“I didn’t take her away. She came to me. I didn’t do anything.”
“You fucked her pretty quick, didn’t you? You sure as hell did that to me.” I’m silent. He knows what happened, there’s no denying it. “So, now I’ve taken her away from you too. If I can’t have her then nor can you. Now we’re even.”
“I didn’t fucking kill her though. Are you joking about that?”
“I’m not joking. She’s dead. Oh listen, you can hear the sirens coming now to pick her up.”
I do hear the sirens, but it doesn’t feel real. This has to be some sort of trick he’s playing on me. I need to keep him on the phone to figure out what’s going on.
“Well, you took away my business too,” I insist. “So, that’s two things.”
“I thought that she was worth two things.”
“You are fucking crazy. I don’t believe you. You haven’t killed her.”
“Oh, I have. And now the guns are coming for you too. Sorry, I guess that means I’m taking three things away from you. One of them is your life.”
I hear what sounds like gunshots, but I don’t want to get sucked into his reign of terror. He must be doing something on the phone…
But then I peer out the window and I see sheer panic from the press. They are all running now as if they’ve actually seen something, which terrifies me. My blood runs ice cold. Jeremy is a madman, a mad powerful man with money, and he’s coming for me.
“Uh oh. You better run little piggy, or I will get you.”
“What the fuck is this, Jeremy? You’re a freak.”
“I know, don’t you regret messing with me? This is for all the men you steal their wives from, and their money too. Hard earned cash going to bitter bitches.”
“I don’t just do divorce…”
“That’s the cornerstone of what you do, and that’s enough for me. Also, I can’t imagine it’s just my wife that you crossed a line with. I bet you do it all the time.”
“I don’t.”
“So, it’s just my wife? Well, that’s a big mistake. I will make you pay.”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“You need to stop this. Innocent people are going to get hurt.”
“As long as you’re one of them I don’t care.”
“I’ll go to the police.”
“It’ll be too late. You’ll be dead by then.”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Fuck!”
I hang up the phone to Jeremy, cutting off the one line I have to the outside world, and also to the only person who can stop this. He won’t though, not for me. If he killed Nova, which I really fucking hope that he hasn’t, then I’m nothing.
“Fuck, I need to get out, I need to…”
I don’t know what I need to do, so I do what feels a bit like the coward’s way out, and also might be exactly what Jeremy expects me to do but I don’t have any choice, and I call the police. I explain the situation rapidly to the operator who promises to get someone around to mine as soon as possible… but I’m scared that Jeremy is right, and it’ll be too late.
Now the bangs seem further away, but I don’t know if I can trust that. I don’t know what’s being created by my mind to protect me. I duck down behind the couch, looking far less like a superhero or a prince to rescue a damsel in distress, and more like a coward.
I don’t want to die. I really don’t want to die. Not now, not here like this.