By the time Maya and Chuck made it back to his hotel room, she was pretty fucking furious, to put it lightly. She’d stayed silent on the car ride over, letting the emotions simmer inside her, trying to keep them locked inside, as deep as possible. But as soon as they stepped into a private place, she could feel them rise to the surface like a soufflé, spilling over until she just clenched her fists, standing across the room from Chuck and staring at him with fire burning in her eyes.
“What?” he barked at her, obviously aware that she wasn’t happy with him, to say the least.
“You know what,” Maya said, hardening her tone as much as she could, even if some small part of her still trembled in fear at the idea of confronting this man. She’d worked so hard to hide all the bad sides of herself from him. She’d tried so hard to keep him from knowing all the dirty parts of her. But for now, she couldn’t hold it back. Maybe it was working on the case, maybe it was being back in the city. Or maybe it was being around Arsen again, letting his own fire influence her to wake up inside, to fight back. She’d have to analyze herself more later on, but for now, she crossed her arms across her chest, gritting her teeth and hardening her jaw as she stared across the room at Chuck.
“No, let’s talk about it. Let’s be healthy about this,” Chuck said. Maya barely kept herself from flinching as a result of the “h-word,” as she referred to it inside her head. It was like a bomb waiting to go off at any moment, an accusation wrapped up in pretty paper. The implication was clear to her. She wasn’t healthy. She wasn’t normal. She wasn’t right. She knew all this about herself, and she really didn’t need Chuck telling her what she already hated about the way she functioned. “What’d I do wrong, exactly?” Chuck asked.
Maya sighed and pushed her hair back from her forehead, yanking a little at the roots, using the pain to anchor herself to her body. She couldn’t afford to dissociate at the moment, not when Chuck was poised for the attack. “You’re acting like you own me or something, like you get to tell me what to do, what to feel, how to react. The whole reason…” She huffed her breath out again, summoning up the courage to finish her sentence. “The whole reason I started dating you was because you weren’t like this. You don’t control me. You let me live how I want. Why are you changing now?”
“Oh, that’s rich. That’s fucking rich,” Chuck said, beginning to pace back and forth across the hotel room, shaking his head at her. “You come here and play nicey-nice with your ex and I’m the bad guy? What the fucking shit is wrong with your brain, Maya, huh? What the hell went wrong that wired you to act this way? Because I’ll tell you what, it’s not normal. It’s not healthy. It’s not what I proposed to.”
“I don’t care if it’s what you proposed to or not,” Maya said, even though a little part of that statement was a lie. “It’s who I am, who I really am, when I’m not pretending to be a good girl.” The last two words stung her tongue, making her feel sick inside, like all of her organs were balling up, shrinking away from what she’d just said. The kidnapper’s words, haunting her like she was still tied up in that basement.
“What the fuck are you even talking about?” Chuck retorted, his face screwing up in confusion. He stepped forward, grabbing Maya’s shoulders and shaking her a little bit. “Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you? What the hell happened to you to make you this way?”
“You know the answer to that,” Maya whispered, feeling the shameful burn of tears begin to press at the backs of her eyes.
“Oh, please, don’t pull that card,” Chuck said, shaking his head at her. “You can’t just use that as an excuse every time we get into an argument!”
“It’s not an excuse!” Maya yelled. “It’s not a fucking excuse! It’s my fucking life!” Humiliatingly, she felt tears pool into her eyes, but she blinked them back, hopefully before Chuck could see them. “It’s a part of me, Chuck! A huge fucking part that will never go away no matter how hard you pretend otherwise.”
“Oh, I can’t deal with you right now. You’re being ridiculous,” Chuck said, rolling his eyes.
Maya shook her head at him. “Yeah? You can’t deal? Well, deal with this,” she challenged as she turned out her heel, heading for the door.
“Where are you going? Come back here! Don’t leave this hotel room, Maya!”
“I don’t want to deal with you right now,” Maya said, continuing to walk towards the door.
