Page 25

W hen Jessica wakes, I’m in the middle of pouring her a cup of coffee.

The moan that accompanies her stretch echoes around the studio, bouncing off the walls and soaking into my skin, garnering a wide grin from my lips.

“Good morning, Agent.” I turn, lifting the mug in the air as she peels her eyes open. “I trust you slept well?”

Her smile is bright, illuminating those eyes of hers in a way that makes me want to crawl back in bed and get lost in them. “The best shut-eye of my life.”

“And how are you feeling?” I snag the small bottle of pills from where she left them last night and twist open the cap, depositing two in my palm.

“Enough for a couple of those.”

I huff, filling her a small glass of water as well. “Better than the dose you took last night.”

“This is true.” Jessica sits up, wincing as she does. “So there’s progress.”

A small wave of anger attempts to surge in my stomach at the pain I know she’s still in, but I find solace knowing those responsible are currently floating down the river.

I bring her the medicine, watching her pop them both to the back of her throat before handing her the glass to wash them down.

“I’ll let you get up and get situated, and in the meantime, make you some breakfast. Over-easy eggs with smashed avocado on sourdough sound alright?”

“You never want to get rid of me, do you?”

Hooking my finger under her chin, I lift her delicate face, my eyes boring into her with a seriousness I want her to feel in her soul. “Never.”

The shining beam she gives me is nothing short of infectious, and I can’t help but kiss her soft lips. Once, twice, three times is barely enough before she smiles against my mouth. “Let a girl freshen up first, huh?”

I huff. “There’s a new toothbrush on the counter—that charcoal brand you like—and some toiletries.”

Her brows knit together. “When did you…” Her eyes flash over to the clock on my bedside table before her pupils swell, eating away the beautiful blues. “Fuck, I slept in-slept in.”

Returning to the kitchen to begin her breakfast, I shake my head. “As expected. You were physically assaulted and hospitalized.”

Another bout of vexation sears against my skin.

Dead. All of them. No need to be upset. In fact, soon enough, the entire cartel won’t even exist.

I consider Alexi’s plan to eradicate them once and for all and hope that we manage a way to move the timeline up.

“I didn’t even have a concussion. Just a couple of stitches and some bruised ribs. I’m fine.” But when she flips the covers off and tries to stand for the first time after a long night of rest, she immediately slumps back into the bed. “Okay. Maybe I’ll wait a second for the meds to kick in.”

I shake my head and decide to show her mercy by finishing her coffee and bringing it to her. She thanks me with a kiss and promises to be up and have her teeth brushed in a few. Ignoring her, I return my attention to the stove, humming a nameless song while cooking breakfast. Somewhere in between me de-seeding the avocado and toasting the sourdough, she manages to make it to the bathroom—all the while denying my assistance—and gets dressed.

When she returns to the kitchen, her steps are a little stronger, and her face a little brighter.

“Kicked in?”

“Thankfully yes. I wasn’t going to take the week off my uncle suggested, but honestly, I’m considering it.”

I met her at the small bistro table, bringing both of our plates. “You most certainly should. Give your body time to recover. You’re not meant to be in the field, anyway. I’m still rather indignant that you were sent there at all.”

Jessica waves a hand nonchalantly. “My uncle had his reasons, and I one hundred percent support?—”

A shrill ringtone fills the air, the vibration of the phone knocking on wood oddly making my skin crawl like nails on a chalkboard.

Jessica grunts, adjusting as she tries to stand, but I beat her to it, hurrying to grab the device for her.

She groans when she sees the name flashing over the phone’s display but answers nonetheless, frustration making her eyes a hue darker. “Frances.”

There’s a brief moment of silence before she nods. “Yeah, I’m fine. Nothing a couple of days with my feet kicked up won’t fix. What’s up?”

She listens for a moment, her fork idly playing with a small clump of avocado on her toast.

After a weighted pause, the person on the other end of the receiver begins to speak again, only this time, I can hear him more clearly. It’s as if she put him on speaker phone so he can speak directly to me.

“Six bodies, Frances. Three of them are the perps from yesterday.”

