Chapter 14 Eliana
ELIANA
aboyeur /a?bw??y?r/: noun
I can’t stand another minute of Yasmin’s pointed silence. Every reproachful sigh she lets out says, I love you but I think you’re making a terrible mistake.
Well, I think so, too, girl.
The difference between us is that I’m dumb enough to make the mistake anyway.
When dawn comes, I order an Uber to The Moonlight Inn. The app confirms my ride will arrive in three minutes. I grab Excalibur and my bag, moving as quietly as possible.
But a voice breaks the stillness. “I know you won’t let me come,” Yas mumbles, “so I’m not going to ask. But just… be safe for me, okay?”
I freeze. “How did you—”
“Your phone makes a sound when you order a ride,” she explains from inside her room. “I’ve been listening for it since four.”
“Yas…”
“I already called in sick to work. Someone needs to make sure you come back in one piece.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I settle for, “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. If this goes sideways, I’m going to say ‘I told you so’ for the rest of your natural life.”
Grinning weakly, I make my way to the door. I slip out and head down the stairs. The morning air hits me when I push through the building’s front door, still cool enough to raise goosebumps on my arms.
“Eliana?” calls a woman’s voice from the curb. “Uber for Eliana?”
“That’s me.”
“I’m Nadia. Let me help you with that.”
A hand touches my elbow gently, guiding me toward the car. I let her because I’m too tired to insist on doing everything myself right now. The door opens, and I slide into the back seat.
“The Moonlight Inn on Route 41?” Nadia confirms as she settles into the driver’s seat.
“Yeah. That’s the one.”
The car pulls away from the curb. I rest my head against the window.
My stomach does a little loop-de-loop—morning sickness, anxiety, or both.
Hard to tell anymore. It doesn’t help that Nadia has some kind of scent thing in her car.
It’s a smell I know all too well: Mountain Breeze, a Glade product, familiar to me for as long as I’ve been on this earth.
The chemical-sweet smell mixes with my nausea until I have to crack the window or else I’m going to yak onto my own lap.
I think about Mom. I haven’t spoken to her since I ran from Chicago. She must be worried absolutely sick, which is awful timing, because it really felt like she’d begun to turn a corner just before everything crumbled. She’s called, but I haven’t answered. It’s better that way for now.
If I talked to her, she’d try, and my mother’s trying has never done anything but harm.
If I told her where I am and where I’m headed, then Georgia, bless her, would do her best to fix it.
She’d show up at this shithole with lukewarm casseroles and misguided advice and that desperate need to be needed that’s defined our relationship since I was old enough to understand what “codependency” meant.
Blech. I really might vom.
“You okay back there?” Nadia asks after a few minutes. “You need me to pull over?”
I force a weak smile. “I’m fine.”
“Long night?”
“Something like that.”
She doesn’t press, which I appreciate. Instead, she turns on the radio. The pop music that blares out is too bright and cheesy for the early hour, so I tune it out and focus on the baby cooking inside me.
Finally, the car slows. “We’re here,” Nadia announces. “The Moonlight Inn. You, uh… you sure about this place?”
“Why?”
“No reason. Just looks a little rough, is all.”
Great. Perfect. Exactly where I want to be while pregnant and blind.
“I’m sure,” I tell her anyway as I reach for the door handle.
Nadia comes around and helps me out. I stand on the cracked pavement listening to her drive away.
We’re a bit outside the town limits, so it’s quieter out here.
The occasional passing truck, newspaper tumbleweed bouncing through the parking lot, that sort of thing.
The taut stillness of a place where people go when they don’t want to be found.
Somewhere in this dump, Bastian is waiting.
I take a breath and start walking, Excalibur leading the way, each tap another step toward whatever unknown disaster I’m about to walk into.
The motel office door protests when I push it open, hinges groaning like they haven’t been oiled in years. The stench of Febreze layered on top of rampant mold is doing my upset stomach no favors.
“C’n I help ya?” The grating voice belongs to someone who sounds like they’ve been chain-smoking since birth.
I obviously can’t see him, but I’d bet what’s left of my life savings that he hasn’t looked up from whatever squeaky, vaguely pornographic anime show he’s watching on his phone at high volume.
“I need directions to Room Seven, please.”
He clears phlegm from his throat and spits. “Y’meetin’ someone?” he asks, still ramming his syllables together like he can’t be bothered to expend the usual amount.
“That’s my business,” I say as politely as I can manage.
