VENGEFUL QUEEN

by St. Germain, Lili

  Her smile gets bigger. “Yeah. Of course I do.” She opens her eyes. It looks like it takes a lot of effort. “Do you know how we leave? I know it’s not a real train. That would be convenient. One step.” Avery walks her fingers over the mattress, then lets them fall.

  I take her hand in mine and brush her fingertips over the pills.

  Avery’s eyes go wide. She’s got the most stunning eyes I’ve ever seen on a person. Whatever happens next, I’m going to close them. Nobody else is going to look into them. I’m the only one. The last one. A wild, possessive urge grips me. I should have been looking into those eyes for years now and years to come. She should have been mine.

  She’ll be mine in this, at least. This is all we get.

  “We’re going to have to push through.” I’ve been thinking about this for hours. “There’s no water, and your mouth is dry. But you have to keep swallowing, okay?”

  Avery nods solemnly. For the first time in days, all the tension leaves her face. Okay, her lips say, but no sound comes out.

  I sit up then, lifting her upright too. We can lie down again when we’re done swallowing. Twelve pills, six for each of us. One sweep of my hand to tip them into her palm. They’re so light, for all the work they’re going to do. A little bit of chemistry, pressed into a neat circle. Fucking crazy. I’ve held these pills a thousand different times, just like this. A sped-up montage of my buyers over the years flashes in front of my eyes. All those businessmen. Those three girls on their knees. So many glassy-eyed smiles. And now, the two of us.

  Avery reaches forward and takes my hand. Hers doesn’t tremble at all. Is that because she’s relieved or because her body is out of energy, even for a shiver? Could be both. Could be anything. I can’t get a full breath. There are things I want to say, that I need to say to her, but we’ve said it all. We have said every possible fucking thing. And, even now, I can’t stamp out the hope that there might be something after. I want to crush that feeble hope under my foot like a cigarette butt. I can’t do it. So what? In a few minutes, I’ll know for sure. Consider this an experiment. Avery’s sister tried it first, when she drowned herself. Here we come, following in her footsteps.

  Aves looks down into her palm, studying the pills there. All the years I’ve known her make me think she’s got questions. Any reasonable person would want to know. Is it enough? Will it hurt? How long will it take?

  She looks back into my eyes. Christ, those eyes of hers. There are streaks inside them, almost like gold. You couldn’t dream those eyes up.

  “Let’s go.”

  Avery raises her hand without hesitation. She opens her mouth, and I’m her mirror. I follow her. No more discussion. We’re going. Train’s leaving the station.

  The pills are dry and hard on my tongue, the edges warped from their time in my pocket. It doesn’t make a difference. What does make a difference is how dry my fucking mouth is. I told Avery she’d have to keep swallowing. I didn’t count on having trouble myself. But I do it, one by one, the jagged edges scraping on the way down. They remind me that I’m still alive, for the moment. Something in the back of my mind screams at me to stop this. That fucking thing called hope. You can’t kill the bitch, even at the bitter end. There’s nobody coming to save us. This is it.

  “Done.” Avery’s beaming. How did that happen so fast? I expected more of a struggle, honestly. Fuck these people for making her so eager to die. Someone like Avery Capulet should never want to die. She should only want more, more of the world, more of life.

  I put my hands on her face and ever-so-gently coax her mouth open. I check beneath her tongue and in her cheeks. She’s good. They’re gone. And so am I.

  She leans into me, planting a chaste kiss on my lips. The gesture breaks me. I was composed until she did that. Now my eyes fill with tears that I didn’t know they could still produce, as she kisses me again on each stubbled cheek. She pulls away from me, a contented smile on her face. There’s a rock in my throat that I can’t swallow past, and it’s not because of the pills. It’s because my heart is breaking, shattering into a million jagged shards that shred me to pieces on the inside.

  “Thank you,” I murmur, kissing her cheeks tenderly with my sandpaper lips.

