Chapter 14

Sunday

It wasn't 8 o'clock, it was only 7. And I wasn't standing outside the Corner Diner, I was standing on the steps of one of the entrances to Central Park. Eli was supposed to be meeting me any minute. The electricity I felt earlier was back, running through my body in strides. I wanted to jump up and down. Maybe I should have used some of my pent up energy to go for a run. But it almost seemed like that's what the vigilante wanted. He liked pushing my buttons. He liked making me feel on edge. It was as if anger was the main fuel for being a superhero. I didn't buy it.

I needed to figure out what was happening by myself. I didn't need superpowers for that. And it felt good to defy the vigilante. I looked across the street, trying to see if Eli was coming. Knowing exactly when he'd arrive would give me the upper hand, at least in my chaotic mind. What I didn't expect to see was Sadie Davis. The real one. The one that looked just like me. Standing across the street staring at me.

The similarities really were uncanny. It was like my new appearance was made to mimic hers. My hair was dyed the exact same color and cut to the same length. Our eyes matched. We were the same height. She even had my nose. I couldn't seem to move. It was like I was staring in a mirror, aged slightly with time. How was that possible? It wasn't like I had a relative I just didn't know about. There was a reason I had entered foster care. Yet, she had my face. Or maybe I had hers?

It was as if she knew what I was thinking, and was enjoying my confusion. A thin smile curled over her lips as she lifted her hand in the air. For a second I thought she was waving at me. But her fingers were spread apart, almost as if she was telling me to stop.

I hadn't moved at all. I hadn't done anything. We both stood completely still, staring at each other until my eyes burned. I blinked. And in that fraction of a second, she disappeared. I took a step forward, but I had no idea which way she had gone. The sidewalk was almost completely empty. It wasn't like she could be hiding in a crowd of people. I'm imagining things. I put my hand on my forehead. I'm losing my mind.

"Hey," Eli said from behind me.

I knew I jumped. Especially because when I turned toward him he had concern written all over his face. Fake concern. Everything about him was fake. It was just like Liza had said, his facade was too perfect. And I was about to find all the holes.

"You okay?" he asked.

I had a whole speech planned. I was going to tell him that I knew he was working with Don. My words were going to be angry, yet composed. I had a million things to throw at him. But as soon as he asked me if I was okay, all I could see was red. Of course I wasn't okay! How dare he lie to me? How dare he pull me out of my dorm and put me in danger? How dare he even show up here tonight, knowing all the shit he put me through? I walked up to him, getting angrier with each step closer to his stupid smile. And when I was just a few feet in front of him, I pulled my arm back. The smile faded from his face one second before my fist made contact with his jaw.

Fuck that hurts! I grabbed my hand, cradling it against my stomach.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" He put his palm flush against his jaw.

"What's wrong with me?!" I cocked my arm back again.

He caught my fist in his hand and yanked my arm to the side. Before I even knew what was happening, he had spun me around so that my back was against the front of his torso and my arm was twisted behind me.

"Do you want to fill me in on what's happened in the few hours since I've last seen you?" he whispered into my ear.

I considered screaming. But there was no one around. Even if there was, no one ever cared about my pain. It would still make a good threat, though. "Let go of me, Eli, before I scream at the top of my lungs."

His put his free hand on the side of my neck.

I closed my eyes tight. Fire. There wasn't any air left in my lungs in order to scream.

"If I let you go, can we have a civilized conversation?"

I kept my eyes clamped shut.

"Summer?"

"Go to hell." My voice wasn't as forceful as I wanted it to be. The words barely came out at a whisper.

"I thought we were on the same page. You said you forgave me."

"That was before I realized you were lying." I squirmed in his grip, but it just made him tighten his fingers on my arm. "Seriously, Eli, let me go." I pushed back against his torso with all my might. My action had no effect on him. He stayed completely still.

"I think we need to have that talk that we put off yesterday."

"I have nothing to say to you." That wasn't true. I had a million things I wanted to say to him. But his fingers on my skin made it hard to concentrate on anything but the fire spewing in my chest. Let go of me.

"Would you take a breath? I don't know what you think you know, but I'm not trying to hurt you."

"Bullshit." I tried to elbow him in the ribs, but his grip just tightened on me.

He sighed. "Fine, I guess we have to do this the hard way." He pressed his fingertips into the side of my neck.

My vision immediately started to go blurry and my head started to spin. I lifted my foot so I could stomp on his, but my body seemed to collapse forward. I was just...so...tired...

