by Smoke , Lucy
"Shit." I hiss out a curse as I start to move faster.
"Why the fuck is the garage door locked?" Abel yells. "Ava?"
His voice cuts off when I slam the driver's side door behind me and start the car. Five more seconds. I buckle my belt and put a hand against the passenger side door, biting my lip as I wait for the garage door to finish lifting. I smirk as I think about how I'd just done this very thing a few weeks ago. Only this time, I'm not intending on running away. I'm intending on chasing something … or someone.
The door finishes, and I press the gas as I back up and whip out of the parking spot. Immediately, my phone starts ringing. I don't need to see the screen to know who's calling. I grimace, but let Dean go to voicemail as I head for the highway. It starts ringing again as soon as it cuts off. He's not going to give up until he knows what's happening, but something tells me that if I shared my suspicions, he wouldn't let me do something this reckless. What he needs to realize, though, is that this concerns me more than it does him. It's not about the thrill for me, not this time. It's about the fact that someone out there is targeting me, and I want to know why.
The drive to Eastpoint is a short one. So late at night, there are hardly any cars on the road. I pull up in front of the Havers dorm and park. The entire building is dark save for one room. Rylie's. As I stride up towards the front of it, my eyes seek out that golden light. Alongside it—above and below—the other windows are pitch black. Nobody is home. Nobody, save for one girl. I almost feel guilty—if it weren't for me and the guys, Rylie would be wherever else she was supposed to be right now. She wouldn't be living in a room in an empty dorm. Then again, she'd lied to me and spied on me, so my guilt isn't long-lasting.
I get to the front and pull out my student ID card and sigh in relief when the light turns green, and the door beeps open. The front desk is empty, and so are the hallways. The lights are all dimmed, so when I finally make it to the correct floor, the line of yellow peeking out from beneath Rylie's is like a beacon calling me to her. I pause just before it and knock twice.
There's a beat of silence and then movement on the other side. The door creaks slightly when she pushes against it. "Who is it?" she calls out.
"It's me," I say. "Open up."
The knob turns, and the door flies open a second later, and Rylie stands there with a lollipop hanging out of her mouth in nothing but a tank top and a pair of cut-off gray sweats that look like they belong on a twelve-year-old boy. "What the hell are you doing here?" she blurts, pulling the lollipop out from between her lips.
Rolling my eyes, I push inside and close the door behind me. "I need you to do something," I tell her.
She backs up and shakes her head. "I don't work for you, Avalon."
"Yes, you do," I reply, moving past her until I'm standing in front of her laptop. "You work for the Sick Boys, and they're my boys, ergo, you work for me."
As if she's protective of her workspace, Rylie hurries forward and pushes herself between me and her desk. "Oh, they're your boys now, are they?" she asks, her eyebrows rising as she pops the candy back in her mouth.
"Can you help me or not?" I ask.
"Depends on what you need," she says around the lollipop.
I eye her. "How good are you?" I inquire.
Rylie's lips curve down into a scowl. "Good enough," she says. "I'm the fucking best."
She's proud. She's got ego. Good. I'll need it. My phone starts ringing again, and against my better judgment, I look at the screen. Dean again. I swipe the red button, sending him to voicemail once again as I return my focus to Rylie.
“First thing I need you to do is hack into the GPS of the car I’ve got outside and turn off the tracking system,” I say.
She groans. “I’m going to get into so much trouble over you.” Her faded purple ponytail flops over her shoulder as she takes a seat at her desk. A few moments later, she lifts her hands and announces that it’s done.
I frown. “Just like that?”
Her head tips back, and she glares at me. “There’s only one GPS locator in a vehicle within twenty feet of this building. It wasn’t that hard. If you’re going to give me something to do, at least make it interesting.”
"The facility my mom was in, you couldn't hack who discharged her, but—"
"Wouldn't," Rylie cuts me off. "I didn't say I couldn't, only that I wouldn't. I can hack it, but it's too dangerous. I don't care how much your boyfriend wants to pay me, I'm not going to jail for them."