  Her eyes flutter closed, and I draw her back down to the mattress. Pull her in tight. Why the hell not? This is how we go out—together. I take a big breath of her in and then another one. Everything is limited now—we’re running out of breaths. How terrible and wonderful is that?

  Avery’s lips part, her mouth working. I can’t take my eyes off her. There are worse sights than this to die to.

  “Tell me you love me, Rome.” A light whisper, like a summer breeze. Nothing to it, but the words themselves are electric. A little smile, there and gone, in a second. “You don’t have to mean it. Just say it.”

  Something breaks in my chest. It’s my heart shattering.

  “I love you,” I say fiercely, and the thing is, I do mean it.

  The truth of it, the terrible, wonderful truth, is that I mean it. I’ve always fucking meant it. I’ve always loved Avery Capulet. Even when she sat there in that courtroom and ruined my life. Even when I fucking hated her.

  Even then. Even now.

  There are so many things we could have done. My life spools back up in my head, going to the moment my dad first told me that I was going to marry her. Why didn’t I fight for that? I could have fought for it, and maybe I could have had it, somehow. I could have done everything in my power to have her.

  So many things. So many trips together, to far-flung islands and impossible deserts and opulent hotels that nobody in their right mind can afford. So many mornings I could have woken up with her. So many nights I could have made love to her. So many babies I could have made with her. So many years I could have existed in her presence. I could have done it all, but I didn’t; and now, I’m left with this. This one, fleeting moment, right now. If the drugs weren’t already starting to work, I’d think about crying because it’s such bullshit that we missed out on it all.

  “I wish that I had let you visit me in prison,” I murmur. “I think if I hadn’t been so stubborn, things might have been different.”

  Avery nods sleepily. “I wish that I had tried harder to find my way back to you,” she whispers. “I always hated what I did to you.”

  I kiss the top of her head. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  Avery sighs. “It was unforgivable.”

  “I love you. I forgive you.”

  Avery grips me tighter. I wonder if she feels like I do - like if she holds on tighter, she might be able to wring one more moment out of this fatal embrace.

  “Love you too,” she murmurs. And it strikes me that this is probably the last thing she’ll ever say, to anyone. It doesn’t make up for all the shit we’ve missed. It doesn’t make up for all the years of angst and pain and hate.

  I can’t have a life with her. But I can have her last words. They’re mine. Pin them to my heart and let me die.

  I say it again, into her hair. I love you.

  The next time she speaks, the words blur into each other. ILoveYou.

  The drugs are pulling me down, too. It’s getting harder to fight their pull.

  At least I’ve got her in my arms.

  There’s nothing but darkness waiting.

  So into the darkness we go.

  PART TWO

  Resurrection

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ELLIOT

  Riding in a SWAT BearCat isn’t as fun as it looks.

  For starters, there’s nothing to hold on to. The driver might be comfortable enough upfront, but in the back, we’re crammed in like gun-toting sardines, stacked along both sides of the truck’s rear cab on narrow metal benches.

  I mean, it makes sense. Comfort doesn’t belong in a scenario like this, as the nine of us in the back of the BearCat wait patiently, nerves running in high gear as we approach our destination.

  I can only see glimpses out of t
he front windows, but the bounce of the wheels underneath my feet tells me we’re still on the Bay Bridge. Speeding away from the city, headed for a house in Oakland and the precious cargo housed within.

  Across from me, my partner-in-crime — literally — gives me a tight smile. Isobel. Her blue eyes are hard, focused, but I’ve gotten to know her well enough during this case to see something in them — hope. I nod because I can’t even muster up a smile, knowing where we’re going, what we’re about to see. I know she feels it, too. We’ve been watching the horrors of this house unfold on a video screen in silence for the past two months, a live video feed of brutality and blood — so much fucking blood — and now, we will star in the final episode.

  Or, maybe we won’t. The live feed from Avery Capulet’s chamber of horrors went offline an hour ago, just as the motherfucker in there with her, wrapped his hands around her neck and started to squeeze. Just as the sophisticated cyber-cloaking that we hadn’t been able to crack inexplicably timed out, and for a split second in time, we could suddenly see exactly where the video feed was coming from.