My heart plummets into my stomach with a sickening thud.

Ben warned me that we should find a new spot soon. He told me with all the recent bodies discovered and the new investigation of a potential serial killer that we should bury them, or perhaps turn them into compost like Alexi always assumed I did. But I told him it would be alright. That this was the last run we’d need to do for a while since I would be working with the Babins in a different way.

I should have heeded his request.

By the time my eyes flash back to Jessica, she’s thanked the person on the phone and hung up, turning it upside down on the table.

She’s quiet for a moment, her fork now scraping at the egg, and in this fraction of time, I soak up what I can. Because the moment the yolk bursts and her gaze flashes to mine, I know. I know without a hint of doubt that I’m about to lose her. That somehow this smart girl of mine has pieced enough of my puzzle together to know it was me.

It’s always been me.

Has since the day I killed him.

“Inmate number one eighty one. You have five minutes,” the guard warns my father as he shuts the door, his eyes lingering on me for longer than what’s comfortable.

But I pay him no mind. There’s no reason to when my target is right in front of me. The man who shaped me from the moment I opened my eyes. Or rather, cursed me, if you will.

His face has aged considerably since his incarceration began when I was a child. The wrinkles at his eyes are much deeper now, his hair whiter. He’s lost more weight than what’s healthy, the bones of his frame sticking through his thin skin.

I would bet my life that had he left my mother alive, she’d still be beautiful despite what he put her through. What he did to her. Guess he’s not as strong.

Breathing slowly out of my nose, I swallow the hot rage that threatens to join the bile just past my esophagus. “I’m only here to say goodbye, father.”

He shifts in his chair, one of his hands sliding across the metal table toward me. Fortunately, he’s stopped halfway, courtesy of the cuffs keeping him bound to the chair. He sighs before curling the same hand into a fist and withdrawing it, slipping it back onto his lap. “No, sweetheart, please. Stay. I’ve missed you so much and ? —”

He stops when I shake my head once, understanding washing over him that I am not the same child he once knew. I have not forgotten what he’s done. What he’s said. I have not forgiven him.

And I am most certainly not the little girl that he convinced to bury her own mother.

“So goodbye then?” His voice cracks with the question.

I nod, staring at his features one last time. Physically this man looks nothing like me anymore. Not an ounce of similarities between us. But inside, it’s as though I’m looking at a mirror.

It’s because of him and what he’s poisoned me with that I will never seek happiness. Why I’ll never be capable of love. I loathe him with every fiber of my being, and yet…saying the words is more than what I’m capable of.

Standing, I walk to my father, a man I’ve never cared about and will never see again. I incline, and place the softest kiss on his lips, no more than a breath of time passing.

When I give him a parting glance, I wish, with whatever adolescent shooting star magic I might still possess, that the evil part he left in me, dies with him.

But when I receive news the following day that he succumbed to a heart attack in his cell and passed away, I know it didn’t work.

“Before I say anything. Let me know now if you plan to sit here and lie to me.” Jessica’s gaze is set on the plate in front of her but her words are directed straight to me. Her shoulders are set, her posture rigid.

“I will not lie to you.”

Her eyes flash up, hurt and rage burning through them so bright her irises look like the clouds instead of the sky. “You know. The moment…”She pauses to take a deep breath and then places her fork down on the plate. The sound of the metal hitting the ceramic sounds like a gun firing.

“When I met you, I knew there was something different. Something more dangerous than what I currently could understand. But I thought you were a good fuck. Someone who would probably make a girl see stars and then ghost her the next day. I had these fucking bells ringing in my head and every fucking time, I ignored them.”

She swallows, batting away the angry tear that spills free from her eye.

My hand aches to reach out to her and explain before she can piece my sins together out loud. But I can’t. I don’t deserve to speak right now. I don’t deserve to defend my actions or all the secrets I’ve kept.

So instead, I simply listen, my face serene, my hands in my lap.