 

***

 

Slowly my eyes focused on Eli's face. I tried to stand up, but something dug into my wrists. Did he seriously tie me to this bench in the middle of Central Park? I pulled on my arms. It just made the rope dig into my wrists even more.

"Now, can you please tell me what the hell is going on?" He was crouching in front of me. Pretend concern on his face.

I peered over his shoulder. We were far away from the walking path and the sun had definitely set awhile ago. I didn't exactly have any option but to talk to him. "You made me believe that you were the vigilante, asshole." I glared at him. I tried to move my leg to give him a swift kick in the nuts, but found that my ankles were also tied to the bench. Damn it! I clenched my teeth together.

"I said I had been watching you. I never said I was the vigilante."

"Yes you did. I said it was you and you didn't deny it."

"Those words never came out of your mouth. I thought you were saying you understood where I was coming from. And forgave me."

"Eli, untie me." I pulled on the rope again.

"You said you were falling for me..."

"Because I thought you were the vigilante!"

He lowered both eyebrows. "Wow. I guess I misread that." He put his hands on his knees and slowly stood up.

I shouldn't have cared if I had hurt his feelings. He was a fucking traitor. But for some reason, I regretted my words. Maybe it was just a game, but the look in his eyes seemed real. I had clearly upset him. "I was happy when I thought it was you," I said. "I wanted it to be you." And I think it was the truth. I was relieved when it was him. I wasn't even sure why.

He put his hand over his mouth and looked down at me. He nodded his head and then dropped his hand by his side. "So that's the only reason why you slept with me? You thought I was the masked psycho roaming the city streets at night?"

"He's not a psychopath."

Eli shook his head. "Jesus, Summer, I put my whole career on the line for you."

I twisted my wrist, ignoring the burn from the rope, as I tried to untie the knots. "What do you want from me? It's like you expect an apology when you're the one that should be apologizing to me. I know that you're working for Don."

He shook his head, completely incredulous. "I'm an undercover cop. I've been trying to bust Don Roberts for over two years."

My breathing seemed to slow. "That's not true. I'd recognize you from back home."

"Does the word undercover mean nothing to you?"

"So, you don't really look like that?" He was more like me than I realized. Hiding his true self. But not because he was scared and weak. Not because he was on the run from a monster.

"No, I do. I was incognito in Colorado. I pretty much do look like this. Minus the preppy clothes. I was trying to blend in as a student."

"So...you're not really a student here?"

"I'm 26 years old. I already have me degree. I enrolled here specifically to keep my eyes on you. And you haven't exactly made it easy."

"Is your name even Eli?"

"Yeah. But my last name isn't Hayes. It's Serrano."

I stared at the complete stranger in front of me. "How long were you watching me in Colorado, Eli Serrano?"

He sat down next to me on the bench. "I wasn't watching you. I was watching Don."

"But by default, that means you were watching me too."

Eli nodded. "I was doing surveillance for the past couple of years. Mostly outside the house. We got lucky enough to bug one room in his most recent house, but it was almost as if he knew it. Our audio never picked up on anything suspicious at all. We mostly just watched the house, him going in and out."

I thought about the house back in Colorado. Don rarely ever stepped foot into the living room. It had become almost a safe haven for me in the last few months I was living with him. That couldn't be a coincidence. But if Don had known, why hadn't he bothered to remove the bug? Not talking about the awful things he had done didn't exactly make him innocent.

"I didn't understand it at the time," Eli said, pulling me out of my head. "Why you stayed there instead of at a friend's house or something."

"I didn't have a choice."

"And I'm sorry that I didn't know. I would have stepped in if..."

"If what? You knew that he forced himself on me? That he beat me?" A few tears started to run down my cheeks. "He tried to kill me, Eli. I feared for my life every fucking day."

"Summer, I swear I didn't know. Not until I saw the bruises on your neck here. I thought you just stuck around because you were loyal to your father."

"He's not my father!" There was a sour taste in my mouth.

"I know that now. But I didn't when I was doing surveillance. The adoption paperwork was sound. There was no reason to look into anything. From the outside, everything seemed legal."

"He was hurting me."

"We weren't looking for evidence of something we didn't know existed. And I was close to putting him away on charges so much bigger than domestic violence."

"Bigger than that? Each day you didn't step in, a piece of me died. You dismissed my life in favor of some better cause."

"I swear I didn't know what he was doing."

"Untie me, Eli."

"Summer, I swear I didn't know. All I knew was that I saw a broken girl who deserved more than whatever life her criminal father could give her. But I thought you wanted to be there. I thought you were choosing to be there."

