“I WOULDN’T CONSIDER this to be a residential address,” I said with disgust as I took in our surroundings.
“It’s a loose interpretation of the word, I’ll admit,” Jarek said from beside me as he gazed at the house that looked like it was abandoned. It was fenced off; the windows were boarded and it had ‘keep out’ written on them in blood red paint.
“Are we really going to go in there? It looks like no one’s in there anyway,” Sev said, and he was standing behind the both of us.
“I never sanctioned you to come along,” I laughed. “You can turn back, but we’ll probably give you a lot of shit about it,” I surmised.
“And by probably, he means definitely,” Jarek said with a quirk of his mouth.
“So, how did you find this place?” Sev asked, trying to take the heat off of himself.
“I have my ways and sources. I was told that Evelina has a drug addiction. While this looks neglected, it’s really a drug nest.”
“Please tell me we’re going to draw her out somehow so we don’t have to go in,” Sev pleaded, dropping his calm act.
“You could be the bait,” I suggested, then seeing the genuine panic on Sev’s face I eased up on him. “How about you stay out here? When we go in she might make a run for it.”
Jarek sent me a derisive look but I ignored it. Sev was clearly as uncomfortable as I’d known he would be. I had respect for someone who knew their limits; it’s when you pushed past them that you made mistakes. And being reckless got you killed.
“I like that plan,” Sev said, leaning back against the fence.
This time I sent Jarek a look as he opened his mouth, no doubt to rib Sev. I went under the cut in the barb-wire fence and Jarek followed suit.
“Why didn’t you let me have my fun?” Jarek whined as he caught up beside me.
“Sev isn’t like us and I don’t want him to be, if you keep pushing, he’ll push back. He’ll adapt out of force of habit and I don’t want him changing, not one bit,” I bit out.
“I don’t like what you just said, but that’s because it’s the truth. He’s the healer and we’re the hurters. And you’re right, sometimes I don’t know when to stop, I guess that’s why we have you,” Jarek replied.
“Ye-p,” I popped out.
“But it seems like you’ve found yourself a healer and it’s not Sev,” Jarek whispered as we drew closer to the front door, or more aptly the black space where a door used to be if the creaky hinges were of any indication.
“I might be a decoder but I have no idea what you’re saying,” I replied.
“Alright, I get it, you don’t want to talk about Emerson Monsoon. We can talk about her later,” Jarek allowed. “So, what’s our plan anyway?”
“Didn’t you think of one before we got here?” I didn’t know why I bothered asking when I already knew the answer.
“No, that’s your job,” Jarek replied, delegating the authority to me like always.
It just so happened I did have a plan. “We act like we’re one of them. We find Evelina, get the answers we need, then get out,” I listed, maybe oversimplifying it a little bit.
“I like the plan,” Jarek said easily. He was a chameleon; he could blend himself to fit his surroundings, which is why I was lucky to have him working with me and not against me.
“Even if you didn’t, it’s the only one we’ve got,” I said, as I walked inside. It was pitch black save for some candles that were lit here and there. And the smell, it made me want to gag. But I had to act like I was unaffected by it, like I was only after one thing, that I was only after my fix.
Bodies littered the hallway, people curled up in balls, shaking, suffering symptoms of withdrawal.
“Hey, you got som’fin for me?” A guy croaked out, latching onto my ankle weakly. I wanted to kick it off but I’d give myself away.
I shivered and got into my act. “Nah, I’m low on money…couldn’t wrangle anything,” I sniffed. The man let go, curling back into his ball. Jarek turned and asked another person if they’d scored something while I looked around trying to find Evelina.
I walked farther down the hall, listening to the wails, and people whispering to themselves, reduced to animals. A fight broke out between two people, but I avoided it. Being on drugs they’d be able to overpower me and Jarek and I had to stay on point.
“Hey, Hendrik, I found her,” Jarek whispered in my ear, pointing to a girl who was to my right. She didn’t look good at all. Her body was jerking out of control, she was full of sweat, and her teeth were chattering uncontrollably. I could barely make out that she was the same fresh-faced, sweet girl in the photo. She still had remnants of beauty but she was a shell of a human being. That’s what drugs did to you they sucked the life out of you.
I crouched down next to her noticing she was lying in her own filth, and grimaced, moving her out of it.
“Don’t t–touch me,” she cried out, physically in pain. But she didn’t move to stop me because she couldn’t.
“We’re here about your sister, Katia,” I whispered.
“My baby sister?” she choked out, her eyes full of hope. “I saw her the other day. She told me she doesn’t forgive me, told me to stay away from her because of what I did,” she croaked out forlornly.
My breath hissed out. She was so far gone or full of so much guilt she didn’t want to believe that Katia was dead.
