Eve

Chapter 29

Damian's face was out of focus in front of me. He was smiling, holding a locket. A locket with a picture of his nose inside. He kissed my forehead. Then he kissed it again. Then one more time. Again. Again. Pluck, pluck, pluck.

I opened my eyes to what felt like a hangover from winning the Tequila International Cup. Damian's face faded away. The world was blurred and upside down around me.

There was a buzz, somewhere to my left. My head was against the roof of the car. The window was broken to my side.

And pluck, pluck on my head. What was that? There was something dripping. Something sticky. I ran my finger through my forehead and looked.

Blood.

I felt my eyes closing against my will. To my side, again, the buzzing. Bzzz, bzzz, like an attention whore bee. I couldn't feel my body.

Just before I lost conscience, my eyes focused on the phone spasming like a fish out of the water to my side.

So that's where the buzzing is coming from.

Damian's face was framed behind the cracked glass of the iPhone. Skype call.

I passed out.

When I woke up again, I was lying down against dirt and grass. My eyes hurt, and my head didn't quite feel like I had won the Tequila International Cup anymore – but it still felt like I had at least made it to the semifinals.

I was face up, looking at the sky. Way, way up above, green leaves danced around themselves to the wind, letting the morning sun cut through them in patches of white.

I was semi-conscious, a vague memory of what had happened the night before constantly being cut short by an overwhelming feeling of peace and emptiness. I wondered if that's what dying was like.

Is this heaven?

"Are you awake?"

The voice came from behind me, over my head. I realized I was resting my head on someone's lap. I leaned my head back further to find the leaves of green above replaced by a thin face in blonde hair.

Innara Hichens.

Oh, God, please don't tell me there's Innaras in Heaven.

"Eve? Can you hear me?"

"Yes," I said. "Am I dead?"

"No."

"Thank God, I can still kill myself to get away from you then."

I struggled to pull myself up to sitting position and turned to face Innara.

She looked different, to say the least. Her hair was dirty and uncombed. Her face had cuts and dirt all over it like she was the poster for a war movie. Her Versace top was torn and crumpled (the horror).

"Where am I?" I asked, still trying to put my thoughts together. What happened last night?

"Honestly?" Innara said, "I don't know."

We were at the house... and then Aunt Meredith showed up with the car...

The image of Edgar's dead body by a cliff flashed in front of my eyes.

"Eve... I have to tell you something."

Aunt Meredith driving fast, and Mom telling her to drive slower.

"Please, please don't freak out, Eve."

"Where's my mom?" I asked, in a low voice. "Where's Aunt Meredith?"

The sound of screeching tires, and zombies climbing over our car as we drifted.

"Eve..."

I got up. "Innara, where's my mom and aunt!?"

Innara sighed and looked to her left. I followed her gaze, my heart tight with fear of what I would see.

No, please, no. Please, no, no, no –

A hundred feet from where we stood, what was left of the car was upside down against a tree. A thin white smoke oozed out of the hood like a birthday candle right after you blow it.

"Eve, when I heard the noise I came to see what it was," Innara continued, careful. "I saw you there alive, but..."

I ran. Like a maniac, I made way to the car, twigs and branches and leaves slapping me in the face.

Of course Mom wasn't dead. Of course Aunt Meredith wasn't dead. Moms and Aunts don't die like that, out of the blue.

"Eve!" Innara's voice was like an echo from another dimension, catching up behind me. "Eve, wait!"

I stopped in front of the car. For a second, I didn't see anything. My brain did that thing where you let yourself believe that the obvious didn't just happen, because it couldn't. There was no one in the car, so obviously Mom and Aunt Meredith got away before Innara got there, and Innara was just assuming that –

And then I saw the hand. Sprouting out from the broken driver's window, covered in blood, resting against the grass.

"No..."

"Eve, I couldn't do anything. They were already –"

"NO!" I turned to Innara. Her face was blurred from my tears. "No, Innara! No!"

Innara tried to hold me. I set myself free and pushed her away. Against all the better judgment in the world, I kneeled. I kneeled and leaned my head to look under the car.

Of all the stupid things I did in my life (and the list is growing by the second even now), that was by far the worst. I would give all I have in the world to have the image of my Mom and Aunt Meredith's body under that car erased forever from my brain.

"Eve..."

I felt Innara's hand touch my neck as she tried to pull me up. Slowly, without even realizing what was happening, I let her guide me back to the spot we were before.

Innara pushed my shoulders down gently, and I sat on the grass. Eyes straight ahead. She said things to me in a calming tone, but I wasn't listening.

I felt like I was breathing fast and not at all at the same time. The world seemed to be chaos and standing still, all at once.

My mom was dead. Aunt Meredith was dead.

Everybody was fucking dead.

I closed my eyes and saw their bodies under the car again, twisted in impossible positions. I saw blood. I saw anger and sadness like I had never seen before inside me.

"Eve...?"

I swallowed the tears once, twice. Three times. I pressed my eyes shut so hard I felt and hoped they'd burst out of their orbit so I'd never have to look at anything ever again.

"Eve... talk to me."

And then I screamed.