3. Maeve
CHAPTER 3
MAEVE
I want to scream and cry, hide somewhere and forget about this entire double life, but most of all, I want to survive.
My desperate legs push for speed I don’t usually have, but every animal is faster with their life on the line. Only three blocks sit between me and my car, but getting in and out of the garage without getting hurt will be tricky. I risk looking over my shoulder. I don’t see him anymore, but after this morning, I don’t dare to think that means I’m in the clear.
He knows where I dance. For all I know, he knows where I park too.
Only a half block separates me from the parking garage, and I take a calculated risk, dipping into one of the buildings that connects to it through a back entrance. People know me here, so I briskly jog instead of all-out sprint, but with the first true sense of relief closing over me, I think it will pay off.
Luck is on my side again, and I find the halls empty. The back door flies open beneath my head, and I zoom through the parking lot, not saying a word to Phil, the lot manager, even though I always stop to chat.
“Maeve?” he calls, but I’m going up the ramp to the second floor. Leaving my taser in my left hand, I trade the knife for the keys, cursing as the blade catches my skin and splits it open. Too much adrenaline pumps through my system to appreciate the pain, but it’s deep, so warm and sticky blood coats my hand.
Shit, shit. I try not to fall as I press the button to unlock my car doors. The shrill beep serves as both a comfort and an alarm. Hopefully, it doesn’t draw any further attention to me, but it raises goose bumps all over my skin.
I parked in the last row, and my vision tunnels as my breaths come harsher and harsher. The garage is dimly lit, giving it a timeless horror. My own footsteps echo, my breathing frantic. When I reach the car, my hands are slick with nervous sweat, and they slip as I grip the handle and wrench the door open. Jumping inside, I slam the door behind me and feel a frisson of relief, but I’m far from safe.
My stupid hands shake, and I realize it wasn’t nervous sweat making my hands slip but my own blood. It burns like hell as I press the remote start. My dad picked this Volvo for me—safe and responsible, yet the white interior is now irreparably stained in my blood. Goddammit, I have no idea how I’m going to get this clean.
Ignoring the wound, I put the car in reverse and pull out. I appreciate that my dad wants me safe and bought me a car, even if he rarely bothers to speak to me, but I miss the manual transmission of the Porsche from earlier. The lack of control over the engine leaves me feeling like a sitting duck. Right as I have the thought, as well as the car in drive, my personal executioner arrives on foot. I break into goose bumps, my eyes never leaving his as I hit the gas and move it toward the exit.
He doesn’t pause either, pulling out his gun and aiming at me. This is the second time I’ve been shot at today, but I’ll have a much harder time explaining bullet holes in my paint job to my dad than I will the situation earlier today to the gang I steal cars for.
“Shit!” I slam the wheel, tears pricking my eyes, but I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. The second my car hits the road, gunfire sprays from another direction. It seems I got lucky one more time, and they didn’t know I had my own car parked here. There’s no way I’ll waste any time I’ve gained thinking they won’t follow. It will take them thirty seconds or less to steal a car and follow, and I plan to use them wisely.
Speeding down the street, I’m not sure where I’m headed, but I need to put space between me and my enemies. Leaving the Rothbart district is the only option. This whole area is his, and I’m cursed as long as I stay here. Working inside Cygnus’s territory was a bad idea, but I couldn’t resist, and the money was the least of it. I needed the thrill.
Something is seriously wrong with me. I’m not denying it. Money isn’t even a real consideration. My trust fund will take care of my worries once I hit twenty-five, and it’s covered almost everything since I turned eighteen. That wasn’t why I did any of this. Maybe it’s immature, but I keep pushing boundaries, begging anyone to notice me. For anyone at all to see that I’m more than what I’ve been told I’m supposed to be. No one ever noticed or cared, but then the adrenaline became too addictive, and all I have to show for it is a target on my back.
My eyes are glued to the rearview mirror. They still haven’t caught up, but there isn’t a second to spare, and I’m here digging deep into my emotional problems. I should save myself the hassle and let my father pay for a fancy therapist to figure me out.
Hey, I might save him a coin and just die in a ditch.
Bitterness coats my tongue when I reach the end of his territory, and even though I’m much safer, I keep driving. The sun is low in the sky an hour later when I stop, pulling the car into the back of a twenty-four-hour grocery store and tucking the vehicle’s small body behind a parked tractor-trailer. There aren’t any No Parking signs, so I’m hoping the driver is sleeping inside and staying put for a while.
My hand has stopped bleeding, but the wound is painful, and the joints feel stiff. I have a suspicion that if I look at it, I’ll only give in to the building panic. What the fuck am I supposed to do? My stomach churns, and nausea rises, but I don’t know if it’s truly physical or just pure shame.
