Page 13

Eve

Jason stares at me blankly, his face turning slightly pale as he freezes in place.

“I mean, I just called you and said ‘there’s a body in my driveway , come quick,’ but I never gave you the address…never told you where I lived. So how did you know where to go?”

His eyes dart between mine for a brief moment before he clears his throat. “Your address was on the paperwork when we first met,” he says, breaking eye contact as he fumbles to unbuckle and open his door.

My brow furrows as I follow him out, shutting my door quietly and crossing my arms.

“So you had it memorized, or what? Because you got to my house pretty quickly, and I doubt you stopped by Everlast first to check your records.”

He walks around the back of the car to approach me, his steps long and slow, and the tenderness I saw in his face just moments ago in the car are washed away by a cold, serious expression. He still doesn’t make eye contact with me, even when he unlocks the trunk.

“Eve, I can access all documents from my phone. Those forms are uploaded to my drive, to the cloud. I just had to pull them up.”

It makes sense, but something in his delivery seems so distant. No sooner do I step towards him and open my mouth to speak, than the back door opens and Maya steps out. She’s not wearing her usual dress suit and heels, and instead is barely recognizable in a pair of black sweats and a white athletic tank top.

“Jason, what’s going on?” she asks as the security light mounted above her catches on her hair. It’s wet, as if she had just gotten out of the shower: she all but runs to Jason, not noticing me across from her as she looks him over. Concern paints her face as she nods her head towards the trunk, and Jason nods. He pops the trunk, exposing the tarp inside. Maya leans over the car to peer inside the trunk and clicks her tongue.

She really doesn’t seem phased at ALL.

“The retort is already on and nearly fully heated.”

She pivots to walk back inside and heads along my side of the car, stopping in her tracks when her eyes meet mine. Her surprise makes sense: Jason never mentioned me, and here I am, dead body in tow. I can see the whites of her eyes when she sees the blood on my face, my disheveled clothes and hair: she walks up to me, hands reaching up to brush my hair from my shoulders with the utmost care. I keep my eyes on her as she scans my face, my clothes, before letting a gentle sigh escape her lips. She gingerly cups my cheeks with both hands, turning my head from side to side as she examines me.

With my face still in her hands, she turns and looks at Jason. I can’t see her face, but I see Jason’s shoulders slump as he nods at her, and she slides her hands from my face to my shoulders as she looks back my way. My shoulder is still sore, and I wince a little when her hand glides across it.

“You poor thing,’” she says, dropping her hand and shrugging her shoulders. “Come with me, we’ll get you cleaned up.”

I look at Jason, almost as if asking for permission, and he smiles at me.

“You’ll be in good hands with Maya, I promise. I’ll take care of this.”

I let Maya lead me inside the back entrance of Everlast, and down a hallway to a large bathroom. Lockers line the side, and at the end are two showers with built in seats and handrails. The bathroom feels slightly humid, as if water was running in here before, and I look up at Maya’s hair before me, the wet tendrils curled up in a messy bun.

I wonder why she was up so late…and at Everlast of all places.

“Are you hurt? Injured?” Maya asks as she leaves my side and heads to a locker, opening it and pulling out a towel. She hands it to me before opening a second locker and fishing around for something.

“Aside from my shoulder, I think I’m ok. Jason reset it for me, but it’s still sore.” I move to rotate my arm, the motion causing a shooting pain as I hiss through my teeth.

“Don’t move it more than you have to,” Maya says as she closes the locker, a wad of clothes in her hand.

Setting the clothes on the table nearby, she walks over to a medicine cabinet and pulls out some pain relievers, shaking one out and handing me the pill before grabbing a disposable cup from the counter near the sink. She fills the cup and hands it to me: I take the pill gratefully and place the empty cup on the counter, Maya nodding contently.

“The shower will help your muscles relax, and give you a chance to clean off.” Her voice is compassionate as she leads me over towards the shower.

Maya and I definitely grew closer during our lunch with Jason, but she still doesn’t know me that well. Not well enough to be speaking to me as tenderly as she is right now, considering I’m covered in another man’s blood. She doesn’t seem bothered, threatened or concerned about the situation at all. All of her focus seems to be on me, making sure I’m ok, and as I kick off my shoes, I see her watching me, her eyes slightly narrow with concern.

“Maya…you won’t tell anybody anything, right? I mean…I just…why are you so calm right now? Why are you willing to help me? I-I KILLED somebody, Maya. He tried to attack me, to kidnap me, and I killed him. I should be in jail.”

I try to reach to pull my shirt over my head, and cry out. My ribs are sore , muscles tight from the repeated blows I dealt with the crowbar, and my shoulder screams as I try again to remove my shirt.. Maya looks at me, motioning to my torso.

“May I,” she asks, waiting for my permission to help me undress.

I nod, and she walks over, taking care to undo the buttons on the shirt before easing one arm out, and then the other.