He snorts. It might be a laugh, might not. “Fair ‘nough. Room Seven’s around back. Go out this door, hang a left. Follow the buildin’ all the way around. You’ll pass the ice machine, then the vending area. Seven’s the second door after that. Green door, if that helps.”
It doesn’t, but I don’t tell him that. “Thanks.”
“Sure you don’t want me to walk you over?” There’s something a little unsettling in his tone now, not quite intrigue and not quite creepiness, but a little closer to both than I’d like. As if he knows exactly who’s in Room Seven and wonders what a blind, pregnant woman wants with a dead man.
“I’ll manage.”
“Suit yourself.”
I wind my way out of the office and turn left, following the building’s rough stucco wall with my free hand. The ice machine hums exactly where he said it would be. I keep going, counting my steps, listening for the vending area.
But something’s off. The vending machines should be here by now, shouldn’t they? He did say hang a left, didn’t he? But instead, I hear music, tinny and muffled, like it’s coming through thin walls. My fingers find a door handle where there shouldn’t be one yet.
“Well, hello there.”
The unexpected voice makes me jump as the door is ripped open from inside. It’s male, big from the sound of it, and he’s crowding close enough that I can smell his breakfast on his breath, cheesy eggs and hot sauce.
“I’m looking for Room Seven,” I say, taking a step back.
“Oh, sure you are, sweetheart.” I hear a grin in his voice that I don’t like. “Bit fancy-lookin’ for the gig, but listen, I don’t judge. Times are tough for everyone, ain’t they?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He chuckles. I hear the jingle of keys or loose change in his pocket. “Come on now, no need to play coy. Blind girl shows up at the Moonlight at six in the morning? It’s the setup to a helluva joke. I wasn’t born yesterday. What’s your rate, baby?”
My stomach roils. “You’re mistaken. I’m meeting someone.”
“Yeah, that’s the point, isn’t it?” He’s crept closer. I can feel the heat radiating off his body and it’s making me sweat. “Look, you’re cute; I’ll make it worth your while. Three hundred for an hour. That’s generous for this part of town.”
“I’m not—” I start backing away, but my heel catches on something, a crack in the pavement, maybe, and I stumble. Excalibur falls to the ground.
“Whoa there, cowgirl!” His hand closes around my upper arm, steadying me but not letting go. He’s holding on too tight for comfort. “No need to run off. Four hundred, then. That’s my final offer.”
“Let go of me!” I try to pull away, but he holds on.
“Don’t be like that. We’re just talking business here.” His grip tightens painfully. “You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t working.”
“I swear, I’m not a—”
“Five hundred,” the man breathes, his exhale hot and rancid against my face. “Come on, don’t make this difficult. I’ll fuck you good, I promise. It’ll be like Disneyland for you. Paid vacation, baby.”
His other hand finds my ass, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise, and that’s when I decide to scream. I open my mouth, draw in air—
The smell hits me first. Wintergreen, sharp and medicinal, cutting through the stench of this man’s body odor and the motel’s mildew. Then comes the sound, wet and crunching.
A fist meeting a face.
The man’s grip on my arm goes slack. He makes a noise that isn’t quite human, something between a gurgle and a wheeze. His weight tilts, and then he’s falling away from me entirely. The thud when he hits the pavement is meaty and final.
“Don’t look down,” Bastian growls, his voice coming from somewhere above where the man used to be standing.
I hear liquid. Dripping. Pooling. The aroma of blood mixes with the wintergreen until I have to breathe through my mouth to keep from gagging.
“Is he—?”
“Does it matter?”
I don’t answer. In truth, no, it doesn’t matter. Not really. Not in the world Bastian inhabits, the one I’m stupidly choosing to step back into.
Bastian’s hand touches my elbow. It’s gentle and dry, nothing like the other man’s damp, sticky grip. “Room Seven’s this way. You were going the wrong direction.”
I let him guide me, trying not to think about the sound our shoes make as we step around whatever’s left of the man who grabbed me. My foot brushes against something soft that shouldn’t be there, and Bastian steers me away before I can decipher exactly what it might be.
“The desk clerk gave me bad directions,” I mumble, needing to fill the silence with something other than the memory of that wet crunch.
“He’s getting a cut for every girl he sends the wrong way. Room Twelve runs a side business.”
“Oh.”
We walk maybe twenty more steps before Bastian stops. I hear a key in a lock, the click of tumblers turning, then the whoosh of a door opening inward. Bastian starts in, then stops. “You coming?”
I hesitate, which is obviously ridiculous. I’ve come this far; am I really gonna turn back now?
But the threshold feels significant in a way I can’t quite articulate.