I grit my teeth. "Fine," I say. "You wouldn't hack it. Whatever. I don't need you to hack the facility, I just need you to see if you can track her movements before then."
She arches a brow at me before her fingers reach for the keyboard. "How far back do you want me to go?" she asks.
I try to think back. We hadn't had any contact, Patricia and I, since I'd left Plexton the first time. "Four months," I say. "From the date I got here until she was in that facility."
"Okay, but what am I looking for?" Rylie rolls the candy between her lips as she speaks.
I move to the empty bed and sit, hearing the squeaking springs in the old mattress whine in protest. "I don't fucking know," I admit. "Dates. Timestamps. Locations. Somehow, she got from Plexton, Georgia to Larryville—three hours away from here. I figured she'd just been partying with some people or something, but I need to clarify something first."
Rylie's fingers fly across the keyboard, pages and documents slipping onto and off her screen for handfuls of the seconds it takes for her to scan their contents to see what they are. "She's got a couple of credit cards," Rylie says a few minutes later. "Which would be helpful if they had anything on them, but as far as I can see, they're sporadically used at best." The clicking of her fingers continues, and the longer I sit there listening to it, the more it starts to feel like nails grating on my eardrums.
"Do you have anything yet?" I ask after another few minutes.
Her eyes dart to me, and she shoves a bowl filled with candy that sits on her desk closer. "No," she states. "It's gonna be a while. Have a candy, and calm down. If I find something interesting, then I'll let you know, but until then, don't distract me."
I glance at the bowl and scowl before pushing up from the mattress. "I'm going to step outside, then," I say. "I need some fucking air."
"It'd be helpful if I knew what you're thinking," she said, turning in her chair as I head for the door.
My feet slow to a stop until I'm standing in front of it, hand outstretched, but not touching the knob. Slowly, I lower my arm until it rests back at my side. "I went back to Plexton over spring break," I hear myself saying. "Dean and I got into a fight, and I thought it was over. I thought I was done with Eastpoint."
"You'd rather go back there than face whatever they were going to do to you?" There's no judgment in her tone, but it's clear she disagrees.
I turn my head and then my whole body until I'm facing her. "No," I say. "I'm not even completely sure why I went back, I just..." My voice trails off. I don't know how to put into words what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling. All I really remember about that night is jumbled into knots of anger and blurry confusion and then the cold press of a gun in my hand and blood. Blood that, still, to this day, I don't regret spilling.
Men like Roger Murphy didn't belong in this world, and I would go to my grave not regretting a damn thing I'd done that night.
"You didn't know where else to go," Rylie supplies. When I lift my head, her multicolored hazel flecked eyes meet mine. "Yeah," she says with a shrug. "I know what that feels like."
"A man was waiting for me there," I say. "Someone I've known for a while and managed to avoid. Someone called him and told him I'd be there. It was a woman."
Dawning appears on her face. "You think it was your mother."
I shrug. "I don't know," I say. "But who else could it be?"
After a moment, she nods and pivots back to her computer. "I'll have the information soon. I'll focus on that week and call y
ou when I've got something."
I stare at the back of her purple head for a brief moment before turning back to the door. The knob twists in my hand, and I pull it open, stopping when Rylie's voice reaches me once more.
"Avalon..." I don't look back. I keep my eyes on the white wood in front of me. "Did he hurt you?"
She knows the answer to that. She's known the answer to that because she was right when she said girls like us can see the same in each other. I'm damaged down to my fucking core, and so is she. Which is why when I speak, I don't lie. I don't have to.
"Yes."
There's a beat of silence, and then, "Did you kill him?"
"Yes."
I pull the door open wider, step out into the hall, and move to shut it, but not before I hear the last word on her lips.
"Good," she says.
39
Avalon
When I step outside, a gust of wind slaps me in my face. I look up and realize rain clouds have rolled in. They’re harder to see in the dark, but with the streetlamps lining the walkways, they’re still visible enough. I scrub both of my hands down my face and pull out my cell just as it starts ringing again.
