Come To Me (Owned 3)

“But you shot him in the head anyway,” I bit out.

Alice laughed scornfully. “It’s not like the world will mourn the loss of that moron.”

I let my bitterness, my resentments, and my hate drain from my body. If there was anything Alice hated, it was impassivity. She couldn’t stand the idea that anyone would look at her with apathy, that there was someone out there unaffected by her.

I shrugged. “Just like they won’t mourn the loss of you.” Her face transformed and the mask she wore fell. Alice lunged at me and I stepped aside, but not before her nails grazed the skin on my neck. She screamed at me, the sound like a banshee. It was the first time I’d ever seen her come undone.

It would be the last.

“You ruined everything,” she yelled, grasping at my shirt. “All for what? Some cunt?”

Maybe it was because it was the sixth day in that muggy, sepia colored motel room, or maybe it was because that fucking bastard was right, something was stronger than love: hate. When Seven gave me the keys to that stolen car, I took them. Still, I had to get my last word in.

“Killing Alice isn’t going to end GEM’s wetwork division. Where one head’s severed another will grow.” Seven puffed his cigar in response. “But you know that,” I pressed. “Who do you have in mind to put in the position?”

“Keep asking questions like that and you’ll really end up a dead man, Vic.” Pressing the round nub out on the bed, he signaled an end to our conversation.

“I didn’t ruin anything that wasn’t already razed,” I said, crushing the memory and throwing her off me. She staggered, falling back into the shadows. There was a part of me that wanted to prolong it, to say a few words. But I think when divorcing lasts longer than the marriage, you’ve already said enough.

Alice and I had gotten a divorce, but that wasn’t what we’d needed. Our marriage needed a funeral. We’d been dancing around death since the day we’d said “I do.”

I pulled out my SIG and aimed it at her head. Behind her the fire lit up the sky, just like I’d said it would—only for a moment though, because the smoke trailed after, darker than night. Alice leapt at me and I pulled the trigger, watching with no satisfaction as it lodged into her skull.

Our dance ended the day Lenny came into my life, but now the music had finally stopped.

Lenny slept soundly in Grace’s bed. In all the years we’d been together, I’d never seen her sleep through the night. Now that I was gone, she was sleeping soundly. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

Her hair fell across her face like a crimson curtain. I reached down and moved it away to get a better look at her pale cheeks. Blood still covered my fingers from Alice’s death. I should have gone somewhere—anywhere else—besides Lenny’s bed that night, but I had to see her.

She stirred slightly and moved to the other side of the bed. I folded my arms, wishing I could crawl in with her, wishing more than anything I could hold her to me. I felt like Orpheus climbing my way out of hell with Eurydice at my back. I knew she was there with every sense of my being, but if I did anything to try and get her, she would disappear forever.

It was maddening. I was starting to wonder why I hadn’t just let myself die in the fire.

Lenny stirred again, kicking up the sheets and exposing one long, moon colored leg. I examined it from the arch in her foot, to the arch in her knee, to where it connected at her hip. Everything about Lenny was poetry. It was almost as if she was designed by Da Vinci.

I sat down on the edge of the bed, watching to make sure her sleep didn’t waver. Allowing myself liberties I shouldn’t have, I reached my finger out and traced the lines of her leg. Her skin was just as smooth as I remembered, singing in harmony against the pad of my finger. It was just a little touch, but to me it was like giving water to a dying man.

I began to wonder if the myth was false. Perhaps I could turn around, grab Lenny, and rush us out of hell before Hades noticed. I snaked my finger higher, pushing the nightshirt past her hips so I could see the curve of her waist. It felt like I was being pulled apart not crawling in there with her. I pressed my palms into the mattress, daring to crawl closer…but it was too close.

The door flung open, streaming pale yellow light. “Vic? Vic, is that you?” I pulled Lenny’s nightgown back down, prepared to make the descent out of hell alone.

“What happened to you?” Grace asked, reaching a hand out to me. I looked down at my body, not sure how to answer that question. I felt like I’d gone to hell and crawled back out; I was sure I looked it too. I was covered in blood, and not all of it was mine.

Grace patiently waited for an answer. It was the only question she’d asked since finding me gawking at Lenny. Even then, she’d waited to ask it. She brewed coffee, she pulled out a chair for me, she practically threw a fucking blanket and swaddled me. Grace waited.

There hadn’t been any shock in her when she found me. In fact, she’d regarded me with disappointment. It was almost as if she expected it, which might sound insane, but if you’d had the life Grace had, the parents we’d gotten stuck with, it seemed insane not to expect it.

Not the coming back from the dead part, the disappointing family member part.

I sucked down the coffee, looking around the studio apartment. It was small, but that didn’t seem to matter. There were little pieces of Eli and Grace littered about, and there were pictures everywhere: Eli and Grace at the beach, Eli and Grace at Disneyland, Eli and Grace kissing in front of a wall, Eli and Grace kissing on the very chair I sat in.

“Where is Eli?” I asked, noting his absence in the small studio apartment. Grace blinked, her expression slowly turning from patience to rage.

“Where is Eli?” Grace repeated my words, fury dripping from her tongue. “Are you fuckin’ kidding me right now?” As if the way her pale cheeks reddened wasn’t enough of an indicator, Grace never swore, so I knew she was angry. From behind the slab of granite that separated the kitchen from the rest of the house, I shrugged.

“It’s an honest question.”

Grace scoffed, turning from me to the cabinets. “Probably the only honest thing about you.”