“I was born in China,” she says, pulling my shirt from my body and reaching down to help me with my pants.

“My parents were very poor, and my father was a drunk. When I was very young, I was sold to a group of men who liked to use girls for their entertainment,” she tugs my pants from my hips, sliding them to my ankles and letting me use her to stabilize myself as I step out one foot at a time.

“I spent years there with a group of other girls. We were raped. Tortured. Abused. And I spent every day dreaming of how I would get my revenge on the men that kept us captive.”

She rises, pausing her story to ask if she could help me undress fully. I’m not shy, and am grateful for the help. As she moves behind me to unclasp my bra, she continues.

“I would always try to protect the younger girls from the monsters who wanted to hurt them, and in doing so I myself was hurt.”

Her hands move to my shoulders, gently lifting the straps and sliding them down my arms, and as I watch her hands move against my skin, I remember the scars she has all over her hands and forearms. This poor woman has suffered so horribly, and I had escaped a fate that would’ve doomed me to experience the same horrors. I felt a wave of guilt hit me as I watched her continue to undress me.

My bra falls from my body, and her hands glide downward to my hips, easing my underwear down my legs so that I can step out of them.

Walking back in front of me, she gathers my clothes, her voice quiet and soft.

“One day we were getting shipped to a new location after the traffickers caught wind that their location was compromised. We were huddled in a warehouse office when we heard gunfire and screaming outside. When the fighting had stopped, the office door burst open and a large, tattooed man walked towards us. He was covered in blood, bullet hole in his forearm, but when he saw me standing in front of the other girls, ready to protect them, he got to his knees and spoke. He said “My name is Jack, and you’re all safe now…”

Her voice trails off slightly and my eyes widen slightly as I feel pieces clicking together in my head.

Jack…Jack? Like Jack from Clover? Nah, it’s a common name, there’s no way it’s the same guy.

“The trafficking ring was disbanded after that…but since then I’ve felt a great sense of responsibility and care for women who suffer at the hands of evil men.”

She finally looks at me, her eyes meeting mine as they darken, the glimmer in them awfully similar to the one I’ve seen before in Jason’s eyes.

“They tried to hurt you. To steal you. Who knows what you would’ve had to endure had they succeeded. You defended yourself in a way I was never able to, and for that, I’m incredibly proud.”

Her footsteps are silent as she pads over to the chair near the lockers, placing my clothes there and returning to turn on the shower. The water takes a few seconds to warm, and she holds the curtain open for me.

I offer her a small, heartfelt smile, and step into the shower, the curtain closing behind me. The water is welcoming, the steam calming the last of my nerves as I thrust my face under the downpour and hold it there. Bringing my good arm up, I use my hand to rub all over my face, feeling the dried blood and sweat loosen up and slough away. I do the same with my hair, saturating every strand until the water runs clear, and after a few minutes of scrubbing and soaking, I turn off the shower and open the curtain.

Maya is nowhere to be seen, the towel she had grabbed for me sitting nearby. I reach for the towel, trying out my injured arm and am pleased to find I can move it without too much pain. I smile to myself, and thank Maya silently as I get dressed.

The sweatpants and t-shirt that Maya had left for me are soft and comfortable. I decided to throw away all of my old clothes–bra and underwear included–and as I leave the bathroom, I look both ways to try and remember how to get back to the crematorium. It’s at that moment that I hear the slight echo of a male and female voice coming from up the hallway, and as I turn to follow the voices, they get louder and louder.

“....Yeah but Jason, are you sure nobody is going to be looking for him?”

“I’m pretty sure. I fingerprinted him before putting him in, and sent it to Ace, he said the guy is a degenerate with virtually no paper trail. And if Ace says it’s good, then it’s good. How’s Eve?”

“She’s strong, Jace. So strong. If I had half her strength when I needed it most–”

“Maya, don't do that to yourself. You’re safe now, and you got the revenge you waited so patiently for. Eve got hers. All the scales are balanced.”

As I approach the door to the crematorium, I hear the talking stop. Even with no shoes on, they must’ve heard my footsteps. Pushing open the door, I see Maya and Jason standing side by side in front of the retort, watching the flames through the glass panel. Maya is holding two cups of coffee, and as I approach the other side of Jason, she reaches across him and hands me the cup. I smile at her and she smiles back, taking a sip of her drink and looking up at Jason. I follow her gaze and come to rest on his face, tracing his jawline, his cheekbones, the way the flames are reflected in his eyes. He continues to look straight ahead, the muscles in his jaw working as he occasionally clenches and relaxes them, and I can’t help but to wonder what is on his mind.

Keeping his head straight, he looks down at me out of the corner of his eyes, and the smallest of smiles pulls at the corner of his mouth. He puts his arm around me, and I lean into him, sipping my own coffee and feeling myself finally able to fully relax.

The three of us stand there in silence for what seems like forever, watching the flames lick and twist around the corpse inside, and for the first time since my father died, I feel like I’m with family.