by April Lust
***
Evan
“We’ll stop for formula later, okay?” Evan said, turning his head to check to make sure Hannah was still awake. She nodded back at him, chewing on her lower lip. Her entire face looked grey as a tombstone. It was like the last of her energy had been sapped away by the attack. “Hey, it’s going to be okay,” he said, trying to sound as reassuring as possible and probably failing.
“Yeah,” Hannah murmured back, but he could tell by the distant, dead way her voice sounded that she hadn’t even really heard him. Evan couldn’t really blame her for finally losing it. The woman had been through so much over the past several days, not even taking into account the years of abuse and mistreatment from Salvatore. Everybody had their breaking point and Hannah seemed to have reached hers. That was okay, though, Evan thought, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. He’d have to be strong enough for all of them.
“We’re just going to keep driving, keep going for a while, and then I know another place, a place that I don’t own, that they can’t trace back to me. Okay? It’s going to be all right.” This time Hannah said nothing, so Evan let silence fall in the car. He just hoped the car would hold together well enough to get them to the next hiding place. They’d been hit pretty hard and they hadn’t had a chance yet to stop and take stock of the damage.
How did they find me? Evan wondered. It must have been the cabin. The men had probably been on their way to storm the place and coincidentally ran into them on their way out. Did Salvatore know that he’d betrayed him? Or did he think that Evan had simply failed and run off to his cabin to lick his wounds? Or...had Salvatore planned on sending guys after him no matter what, just to get out of paying the bill?
Evil sonofabitch, Evan thought. This only strengthened his resolve to get rid of him somehow. Hannah might be too good, too pure to kill something, but Evan sure as hell wasn’t, especially when it came to Salvatore.
They drove farther and farther away from the cabin, into the bright twinkling lights of the nearby town. Christmas lights were strung up on every available surface, red and green and white and gold surrounding them on all sides.
“Where are we going?” Hannah finally asked several minutes later.
“Opposite side of the woods,” Evan replied.
Hannah made a little noise of distress, somewhere between a groan and a whimper.
“They won’t find us there, I promise,” Evan said. “There are old hunting cabins that people don’t use in the winter. We’ll pick one and break in. They won’t be able to find us out of all the cabins. It’d take them weeks or even months to search them all.”
“That won’t stop Salvatore,” Hannah said sadly. “He’ll never give up.”
She was right, but Evan didn’t want to say that just now. He figured he’d wait to tell her his plan until she’d calmed down a bit more.
“It was a good thing that you brought the gun,” he said, trying to get her to cheer up a little. But she just grunted in response, and he couldn’t tell if she agreed or not.
Honestly, she was scaring him a little. She was practically catatonic, giving one or two word answers and grunting or groaning instead of talking. He wondered if Salvatore had finally broken her. No, no, she’s stronger than that, his inner voice argued, and it sounded so confident, so secure in its knowledge of Hannah’s strength.
It surprised Evan to hear how powerfully he believed that Hannah was tough, that she was resilient, that she would bounce back from this just as she’d bounced back from all the other terrible shit in her life. It lit a fire in his belly, thinking about how tough she was. I wish I were that tough, he thought.
Even though he’d killed countless people, he felt almost amputated emotionally, like he was walking around with a huge internal wound that bled and bled and bled until there was nothing good or pure or strong left in Evan. But Hannah was different. Hannah had kept her identity. She’d stayed kind. Evan couldn’t say the same thing about himself.
Evan sighed deeply and drove faster, trying to escape the Christmas lights and return to the wilderness. They still made him feel a little sick to his stomach to see. They reminded him of the day he’d lost himself, the day he’d decided he’d rather be the one hurting someone than the person getting hurt. They day he lost his strength.
He stopped at a tiny grocery store on the outskirts of town. Somehow, through her haze, Hannah was able to find the formula Alex needed.
“You saved us,” Hannah murmured once they were back in the car. They drove back into the woods, albeit far away from his own cabin.
Evan shook his head. “No, Hannah. You saved us.”
She didn’t seem capable of arguing, but he could see her purse her lips and furrow her brow in the rearview mirror. “It’s okay. You’re tougher than me,” Evan said softly. But Hannah didn’t say anything. He wished he could hold her tight and squeeze life back into her, or otherwise absorb her fear and her pain until everything was okay again.
Alex started crying again, pitifully sniffling and sobbing quietly rather than giving off the huge wails he emitted when he wanted attention. Hannah turned to him. Evan saw her kiss the top of his head and felt a burning pain in his heart. I have to protect them, he thought. I have to keep them safe.
They rolled to a stop in front of an anonymous-looking hunting cabin with all the lights switched off. Evan got out of the car and took his lock-pick from his pocket, immediately working on the front door with ease.
“Where’d you learn to do that?” Hannah said behind him. She must have gotten out of the car right after he did. Evan looked over his shoulder to get a look at her holding Alex. She was bouncing him quickly in her arms and chewing on her entire bottom lip. It was clear that she was too anxious to stay still at the moment.
