by Rhea Wilde
Another security camera hung from the wall on the other side of the sprawling building. John leaped up to it then managed to disable it after a few seconds. In the distance, I watched him motion to me with one hand before disappearing into the darkness.
I paced my way to the warehouse. I looked left and right, paranoid anything could happen. When I got to the warehouse, I searched around for any door I could get in. I finally managed to find a door but when I pulled the handle, it was locked.
“Shit…”
I muttered to myself and looked around to see if there were another way to get in. Outside of climbing the wall and crawling through a window, there didn’t appear to be any other way.
I kept tugging at the door handle as if it would somehow magically unlock.
“Come on…”
I heard something. A sound rang in my ears. It was a man’s voice. I immediately put my back up against the wall. I tried my best to remain silent. My heart beat so fast that it was hard to steady my breathing.
What is that?
I heard something coming from inside of the warehouse I leaned up against. The sound of more than one man struggling was undeniable.
“Shit…”
What do I do?
I reached forward and grabbed at the handle of the door, hoping it would somehow open this time.
“Come on, you piece of shit,” I whispered to myself.
Where are you, John?
The sound of violent struggling ended abruptly. I stopped pulling on the door and stood there in silence. Before I had a chance to fear the worst, the handle clicked and the door slowly opened.
I quickly moved to the other side of the door and pressed myself against the wall, hoping I wouldn’t be spotted. I peeked one eye open. It was just enough to see John poking his head out from the other side.
“Let’s go,” he said.
I nodded to him then quickly followed him into the warehouse.
“What the hell was that?” I said as I walked just behind him. “I thought you were—”
I stopped in my tracks when I saw it. The warehouse was sprawling and nearly empty except for a single light hanging from the ceiling. It was low to the ground. It spotlighted something just underneath it. I didn’t have to look much harder to figure out what it was.
“Who is that?” I asked.
“It’s him.”
John and I walked up to the body. John rolled it over and I saw the man’s face.
His head was shaved clean. His beard was long and thick, down to his chest. His skin was light but blemished and he had a few scars on his cheeks. He wore a pair of black slacks and a matching, long-sleeved dress shirt. His outfit wasn’t any different from the crowd I saw at Sinful just the other night.
His eyes were shut and he wasn’t moving.
“Is he—”
“No,” John said. “He’s not dead.”
“Right… He was guarding the place. Is he security?”
“He’s more than that. He’s Owens.”
“W-wait. This is—”
“Wallace Owens. Shaving his head wasn’t much of a disguise. The scars on his face match his personnel file.”
“Is he alone?”
“It appears that way. I can only assume he wanted to see first-hand that it was all right.”
“What was all right?”
“That.”
I was so focused on the unconscious man I didn’t notice the machinery next to me. Even with barely any light in the room, I could see all of the equipment, shining and brand new.
“Everything is nearly set,” John explained. “The equipment is ready for manufacturing.”
“Drugs,” I whispered to myself. “Right here in the heart of New Gardens.”
I shook my head to get out of the daze I was in. I took a step back and raised my camera up.
“I don’t know if I can get any good shots with such bad lighting,” I said.
“You’ll have to make due. Take as many pictures as you can. It’s not important though. Having Owens here means you don’t have to.”
“What do you mean?” I said as I turned to John.
“All you have to do is call the police. They’ll find the equipment. They’ll find Owens. He won’t be able to explain what he’s doing here. Not unless he wants to get what’s coming to him.”
“Yeah… Yeah, you’re right. I should call them now. Before he wakes up.”
I reached for my phone in my pocket and called the police. I explained the situation to them. John stood next to me, patiently waiting for me to finish.
“They’re on their way,” I said after I finished the phone call. “Are they going to get here before he comes to?”
“Owens will be out for a long time. He won’t get away.”
“Still… There’s something bothering me…”
“What’s that?”
“It’s—”
“Hold on.”
John interrupted me and put his hand up. I remained silent despite how much he startled me.
“What?” I whispered.
“Do you hear that?”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“There’s someone here. Outside.”
“What? Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe it’s the cops.”
“It can’t be. Not that quickly. We have to get out of here.”
He reached for my arm again and started dragging me to the exit. I pulled my arm away from him as we quickly escaped the warehouse. As soon as we got outside, I finally heard it.
The sound of several car engines filled my ears. It came from every direction. I leaned up against the wall of the warehouse with John right next to me.
“What do we do?” I whispered. “They’re gonna find us.”
“Damn it,” he muttered to himself. “It was the security cameras.”
“You disabled them.”
“I did. But not before they saw me. I… I was sloppy.”
“Well, we have to do something.”
“We have to split up.”
“What?”
“I’ll draw their attention. I’m the only one they saw on the cameras. They think it’s just me.”
