“Her phone is ringing in there. I can fucking hear it. She fell asleep or something?” her landlord asked.
I listened closely and heard her ringtone through the door. “You got a key?” I demanded.
He shook his head. “She said she would meet me here, and I didn’t think to bring my keys.”
Son of a bitch.
I walked around the back of the duplex and pounded on the back door. I called her name again but there was silence.
“Yo, I’m gonna call the cops, buddy. This isn’t right,” her landlord called.
I jogged around to the front of the house and pounded on the front door one last time. “You got insurance, right?” I asked.
“Of course,” he replied.
I rammed the door, crashing my shoulder into the hard wood. It didn’t budge. I stepped back. “You wanna fucking help here?” I growled at her landlord.
He dropped the phone and stepped next to me. I counted to three, and we both planted our shoulders into the door. It slammed open.
Reva’s purse was on the kitchen counter along with her phone and keys.
“I’m calling the cops.”
I didn’t care what he did. I had to find Reva.
She wasn’t in the living room.
She wasn’t in the bathroom.
The door to the second bedroom was open, but she wasn’t in there.
Her bedroom door was wide open. The shirt she had been wearing this morning was on the floor, along with a smear of blood. A ladder was tipped over in front of the closet, and the trap door to the attic was open.
What the fuck? I righted the ladder and quickly climbed up. I peeked my head in, and my heart dropped out of the chest.
A large hole was crudely cut into the dry wall that separated Reva’s attic from Harry’s. I hoisted myself up and made my way through the hole. I pulled my gun out of the waistband of my pants and leaned over Harry’s open attic door. No one was there, but a large blood stain on the carpet turned my stomach.
I dropped down through the hole. My knees hit the floor, and I looked around frantically. She had to be here somewhere. Music wa
s playing loudly from a speaker set up by the bathroom. “Reva!” I called. My finger rested on the trigger, and I made my way over to the bathroom.
I turned off the music and slowly moved down the hallway. I plastered myself against the hallway wall and peeked around the corner into the bedroom.
Harry stood there, naked as the day he was born, and he was looking down at Reva’s lifeless body.
“Don’t fucking move, asshole!” I pointed the gun at Harry’s head and stepped out from the hallway.
Harry slowly raised his head and smiled. “You’re too late. You can’t stop us from being together now.”
I wasn’t too late. Reva wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be. My eyes darted to her lifeless body, and my heart sank.
Harry quickly raised his arm, a gun in his hand, and pressed it against his temple. “She’s mine now.” He pulled the trigger, his brains exploding all over the wall, and he crumpled in a pile onto the floor. His brains seeped out onto the carpet.
I scrambled to get to Reva and gathered her lifeless body in my arms. She was still warm but not breathing. “Come one, Sunshine. You’re not leaving me,” I sobbed. Her battered face was caked with blood, and her bottom lip was swollen.
Voices sounded above me. “Help!” I screamed.
Loud banging came on the door, but I didn’t leave Reva. I wasn’t going to leave her. I laid her flat and placed my lips on hers. I blew into her mouth, trying to do anything to get her breathing.