40. Olivia #2
The answer is yes, but also no. I mean, I have Waffles to cling to as the storm continues to batter its way through Greenwood, leaving nothing but rain and destruction behind. I yelp when thunder booms again, seeming to shake the building once more.
“Besides, you said I could come over earlier.” He gives me a smug expression.
“Some things never change, huh?” he whispers, plopping down beside my bed on the ground with a sigh.
“I was actually on my way over here when that happened.” He gestures to the turn of the weather outside my window. “Seems like it came out of nowhere.”
“I think it did,” I whisper, shaking my head.
“And him?” JJ asks, gazing at Waffles with a smirk. “You kidnap dogs now?”
I snort, ruffling Waffles’s fur. “Can’t kidnap a dog that comes willingly. He was right outside my dorm building, waiting.” I shrug.
“You were supposed to meet me at home, boy,” JJ says, giving the dog a stern look.
Waffles huffs in response and licks my chin again.
“And what were you doing?” I gently run my fingers through Waffles’s fur more, feeling a lighter sense of ease now that JJ is here, sitting on the ground beside my bed. Which is an odd feeling to have, especially for the crimes I’ve accused him of.
JJ lets out a breath. “We make fake IDs on the side for extra money. I was delivering them to someone in the next building over.”
“Fake IDs?” I question, trying to ignore the rain heavily pouring against my window.
“It’s our own little business venture.”
“Just like what you all did with the Coliseum?” I raise a brow at what they turned our secret hideout into.
JJ cringes. “Not exactly like you remember, huh?”
“Yeah, last time I was in it, it was empty, and we were searching for gold,” I hum. “Then, it turned into a place for blood baths and booze. What happened there?”
Shadows consume his face as the lightning continues to be our only light, streaking across the sky.
“What happened is we lost sight of a lot of things, Liv,” he whispers sadly.
“We created these ventures here to keep our sanity…” He trails off, lifting his face to look directly into my eyes.
Only slivers of his dark brown eyes are visible as he checks me over.
“We lost a lot when we lost you. Ourselves. Our girl. Our sanity. Livy, we did all this to forget, I guess.” There’s a sadness clinging to every word he says, and he sighs heavily.
With trembling fingers, I gently run them through his dark brown hair, wet from the rain. “You’re all wet,” I murmur, trying not to overthink what I’m doing.
“I ran through the rain, and I brought you something,” he says, grabbing my hand in his and stopping my motions through his hair.
There’s a desperation to his grip when he brings the back of my hand to his lips and gently kisses me.
“I’ve been trying to think of anything to prove to you that we weren’t in town.
I swear, Liv. We would never, ever have hurt you like that.
” There’s something in his voice that catches as he mumbles against my flesh.
Like this might be the last time he sees me here.
“Prove me wrong then,” I mutter.
A part of me believes my words. I want him to prove me wrong and show me that it wasn’t all a lie. That our love meant something. That the time we spent together was more than a passing phase for the four of us before it went up in smoke, and ashes remained.
I want the truth. No matter the cost. If it wasn’t them, then I want to know who was responsible.
Besides Franco, of course. He was there.
I know that much. I saw his face. Felt the hatred of his snarls and the knife at my throat before he slit it.
But the other three? They wore masks to hide their identities, and I never questioned it.
Franco called them by their names. They answered.
Like they were Hux, JJ, and Mack. They didn’t speak until the end.
They held us down as Franco inflicted the pain.
I was in such a vulnerable position, on my knees and begging for my life; I never questioned that night or what I saw with my own two eyes.
I believed everything that happened. But what if my eyes were lying? What if things aren’t what they seem, and everything was a manipulation?
JJ digs into his pocket and pulls out his phone.
“This is the best I could do for now, since it’s been so long since we left town.
But every casino has to keep security footage for a certain amount of time.
And Franco’s? He keeps them forever on a private server.
” His phone illuminates his face as he taps on his screen, giving me a chance to look JJ over.
Finally, he stops and takes a deep breath.
“This video is time-stamped from the casino we were working at. You remember that, right?” His gaze whips to me with a need for me to understand, pleading with me to hear his side of things and not dismiss him.
“Franco set something new up in Vegas, right? Around that time?”
