God, I wish I didn’t have to be.
“That’s pretty much what I set it up for. I wanted the world to be a little more transparent—we’re meant to have free speech, but that only goes so far. As a company, we still have to behave responsibly and that means we have to censor at times, but I’m glad it’s making a difference.” I reach up to tuck loose hair behind my ears. “Some people have all the power. They get away with too much.”
“Oh, I’m with you.”
“So we’ll be seeing you next Monday?”
“Absolutely.”
“Wonderful.” I stand to walk Gwen out of the office. For a moment, I pretend that I’m the Leo I always hoped I’d be: running a company with integrity, fighting the bad guys, and putting monsters back under beds. A successful woman who didn’t base her livelihood off manipulating people and emotions and truths. As Gwen and I make pleasant small talk about her outfit, I float, suspended in all that could have been.
Before the blood.
Before the betrayal.
Before the man who only told me he loved me so that I’d save him. I’d have saved him anyway, but in his panic, I think he forgot that. I just wanted to give him everything; my past, a future, a bullet. It was the only way I knew to mess him up inside a little, the same way he’d tortured me.
I love him. I hate him. And every day, I become more like him in order to survive.
SEVEN MONTHS AGO
Aeron
Aged 31
Cloverville Hospital, NYC
“Where’s Leo?”
I’ve slurred this question about seventeen times. Or twenty-three times. Or maybe just five—I don’t know, these goddamn painkillers keep messing with my brain—but I do know that nobody’s answering. Any restraint I had went out the window around about the time they woke me up. The surgery went well, Aeron. You’re going to be just fine, Aeron. Woo-fucking-hoo, you won’t have to shit into a bag for the rest of your life, Aeron. There’s a massive hole in my guts—I GET IT. But where. Is. She?
Nurse Jowls—my vision’s all blurred so I can’t read her name tag, but I can sure as hell see her cluster of chins—bends over me to adjust my drip. “How you doing? You nice and numb?”
“Where’s Leo?”
“I don’t know who Leo is, Mr Lore. But there’s someone here to see you.”
“Where’s Leo?” I know, I know, I’m letting myself go here. But humor me. I bled out all my fucks.
“He’s from NYPD. Are you feeling well enough to answer a couple questions?”
“Shit,” I spit. “Shit.”
Nurse Jowls glares at me.
“Not you,” I mutter. Though I’m lying. “Send him in.”
Then I have to watch her whale-sized ass wobble away from me, since I’m strapped up to too many machines to move. Marvelous. There’s a strange, hollow sensation where my belly ought to be, as if my flesh is floating three feet away. I’m guessing that’s the drugs because my belly, while covered in white dressing, is still fully intact. Leo has this cute Britishism for when she’s drunk: I’m off my face. Well here I am, sweetheart, off my fucking face, and where are you?
I remember a gun and a bullet, and some unsettling words. But for whatever reason, they don’t matter. They’d feel heavier if they did.
“Mr. Lore?”
A tall, lanky figure appears before me. The image gradually distils as my head clears; the man wears a black shirt, jeans, and a blazer, and is holding out a police badge. I don’t know what I hate more—the sight of the badge, or his beard. The emos are everywhere.
“Detective Luke Posner,” he says. “Can I have a minute?”
One by one, my senses seep back in. A clatter of machine beeps cuts through the waning timbre of his voice, and I smell sharp antiseptic and fabric starch and bitter, stale lemons.
“Mr. Lore?” he repeats. “Are you okay?”