches down and gives Freddie a scratch under the chin as he winds himself around Elias’s legs. His hand moves to my lower back, guiding me back toward the kitchen with a somber expression. He pours himself a coffee and turns to me.
“There is no news.”
My shoulders slump, and my heartbeat quickens.
“We have every available resource working on the person who followed you. Any other resource we have is going into finding out where the missing girls are.” There’s something in his tone that lets me know he’s frustrated at the lack of answers.
My chest tightens, and I drop my eyes to my feet. Guilt wracks my body.
“Why am I any more important than them? I’m here. I’m alive. They’re…” The words don’t come out, but they swirl around in my chest.
Dead. Kidnapped. Locked in a basement somewhere.
I swallow hard. “They didn’t do anything to deserve this.”
“Neither did you.”
There’s a finality to his tone, like this topic isn’t up for discussion, but I can’t help the guilt that wracks my body during every waking moment.
Elias moves towards me and pulls me close to him. “You’re our biggest lead, Kat. We can’t chase ghosts.”
I let out a shaky breath. I didn’t think of it that way.
“It should have been me,” I whisper against his chest, a lump forming in my throat.
He pulls back and takes my face in his hands so I have no choice but to look at him. “But it wasn’t.”
Just like that. It wasn’t. It wasn’t me. I had to accept that. I had to keep going… like I always did. If not for me, or for Elias, then for the girls who need it. I have to help find them.
We stay like this for a few moments, just wrapped in each other’s embrace.
“Can I ask you a question?” I whisper.
“Anything.”
“Can you take me to my apartment? I want to grab my guitar and songbook.”
My eyes search his face for a response. His brows knit as if he’s thinking it over.
I’ve wanted those two things back ever since I woke up from my accidental suicide attempt.
But my songbook is for my hands only, and despite my protests, Elias was right.
I’ve been healing and resting. Today is the first day that I actually feel like I can walk around without dizziness swarming my brain.
“Yes. But you’re not going there alone, and you have to rest afterwards,” he says, his brows raised in warning.
I roll my eyes but give a small jump of joy anyway.
That apartment doesn’t feel like mine anymore. It has my things, but it’s no longer my home.
I rub my palms against my jeans as they grow slick with sweat. This will be my first time back to the apartment since… since I nearly died by my own hand. My knee bounces up and down restlessly as we get closer. Elias rests his hand on my knee, his touch grounding me.
The city moves past us in a blur, people walking the sidewalks like it’s just another normal day. Normal life keeps going. It always does. He turns the steering wheel with one palm as we approach my street. As my building looms in the distance, my blood turns to ice in my veins.
My fucking door is open.
As we approach closer, I can see the splinter of wood around the lock. Elias had told me they’d replaced the door after he kicked it in the other day, so I know this isn’t them. It’s been kicked in again. Hard. My stomach drops straight into the footwell of the car.
“Elias…” I whisper, my voice shaky as we pull to a stop outside.
“Stay here,” he instructs, pulling his phone out of his pocket and giving it to me. “Call Gareth. Tell him and Cain to get here now.”
“Elias, I—”
“Kat.” His voice sharpens. “I nearly lost you once in this apartment already. I can’t do it again. Stay. In. The. Car.”
It’s like a cloud of red mist falls over his face. I’m no longer looking at Elias. I’m looking at the leader of the Circle. He pulls his pistol out of his jacket holster as he climbs out of the car and approaches the wrecked door.
I dial Gareth, though my hands are shaking so violently it takes twice as much concentration to press the dial button.
“Boss?”
“It’s Kat,” I say, my breathing coming hard and fast now. “Something’s wrong. Can you get Cain and come to my apartment? Please,” I rush out quickly before hanging up.
My hand opens the car door before I know what’s happening. I pull myself out of the seat and run up the pathway towards Elias. Towards the unknown.
I push the door open and fall to my knees.
Silent sobs wrack my body as I look at my home.
Every cupboard in the kitchen is open; its contents smashed on the floor.
Thousands of pieces of glass and ceramic sprawl across the room.
In the living room, the sofa where I poured my heart out to Harper now lies on its side, the legs broken off and in splinters.
My TV lies smashed on the floor—the same TV I spent months of saving tips from The Ground to buy.
Even the cushions have been slashed open, white stuffing spilling out across the floor like snow.
I manage to steady myself and walk towards the bedroom. I’m vaguely aware of Elias protesting somewhere in the room, but I ignore him. My steps are heavy as I walk the hallway towards the bedroom door. It’s half open. I take a breath as I walk inside.
Every piece of me that’s in this apartment is now gone.
I drop to my knees on top of my shattered records, the larger shards cracking beneath me.
I hold the broken pieces of The Number of the Beast in my hands.
I remember the day I bought it—it was the first record I bought at Steve’s Spinners.
The first time I had enough money to go into a store and buy one.
I listened to it three times over the first night that I owned it, and now it’s nothing but black shards in my hands. Silent tears fall down my cheeks.
Nothing was taken, but everything is gone.
I stand and walk over to my guitar, smashed in the corner of the room.
The neck is snapped clean in half, the body splintered down the middle.
Someone has smashed this on the floor, over and over again.
I run my fingers along the broken neck, a sharp string catching the end of my finger, causing a bead of crimson to form.
I see my songbook tucked under the edge of my mattress and pick it up, carefully flicking through the pages.
This is the only thing untouched. Every page is still in place.
The little book with my darkest thoughts turned into music.
They destroyed everything, but they left this. On purpose.
Elias grips my upper arm, hard.
“You don’t need to see this, Kat.”
Blood rushes in my ears and my heartbeat turns deafening. My hands clench around my songbook, the lingering pain in my wrist only fueling my rage.
“Take me home, Elias,” I say, turning towards the door, shards of records turning to dust under my boots as I leave the wreckage.
As we leave the apartment and everything I own, my vision narrows and a lump forms in my throat. I’m silent all the way home, Elias constantly checking on me. There’s only one thing I want to say, but it can’t happen here.
When we arrive back home, I gently tuck the songbook into my jacket pocket.
The door clicks shut behind us. Elias lingers behind me for a moment, carefully watching me.
I move to make my way to our bedroom. I take the stairs slowly, one at a time.
My legs feel heavy. The weight I’ve been carrying for the past year is finally catching up to my body.
Every step creaks softly beneath my feet, as though they can feel the weight of the words loaded in my throat.
“Kat.”
I ignore him and keep climbing. I reach the landing and rest my hand on the rail for a moment. His footsteps fall quiet behind me.
“Kat, please.”
I open our bedroom door. The room is dim. The curtains are still half-drawn from this morning. The bed is exactly how I left it—sheets slightly twisted with one pillow half on the floor.
Elias waits in the doorway, and I shrug off my jacket, holding it in my hands as I lower myself onto the bed. My hands are steady.
I take a deep breath as I look to Elias, who has worry painted all over his face.
“His name is Owen Reynolds.”