  I’d been expecting somewhere in the city. A warehouse, maybe, or the basement of a derelict building. I hadn’t been expecting a shitty house on skid row, a block where you can buy anything from weed to heroin to a blowjob, all without leaving the comfort of your driver’s seat. Sometimes people choose to hide in plain sight, I guess.

  Our driver lines up the BearCat, and we all brace as he starts reversing. We’re moving fast enough that if you were standing behind the truck, you’d be pulp on our tires, before you even knew what hit you.

  I think of my daughter just before impact. I always do. Her happy little face swims in my thoughts, the way she will put her chubby hand on my face and frown when she sees me trying to keep my shit together, long enough for her to fall asleep. She’s barely old enough to be at preschool. She shouldn’t have to see me twisted up in knots because of the things I’m about to see.

  At least, I hope that’s what will happen tonight. I could die five minutes from now, but for her, I’d prefer to survive. Read her a book. Tuck her in. Have a damn beer after she falls asleep and wait for the adrenalin comedown to kick in. Maybe I’ll finally be able to get some sleep tonight, without worrying about getting another call about new video footage being streamed, without pulling clothes on in the middle of the night and speeding downtown to have to watch a girl get beat to shit, yet again, all the while knowing I can’t help her, because I can’t fucking find her.

  I guess it all depends on what we find when we get in there.

  For a moment, time slows. It stretches out like a mirage, the rapid movement of our convoy becoming a slow-motion scene. The BearCat’s rear smashes through the front of this unassuming suburban house; the shock wave enough to knock the breath out of my lungs. And that’s it. Everything else falls away. There’s no time to do anything except jump out of the back of our personnel carrier, through plumes of dust and plaster and falling bricks, as I follow my teammates into the living room where we search for any threat - and any sign of life.

  There is nothing. The place is empty, save for a dirty mattress on the floor, its stains and rips promising stories I’m not sure I want to know. The thick soles of my combat boots crunch over used syringes, some of them marked inside with cloudy smears of blood. This is a place where hope goes to die.

  We move through the house in pairs. It’s a typical dwelling for this part of town — living room at the front, then the kitchen, with bedrooms running off a rear hallway. There are three bedrooms in this tiny single-story house, one bathroom, and a storage closet.

  We will search through every corner until we either find what we’re looking for; or until we don’t.

  We move down the hallway in a convoy. There is no speaking, no noise. Somebody could be taking a shit in the toilet at the end of the hall, and they’d be oblivious to the fact that ten heavily armed Federal Agents are about to bust in. Never mind the fact that they would have heard and felt the earth move as the side of their house was obliterated by the BearCat. Moving silently like this, in formation, is still the best way to take someone by surprise, before they have a chance to take you out first.

  We move with stealth, panther-like, communicating through a mixture of hand gestures and the well-oiled routine we’ve practiced countless times before. We each hold everyone’s fates in our hands, but it’s more than that: we hold hers, too.

  The girl on the TV screen. She’s why we’re here. She’s the thing we’re all consumed with getting out of here alive. The bounty. The cargo. Avery Capulet.

  We all move into position. Each team of two has been assigned a room to search and clear. Isobel and I have the back bedroom, and we’re ready. In position, each with an automatic assault rifle held in front of us, the bullets inside big enough and bad enough to cleave a grown man in half.

  On cue, each door is either opened or kicked down. If there was time to stop, to think, one would marvel in our synchronicity. But there’s no time. Three bedroom doors, one bathroom door, and a storage closet door explode from their hinges in the space of a single second in time, and then we’re moving.

  “FBI!” Isobel screams, echoing the yells in the other rooms. I move in behind her, my finger already applying pressure to my rifle’s trigger, ready to shoot anything that moves. And something does move. There’s a crunching noise amongst a pile of old clothes and trash. I’m a hair’s breadth away from shooting a fucking rat when I realize it’s just a rat.