“What? That’s crazy. I can’t just let you—”
“I’ll get away. All you have to do is hide. There are too many warehouses in the area here to check. Once I get away, they’ll stop searching.”
“Sabin, I don’t care how much training—”
“It’s the only way. You have to trust me.”
I looked at him, his brown eyes piercing through the shadows and burning a hole through me. A gnawing feeling worked at the pit of my stomach. Leaving John here felt like a mistake.
“Eva—”
“All right.”
“Hide in one of the other warehouses. The cops will come before anything happens. I promise.”
I listened to the sound of engines grow louder. The headlights from the vehicles shined on the warehouse we were just in. The sound of men chattering was unmistakable.
Without thinking any longer about it, I left John. I ran from the warehouse while trying my best to remain as quiet as possible. I made my way past two other warehouses before I finally managed to find a smaller building with an unlocked door. I snuck inside and pressed myself against the wall.
My heart was beating so fast I thought it was going to burst out of my chest. Sweat covered my body. I trembled with a combination of adrenaline and fear. My eyes closed, I waited for the moment to pass. Outside, the sound of men talking was loud enough for me to hear even from two buildings away.
“Over here!”
“I think I saw someone!”
I only had to wait for the police to arrive. That damn incompetent New Gardens PD.
Where are they?
I breathed silently in the darkness. It felt like an eternity.
“In here!”
The voice was so loud it felt like it was right next to me
. The sound that followed was even louder. Without warning, I opened my eyes to see a massive door opening next to me like a garage. The door to the warehouse I hid in raised all the way to the low ceiling. Three figures stood there before me.
The moonlight was just enough for me to make them out. Two of them held weapons, automatic assault rifles, pointed right at me. And then there was a third man.
“Well, what do we have here?”
That voice…
The man slowly walked toward me, his eyes seeming to glow in the dim moonlight. As he approached me, he finally came into view.
His hair was dark brown and slicked back over his head. Tan and smooth skin. A goatee around his mouth was trimmed to perfection. He wore a black suit and a matching shirt underneath it draped his tall and lean physique. In the center of his chest, there was a blood red tie that stuck out.
He approached me with a smile, his white teeth gleaming in the darkness like fangs. He held his arms out casually like he was welcoming me.
It was him. A man I never thought I would see again.
“Is that…” he said to himself, his head turned sideways slightly.
I stared back at him in disbelief. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.
I must be dreaming.
“Eva? Eva, is that you? My goodness, of all the luck!”
He laughed to himself. An obnoxious cackle that annoyed everybody who heard it. I wanted to puke as soon as I heard it.
“To think, I was planning on visiting you,” he said. “You decide to come right into my lap. And you brought a friend, too. Who is he?”
“What the hell are you doing here, Reese?”
“Eva? What’s with all of the hostility? After everything we’ve been through? We’ve lost a lot of time together.”
“We haven’t lost anything.”
“Don’t be like this, Eva.”
“Blow me.”
He walked up to me. His cheap cologne wafted into my nostrils, bringing back unpleasant memories. He tried to touch my cheek but I knocked it away.
“Don’t fucking touch me, asshole,” I said to him.
I glared at him, my jaw clenched. I’d rather be anywhere else in the world than where I was now. But he kept smiling at me. After all these years, his grin still felt so sickeningly familiar.
“I know you’re angry about what happened to us,” he said.
“There is no us. There never was.”
“Yes, there was. There will be again. I remember how you felt about me. Once I get this operation up and running, everything will be back the way it used to be all those years ago.”
“You? You’re the one behind all of this? Owens—”
“Ah, Wallace Owens. Just another cog in the machine to get back to you. He was found out sooner than I expected. By the world’s greatest private investigator. I’m proud of what you’ve made of yourself, Eva. Coming to New Gardens and becoming such a success.”
“What are you up to?”
“You don’t get it, Eva? You don’t know how much I care about you. You don’t know how much I love you. I don’t care about the drugs. All I wanted was to make enough money so I could take care of you.”
I started laughing at him.
“I don’t care what you feel or why you’re doing it. You won’t succeed. The police are on their way. You stick around, you’re gonna have a lot of explaining to do.”
“Yes,” he sighed. “Owens will take the fall. It’s only a minor setback. It won’t stop me from setting up the distribution centers and making the fortune you and I both deserve.”
“It won’t work.”
“It will.”
He took a step back from me, his smile still wide.
“It’s a shame the police will interrupt our reunion,” he sighed. “It was good seeing you, Eva. You’re even more beautiful than I remember. We’ll meet again…”
He kept looking at me as he spoke to his men.
“Did you locate the other intruder?”
“Negative, sir,” one of his men responded.
“No matter. We’ll track him down eventually.”
He snapped his fingers at the two men pointing their weapons at me. They lowered their rifles and accompanied Reese as they left.
