Chapter 12
Eve
Mother Laney looks down at me with tears in her eyes, her voice soft as she repeats the same two words that had me shaking in my graduation gown and collapsing to the floor.
“He’s gone.”
I shake my head, tears streaming down my face as I look up at the house mother. “He wouldn’t leave me here.”
She sighs as she drops down to her knees in front of me. “I know it’s hard to understand, but you’ve relied on Kortez for too long. It’s a good thing he decided to go off on his own, Evangeline.”
My head shakes of its own volition, my long blonde hair falling out of its clip and into my face. “He wouldn’t.”
“Evangeline – “
“He wouldn’t leave me!”
Her face goes slack with shock as I stand, wiping the tears from my eyes with a harsh swipe from the back of my arm. “I’m going to prove it to you.”
I turn, racing out into the fading sun where Atlas’s black Maserati shines like new from across the street. I drove it to graduation and back, wondering the whole time why he hadn’t texted me and why Kortez didn’t wake me up with a knock and a smile like he usually does.
Today is supposed to be the last day of this life. It’s supposed to be the first day of our new one – together.
Instead, all my calls went to voicemail, all of my texts left on delivered. For both of them.
It doesn’t make any sense.
I came to the realization in the middle of walking across the stage that Kor probably looked for Atlas last night to raise hell about the proposal and…and my virginity. Then the question came…if Kor did go raise hell, would Atlas let him live?
I’m not so naive that I don’t know Atlas is into some shady stuff.
There’s no doubt he’s got blood on his hands; I just didn’t care because he used the memory of the blood on his fingertips to anoint me in his own personal brand of violence.
He showed me the misfit that he was and dared me to love him anyway.
He marked me as deep as my soul so that I could never enter the daylight again without craving the dark.
I knew all this.
But did Kor? Or did I let him walk into a situation he wasn’t prepared for?
The engine roars as I slam on the gas, my mind running through a thousand different scenarios as I drive the few blocks to Atlas’s warehouse. If Kortez found him at all last night, it would have been here – I think. I mean, hell, I have Atlas’s car.
Sure enough, when I slide into the parking lot, Kortez’s cherry red Mustang sits in the corner, windows down and completely empty.
A quick look around confirms there’s no other vehicles around, so I pull off to the side of the building and park where the shadows are starting to darken from the fading sun.
As soon as I kill the engine, I’m turning around and digging my hand underneath the backseat. Atlas always has hidden guns wherever he is and last I checked there we’re four in this car.
Sure enough, my hand glides against the smooth metal of a gun barrel just seconds later. Careful about where I grab it, I slowly pull it out from under the seat and weigh it in my hand.
Not too heavy. I wrap my hand around the grip, making sure to keep my finger straight instead of letting it linger by the trigger – just like Atlas taught me. Fits in my hand a little too well, much better than the larger pistol’s Atlas usually carries around.
One more thing…a quick check of the magazine has me sliding it back into place with a satisfying click. Fully loaded, with one in the chamber.
I don’t want to shoot anyone but when it comes to Kortez, I will. And if it comes between Atlas and Kortez…I think I’d be better off turning the gun on myself.
Shaking my head, I slide out of the car and keep my grip tight on the pistol as I make my way toward the warehouse.
The exciting, bright energy I felt walking through its doors last night is completely gone now, replaced with something dark and ominous.
My hands start to shake again as tears form in my eyes, my mind somehow already convinced I’m not going to be happy with what I find on the other side of the door.
Suck it up and open the fucking door, Evangeline.
The small pep talk does the trick, and I wrench the side door open with enough force to have it swinging backwards and hitting the wall.
The loud smack is barely noticeable to me, though, because the setting sun is hitting the concrete floor with just enough light to show me the puddles of blood scattered across Atlas’s warehouse.
The tears start falling as I take another step forward, my hand going slack on the gun as my head shakes from side to side, refusing to acknowledge the bloodbath in front of me.
Kortez came to look for Atlas and…did he kill him?
My head shoots up and somehow tears continue to fall even though I feel the fire burning in my veins. “Atlas Valente!”
There’s no answer. The darkness continues to close in and the blood on the floor begins to lose its shine.
I need answers.
“Atlas!”
I take off, sliding a little on the floor before righting myself and running up the spiral staircase. “Atlas, you better fucking answer me!”
I check his bedroom first, throwing open his closet to check behind clothes and dropping to the floor to look under his bed. I’m getting lost in the mania and the worry.
“Where is my best friend?” My shouts echo through the warehouse as I run out of his room, checking his bathroom and kitchen with just as much frantic energy as before – if not more.
No one is here, though. The warehouse is empty.
I run back downstairs, my eyes searching the dark for a hint of anything that looks slightly human, but I can’t even see my feet in front of me.
I slide again, this time falling straight on my back and knocking the gun across the floor as I land in what I’m guessing is the larger pool of blood I saw earlier.
It’s so thick that it’s still wet. No doubt my blonde hair is turning red as my clothes begin to stick to my body, but I can’t bring myself to move.
