Illya
“Ifeel like this is the calm before the storm.” Goosebumps blanketed my arms and legs, and I flexed my grip on the door handle as Theo jerked the emergency brake. The cemetery was deathly still and silent, and I inhaled a stabilizing breath before popping open the door. “I don’t like this.”
“What is ‘this’?” I wasn’t sure if that question had an answer yet, and I pursed my lips thinly as I climbed out of the car. We’d been driving for hours, but I wasn’t stiff or tired. There was no apprehension running through my veins. There was nothing except this intense sense of foreboding gorging on my insides. This feeling had been building the past two weeks or so, and I wasn’t sure if it was simply because Carlyle’s grace period was up, or it was something more sinister.
Granted, Carlyle was sinister in himself. Whatever he wanted me to do wasn’t just basic blackmail.
“Is wanting to come here more about starting your job?” As if he read my thoughts, Theo rounded the front of his car to sling his arm over my shoulders, and my expression soured. Glancing around at the beautiful landscaping and bright sun shining down on everything, making headstones glimmer, I only jerked my head in a nod. “Don’t be nervous, Illya. Carlyle’s not so bad once you get used to him.”
“My parents were great people, and this is what I’m doing. I don’t even knowwhatit is I’m doing. Carlyle won’t tell me anything. Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s going to be a baptism of fire.” I rested my cheek on his chest, and we started walking through the headstones, immersing me in a strange sense of surrealism. I’d never thought of being back here, and I thought moving to California would make that impossible. “I don’t feel anything but dread, Theo. I mean, being here . . . my parents and my brothers are dead. They’re not ghosts or up in Heaven. They’re rotted in the ground, and they don’t hold any sway on my life right now. I just . . . I came here because I thought it’d be easier to do it here instead of being trapped in that place.”
“Do what? I’m not screwing you in a cemetery, Illya.” Frowning darkly, I didn’t offer a response to that, and Theo palmed my head as we walked down the path. “Do what, Illya?”
“To figure out my life.” My answer earned me a questioning grunt, and I glanced over at the rows and rows of perfectly trimmed grass. Why didn’t people treat others this well untilafterthey died? Licking my lips heavily, I held back a sigh, and my worries seemed to roll easily off my tongue. “What kind of person am I if I’m not starving and living under a tarp? I don’t know. I thought maybe coming here would help me get some perspective on who I could be because I really can’t picture myself not struggling. That’s kinda sad.”
“Carlyle may be a drug lord or terrorist or whatever they call it these days, but what does that mean forme? How much of it can I ignore, and how much of it should I look at? These past few weeks have been great, but I can’t open the refrigerator without effort. I can’t leave that building without being gripped by an apprehension that I won’t be able to get back in.” Slowly, my tangent came to an end, and I heaved a massive, exhausted breath as Theo kneaded my scalp gingerly. “If I take my bandages off, I can’t put them back on again. I don’t know if I’m ready to take that step, Theo.”
“Illya.” Resting his chin on my crown, Theo sighed heavily through his nose, and I gulped down the dense lump in my throat. “No one really knows anything until they try it. There’s never a sure answer— you can always be surprised by how you react to something. And, yeah, Carlyle’s a dick, but if you stay on his good side, he’s not going to be a dick toyou. He says it all the time that he really likes you. I think you should take that at face value and not worry about how he treats others.”
“Yeah, I’m not sure that’s a good thing. Look at what he did to his own brother.” My grumble muffled in Theo’s chest as we turned to walk along the tombstones, and I sucked in a sharp breath through my teeth. “That DVD he gave me . . . I was Sylvie’s best friend for years— half a decade— and when I watched her basically get murdered, there was nothing. I didn’t expect that. I wasn’t horrified or sick or even glad or . . . or anything.”
“She hurt you, but either not that bad or your friendship wasn’t as strong as you thought it was, Illya. Sylvie was around, so you didn’t feel alone, but how good a friend was she, really? As far as Carlyle giving you that DVD in the first place, I think he did it out of what tiny good place he has in his heart. Ignoring everything, she got some rich guy trapped. That says a lot about her character that she’d be willing to put someone through that for her own selfishness.” I knew Theo was talking about the baby, not Mateo, and he tugged gently on my hair. “If you did that to me, I’d probably kill you, too.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I can’t have kids, then.” His grim smirk was so deep I felt it through my hair, and I reached to grab his right hand and press it against my abdomen. Warm and hard, he put just a tiny bit of pressure on my bandages, and his other hand tightened in my hair. “When I was sixteen, two years after the accident, I decided to get a hysterectomy. I was dating my first boyfriend, the one I showed my scars to, and if I did get pregnant by accident, all sorts of horrible shit would happen to my body. Despite all her faults, my aunt was actually the one that pushed it the hardest even before we were told the insurance would cover it.”
“Whatever happened to him, anyway?” Pausing our journey just before one particular headstone, I turned to Theo as rage blazed in his eyes and tightened his tone.
“I don’t know. He never talked to me again, just disappeared despite having the same circle of friends. My mom always told me that if a guy does that, not to get hung up on him.” Gesturing to the light-colored marble, I smiled sadly as Theo’s gaze flickered to it only to jump back to me. “She used to talk about guys a lot, and how I should never compromise myself. I should never move for a guy, even across the street. I should never let a guy do anything that made me uncomfortable, from paying for something and up.”
“Your mom’s a badass.” Turning to the gravestone, Theo tightened his grip on my shoulders and head as I hummed in agreement. “She raised you to get through this shitstorm. It always amazes me how normal you are, Illya.”
“Normal.” My mom’s headstone glowed in the bright sun of late morning, and I sat down to cross my legs in the lush, green grass. I didn’t understand the concept of considering the dead just because they were dead, and no emotions tightened my chest as I stared at the name scrawled elegantly into the marble. “I guess that’s a good word to use.”
Theo dropped down behind me, draping his legs around mine, and I leaned back against his chest to soak up his warmth. Today was beautiful, but I couldn’t enjoy it as my gut rot intensified. Tilting my head to stare at my dad and twin brother’s stones, I licked my lips heavily as anxiety gnawed at the back of my throat.
“Things have been normal, haven’t they? Am I just waiting for something awful to happen?” My murmur earned me silence, and I closed my eyes to lean heavier against him. Settling his hands on my shoulders, Theo squeezed and rubbed softly, and I wished that just a little bit of his security would seep through my skin. “What if I’m not cut out for normal?”
“Then we’ll just have to find something you’re kickass at. That’s what life’s about, Illya— it never stops. Only the lucky ones find that security.” My lip twitched up, and Theo buried his nose in my hair to breathe a heavy, hot sigh that rolled down the back of my neck. “We’re just lucky to be alive.”