  “Team leaders, what is your status?” a voice calls out.

  “Bedroom one is clear!”

  “Bedroom two is clear!”

  My turn. “Bedroom three is clear!”

  “Bathroom is clear!”

  “Storage closet is clear!”

  There’s a brief pause. I look at Isobel, my gun still aimed in front of me, tensed and ready to shoot.

  “Any sign of the girl?”

  Jesus Christ, please don’t tell me this is another dead end. Not again. I’ve had enough dead ends to last me a lifetime during the six weeks I’ve been assigned to this case.

  “We have a body in the bathroom,” I hear a voice call. “Adult female, deceased.”

  A body. Fuck. It takes every muscle in my body to stop myself from puking. I see Isobel’s face fall. We lower our guns, still on high alert, and head for the bathroom, leaving the rat to live another day.

  We’re both thinking the same thing: Is it her?

  The rest of the team sees us coming down the hallway and steps aside, letting us past. Everybody is impatient to see what’s happened, but since it’s our case, they’re letting us go first. Isobel and I are the ones who’ve spent every waking moment for the past six weeks glued to a laptop screen, watching the live feed of a real-life snuff film, with seemingly no end scene. We’ve interviewed just about every criminal to have ever stepped foot into the city of San Francisco and its neighboring suburbs, bribed low-life thugs to give us breadcrumbs of intel. What started as a simple kidnapping case, one we thought would end quickly and with a hefty ransom payout, has consumed us.

  And the thing that has kept us going, the singular thing, is knowing she was still alive. That we might get to her in time.

  And now this.

  “Do we have an ID?” Isobel asks, before we’re even in the room.

  Isobel and I shuffle through the rest of the SWAT team in silence, guns by our sides, until we reach the bathroom. Tommy, the team leader, looks at her with blank eyes. “Not yet.”

  “She’s in the bathtub,” one of the officers says, looking at the floor as I pass him. I step carefully into the small bathroom, my heart hammering in my chest.

  The first thing I see over the tub’s high edge are long, dark strands of hair covering a pale face. A young woman. She is nude, the only thing on her body a string of red rosary beads slung around her slender neck. There’s no water in the tub, just a trail of blood that appears to have been draining down the plu
ghole for God only knows how long. The harsh smell of the bleach invades my nostrils, burning my eyes, making my skin itch. The girl’s flesh is so pale it’s almost iridescent — whoever did this poured bleach on her, probably in an attempt to clean away any traces of their DNA. Two crude letters carved into the skin between her breasts - XO - confirm my worst fears. The serial killer we’ve been chasing has just claimed his thirteenth known victim, and we’re too late. Again.

  Is it her? Is it Avery Capulet, the girl I’ve been watching day and night, as she was beaten and tortured and bled out? I pull a pair of sterile latex gloves out of my pocket, snapping them on in a kind of stupor, as I stare at the dead girl’s hair.

  I want to see her face. I want to know who she is.

  I want to smash something. I want to find whoever did this and make them suffer.

  I wish I’d never moved to this fucking city. I want to go home.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ELLIOT

  “Is it her?” I ask the silent room.

  Isobel shakes her head beside me. “I can’t get a clear look at her face.”

  Somebody hands her a pair of long tweezers and gloves from an evidence collection kit. She hesitates before accepting them. I want to offer to take them, to try and ID the girl, but I stop myself. This was her case, from the very beginning, before I’d ever heard the name Avery Capulet. Isobel has been tracking the XO killer for a long time, and I’m not about to muscle in and snatch this moment from her.

  The room is silent as Isobel hands her rifle to me, drags on plastic gloves, and takes the tweezers from their sterile packaging. She leans over the bathtub, moving strands of hair out of the way, revealing the dead girl’s face.

  “It’s not her.”

  I let out the breath I’ve been holding, but the dead girl’s identity is hardly a relief. Just because this isn’t the girl we’re looking for, doesn’t make her murder any less heinous. It just adds a layer of complication to an already complex case.