“Atlas, where is Kortez?” My voice breaks as tears run down my face and mix into the blood on the floor, the blood I’m almost sure belongs to my best friend. “Where are you?”
The sobs take over my body and I swear I can feel the blood seeping into my very bones. I’ll never be the same after this. What do I even do? Where do I go?
My entire future was planned with Kortez. I…I don’t know who I am without him in my life.
I lose track of how long I lay on the bloody floor, but it’s long enough for the tears to dry up and my body to grow numb from the mixture of the cold air around me and the texture of the drying blood.
I think…I think I may stay here forever.
A loud crash has my head shooting off the floor and I groan when pieces of my hair get ripped out from being dried to the ground. What the hell…
Another crash comes, followed by a loud boom that sounds like it’s coming from right outside the warehouse.
Scrambling across the floor, I manage to find my gun in the dark and crawl over to the wall.
My ankle twists as I put my weight on it too early and I bite into my bottom lip to mute the shout of pain, I can’t have anyone knowing I’m here.
Feeling my way down the wall, I find the door and peek outside, seeing a fire burning where Kortez’s car was parked when I first got here.
Wait…no. The fire is Kortez’s car.
“Son of a bitch!”
Inching my body out of the door and along the side of the building, I stay silent until the figure of a man steps out from the shadows, using the fire from my best friend’s car to light his cigarette.
I watch as he takes a deep drag from the cigarette and just stands by the Mustang, watching the car burn to nothing but burnt metal and charred leather. It smells horrible.
People only burn vehicles to get rid of them.
This man knows what happened to Kortez.
I stick to the shadows and sneak around to the front of the building before running across the parking lot and ducking behind the dumpster. The man is only about fifteen feet away now.
He’ll kill me if he catches me, but it’s a risk I have to take. I have to know.
I wait until he goes to take another hit of his cigarette before moving from behind the dumpster, hoping the sound from the burning car and his breathing will mask my footsteps.
When I get about five feet away, I stop and raise the gun. The sound of the safety clicking off has the man freezing with the cigarette halfway from his mouth.
“Who do we have here?” The man’s voice is raspy, rough with smoke inhalation and something more…dangerous.
“I’ll be asking the questions. Why are you burning Kortez’s car?”
The man laughs, “Was that the orphans name? Kor-tez?” He says my best friend’s name slowly, pronouncing each syllable with the ultimate precision.
“Quit fucking around. Why are you burning his car?”
I see the man shake his head at the same moment his free hand starts to move closer to his waistband. “I don’t answer little girls who – “
The gun in my hand jolts as I fire a shot into the man’s leg, bringing him down with a harsh scream. I walk over, my feet, somehow barefoot in the chaos, beginning to bleed as stray bits of glass get stuck in my flesh.
He falls to his back, the blood from his leg making a puddle almost as big as the one in the center of the warehouse. “What the fuck, lady?”
I aim the gun at his other leg, using my bare foot to press down on the bullet wound in his first one. He screams, his eyes flashing as he sees the manic look in my eyes – the one reflected in my smile.
“Why are you burning my best friend’s car?”
The man shakes his head before screaming as my heel digs into the bullet wound. “I don’t know! I’m just a grunt man, I follow orders!”
He chokes off a sob as I ease up the pressure on his leg. “Whose orders?”
“Valente! Mr. Valente. He owns this place; he paid me to clean up his mess.”
Valente. Valente. Valente.
Atlas.
This is Atlas’s warehouse.
Atlas’s mess.
I don’t recognize my voice when I ask, “Did Mr. Valente kill someone in that warehouse? Is that why you’re burning the car?”
Again, he tries to stay silent. I don’t have the patience to play games anymore, though. I fire off another bullet, this one into his other leg, and the man’s screams cause a flock of birds to fly off the roof a few buildings over.
When his screams quiet into sobs, I ask him again. “Did Mr. Valente hire you to clean up a murder?”
The man nods, his body turning pale as he shakes beneath my foot. “Yes.”
My heart stops. It shuts down.
Atlas killed Kortez.
After telling me just yesterday how much Kortez loved me…he went and killed him. Why? Because he felt threatened?
I laugh to myself, the man looking up at me in fear and confusion as the life slips from his eyes.
Atlas should feel threatened – by me.
I slide the gun into the pocket of my graduation gown and lean down to pick up the man by his feet. His head shakes from side to side as I drag him toward the warehouse, the light in his eyes finally dying out as we make it to the metal wall.
I prop him up against the building with his legs kicked out in front of him. The bullet holes are still leaking blood, leaving a trail from Kortez’s car to Atlas’s warehouse.
Will he send another cleaner to finish the job?
Will he make my best friend disappear from existence?
The questions roll around in my head until I find myself leaning down and swiping my fingers through the man’s blood and running it along the white door, fingerpainting a message to the man who I thought I loved in the blood of someone he trusted – just like I’m now covered in the blood of someone I trusted.
If he has someone else look into this place, he’ll know. He knows just as I now know, our love was just a lie. How else do you love a misfit, after all?
The fire crackles in the background, lighting up the drying message I left for my boyfriend.
I’M COMING FOR YOU NEXT.