Back in the Rain

by Elen Chase

  "I was suspecting it, An," he said. "Don't you see you're troubling him?" An lowered her eyes, visibly sad. I got anxious; I didn't want him to tell her those things. But closed up in my glass jar, again I could just watch.

  "Dan, I'm sorry," said the doctor then, talking to me. "An needs to come here to wait for my wife during these days, but we can change our appointment time if it's okay with you." My mother was there too; the doctor had probably asked her to stay to discuss that. Only, An wasn't troubling me. She was a sweet girl with a tender smile. She was the only one who ever smiled at me when everybody else laughed.

  "An, you can't be so selfish with other people." It's not like that, I thought. "You have to consider their feelings more." It's not like that. I have to say something, I don't want this to happen. I don't want the doctor to raise his voice. I don't want An to be sad. I don't want to ruin the happiness I admired so much in that picture.

  A sadness I had never felt before spread from my heart through all my body. Hot tears fell down my eyes. I covered my mouth before any sound could come out. The oldest habit I had, the one I created to keep away the screams from me. I wished they wouldn't look at me, but Dr. Lowell promptly rushed by my side and put his hands on my shoulders.

  "I am so sorry Dan, we shouldn't have talked like that in front of you," he said with his usual soft voice. I wanted to run away and never come back. I had ruined everything. I looked at my mum, wondering if she'd be mad if I cried. She was gazing at me with an expression I didn't recognize.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "It's my fault. It’s because I'm strange that An is getting scolded." I wanted to repress the tears, but they just kept going. "I'm sorry." I covered my eyes with my shaky hands, hoping that nightmare would end soon. Then I felt something grabbing the back of my shirt. I opened my eyes and saw An holding onto it with one hand, the other arm busy drying her own tears.

  "It's not fair," she sobbed, "that the first thing you tell me is 'I'm sorry.'" I didn't know how to react to that.

  Dr. Lowell looked at us speechless for a little while, then he smiled broadly, took the both of us in his arms and picked us up. "Enough. I am the one who needs to apologize. I didn't realize at all that you kids were friends."

  "Even though I told you, stupid dad, stupid!" cried An. Mum got close to us, and I kept my eyes down, ready to be scolded. But she patted my head instead. "You're doing your best, aren't you, Dan? Mum will do her best too, I promise," she said.

  That day was my beginning. I really talked to my mother for the very first time, and I let somebody close to me. An saved me. She changed my world for me. The Lowells became my family. They even sustained me when later on my mother started falling apart. From then on, An and Drew were all I had.

  Until she was taken away from me. The first secret I kept from Drew, my very first lie. The 5th of May of our last year of middle school, An was killed.

  It was a Saturday. Drew was out of town for a soccer match while An and I went to school normally. After class we were supposed to go back home together and prepare something to celebrate Drew's victory, but I was called to the principal's office to discuss a scholarship I wanted to apply for to get some extra credits for high school, and I told her to go ahead.

  When I left the school building, she wasn’t answering my calls. On my way home I saw a group of people gathering by the street. I got close and saw An lying on the ground; in a state of confusion I heard people saying she had been hit by a car. I was allowed to ride on the ambulance with her, and I called her parents. I didn't have the courage to call Drew. A part of me was still hoping that at the hospital they would tell us she was gonna make it just fine. But I could read on the doctor's face in the ambulance that her life was in danger. At the hospital I found Uncle Rick and Aunt Emily. An entered the emergency room and stayed inside for two long hours. When the surgeon came out, he said that it all depended on how her body reacted to the treatment; if she could live until morning, then she was gonna survive. I was terrified; I didn't want to lose her. I found myself praying for the first time in my life. I didn’t even know to whom my wish was addressed, but I prayed for her to live. I promised I would do anything if she could just be saved. The doctors wanted us out of her room, but in the deepest desperation I asked to stay with her only a few more minutes. When we were alone I took her hand, and she opened her eyes. She was suffering and weak, but she was alive: I immediately stood up to call for help, but she stopped me.

  "Dan, wait," she said in a whisper.

  "An, I'm calling the doctors now, they'll help you," I said, trying to look strong for her. "You're gonna be alright now."

  "Don't leave me alone… I'm scared." That was the first time I ever heard her say something like that. "Dan… I already know… I'm dying." I felt the whole world falling on me.

  "No, no, you're not. You'll be fine, you..."

  "There's something I have to tell you," she said, holding my hand, no energy left in her body. That Ange, always so strong and cheerful, was now so small and fragile. I sat by her bed, ready to listen to whatever she was going to tell me. "Before, with that car… I knew it was dangerous… but I didn't care… I was running away," she said. I was confused, and scared. My heart was pounding furiously in my chest.

  "Runni— from what?"

  "Two men dressed in black. I don't know who… they tried to get me in their car, but I ran away." I was completely in shock, so much I thought I was imagining everything. "Tell Annie, okay? I don't want something to happen to you too. Promise."