My heartbeat hammers in my ears, my hands freeze over the wheel, and even with the car parked, I stay in the same position. I see nothing in front of me. My eyes won’t focus, and I can’t move. Electricity runs through my body, and I’m charged and empty all at once. I can’t be sure how much time passes, but when I blink again, there’s a starless night overhead, and the only lights come from the stores and the lampposts. I’m still alone and frozen in place. But so is the truck driver providing my cover.
He knows who I am and where to find me. The life I’ve resented and taken for granted is so close to slipping through my fingers, and for the first time, I realize how much I’ll miss it. Your everyday thief isn’t usually a ballerina. The theater wouldn’t have been the first place to look unless you had a reason. My pale pink tights and leg warmers might be a giveaway now. I’m even wearing an Ivanov Ballet Company T-shirt. This combined with the fact they got so close to me so fast earlier today can only mean someone ratted me out.
Who? It’s not like many people even know how to reach me. Kane knows my number and my face, but he doesn’t know my real name or that I’m an Ivanov ballerina. It’s not like we chat when I go to deliver the cars. Kane is a wild guess. He knows enough, but I steal cars for him, so why would he give me away? I do the job his men won’t dare by dipping into Cygnus’s territory. I should get a reward, not this shit.
My fingers move for the first time. One by one, I unglue them from the wheel and open my door just to vomit the contents of my stomach. My bloody hand aches, but at least it’s no longer dripping. I wipe my mouth with the back of my sleeve and close the door once again, leaning my head back on the rest.
I have no one to turn to.
Someone betrayed me. I know that much. They told Cygnus exactly who I was and where to find me. How long do I have before I need to move again? I glance at the clock. My phone is probably blowing up with calls and messages asking why I left rehearsal. Just as I started thinking about my future, my present barreled in and changed everything.
“Think, Maeve, think.” I rub my face, my frustration building nearly to violence. I need a place to sleep. I need someone who isn’t going to give me away so easily. There’s security in my building, but I can’t bring my problems home. My father could likely keep me safe, but that would come at the very steep price of telling the truth about what I’ve been up to. I trust he might keep me alive, but I don’t trust him not to disinherit me and lock me away for humiliating him.
No, I need to do this without my family. I could go to Lyla. Part of me truly believes she would accept me despite everything. She’s kind enough, open-hearted, and I know the building she and Mikhail live in comes strapped with security.
What would it look like to have a friend take me in right now and offer me a hug? A tear nearly falls at the appeal of that make-believe moment, but it never comes. I only entertain that option for about half a second because I know it won’t happen. The hard parts of Lyla’s life are over, and I refuse to bring danger to her door, not even to save myself.
“Really excellent work this time, Maeve,” I tell myself.
I shake my head and turn the keys, bringing the engine back to life. There’s one option, and I feel guilty even thinking about it, but no one could possibly know her. It wouldn’t be bringing danger her way if they couldn’t find me, would it? There’s really only one person in the world I’d trust my life with, only one person who knows how bad my clean-cut family really is under all the refinement.
My stepmother.
A shot of guilt runs through me as I make a U-turn on the empty road, finding the way to her neighborhood. Years have passed since we last spoke, and I don’t know if she’ll even recognize me. My father made it clear when they split up that I would pay if I sought her out. So I never dared. I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate anyway, or if she would still want to see me, but I don’t have a choice now.
Before she and my father married, she brought me to this house for girls’ days. Long before she was my stepmother, this had been my escape route. My heart aches as I approach. Dual shots of adrenaline, both excitement and fear, assault my system as I approach. I manage to avoid anyone following me, leaving me alone on the road, oscillating between happy and sad fantasies of how she’ll react to seeing me after all this time.
She might hug me.
The ride takes another hour with the frequent stop signs of the densely packed suburb, and finding the right place proves to be harder than I imagined. The street has changed, becoming richer than I remember it. Most of the houses have been torn down and replaced with larger, more impressive ones. I roll past the same house twice. It’s too dark to tell for sure. The mailbox is different, the yard, hell, the house is twice the size.
But I have some hope. The round sunroom looks like it’s still there, and an extension was added instead of a whole new house. My hopes are falling fast, and I’m afraid whoever lives in this ritzy house will call the cops on me. I don’t even have the element of surprise as the gravel announces my arrival. A warm bed, that’s all I need, and I can figure something out. I know she can’t solve the problem I created for myself, but as long as she still lives here, I know she won’t give me away. She won’t turn me down.
By the time I make it to the porch, the lights are on inside, and I have to knock just once before the door opens. But it’s not my stepmother who answers. Fuck.