Crow’s Row (51 page)

The Shadow-of-Emily pounced. “You were setting Cameron up to fail so that you would have enough to take him out without getting in trouble with the leaders. This was your plan, wasn’t it? To force him to come after me and show that he was a risk because of me. That’s why you let Victor go today.”

Spider chuckled nervously, but refused to look at me. “You don’t know a thing, girl. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Cameron was becoming a risk, but it had nothing to do with me and everything to do with you. We had to recruit other gang factions because you were stupid enough to get yourself caught by Shield. With half our fleet dead, it was the only way that we would be able to overtake Shield’s guards and get you out.” After a moment, he added, “As far as I know, you and Shield were the ones who were playing all of us. He was your uncle, not mine. I had nothing to do with Shield.”

I was far from being convinced. Spider would have been ecstatic to have Cameron show his weakness by going to other gangs and plead for their help in order to save a girl. This had only enhanced Spider’s chances at getting Cameron out of the picture and taking his place at the head of the table without too much huff from the leaders. I glared at the back of Spider’s head. If looks could kill, Spider would have had a stake through his neck by now.

“I’m going to kill you,” I promised. The coldness in my voice left nothing to doubt that I had meant this with every fiber of my being.

Spider didn’t look back. “I’d like to see you try.”

It took me a while to realize that the car had stopped. The third guard had pulled up next to the unleveled sidewalk in front of my house. I had no idea how I had gotten there—everything had been a blur up to that point. But looking at my house was like the nightmare had suddenly poured into my reality, or at least the reality of the old Emily.

The new now being connected with the familiar had only heightened the pain—Cameron hadn’t been just a dream. He had been a real person whom I loved and who had, inexplicably, loved me. Now he was gone because of love, because of me. I was the one who was supposed to die. Not him. There was no waking up from that nightmarish feeling of pain and utter desperation.

Tiny slid down the seat, grabbing my arm, and dragging me out in the process. The breeze as I stepped out of the car chilled me to the bone. My face, hair, and clothes were still drenched with my tears.

Spider opened his door and peered at me without getting out of his seat. “We’ll have your things delivered to you,” he said in a businesslike manner, like nothing had ever happened. “Keep your mouth shut and stay away from us.”

I had expected him to threaten me profusely, like maybe dragging his index finger along his throat or pointing a fingered gun at his head, pulling the thumbed trigger. But there was none of that. They left without another thought. I stood on the sidewalk shivering, watching them drive away.

 Chapter Thirty:
 Passing on the Crazy Torch

It was a while before I could muster up the courage to walk up the walkway that led to the house. For the longest time, I was a statue on the sidewalk, afraid of what I was going to find beyond. After being plucked out of my former life and thrown into someone else’s reality, after making that reality mine, going back to normal was an impossible option. Though I still had no idea what normal meant.

There was an old lady in our neighborhood who spent her days pushing her rickety walker forward while mumbling to herself and making her rounds around the same block. She did this every day, like clockwork. She had become the local legend with my roommates. Rumors about her past were conjured up over bottles of beer and pizza boxes. The better story was the one where she was hunting for stray cats and hiding them under her flowered muumuu. She would take them home and train them for the day when she was going to take over the neighborhood, but first sent them back into the world to await the hiss of her orders. The sleeper-cell cats got fat off our garbage in the meantime.

When the crazy lady passed by me today, she looked at me like I was the crazy one. She wasn’t far off target. I wondered what gossip would be made up to account for my madness. Whatever the stories were going to be, I was sure the red hair would make them all the more imaginative. The lady’s glance at my expense had been meaningful, but swift. She went back to her psychobabble and pretended I was never there. People in these parts were ingrained to keep to themselves, lest they be dragged into their neighbor’s misery. They had enough of their own troubles.

By the time I decided to move forward, the lady had already inched her way down my street and disappeared around the corner. Holding my breath with dread, I turned the doorknob and pushed on the front door, almost wishing that it would be locked. It wasn’t.

Walking into the house felt like I was walking into a sarcophagus. The dusty curtains were pulled shut, casting an eerie shadow on the mismatched furniture, and the air was stifling. The house was as dead as I felt. This was a slight comfort to me. When I heard the sound of kids playing somewhere outside, I slammed the door behind me, shutting out all signs of life.

I stood in the darkened entryway, unsure if I was going to fall down crying, start screaming at the top of my lungs, or both. I did neither. The only thing I wanted to do was get Victor’s spit off my skin, as if his touch had left behind his microscopic bugs to crawl and find refuge within my pores. I robotically went upstairs to draw a bath, not even bothering to touch the cold water faucet. I would burn him off me.

The washroom quickly filled with steam. Water droplets from the rolling vapor attached themselves to all surfaces, like the first snowfall of the season. I was now free to roam about the bathroom without fear of catching a glimpse of myself in the fogged mirror. When I got undressed, that’s when I spotted it: all the blood. My hands and forearms, which had grabbed onto to him as I begged him to fight for us, were covered in Cameron’s blood. And while I had leaned over him and he had looked up at the ceiling with defeat, my kneecaps had also been doused in his blood.

Water was raging up to the surface.

With my hands shaking, I hurriedly took my clothes off and stepped into the tub before I could fall apart. I sat in the water, barely feeling the burn against my skin. I was careful to tuck my knees into my chest so that my hands and knees stayed out of the water. The red stains on my skin were a reminder of everything I had lost.

I was rocking back and forth, numbed, staring at the palms of my hands while tears washed my face.

This, his blood, was all I had left of him …

I sniffled and, with every muscle of my body resisting my brain’s orders, struggled to bring my knees down into the water. I was sobbing, deep convulsing sobs. I brought my arms and hands down next and watched his blood swirl in a haze, dissipating into my bathwater. I lay down and ducked my head underwater, silencing my cries.