“Stop, Maya! Stop walking right now. Don’t you dare walk out that door.” Maya paused for a minute, her hand on the knob of the door. “You’re going to him, aren’t you? To Arsen?”
“I don’t know where I’m going,” Maya answered honestly, with her back still turned to Chuck.
“You better not, Maya. You better not see him ever again. You listening to me? I don’t want you working on that case. I don’t want you seeing him. He’s bad for you, you hear me? He’s fucking you up. He’s making you sick,” he said.
Maya scoffed, even though the words stung her like a shot to the back. “Whatever,” she muttered, opening the door and setting off down the highway at a brisk pace.
By the time she reached the elevator and got down to the first level of the hotel, her phone rang, making her jump. She didn’t know why she was so on edge, exactly, but she was exhausted of her own weakness. If there was ever a time that she needed to be strong, it was now.
She pulled out her phone. It was Arsen.
“Hello?” she answered into the phone as she walked out into the bitterly cold night, hugging her sweater closer to her chest to preserve as much of her body’s warmth as possible.
“Maya,” Arsen half-slurred into her ear. “Maya, I need you.”
“Are you drunk?” she asked. She could definitely detect the influence of alcohol on his speech. She knew him too well, still able to detect when he wasn’t completely sober.
“No, I took a nap. Just a little hung-over now,” he muttered on the other end of the phone.
“What’s up?” she asked, pacing quickly in an attempt to get her blood rushing faster, trying to get warmer despite the wind breaking against her face.
“The girls,” Arsen practically whispered before clearing his throat. “The girls,” he repeated. “They need us. We can’t give up. I know you’re getting married. I know you’re gone. Forever. But the girls…”
“I know,” Maya said, her voice coming out more reassuring and soft than she had intended. “I know. I’m not giving up. I was never going to give up. Do you really believe in me that little?”
Arsen laughed a little on the other end, but Maya could tell that it wasn’t genuine. “I know, I know,” he said. “I should trust you more. You’re tough. Toughest person I know.”
“I don’t know about that,” Maya muttered, thinking back on her argument with Chuck even as she got further away from the hotel.
“I do,” Arsen said softly, almost inaudibly under the howl of the wind in Maya’s ears.
“Listen, we should meet up,” Maya said. “Tonight. We have no time to waste. I’m sorry…I’m sorry about what happened before. With Chuck. It’s just something I had to deal with, but it’s a distraction, and it can wait. I’ll deal with him after we solve the case.”
“Alright,” Arsen agreed. “I’m at home. Do you want me to meet you anywhere?”
“No, I’ll head there now,” Maya said. “Go back to sleep. I’ll let myself in. You keep the spare key under the mat, right? I’ll be right in, like twenty minutes from now. Just nap, okay? You need it.” Especially after the fucking we did earlier, she added silently.
Arsen murmured something, but Maya couldn’t quite make it out. A second later, his breathing changed, deepening as he slipped off into sleep. Maya couldn’t suppress a slight smile as she lowered her phone back to her pocket, picturing Arsen’s peaceful face as he slept.
But less than a minute later, her phone rang again, tearing her out of her calming thoughts. Arsen must have woken up and not realized that she was still on the way, she figured, so she answered the call right away, without looking at the ID.
“Hello?” she said again, albeit a lot less patiently this time.
The voice on the other end of the phone was hoarse and low. She could barely make out the words as the man who spoke hissed, “You better back the fuck off, bitch.”
“What? Who’s this?”
“You know who this is,” the man said in his low, gravelly voice. “And you don’t want to meet me. Believe me. It wouldn’t be pretty. It never is for cunts like you.”
The line went dead before Maya could think of what to say in response. Her heart thudded in her chest, sending her blood coursing through her veins like it was trying to escape from her body. “Jesus Christ,” she muttered to herself, her fingers shaking as she looked through her recent call list only to find the number was blocked. That meant trying to reverse the call wouldn’t work. She’d have to have it traced. Maybe Arsen could help.
She didn’t know who just threatened her, but one thing was clear, it was the murderer, giving them their first solid lead since this entire investigation began.