“Tool of the trade,” he answered her. The lock clicked and Evan pushed on the knob, slowly sticking his head in to look around for anybody waiting just inside the door. He’d learned his lesson from the last time he broke into a locked room, that was for sure. After a second, when he was sure the room was empty, he nodded at Hannah and gestured for her to follow him inside. Evan found a light switch and flicked it on.
“Shouldn’t we wait in the dark?” Hannah suggested as she closed the door behind them. “That way if someone comes back we have time to get out before they realize we’re here?”
Evan hadn’t really thought of that, but before answering her he ran a finger over the coffee table, removing a thick layer of dust. “They’d see our car first anyway. But we can if you want, if it’ll make you feel better,” he replied. “But I don’t think anyone’s been here for a really long time.”
Hannah nodded and adjusted Alex in her arms, walking around to look at the mantel above the fireplace. “They’re rich, whoever they are.”
“How can you tell?” Evan asked.
“They’ve got this urn up here,” Hannah said. “It looks like it’s got, like, jewels embedded in the side. Very fancy.”
“You’ve got a thief’s eye,” Evan said with a smile. “Got your eyes on the goods.”
Hannah gave a half shrug. “I used to think that way, anyway, as a kid.” Before Evan had an opportunity to ask what she meant, Hannah turned and walked up to him, holding Alex out towards Evan. “I’m gonna go get the gun and formula from the car. Can you…hold him for a second?”
Evan immediately felt a wave of anxiety crash over him. He didn’t know why he felt so weird holding the kid. It wasn’t like he had never held a baby before, but Alex was just so sweet, so accepting of his touch. It felt gross, touching a sweet innocent little kid with his murderous hands. But still, he nodded and took the baby into his arms as Hannah walked back out to the car. He stared down into Alex’s eyes, still a little wet from his earlier crying. “You’ve been through so much already,” Evan murmured out loud, even though he knew Alex couldn’t possibly understand him.
Alex’s tiny hand reached up and brushed against Evan’s chin, playfully batting him on
one side of his face and then the other. Evan felt himself smiling again, the baby’s eyes twinkling as he laughed at him. Evan couldn’t help himself. He had to lean in and kiss the top of his head. He’d never done that to anyone before in his life. Evan was almost afraid that he was going to mess it up, but Alex just giggled and squirmed happily in his arms.
Hannah had walked back into the room, and now she was standing just inside the threshold of the door, staring at him holding Alex. Evan felt a flash of heat go over his face and neck and shoulders, flushing with embarrassment. He wanted to ask her how much she’d seen, like he was caught doing something terrible, but instead he just cleared his throat and walked back toward Hannah, offering Alex back.
But Hannah just shook her head. “No, no, you can hold him. It’s okay. It’ll give me a chance to get his bottle ready.”
Evan didn’t know what to do for a second, but he found himself tightening his arms around Alex, holding him closer. “Um, thank you,” he murmured to Hannah.
She just nodded and shut the door behind her, turning around to set all the locks in place. “Are you sure nobody’s going to walk in on us?”
Evan nodded. “Yeah, nobody’s going to come up hunting on Christmas. Everybody’s out shopping and doing all that bullshit.” Despite reassuring her, Evan could understand why she was so terrified. She’d just seen proof that Salvatore had sent even more men after her. It wasn’t realistic to expect her to calm down that easily, but he hoped he could help quell her nerves.
“Christmas. I almost forgot,” Hannah whispered. She was still holding the gun, and Evan saw her hand tighten its grip around the shaft, her knuckles going incredibly white, like she was holding on to a lifeline. He wondered if he could convince her to put it down. “It’s weird. Just a few days ago I was buying a Christmas tree for me and Alex.”
“You like Christmas?” Evan asked. He didn’t know why he felt surprised. Almost everybody did, except for him.
Hannah shrugged. “I used to. As a kid, my family and I—” She cut herself off and shook her head. “Never mind.”
“No, I want to know,” Evan said softly, trying not to sound too persistent or demanding. She’d been through enough without him dragging her kicking and screaming through a conversation she didn’t want to have. But maybe talking about something else would distract her from the matter at hand. “You liked Christmas as a kid?”
Hannah nodded slowly and walked back over to the fancy fireplace, squatting down on the floor to sit next to it. She set down the gun and started to rummage through her stuff, mixing Alex’s formula with some bottled water from her bag. “I mean, all kids do, right?”
Evan’s mouth moved to respond without his brain’s permission. “I didn’t.”
She handed Alex’s bottle to Evan, her mouth open in wordless question for a minute before she spoke again. “I assumed you loved Christmas,” Hannah said. “That’s why…the Christmas lights, right? I found them on you when you broke in.”
Evan shook his head. “No, no, I hate it.” He didn’t say anything else by way of explanation. He rearranged Alex in his grip to help him drink from his bottle. He felt tiny beads of sweat appear under his arms. He tried to tell himself that it was just because he was holding Alex too tightly and the contact was making him overheated, but he knew it was because of nervousness instead.