“Evelina, Katia’s gone. You didn’t see her alive and breathing. You went to her grave. She’s gone,” I said, trying to soften the blow.
Her head fell forward like she couldn’t hold it up anymore and she gagged. “I’m sorry,” I said, hating to be the bad guy, but I needed her to focus and she couldn’t do that if she was lost in her own mind.
She gagged again, but this time, unlike before, blood came out, so much blood, and it just kept on coming out. She started to choke because she couldn’t breathe. I turned her on her side just as she began seizing. Her eyes were rolling, a bloody foam coming out from her mouth.
Jarek drew his phone out and dialed what I hoped was Sev’s number. “Sev, get in here now, we’re at the back of the house. Come quick, Evelina’s seizing,” Jarek yelled urgently.
Sev always carried his bag when he was with us in case of an emergency. Evelina needed the hospital, but if she didn’t make it past her seizure she wouldn’t get there alive…she’d be going to the morgue.
Suddenly she gave a violent jerk, it almost unseated my grip on her, and then she went completely limp. With shaking hands I turned her on her back, saw her mouth was agape, her eyes wide and unmoving. Her pupils were non-reactive.
“No, no, no,” I muttered. I put my fingers to her pulse then fell down to my knees. She was gone.
“What’s happening?” Sev said, as I fell to my knees, breathing in and out harshly.
“You’re too late. She’s gone and so is our lead,” Jarek said, then he punched his hand through the plastered wall, sending white bits through the air like confetti.
“I should have come inside with you,” Sev whispered. I saw him take a look at the wall, like he wanted to put his hand through it, too, but he couldn’t hurt himself. His hands healed people.
I put my hand on his shoulder, and squeezed it. “It’s not your fault, Sev. Let it go. You couldn’t have stopped her from dying.”
“I told her she shoulda stayed away,” a man laughed manically to our left. “She sold her sister to the devil. I warned her. They told her to keep her mouth shut but she was a li-ab-il-ity,” he sang out.
“What? Are you saying someone poisoned her?” I barked out.
Instead of responding he fell back against the wall, arms wrapped around his stomach. I took a step closer to sober him up but out of nowhere, all laughter drained out of his face, and his face completely transformed. “What am I doin here?” he asked to the air next to him.
It was like he’d become another person.
“Hey, what were you saying about Evelina,” I asked, trying to regain his attention. His head snapped back to me, and he looked at me with confusion, a glassy look on his face.
“Who are you? Watchu want?” he gurgled out.
“We don’t have time for this,” Jarek said as he grabbed the guy and shook him. “Who did Evelina sell her sister to?” he roared.
“Let him go, Jarek, he’s delusional,” Sev said. Jarek paused, taking in the lucid look on the man’s face and he let him go silently. The man scampered off, somewhere into the darkness.
The three of us stood unmoving. Not knowing where to go on from here.
“Wait, this was beneath her,” Jarek said picking up a folder piece of paper that looked like it was about to break apart. Sev and I looked over his shoulder and we read it.
My dearest Evelina,
I’m writing this letter to you because, unlike your sister, Katia, I know that you will still remember me. I ask you not to go looking for me. I will find you when it’s safe.
When I had you I was on drugs, I never got clean. And I regretted it the minute I had you in my arms. I was told that because of me, from the womb, you were born into this world addicted to drugs.
I ruined you before you even drew your first breath. I’m so sorry. I tried to be a good mother to you and it killed me every time I had to add drugs to your food so you wouldn’t be in pain. And then I found out I was pregnant with Katia. I got clean because I couldn’t do to her what I’d done to you.
I was getting better, but then I fell off the wagon, got mixed up in a bad crowd and it wasn’t safe for either of you. So I put you in foster care and I did the same with Katia. I separated you from her because I didn’t want the people after me to find either of you.
I don’t want you to go looking for her either because you would be putting her at risk. You’re her older sister and the only way you can protect her is by staying away.
I’m so sorry, but once it’s safe I’ll come to get you both.
I promise.
“I’m guessing she never came back for them,” Jarek commented.
“Maybe she never had the chance to,” I replied, breathing out. And Evelina never stood much of a chance against her addiction, maybe at one time she’d fought it but in the end she let it take her. I wondered what depths she would have gone to to feed her habit. Was that man right? Did she find her sister and sell her out if it meant getting her fix?
I had no idea. But if she did, then there were only two players who could be responsible for her death, the Valentijin mob or the Ichor cartel. I couldn’t shake off the bad feeling, that the man was onto something, I just didn’t know what.
“What do we do with her?” Sev asked, looking down at Evelina he bent and gently pulled down her eyelids.
“I’m taking her with us,” I answered. Her mother separated her and her sister, it’s only fair that she get laid to rest with her,” I said as I picked her body up.