Jessica’s eyes move back and forth, her mind working it out. “Why would a lady from Noxus be in a bar like The Four? She got stood up. Okay. Fine. Why would the address to a fucking glass company that could be involved in a high-profile murder case lead me to said lady’s flower shop? Wrong address. Okay. Cool. Why would the lady have a fucking known mob boss’s car outside of her shop in the middle of a goodman tsunami and not even so much as look its way?”

She stops to breathe, tears streaming steadily now. “You know what’s really fucked up, though? The thing that made me say Holy shit, is a fucking serial killer who works with Alexi ?”

I wince at her words, my heart splintering a little more with every sentence she says.

“It wasn’t the fact that Fikes was hell bent on proving the second killer was a female with a big brawny helper. It wasn’t that my uncle had the analyst do another swab of the vial and found traces of a poisonous herb I know you have here at the shop. It was when those pieces of shit hurt me and I–and I came here and spent the night with you…”

Again, she pauses, only this time, her anger turns into sobs, her shoulders shaking with her stuttered breathing. A sharp pain shoots across my jaw and a crack over my molars. But the pain is nothing in comparison to what my sweet girl is going through. It’s meaningless when her next string of words will surely drive finality into my heart and finish the job of crumbling it to mere ash.

She rubs the back of her hand under her nose. “It’s when I woke up at three in the morning and found you gone. Somehow, I just knew. I fucking knew . And I told myself if they ended up dead, I couldn’t say it was all a coincidence. I couldn’t keep?—”

She stands, and a newfound panic gallops through my bloodstream, pushing me to finally speak. “ Jessica. ”

Her eyes flash as she grabs her keys from the table and shoves her phone in her pocket. “Tell me one thing, . Just one. And if you're honest, I’ll let you run.”

I rear back at her words, the realization of what she plans to do, slapping me in the face.

“Why did we cross paths? Did Alexi send you to stop my investigation on him?”

I swallow around the cotton lodged in my throat, despising that I have to fucking nod.

She’s quiet and I know before she asks, she’s already worked out this answer as well. “Were you sent to kill me?”

My eyes squeeze shut, but the burning sensation at the brim doesn’t ebb, I don’t reopen them. “Yes.”

The silence is crushing. Each haggard beat of my heart and heavy breath she exhales acts as another pound of pressure squeezing around me. Every time I attempt to talk, try to explain, I stop, well aware that it doesn’t matter. I don’t deserve her forgiveness.

And in the end, I’m nothing more than the cowards I kill.

I let Jessica walk away. I let her shut the door without so much as saying a single word. Her steps echo down the stairwell until they fade for good, taking our future with her.

I’m not sure how long I sit at the table.

How long it takes for the air not to smell like her.

All I know is that when I wipe the tear from my cheek, I remember what was most important. Something I seemed to have forgotten somewhere down the line and needed a reminder. This being that reminder.

I will always be my father’s daughter.

* * *

When I open my eyes again, I find my studio trashed. Snapped vinyl records litter the floor, plants and shards of the vases they called home now shattered in a thousand pieces. Books and their contents have been ripped to shreds, while lamps and broken bulbs lie among the debris.

I take in the scene but feel nothing.

I feel nothing at all.

There was no doubt this day was to come. I simply did not think I would be this affected. Care so much. Until a couple of months ago, I wasn’t even sure I was capable of caring about anyone, let alone this deeply.

Jessica isn’t just a pretty face and warm smile.

She is the one who pulled me from a place in which I was stuck. A place I thought I’d remain for the rest of my days.

I hate that when she saw the real me, she saw what everyone else sees.

A monster.

I don’t blame her though. How could I?

It’s my fault for thinking she’d see anything other than the truth. About all of us. Me, Alexi, Ben…

Spurred by a sudden realization, I leave the studio and rush down the stairs. I need to warn Ben and Mrs. Ward. I’m not sure what’s going to happen, and I can’t lose them too.

I find my keys in the front door—likely left by Jessica after she stormed out—and lock up, ensuring the sign is still flipped to the closed side before going to the back. I bypass the security display and yank the heavy metal door open.

That’s when I have my second greatest regret—because if I had simply looked at the monitor, I would have seen the alley wasn’t empty.