At first, I couldn’t see anything but flashing lights and moving shapes. That alone did not make it hell. Neither did the increasing urge to vomit and the pounding blood in my head that made me wince painfully with each breath.
What made it hell was when my eyes opened enough to focus on the flashing lights. It was the soft, baby-new glow of morning being scattered by an azure blue curtain that waved back and forth by an open window. Despite the bars that created zebra shadows on the carpeted floor, the window was familiar.
The curtain was too. I’d picked out that curtain from Bed, Bath & Beyond, thinking the blue matched the surf outside. I’d hung that curtain myself.
Six years ago.
I sat up, limbs and head heavy with a tincture of chemicals, panic and total disgust. I was back in our old bedroom, the one I used to share with Javier. I was back.
And the slippery son of a bitch had drugged me.
I got out of bed and nearly fell flat on my face, my legs tangled in the sheets. The room had stayed the same. Save for the security bars on the window, everything looked exactly as it had before. For six years, it had stayed the same while the man who slept there grew something terrible in his heart. I could see it in his eyes, the coldness, the games. Or maybe I could see now what I couldn’t see then.
There was no use dwelling on it. He wanted me to swim in this past, that’s why I was here. He wanted the past to drown me. I wouldn’t let it. I wouldn’t let him win. I was Ellie Watt, not Eden White, and I was stronger than this.
I had no past. There was only now.
I took the next step – as unsteady as I was – and tried the door. It wasn’t locked.
I peered out into the hallway and fought the memory that wanted to intrude, that time I discovered Javier slitting the throat of one of his friends. I shot down the memory, threw fresh dirt over it. I moved on and moved down the hall, my feet bare and sticking to the hardwood floor.
Sunlight dazzled the kitchen, streaming in through the large windows that overlooked the dune grass, sand and ocean. Javier was sitting at the table, drinking orange juice and flipping through the Los Angeles Times, eyes darting from page to page.
It could have been a Norman Rockwell painting. I was about to throw red paint on it.
“The fuck is going on?” I asked, one hand leaning against the wall.
He finished flipping to the end of the paper – agonizing seconds of paper flipping through his deft fingers – before he laid it down and looked up at me.
“Good morning,” he said, looking amused without smiling. “Did you sleep well?”
It took all of my self-control to keep from tackling him across the table and clawing his eyes out. I knew we weren’t alone though. I knew there were people, somewhere, watching us, making sure I was following the straight and narrow. I knew I had to keep everything inside as much as I could.
“Why the hell am I here?” I asked, my jaw clenched.
“Because I live here,” he said simply.
“Still?”
He smiled, just a twitch at the corner of his snake-like mouth. “Painful memories?”
“Fuck you,” I said. I instantly regretted it when his grin broadened.
“I see. So they are.”
I brushed my hair back behind my ears, as if that would help me think. “Why am I here? Why am I here where you live?” I mimicked his accent.
He folded his hands in front of me and the damn watch started glinting like a gold spark in the sun stream. “I brought you here because this is our first task.”
“First task?” I asked dumbly.
“Sit down,” he said, gesturing to the seat across from him. Where I always used to sit. Same damn seat. “Please.”
“No.” I crossed my arms across my chest. His eyes briefly lasered in on my cleavage. “I want you to tell me what the task is. I want to know why I’m here.”
He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. “So impatient, my angel.”
I shot to the opposite side of the table and shoved my finger in his face. My razor blade necklace swung like a pendulum. “Talk. You owe me that much, you piece of shit.”
He eyed my finger and had the courtesy to wipe the smile from his face. “Okay.”
I backed off, my nerves firing in all directions. I waited, shoving my itching hands in my back pockets.
He breathed in delicately through his nose and folded up the newspaper as he spoke. “The task, why I brought you here, why I sought you, finally, is this … I know what you’ve been doing for the last however many years.”
“Six. You know it’s been six.”
He raised his brow. “Time flies.”
“Keep talking.”
He sighed. “Alright. You’ve been a thief.”
“Just like my parents,” I filled in, knowing what else he’d throw in there.
His smile wavered for a second. “Yes. Just like them. Anyway, I’m not judging.”
Wouldn’t that be rich.
“So,” he continued. “You’ve been doing that. Being generally immoral, such a far cry from the Eden White I loved.”