He really doesn’t give up, I think, before I glance at the screen. Only this time, it’s not Dean, it’s Abel. I shake my head. No, it’s still probably Dean. I swipe green and put the phone to my ear.
“What?” I say.
“Where the hell are you?” Surprisingly, it is Abel's voice that comes across the line, but before I can answer, he turns and shouts something else. "I got her!"
There's a mad scramble on the other end of the line, and I can't help but smile as I close my eyes and lean against the pillar of the dorm's front porch. Just minutes ago, I felt as if my stomach had grown a bottomless, yearning pit from which all that crawled out was hatred and disgust, but now I'm picturing the three of them—Dean, Abel, and Braxton—fighting to get to the phone. In the end, though, I know who'll win out.
"Where the fuck are you, Avalon?" Dean demands in my ear a moment later, proving my prediction correct.
I hum in the back of my throat. "What?" I ask. "Upset that you can't just track one of the cars this time? I was wondering why you kept finding me everywhere I went. Guess my assumption was right."
"I don't care how you figured out how to turn off the locator, but Avalon, you swore to me that you wouldn't—"
"I'm not fucking running, so cool it," I cut him off with a huff. My eyes trail up to the window of Rylie's room as I step away from the dorm porch and onto the sidewalk. An older man in a coat—despite the almost summer humidity—ambles by, his head down and his eyes on the ground. I ignore him. "I'm getting some information."
"Why didn't you just tell me?" he demands.
"Because I knew you'd want to come with me," I say honestly. He would've insisted on it.
"Avalon, just..." I slide the tip of my tongue across the back of my teeth, feeling my chest tighten at the tone in his voice. It's rough and wild, angry and a little anxious—as if he doesn't feel comfortable with me out of his sight.
My eyes slide away from Rylie's window, and I shift my feet, feeling a nervousness in my bones. "I'm fine," I assure him. "I promise. I'm not trying to run. I'm coming back, I'm just—" How the fuck am I supposed to tell him that I need time? That the thought of my mom setting me up to be raped is fucking me up inside and I don’t know how to deal? It's fucked up, and I have no doubt he'd completely understand. Hell, out of all the fucking people in the world, Dean would get it. And the fact that I want to tell him—that I want to blurt out all of my stupid fucking feelings—makes me clamp my lips shut even more. "I have to figure this shit out on my own. For now."
He breathes heavily into the receiver for a beat, and I start to walk, no real destination in mind. My feet move along the side of the Havers lawn, and I turn back to the building.
"I don't like it," he finally admits.
Surprise, surprise—the control freak doesn't like not being in charge, I think sarcastically.
"When I know something, I'll call you," I promise.
"I'm coming to you," he says instead. "Right fucking now. I just—something's not fucking right, baby. Let me be with you. If you want me to stand back and let you do what you have to, fine, but we—just let me fucking be there goddamn it."
I'm already shaking my head before he's even finished. "I can't do that," I say. It had definitely been a good idea to ask Rylie to cut the tracking on the car. "I'm sorry, Dean. I promise I'll return the car. I'll be back by morning. I'm not far."
"I don't give a fuck about the damn car, Ava. Tell me where—"
Dean's voice cuts out the second I hit the end call button and stand there for a moment, clutching the cell in my hand—staring at the screen as Abel’s name blinks twice and then disappears as the face goes black. My throat feels tight. I sense the beginnings of a massive headache pounding in the back of my skull. And it's all because I fucking care.
I care that Dean is worried about me.
I care that my mom is probably the bitch who set me up.
I care. And I both love and hate it.
The last time I gave this much of a shit was for Micki, and that had ended ... poorly. My fingers squeeze the phone tighter and tighter until clenching makes them sore, but the only thing my mind can focus on is the memory of the one girl who had been a sister to me, the one girl I had trusted with every piece of me. And how I'd, somehow, lost her.