“Why?” Hannah asked, turning to sit facing him instead of the fireplace.
Evan blew out his breath and started pacing back and forth across the room. He knew he looked weird as hell, just walking around pointlessly while feeding a baby, but he needed to move if he was going to tell this story. He needed to trick himself into thinking that there was a chance he could run away from it entirely.
A part of him was screaming internally, yelling at him to stop, utterly terrified of what he was about to do. But another part of him couldn’t think of anything else but the look on Hannah’s face. For the first time in hours, she didn’t look scared. She wasn’t calm, exactly. But her eyes were laser focused on him, staring at him with an intensity he’d never seen in her before. She was burning with curiosity, that much was obvious. Maybe it was just a temporary distraction, but Evan was willing to jump on it if it meant making Hannah feel something other than fear.
“I, um, I was six years old. I guess I liked Christmas before then, but it’s hard to remember, you know. My family didn’t have a whole lot, so maybe it was just like any other day of the year.” Evan cleared his throat again, feeling his heart pound up around his Adam’s apple. If he was going to do this, he had to tell the truth, the whole truth. Otherwise, what was the point? “Actually, that’s not true. I remember…I remember being excited. I was looking forward to it. Not because of the presents or whatever, but because…my dad was going to be off work. And we’d get to spend time with him, my mom and me and my sisters. We’d get to…” He trailed off, uncertain of where the sentence was going to end up.
“Be a family?” Hannah suggested from her position on the floor.
The words hit Evan like daggers to the heart. Just that phrase: a family. For some reason, there was nothing that could hurt him more than that, even now that he was practically middle-aged. Why are you such a little baby? Evan berated himself. Why does this still hurt so much? Why do you still give a fuck? He didn’t say that out loud, though. At the very least he had a tiny bit of restraint left that kept his voice steady as he simply answered, “Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.”
He lifted Alex up over his shoulder, patting his back gently. “Anyway, my dad came home on Christmas Eve, you know, and everything was fun. It was nice, hanging around him. But he was…he was weird. He was quiet. I remember thinking, oh, he might be coming down with something, because I had had a cold the week before, but no. That wasn’t it. It was…um….” He trailed off again, but this time Hannah was silent. He could see in his peripheral vision that she was still staring at him, just waiting for him to finish the thought himself. “The next morning, Christmas morning, I woke up and there was a note on the kitchen table. And I thought, Santa! You know how kids are. Dumb. I ran over as fast as I could to read it, but… It was my dad, instead. He was leaving the family, he said. He wrote, ‘don’t try to look for me.’” Evan paused to swallow thickly. “And then there were no more Christmases.” Not for me, Evan added silently.
“Jesus,” Hannah murmured.
Evan stared down at Alex, who was starting to nod off over his shoulder. “Yeah,” Evan replied.
“You win the shitty childhood award,” Hannah said a minute later, and Evan couldn’t help himself. He had to smile at that and tear his gaze away from Alex to look at her, a mischievous grin spreading across her face in slow motion.
“Well, what about you?” Evan asked, walking over to sit down next to Hannah by the fireplace. “Why’d you stop liking Christmas?”
Hannah shifted next to him, bending and unbending her legs over and over again, clearly trying to get comfortable. “It wasn’t…when I was a kid, it was fine, you know. We were poor as shit and we always stole stuff to get each other presents. My parents had way too many fucking kids. I was the only girl, and I think they kind of spoiled me, giving me lots of stolen stuff each year. But it was nice. I got to have good Christmases as a kid. It’s just…”
Evan wondered if he should say something to prod her to continue, but he decided to just wait, looking at her as her brow furrowed and her eyes closed in concentration. “It’s our anniversary. Christmas.”
It took a few seconds for realization to dawn on Evan. “You…you and Salvatore?”
“Yeah,” Hannah whispered, her voice hoarse and rough sounding, as if it had to punch its way out of her throat. “Me and good old Sal.”
“How many years?” Evan asked. He wondered if he’d known Salvatore longer than Hannah had.
“Seven,” she said. So, they’d each known him for roughly the same amount of time. How the hell did she survive seven full years with that asshole? Evan wondered.
They sat in silence for a while, the wind outside growing louder and louder with each passing minute. After a while, Hannah finally spoke again. “It’s the hardest thing, you know. Like, I grew up rough. My family wasn’t perfect, but at least my siblings and I loved each other. Salvatore…Salvatore never loved me. But I can’t look back on everything as a mistake, because it gave me Alex. You know?”
Evan didn’t know. But with Alex slumbering in his lap, snoring lightly, he could imagine what that felt like. He wished he could go back in time and kill Salvatore before he’d ever met Hannah, before he’d ever hurt her, but at the same time, Alex was this tiny beautiful miracle, this amazing thing that came out of the worst circumstances imaginable. It was hard to know how to feel about that.