My skin pruned and a towel wrapped around my torso, I zombie-walked to my bedroom. Standing dazed in the doorway, it took me a few minutes to clue in that my room was completely empty. Apart from the sheets on my bed, there was no trace of me left in there. I remembered that my stuff was somewhere out there being hastily packed so that no traces of me were left behind as evidence of my dream and nightmare.

I yanked the curtain closed and walked away. It would take me a while before I would be able to go in there again. I rummaged through my roommate Cassie’s room. Midway through the last school year, Cassie had decided that she was a vampire. Of the few clothes that she had left behind, all were black—good enough for walking around in my coffin.

Dressed for mourning, I went downstairs, turned on the TV, and lay on the couch. I hid under the blanket that I had dragged off of Cassie’s bed and closed my eyes. I would stay in that spot, waiting for someone to come identify the body.

The pain had localized to my right hand, which had crunched when my fist had connected with Spider’s face. I’d spent my time watching the two middle fingers slowly grow black and blue. I couldn’t bend them anymore. By the second morning, they were so swollen that the inflammation was starting to spread to the other fingers. All I wanted to do was sleep and forget. But the throbbing was keeping me up now. Grudgingly, I used some of Cassie’s pale Goth makeup to cover up the nasty bruise that Victor had left on my cheek and neck and headed for the school medical clinic.

The X-rays confirmed that one finger was dislocated and the other had a hairline fracture.

“How did this happen?” the doctor asked, scanning my face over the edge of his glasses as if he could see the bruises showing through the pound of makeup.

“Kickboxing,” I said without flinching. I had planned my excuse ahead of time.

“Hmmm,” he said, disbelief coloring his tone. “One more day and gangrene would have cost you a finger or two.”

He grabbed hold of my dislocated finger and, without warning, snapped it back into place. It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would, but the awful sound of bones cracking into place brought a wave of nausea. I pushed the doctor away on time to puke in his garbage can. He rushed out of the room. A first-year medical student came to finish the work.

Though I had to painfully sit still while the nervous student wedged—tried to wedge—my throbbing fingers into metal loops, at least there were no more questions. He needed to put all of his attention on his patient … his first patient ever, apparently. He would probably remember this for the rest of his life—and I would try very hard to forget.

I trudged back to the house, looking down, avoiding eye contact with those that I passed on the street—like these strangers knew everything, like they were judging me for having survived Cameron. My pace quickened with every person that walked by. When I got back to the house, I almost slammed into Tiny on the walkway. He ignored me and went back to the truck for more boxes.

Carly was standing by Spider’s truck, directing foot traffic. She warily walked over to me and pulled me to the side so that the guards could finish their job and get out of there.

“How are you?” she asked, her eyes scanning my face. Her voice had almost seemed genuinely concerned.

I glared back and squeezed my unbroken hand into a fist, but a booming bark woke me from the shadows. Meatball was pulling at his leash, which had been tied to one of the pillars of the front porch. The sight of him made me start crying. I was amazed that I had any tears left in me—everything else inside me had seemed to run dry.

“We brought Meatball. He should be with you,” she said softly.

I wiped my cheeks with the sleeve of my shirt. She noticed my badly taped-up fingers. “Your hand! Is it broken?”

“It was worth it.”

She pressed her lips. “I don’t know what you said to Spider in the car, but he was raging mad when he got back. I’ve never seen him so upset before. He looked like—”

“What? Like he was going to kill someone?”

Carly stood frozen like I had just slapped her in the face. In a way, my words had done just that.

Tiny and the rest of the guards finished bringing in my bins and were waiting for Carly by the truck.

“You can go now,” I said with bitterness.

She jumped, suddenly awake. “No, I can’t. I have something for you.” She pulled a folded piece of paper from the back pocket of her jeans and handed it to me. I unfolded it, and a business card fell out in the process. Scribbled on the lined paper were some forty rows of jumbled letters, numbers and dashes.

I looked up with a blank expression.

“That’s all of them. Cameron’s bank account numbers,” she said with confidence. “There’s a lot of cash too, but it’ll take me a bit more time to get everything to you.” I was seeing red, but she didn’t notice and pointed to the card on the ground, “That’s got our accountant’s contact information. The accounts are everywhere around the world. It can get complicated. The accountant help you get the money out. You can trust him.”

If my two fingers hadn’t been tangled in metal, I would have torn the piece of paper to shreds. But I settled for throwing it back in her face. Carly adeptly caught it.

“I don’t want your blood money.”

Tiny had started making his way to us as my temperature rose, but Carly bravely held him back with the palm of her hand up. “It’s not blood money, Emmy. Cameron … would have wanted you to have this. You need the money.”

“I don’t need or want anything from you.” My glare was meant to be demented, but the effect was lost with the angry tears that rendered me pitiful.

“Em, please just take the money.” She tried to hand me the piece of paper, but I knocked her hand away.

“You think that giving me money will make any of this better?” I was sobbing now. “You betrayed him, Carly, all of you did. You were his only family. He trusted you. But like everyone else in his life, you turned your backs on him the minute he showed he was human. I loved him and he loved me. You destroyed that.” My voice was drowning.

Her lips were quivering, but the lingering tears never fell. “Don’t kid yourself, Emmy; I won’t ever forgive myself for letting this happen. I will have to live with this for the rest of my life.”

She glanced over my face for a long second. I could see the pain in her eyes. “When Bill died, I thought I was going to die. Even after all the lies, I didn’t want to live without him. But eventually, things started to get a little brighter again.” Carly gently reached her hand to my arm and I let her. “I know you hate my guts and don’t believe a word I say, but things will get better for you too. I promise. Life goes on. You need to move on with it.” She forced a smile and then turned to walk away. The tears had finally broken through.