A storm is rolling in. Thunder breaks overhead and sounds in the background. I need to hurry my ass up, or I won't make it to Micki's before the skies open and dump all over me. I've got enough to deal with. I really don't need to be trying to run home in the rain. My feet turn down a now familiar road that I once hadn't even realized was back behind the trailer park, and I spot the old, decrepit ranch house that Micki lives in down the way.
I pick up the pace, sure I'll reach at least the porch before I get soaked. My legs protest the faster movement, but they continue on, my feet slapping the ground and sending gravel flying behind my sneakers. Thankfully, I manage to hit the first step before the rain comes. A few droplets land on my face and shoulders, but before more can hit, I take shelter under the awning.
Breathing hard, I lean over and put my hands to my knees, waiting a few moments to catch my breath before I approach the door. My knuckles rap against the old, chipping wood, and I stand back to wait. Thirty seconds go by, and there's nothing. Not the sound of anyone behind the door or Micki's usual call to come in. I knock again, and when there's still no answer, my hand finds the knob of the door and twists.
The door opens, unlocked. I push in and call out. "Micks?" The interior is dark. "Micki? Are you here?" I shiver as the cool, dry air of the house hits me in the face, but something feels off. Something feels wrong.
I don't hesitate to continue further into the house. There's never anyone here but Micki anyway—I don't need to worry about angry parents. I'm pretty sure Micki doesn't have any. I've asked a time or two how she can live on her own when she's only sixteen, but she never answers. Just smiles with her stupid face and scrubs a hand over my head when she calls me kiddo—knowing exactly how it riles me up.
The living room is empty, save for her usual threadbare couch that looks as though it’s made from old carpet and the overturned milk crates she uses as a makeshift table with a plank of wood on it. Not just empty ... it's clean.
I scowl as I move around, searching the place with my eyes. Micki isn't necessarily a slob—she keeps her shit organized, what little of it she has—but this goes beyond cleanliness. This place looks ... empty.
A deep sinking fear etches itself into my stomach, and I move around the couch, pausing at the back to duck down and reach underneath, searching for the baggy of weed I know she hid here the last time I came. I always asked why she felt the need to hide shit if she lived alone, but again, all I got from her were more smiles and no answers.
The bag is there. My fingers touch p
lastic, and I pull it out. It's a little lower than the last time I'd come over, but it's there, and my heart leaps in relief. I clutch it to my chest and then stick it in my pocket as I start to go through the rest of the house.
The little hope that the bag of weed gives me, however, slowly dissipates as I move towards the bedrooms in the back. Micki's bed—a flat queen, far bigger than anything I've ever slept on—has been stripped of everything. Her blankets, her pillows, her sheets. All gone. I check the closet, but her clothes are missing too. I wipe a shaking hand down my face, feeling myself grow colder. This time, it has nothing to do with the temperature of the house.
Already knowing what I'm going to find, I start searching the rest of the rooms, but those are just as barren as Micki's bedroom and the living room. There's no trash. No nothing. It's as if all evidence that anyone had lived here at all has been destroyed.
What the fuck happened to her?
I make my way back through the house, feeling lost. Adrift. Shaking, and I can't figure out why. Am I angry? Am I scared? My heart's racing, and I can't stop it.
Then I see it. A single note. Not even an actual note, just a torn piece of paper. At first, I'd just thought it was trash. That is, until I'd gone through the rest of the house and realized that there was no trash. The house has been purged of everything that had made it Micki's. So this note, it means something.
I almost don't want to touch it. Too scared of what it'll say. Against my will, my hand moves towards it, lifts the paper that feels both heavy and light—too light. As if there's no ink on it. I turn it over and stare at the two words scribbled in a hurried printed font. The ends of the letters dragging sharply down and up as if she had rushed to get it out and leave it behind.
Because she was running from something? I wonder silently. I still don't know. I don't know anything about her, I realize. I know all of the small things—how she hates mushrooms because they’re fungi, but how she loves to cloud bathe. Not actually a thing, I'd told her repeatedly, but she never listened.