“Yes. Exactly.” He nods several times. “This is us. You can see the time stamp that night in the right-hand corner. It puts us at the casino the night you died. There’s no way we could have flown or driven home to be here in time.
” He holds up the phone for me, displaying the three of them wandering through a crowded casino and taking in the patrons as they play the slots and card games.
I tilt my head as the video continues, cutting to several hours later, where they’re still there doing the same.
Well, until Huxley gets a phone call and abruptly leaves the screen.
“Why were you there that night?” I ask, flicking my eyes to him.
JJ shrugs. “It was honestly a really sudden trip that came out of nowhere. Franco asked us to be on the floor, walking around, and making sure everything worked properly. We were told to keep an eye on the employees all night. He said someone had been stealing from him, and he wanted to find out who because whoever it was was doing it without the cameras clocking it.” He wrinkles his nose.
“And Hux?” I ask, moving the video to him, getting a phone call, and leaving the frame. “Where did he go?”
JJ licks his lips with uncertainty. “I…” he stammers slightly, staring at the screen as I rewind it again, as Huxley leaves with his phone pressed to his ear.
“I don’t know, Spitfire,” he whispers in a pained voice.
“He said Franco called him and asked him to go to an emergency meeting somewhere else, but he didn’t specify…
” JJ trails off, furrowing his brows. “He still hasn’t said where he went and… ” He trails off again.
“If Franco needed him elsewhere, then he could have hopped onto a private jet and made it back to Greenwood in an hour. All of you could have hopped onto that plane and been back here in time to slit my throat and set me on fire,” I whisper, not fully believing my words.
The evidence JJ has could prove their innocence. It could prove they were in Vegas the entire night. Except for Hux. Maybe he was the only one here and did it because Franco told him to.
“The time stamp says 10:30 p.m.,” JJ mutters, shaking his head.
“I have more proof that Mack and I went back to our rooms at the hotel and stayed there all night,” he says urgently, showing me another video with the time stamp of 11:30 p.m. At the same time, Franco barged into my house with the three of them and took us all down. It was all over by fucking midnight.
The house fire. Our deaths.
I swallow hard, the memories of lying on the cold ground of our home as it went up in smoke around me.
The heat of the fire. The smoke clawing at my lungs as I gasped for air.
That night, so much of my memory is in pieces.
Broken and jagged. I don’t remember Jonathan pulling me out.
I don’t remember going to a hospital for care.
Not until I woke up with my life flashing before my eyes and a white ceiling staring back at me.
What really happened that I’m not remembering? Was everything distorted and fucked up?
I squeeze my eyes shut. Uncertainty snakes through my body.
“Spitfire,” he murmurs, placing timid fingers on my face and wiping away the rogue tears spilling down my cheeks.
I’m supposed to be badass and emotionless when it comes to cases. I’m supposed to know what I’m doing and have everything under control. Especially my emotions. I’m not supposed to let my marks into my bedroom. I’m not supposed to be so fucking stupid.
But here we are.
I’m the worst agent in the damn world.
“Please, don’t cry. You know what it does to me,” he murmurs, wiping away more tears with his thumbs and holding onto me tightly. “Waffles,” he groans as a wet tongue runs over my lips, and I flinch back with a laugh erupting from my throat, taking away the tears.
“Yuck. Waffles,” I groan, rubbing at my face with a heavy sigh.
“He wanted you to feel better, didn’t you, boy?” JJ murmurs, ruffling Waffles’s fur with a sad smile. “Are you…”
“I’m fine,” I quickly say.
“I know you’re lying,” JJ says softly without heat. “You’re not fine. I’m not fine. No one is fine.”
He’s right. I’m not fine. I’m never fine.
I haven’t been for five years. Pretending has become my way of life.
A way to protect myself from the trauma of the past. If you shove everything down into a black box in the back of your mind and seal it shut, you never have to deal with the bullshit from the past.
“Maybe you’re right,” I mutter, shivering when a loud boom shakes the building again.
“When will this end?” I ask, gesturing toward the window, getting pelted with more and more rain.
More lightning flashes in the sky, streaking for what seems like miles.
The trees blow in the heavy wind, and the clouds angrily boom with more thunder.