  "I promise… An..." I was suffocating in my own tears, in a daze. Guilt was eating me alive. I shouldn't have let her go home alone. "I'm sor—"

  "No," she interrupted me. "The first thing you ever told me was 'sorry'… Don't let it be the last too… Dan… I didn't want to die alone…I'm so happy you're here."

  "An…"

  "Before I met you… our world was so small… it was just me and Annie, and all the rest didn't matter… you brought so much more in our lives… you saved us... thank you, Dan."

  "You… An, you two saved me, you taught me how to live… you are everything to me…" I cried, deep sobs shaking me from head to toe; but I wanted to tell her before it was too late. "Thank you An, thank you… thank you." She gave me the most beautiful smile I have ever seen in my entire life.

  "Take care of Annie," she said, her eyelids growing heavy.

  "I will."

  "And let him take care of you."

  "I will."

  "Love is such a small word… if I told you guys that I loved you… it wouldn't be enough," she said in a whisper, and her hand let go of mine, falling on the sheets.

  "An… An!" I called her, but she didn't reply to me. Her heart rate monitor signaled an emergency through a long, sustained beep. I was brought out of the room by force, and I only have scattered memories of what happened immediately after that. I vaguely remember Auntie hugging me and caressing my hair, in tears; a long wait on those hard, uncomfortable hospital seats; the doctors coming out of her room; myself running up the stairs to the rooftop, gasping for air, waiting for Drew. I was leaning on the side wall of the door, crying, with the feeling that the sky was gonna fall down on me, when I heard the elevator reaching my floor. Two men walked to the terrace. I stood up to go away from there, when I saw them from around the corner: two men dressed in black like An had said. I went still, unsure about what to do, and listened to their conversation.

  "How could you let her escape? We could end up in trouble because of that," one of them was saying.

  "She died, it didn’t go too bad."

  "You're sure she didn't say anything to anybody?"

  "I heard the doctors say that she never regained consciousness. But we can keep an eye on her family for a while and eventually get rid of them. A car accident would be perfect."

  "Sounds good. Get in touch with the boss and tell him we'll have to postpone everything and find another girl. He's not gonna be pleased." The man lit a cigar and turned
my way while smoking. A necklace shined against the light of a neon sign on top of the closest building, revealing a symbol: a seven pointed star in a spiral. I impressed that figure and the conversation I’d heard in my head and waited for them to go away, afraid they would do something to my family. In shock, I walked back to An's room and insisted to stay there alone with her until Drew arrived. Seeing his face was like waking up from a bad dream. The world is still here. Life is still here. I needed him, I ran into his arms, weeping, unloading all the confusion, the suffering and the fear I had inside me. I wanted to tell him everything I had heard, but I remembered how those men talked about killing them in cold blood, and I couldn't bring myself to. That day, for the first time in my life, I lied to him, hiding that An had opened her eyes and talked to me before dying. And lies went on ever since. I was tormented, unsure of what to do. I was angry and scared, I wanted to act as a shield for the people I loved, and at the same time I wanted to know more about the men tied to that seven pointed star. They’d said they would 'postpone' whatever they were going to do with An and they were gonna take another girl; it was something too big for me, too frightening.

  One day a note came to my house to remind my mother that my school fees were late, and it signed a turning point for me. I found out Drew's family was paying for my tuition fees, and that my mother’s debts wouldn't allow us to live in Uptown for too long. I realized that my life there was only for rent. The Lowells had done too much for me. They had given me the best life I could hope for; now it was time for me to go back to where I belonged and try to repay them. I wanted to avenge An's death and prevent those people from killing anybody else. I needed to get away from their family so that they wouldn't be in danger. I wanted to keep them safe, and I wanted to safeguard the world Drew was gonna live in. I wanted him to be happy, to keep smiling, even if it meant not being able to be by his side anymore.

  When I said goodbye to that family, I wanted it to hurt. I wanted it to be definitive. I formally offered to repay my economic debt to them like we were strangers: no hugs, no tears, no affection. Just a polite thank you. Leaving Drew was way harder. I had been lying to him over and over about An, about the decision to move and about the promise to go visit him, and it weighed heavily on my conscience. Until the last second I fought the temptation to confess everything to him, to tell him how important he was and will always be for me. I swallowed my regret and my tears, and I managed to leave him without a word; it hurt, but I knew it was better that way.

  Chapter 64.b

  Dr. Miller passed me a glass of water to drink. I couldn't keep my eyes off those reports I had in front of me. How could I never notice he had been hurt so badly?

  "He doesn’t have any scars," I said, my fingers sweaty on the paper describing his physical conditions.

  "We treated his injuries with a combination of laser therapy and plastic surgery, leaving no trace of them. Whenever he looked at his own body, he kept continuously reliving that torture he went through. Those scars were too much for his mind to bear… and for me to see, if I can be honest."

  "I need to know what they looked like," I said. "I guess that before the surgery you had to take some pictures of those scars."

  Dr. Miller glared at me and I held his stare, despite the heartache those eyes, which looked so much like Dan's, were giving me. "We did, but it won't be nice to see them… Are you sure?"

