Within seconds, his address is entered into my GPS. I close my eyes and slam my head back against the leather seat, taking several deep breaths that do little to calm my nerves. The tires crunch over the gravel driveway when I pull off from Tom’s shithole of a house. I watch that little blue arrow on the navigation screen draw closer and closer to where Lila is. This was my sole purpose. Finding Lila was how I justified every fucking sin I’ve made, day in and day out for the past six months. And here it is, my resolution. I will find the man who bought her. I will find her, and I can turn these sons of bitches in, and Ava…Ava… My throat tightens in a panic because whatwillI do with her?
I’ll take her with me.Is that wrong? Would it be wrong of me to take her with me? I feel things for her—there is a comfort with her I’ve never experienced, something so right and natural. And I fear if I actually let myself see it, I’d find I’m in love with her or that I’ve gone fucking batshit crazy.
I floor the accelerator, going wide-open down the old country road. And within ten minutes I’m pulling onto a long, winding driveway. The house is a large Victorian manner with an Aston Martin parked in front of impressive landscaping. There must be at least forty windows and only one is lit up.
I grab the revolver from the glove box and step out of the car, being careful to close the door quietly. My heart bangs against my ribcage as I grapple with the thought of what I’m about to do. I don’t mind killing. It’s the thought that I’m about to save her that has me on edge, because what if I fuck up? I have no plan and although that should make me precautious, it doesn’t. Sometimes anger and revenge work better than any rational plan could ever hope to work.
I stay close to the manicured bushes lining the front of the house, then quietly tiptoe up the stone steps to the stained glass door. The door doesn’t budge when I pull on the handle. Exhaling, I drag my hand through my hair, searching for something to break the glass door with. Next to the entrance is a large cement planter housing a wilting bay tree. Pebbles are scattered around the trunk, and there, sticking out like a sore thumb is a large, plastic rock hide-a-key. I can’t help but smirk as I take the key from it and toss it back into the planter. A soft click of the latch and the door silently swings open into a large, marble foyer with a grand piano at the base of the winding staircase.
It’s eerily quiet and even though I attempt to be discreet, the heel of my boots echo up into the pitched ceiling. I cock the gun. That click reverberates around the room, the sound causing a sick grin to twist my lips. There have been plenty of people whose lives I have fantasized about taking, but this faceless man—I have dreamed of taking his life then Earl’s for far too many nights. I want this. I need this like I need the fucking air I’m breathing.Retribution.
Once I’ve climbed the stairs, I head to the side of the house where I saw the lit window. I take a right and creep down the long hallway past room after room, and at the very end I see a cracked door, the light streaming out into the hallway. A deep sob flows into the hall, followed by a man’s voice pleading with God. I stop right outside the door and press my back to the wall, gun raised.
“Why?” he cries. “Ilovedyou. I loved you!”
I sidestep a little closer to the doorway. Through the cracked opening I can just make out a large four-poster bed topped with thick blankets, and there beside it kneels the motherfucker who has had my sister for the past seven months. My hand shakes, my finger twitching over the trigger. I watch as he reaches up and takes a hand into his, kissing the back of it gently.
“I loved you…” he says again, shaking his head and crying.
Sweat beads my brow line and I struggle to catch an even breath. I want to slaughter him. I want to crucify him.
He nuzzles her hand again and that’s when I notice something’s not right. Suddenly, the rage building in my chest dissipates, fear and apprehension quickly replacing it. I kick the door open and the man jumps, his bloodshot eyes darting over to me and the raised gun. He looks broken, desperate, and instead of reacting, he simply turns his attention back to the bed, bringing a pale hand up to his face and rubbing his cheek over the fingers. My gaze swings to the bed. My knees threaten to buckle. My heart holds back several beats before going into a full on sprint.
Lila is in the middle of the bed. Half of her skull is blown to bits, blood and brain matter splattered over the white linen sheets and back of the wooden headboard. All this time, and I was maybe an hour too fucking late. One goddamn hour.
I want to fall apart, drop to my knees and scream, but I don’t. Instead, I keep my gaze locked on the lifeless body of my little sister, tears blurring my vision as I raise the gun and press it against the man’s temple. He doesn’t move or make a sound, and I say nothing, just pull the trigger. A loud bang breaks the sound of silence followed by a distinct thud as his body hits the hardwood floor. Closing my eyes and inhaling, I drop my chin to my chest.
“I’m sorry, Lila.” I barely manage the words as I open my eyes and step over his body to the edge of the bed. I grab her hand. Finding it is still warm causes my stomach to turn and I choke back a sob. There’s a 45 still gripped in her other hand.
Lila was taken, yes. She was taken off the streets and stripped of what little self she had. Sold to this man who, so it seems, may have actually loved her. Large diamond rings adorn her fingers, a Tiffany’s necklace hangs around her blood-soaked neck. This life—well, it seems like the kind any girl would gladly accept, especially one who had lost everything, who had been reduced to fucking men to support a habit. Yet, Lila chose to kill herself. She was a prisoner to drugs and to the streets and still had the will to survive, but here, surrounded with all this, she chose to end her life.
And why?
Because love is not something you can fake. It is not something that should be manipulated. And being forced to believe you love someone you don’t, I guess that’s enough to drive anyone insane. I don’t know how long I stand here, holding her hand and crying, accepting that I failed her. But eventually, I let her hand fall to the bed and leave, driving in silence back to the house.
I will not fail Ava.
25
Ava
Ican’t sleep. My mind travels into those dark places, wondering if today is the day I’ll die. My cuticles are bleeding from where I’ve picked at them. I listen to the noise upstairs. It sounds like there are more than just Earl and Max up there. There are a lot of footsteps and I can hear the faint hum of music. I listen as the footsteps cross the floor, watching the ceiling and trying to imagine where exactly they are above me. They disappear and I swallow. They are no longer in the room above me, which means they may be coming down the—
The sound of voices in the outside room forces my heart into a sprint. They’re all deep. Men. It really is a terrible feeling—waiting. Playing the horrible thoughts over and over in your mind. I swear, I keep thinking I see shadows, but there are no windows. So I know that can’t be right.
At times I feel like I can’t breathe.
Sometimes I scream for no reason other than to just break the silence. You’d be surprised that silence actually does have a sound. And I think it is the loudest, most unbearable sound I’ve ever been forced to endure.
After a while, you start to actually think you hear yourself thinking, the noise of your own breathing makes you want to scream. And then I realize…there is a radio. Funny how conditioned I’ve become to think there is only silence when Max is not with me. I’m reaching over to turn the radio on when the lock slides out of place and adrenaline jolts through my body.
Earl steps in, followed by Bubba and some other middle-aged, pudgy man with straggly pieces of red hair combed over his balding head. Earl lifts a finger at me. “There she is. She’s a purdy little thing.”
Bubba snorts in a laugh and the other man waddles into the room, slamming the door closed. “And fucking Max’s got a hard-on for her.” Bubba laughs.
“Hell,” the redhead says, spitting dip on the floor, “I gots one right here just looking at her.”
“Fuck her if you want,” Earl says. “Just give me an ounce and we’ll call it even.”