In the distance, the sound of police sirens grew louder and louder. I remembered John. I thought about calling him or sending him a message. There was no telling if he were safe.
But the first thing I had to do was get off Industry and back into the city. I couldn’t explain any of this to the police when I couldn’t even explain it to myself.
Chapter 10
EVA
Ten years earlier…
The streets were nearly empty as the rain pounded down on it. The buildings, the cars, and everything unfortunate enough to be out in the open quickly became cold and wet.
Even bundled in a sweater, my body shivered. I wrapped my arms around myself to try and stay warm. My gaze remained locked on the windshield in front of me, watching the constant downpour spill onto it.
“I’m cold,” I muttered.
“It’s all right. Just give it a moment. The heater will be working any second now.”
The man in the driver’s seat next to me fiddled with the knobs on the dashboard. I could feel the rush of warm air coming from the vents of the car but it wasn’t coming out fast enough.
“There, there now. It’s just a little rain. What’s the spring without a spring shower?”
He rubbed a hand on my shoulder. I closed my eyes for a second and enjoyed the feeling of it. The sound of his voice always put me at ease no matter what mood I was in. I could feel the warmth beginning to spread through my body.
“How do you feel now?”
I turned to him and saw him smiling at me. Nobody ever smiled at me the way he did. He was so handsome. There were times when I wondered what I deserved to be with a man like him.
“Good,” I responded, a smile creeping its way onto my lips. “I feel better now.”
“You just get yourself as warm as you can,” he continued.
“Do I have to go back out there? It’s raining pretty hard…”
“Only for a moment. It won’t be for very long. You trust me, right?”
“Yeah, I trust you.”
He leaned forward, moving his face closer to me. I closed my eyes and his lips pressed against mine. It wasn’t the first time he kissed me but it always felt that way. Even when I knew it was coming, his kisses did something to me. It was like he had complete control of my body. Nothing else mattered because there was nothing else on my mind. I only wanted to be with him.
His lips pulled away from me and I opened my eyes. He remained staring at me, his blue eyes looking back at me with a sweetness I’d never seen from any other man. He narrowed his eyes at me and my face quickly flushed with embarrassment.
“I won’t ask you to do something like this again,” he said. “You only need to do it once.”
“I know. It’s just…”
“You’re scared. It’s all right. But once you do this, I’ll have made enough money to take care of you. You and I can go somewhere nice. We can spend the rest of our lives together. Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “I haven’t really thought about something like that.”
“You had to have thought about it before though. Think about it. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? Just you and me, Eva?”
I giggled to myself, looking down at the floor mats as I thought about it.
“I don’t know,” I responded. “There are so many places.”
“Then maybe we’ll go to all of them. How does that sound?”
“All of them?”
“Yeah, all of them. New York. Los Angeles. Paris. London. Tokyo. Rome. All of the big cities people always talk about. Yeah, that’s it. We won’t settle down. We’ll travel the world and go from place to place. What do you think?”
�
��I…”
He smiled at me, his teeth gleaming at me and hypnotizing me.
“…I just wanna be with you,” I said. “Wherever you go, I want to be by your side.”
“I like the sound of that. Sean and Eva. Traveling the world together.”
He reached his arm toward me and wrapped it around my shoulder. The cold I felt just a few moments ago was a distant memory. I’d never felt safer than in his arms.
“Do I still have to do this?” I asked. “You know I don’t need to be in a nice place. I just… I just wanna be with you.”
“No. It’s not good enough. You deserve better than my tiny apartment. As soon as you’re finished doing this, we’re gonna have a lot of money.”
“Will it be enough? I mean, to travel the world?”
“It will be a lot. I can use that money and re-invest it into other things. This is just the first step, Eva. You understand?”
“Yeah… I think I do.”
I turned to him and he kissed me again. His tongue pushed into my mouth. The stubble on his face pressed against my soft skin. I pulled away from him just long enough to catch my breath.
“It’s been a long time since we first met,” he said. “But it always feels like yesterday. Do you remember the first time I saw you?”
“I… I remember the first time…”
“Yeah, I caught you staring at me at the coffee shop. There were a lot of other girls in that room but you were the one that caught my eye.”
I turned my face away from him as I started to feel the embarrassment return to my cheeks.
“You were beautiful from across the room,” he continued. “But when I got closer, I saw that you were even more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. I knew right then I would do anything to be with you.”
He was a few years older than me. I think that was why I was so attracted to him in the first place. The way he combed his hair. The fancy way he dressed. The scent of his cologne. The way he spoke to me like I was the only person in the world. Just from the way he looked at me, I knew he was different. I was the luckiest woman on the planet.
“That’s why this is important,” he explained. “I’ve… I’ve worked hard to get to this point. Now I need you to finish this last step for me, okay?”
“Okay, I just…”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m just not sure I can do this.”