  "I want to know everything about him."

  Dr. Miller took another cartel from his drawer and passed it to me. Looking at those pictures, all the disconnected phrases Dan repeated over and over during his nightmares finally made sense.

  “It burns. It hurts.”

  “That man will kill me.”

  “I repeated to myself all the time… It would be over soon… but it just starts again.”

  “I don't want to burn to death.”

  Hatred toward that piece of shit who did that to him filled me to the point my head could have exploded, and suddenly I started feeling sick. I was about to throw up, and Sean helped me reach the toilet. When I finished I searched my bag for some tissues, and there I found a watchpad I had forgotten about. It was Ms. Wilson's. As soon as I touched it, I realized something.

  "She wasn't talking to me," I told Sean.

  “It's you,” she had said right before dying. “I'm glad you're not alone anymore.”

  What face were you making in that moment, Dan? Where did you find the strength to get me out of that place, as that woman you knew so well died right in front of your eyes?

  "She made the sect believe she was the one who had taken that knife. She wanted to keep them away from him, Sean," I said.

  I turned her watchpad on, and I found several missed calls and messages from Hutchison. I scrolled the list and recognized an audio file she had forwarded me: “message received n.33”. Next to it, many other messages coming from him: Robinson.

  “Take care of the kid,” he had said in that message.

  But at that point Shallie had already been poisoned.

  Dan… this was about you too.

  Chapter 65.a

  When I first returned to Downtown, I spent some time trying to understand how living there worked. School was different from what I was used to; it was all about not drawing the attention of the gangs and being careful of those selling weed or worse. If school is like that, I thought, the world of the adults must be even worse. But that's where I wanted to get as soon as possible. For a couple of weeks I was bullied by a bunch of older kids, but it soon stopped thanks to a convenient rumor about me that I wasn't expecting. They thought I was the son of the owner of a casino, a guy quite known in that part of Downtown: a heartless bastard with demon eyes of a rare shade of blue. The fear that man inspired reflected on me, and I made use of it to learn how to get information safely around town. Following the suggestions I was given, I ended up at the Madame Papillon, which was also the place my mother was working at.

  A couple of months passed, and she ran away with a man. It didn't shock me or surprise me. I was ready for it, and somehow it gave me an excuse to move forward. I got permission from school to work for a living, and I applied for a job at the brothel, telling the old lady I needed the money, and that if she refused to hire me I was going to do it anyway on the street. She accepted, gave me a place to live, and had me trained on how to do the job. That was when I finally cut ties with Drew, who I was calling rarely already; I could never tell him what I was going to do. I knew he would have done anything to help me, and I was determined to be the only one of us to get in the dirt. The girl who trained me, Sara, described our job to me in a perfect way that I still remember now; she said that it was like being an actor. You have to build a character and act continuously in order to please the client. That way you can avoid trouble, and if you're a good player, you can even use the clients to get what you want.

  Seven months and seven days after An's death, before I could do anything at all, I read on the news that a fourteen-year-old girl from Downtown had disappeared and was found dead a couple of days later. It was them; I could feel it inside my bones. I wasn't able to help her.

  This time things were going to be different. After seven years I was finally able to do something to stop them. We went to the villa two weeks before all the other members, because Colten needed to have “a few things” prepared. I wasn't allowed to walk around the villa freely from my room in the guesthouse, since Colten was dead jealous anybody could see me. Besides, I suspected the girl was already there somewhere, and clearly he didn't want me to meet her. The surveillance around the villa was high, and I could only move at a precise time of day to go see him by passing through the maze linking the two buildings. Tired of being forced into that fixed routine, one day I decided I was going to do things my own way. I put a sleeping powder into his drink, and when he was sound asleep I sneaked out of his bedroom to take a look around. I found on the third floor, not so far from his room, a blinded door, well hidden behind a corner. In
the previous months I had had the chance to steal from his watchpad his files with passwords and codes and so, after two or three failed attempts, I managed to open it. Behind it the corridor continued, and at its very end there was another room. It required a four-digit code, and in my stolen files there was only one number matching that criteria; the door opened almost too easily. I went in, and in a flash the girl inside came at me swinging a chair. I grabbed her wrists and shook them strongly to make her drop the chair, and then I immobilized her by passing my right arm around her from behind, while shutting her mouth with my left hand. I was harsh on her, but with that commotion she was only going to attract their attention and have us both killed.

  "Stop, calm down, I'm not an enemy, I swear," I whispered in her ear, trying to keep my voice as calm and reassuring as possible. "I'm here to save you. But if you scream, those people are gonna come here and blow my brain out. I’ll let you go now, so please, trust me, don't scream, will you?" I loosened my grip around her body just enough to let her turn her head a little and look at my face. She stared at me with fierce eyes, and I really wished she would do as I said. She nodded her head slightly, and I freed her.

  "Who are you?" she asked me, promptly taking a step back from me. She was a beautiful girl with delicate face traits; long, blonde, wavy hair and big, light blue eyes. In a white dress to her knees, she looked like a princess from a fairy tale.