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Avery nods sleepily. “I wish that I had tried harder to find my way back to you,” she whispers. “I always hated what I did to you.”
I kiss the top of her head. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Avery sighs. “It was unforgivable.”
“I love you. I forgive you.”
Avery grips me tighter. I wonder if she feels like I do - like if she holds on tighter, she might be able to wring one more moment out of this fatal embrace.
“Love you too,” she murmurs. And it strikes me that this is probably the last thing she’ll ever say, to anyone. It doesn’t make up for all the shit we’ve missed. It doesn’t make up for all the years of angst and pain and hate.
I can’t have a life with her. But I can have her last words.They’re mine. Pin them to my heart and let me die.
I say it again, into her hair.I love you.
The next time she speaks, the words blur into each other.ILoveYou.
The drugs are pulling me down, too. It’s getting harder to fight their pull.
At least I’ve got her in my arms.
There’s nothing but darkness waiting.
So into the darkness we go.
PART TWO
Resurrection
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ELLIOT
Riding in a SWAT BearCat isn’t as fun as it looks.
For starters, there’s nothing to hold on to. The driver might be comfortable enough upfront, but in the back, we’re crammed in like gun-toting sardines, stacked along both sides of the truck’s rear cab on narrow metal benches.
I mean, it makes sense. Comfort doesn’t belong in a scenario like this, as the nine of us in the back of the BearCat wait patiently, nerves running in high gear as we approach our destination.
I can only see glimpses out of the front windows, but the bounce of the wheels underneath my feet tells me we’re still on the Bay Bridge. Speeding away from the city, headed for a house in Oakland and the precious cargo housed within.
Across from me, my partner-in-crime — literally — gives me a tight smile.Isobel.Her blue eyes are hard, focused, but I’ve gotten to know her well enough during this case to see something in them — hope. I nod because I can’t even muster up a smile, knowing where we’re going, what we’re about to see. I know she feels it, too. We’ve been watching the horrors of this house unfold on a video screen in silence for the past two months, a live video feed of brutality and blood — so much fucking blood — and now, we will star in the final episode.
Or, maybe we won’t. The live feed from Avery Capulet’s chamber of horrors went offline an hour ago, just as the motherfucker in there with her, wrapped his hands around her neck and started to squeeze. Just as the sophisticated cyber-cloaking that we hadn’t been able to crack inexplicably timed out, and for a split second in time, we could suddenly see exactly where the video feed was coming from.
I’d been expecting somewhere in the city. A warehouse, maybe, or the basement of a derelict building. I hadn’t been expecting a shitty house on skid row, a block where you can buy anything from weed to heroin to a blowjob, all without leaving the comfort of your driver’s seat. Sometimes people choose to hide in plain sight, I guess.
Our driver lines up the BearCat, and we all brace as he starts reversing. We’re moving fast enough that if you were standing behind the truck, you’d be pulp on our tires, before you even knew what hit you.
I think of my daughter just before impact. I always do. Her happy little face swims in my thoughts, the way she will put her chubby hand on my face and frown when she sees me trying to keep my shit together, long enough for her to fall asleep. She’s barely old enough to be at preschool. She shouldn’t have to see me twisted up in knots because of the things I’m about to see.
At least, I hope that’s what will happen tonight. I could die five minutes from now, but for her, I’d prefer to survive. Read her a book. Tuck her in. Have a damn beer after she falls asleep and wait for the adrenalin comedown to kick in. Maybe I’ll finally be able to get some sleep tonight, without worrying about getting another call about new video footage being streamed, without pulling clothes on in the middle of the night and speeding downtown to have to watch a girl get beat to shit, yet again, all the while knowing I can’t help her, because I can’t fucking find her.
I guess it all depends on what we find when we get in there.
For a moment, time slows. It stretches out like a mirage, the rapid movement of our convoy becoming a slow-motion scene. The BearCat’s rear smashes through the front of this unassuming suburban house; the shock wave enough to knock the breath out of my lungs. And that’s it. Everything else falls away. There’s no time to do anything except jump out of the back of our personnel carrier, through plumes of dust and plaster and falling bricks, as I follow my teammates into the living room where we search for any threat - and any sign of life.
There is nothing. The place is empty, save for a dirty mattress on the floor, its stains and rips promising stories I’m not sure I want to know. The thick soles of my combat boots crunch over used syringes, some of them marked inside with cloudy smears of blood. This is a place where hope goes to die.
