She could hate me for it.
As long as she lived to do it.
Yeah, I am faster than the cancer.
20
ALENA
Day five.
Or six? I don't know. Maybe only hours have passed. The days had bled together like the scratches on my back—raw edges blending into one endless wound. I couldn't remember the last time I'd slept more than an hour without the whispers dragging me back to consciousness. Couldn't remember the last meal that wasn't vodka poured straight from the bottle.
The apartment wasn't home anymore. It was a tomb.
Walls pressing in, shadows stretching longer even in daylight, every corner hiding eyes that weren't there but watched anyway. The air tasted stale—blood and wine and unwashed despair.
Kitchen to living room. Living room to desk. Desk to bedroom. Bedroom back to kitchen. My feet had worn a path in the carpet—uneven, frantic, a map of my unraveling. The bottle in my hand sloshed with each step, vodka warm now from my grip. I took another swig. The burn barely registered anymore. Just wet heat sliding down a throat scraped raw from screaming.
My nails were down to bloody nubs. I'd started biting them yesterday—or was it the day before? Couldn't stop now. The sharp pain of teeth on skin was something real, something I could control when everything else had spun off into chaos.
Where is he?
The question looped in my head, endless, merciless.
I grabbed my phone off the counter—screen spiderwebbed with cracks from the third time I'd hurled it at the wall in frustration. Unlocked it with shaking fingers. Dialed Lucy.
She picked up on the first ring. "Alena? You okay?"
"Anything?" My voice came out shredded. Barely human.
A pause. Too long. The kind of pause that meant no but she didn't want to say it.
"No, babe. Marcus called his office again this morning—nothing. His assistant said the last contact was that 'work trip' email, but no details. No itinerary. We tried his old pit contacts again—still nothing. Hospitals say no one matching his description has come through."
My chest constricted."He's gone, Luce. Actually gone."
"Don't say that." But her voice shook. I could hear the fear bleeding through. "We're not giving up. Marcus is—"
I hung up.
Couldn't handle the hope in her tone when mine had run dry days ago.
Called Marcus next.
"Alena." He answered like he was already braced for bad news. Like he'd been waiting for this call.
"Tell me you found something."
A sigh. Heavy. Defeated. "I wish I could. Called every shady bastard I know from the old days—no one's heard from him. No chatter. No sightings. It's like he vanished into fucking thin air."
Vanished.
The word hit like a blade between my ribs.
"Thanks," I muttered through deadened lips and hung up before he could say anything else comforting and useless.
Bottle to lips. Swallow. Burn. Repeat.