I wanted to punch him in the face all over again. "And did you enjoy it? Watching me? Following me?"

"Jesus, it wasn't like that. It was a job. And if I had ever heard him hurting you, I would have stepped in. You have to believe me, Summer."

"So you...what? Decided to stalk me here? You've been watching me for two years. But I only just met you. You may think you know me, but you don't. You only know the broken part of me."

"Yes, I was kind of infatuated with you. I had to pull a lot of strings to get this gig."

"You're sick."

"I do know you, Summer. You get a wrinkle in the middle of your forehead while you're studying. And you cry when you read novels. Almost 80 percent of the time. Even if it's not supposed to be sad."

"Stop."

"And you don't laugh nearly enough. You do this thing where you smile but it doesn't quite reach your eyes."

"Stop!"

"And I think I fell in love with you over a year ago when I was listening to you practice the lines of a play. A play you never even tried out for. Because you were too scared to let anyone see you."

It was like I was truly seeing him for the first time. Maybe someone else would have been flattered by the attention of a young, undercover cop. But I wasn't. All I could think about were the times I screamed when I thought no one was listening. Couldn't he have heard that from the bug in the living room? Why could no one ever hear me when I was in pain?

He leaned forward and wiped my tears away.

I tilted my face away from him. "You could have saved me from the hell I was living in. And you chose not to." My throat felt dry. I felt like I was going to be sick. "During the blizzard at the end of 2016, did you hear me scream?"

He shook his head. "I'm not even sure I was on surveillance yet."

"Bullshit, it was less than two years ago."

"When I was first put on surveillance, you weren't at the house, Summer. It was that winter but it was definitely after the blizzard. You didn't show up until over a week after I started."

"Because I was sitting in some dingy apartment with a nurse decked out on heroin, recovering from undocumented surgery."

"Summer..."

"He stabbed me." I was choking on my tears. He killed my baby.

"I didn't know." He put his hand on my knee.

I swallowed hard. I felt the fire from his touch. It was as if I was back in Don's grip. I couldn't breathe. He took the last ounce of me. He killed me too.

"You have to believe me, Summer. I didn't know anything about the abuse. I swear to God. I'm sorry..."

"Get off of me, Eli."

He kept his hand on my knee. "I am so, so sorry."

"Get off of me!"

"If I had known..."

"She asked you not to touch her," a voice rumbled.

Eli spun around, giving me a view of the vigilante. It was probably right around 8 o'clock when he had wanted me to bring Eli to the Corner Diner, to do who knew what. And here he was, saving me once again.

"It's my job to protect her," Eli said.

"No." The vigilante cocked his head to the side and stared at me. "She doesn't want your protection." He almost asked it as if it was a question.

Was he asking me permission to save me because I had acted insane earlier today? Because I pushed him away like I push everyone away? "Please," I mouthed silently.

The vigilante took a step toward me.

Eli put his hands out. "Don't get any closer to her. I'm not going to let some lunatic..." his voice faded out as he grabbed the side of his neck. He teetered to the side and coughed.

In a split second, V was crouching down in front of me.

"You're okay, now," he said as he untied my wrists and ankles. "I've got you." He lifted me into his arms.

It was the same thing he had said when he had lifted me into his arms the last time. I had been drugged before and had fallen asleep against his chest. This time, I just didn't have the energy to move. All the fight in me seemed to be gone. The electricity had evaporated. I just wanted to cling to the one person who always seemed to just show up when I needed him.

I heard a thud and knew it was Eli's body falling into the grass. The vigilante must have used whatever kind of dart he had used against my assailant the first time he had saved me.

Eli claimed he hadn't known about the abuse. I thought about how loudly I screamed when I had the energy to fight Don off. I thought about how Don would cover my mouth with his hand, stifling my voice. In that second that I could be heard, couldn't my screams have reached the living room? I closed my eyes, remembering the feeling of not being able to breathe. Eli had been outside Don's house that whole time. But apparently I hadn't been worth helping. If that was love, I was right to not want it. Love was as evil as hate. I could have died and Eli would have let it happen. He put his career ahead of a life. What kind of person did that? He could take a thousand years trying to explain it to me, but I'd never understand. He was just as bad as Don.

I rested my head against the vigilante's chest. He heard me scream. And he had stepped in immediately. I breathed in his cologne. "Where are you taking me?" I whispered.

"The only place I can keep a proper eye on you."

He's taking me to his secret lair.