*unedited*
-Ace-
Have you ever just thought of all the bad things you've ever done and all the bad things you know your going to end up doing, and just think of different ways you'd do them differently if you ever had the chance but, then remember that life's just the sugarcoated version of hell and you'll never get that chance. Never.
I Ace Clover Anderson, regret the day that I was ever curious about what it would be like to have a big happy family with a brother, a mother my sister and a father that actually loved me. Even if it meant I would have never met Chase and Jinx and the whole gang that somehow without me even knowing grew on me like mold in a old basement, even with all this, I would give up it all to have a chance to see my sister again even if it was just to say goodbye. I never did get to say goodbye. But who really does ever say goodbye forever to someone they really love? They don't, you just keep holding on to someone that's not even there. I didn't have a chance to save Amelia, but I can help Jinx. And to do that I would have to let her go, to stay as for away from her as humanly possible but I don't know how to do that.
Whenever I think of all the bad things I've ever done for some reason the only bad things that pops up in my head is what I did to Jinx. I've shot people and left them for dead, I've robbed banks and didn't look back, I've ruined peoples life's before and taken them to, but everything just goes back to that night when I asked my dad for help. When he told me he was going to hire one of his old friends to help me ruin Jinx's life, to tear her parents relationship apart. To when I black mailed her into doing what I wanted her to do, and from the moment I changed her, and I'm not talking about before I had her have a makeover but to when that look in her eyes no longer seemed so bright, when she stopped smiling, when her fire was put out it was like everything changed. Not just for her, but for me and all the while I was trying to make her suffer, I was feeling it to. Just as hard.
Now it seems like I'm stuck between everything I never wanted until now, and everything I always wanted to happen till now, and nothing make sense but the fact that I have to get Jinx back. Not for me or even for Chase but for Amelia.
For my sister.
Behind every bad guy has a good story and mine is one of the best.
It takes me a minute to clear my mind on exactly what I'm going to do and how I'm going to do it but once I do I get on my motorcycle and take off and this time I'm not looking for something, I'm just riding and the winds blowing hard and the sky is so
f-ing blue it's startling. Its like after all this time of being pressed on pause I'm being played on the wrong spot then the one I left off from, and I don't know how to go back; I can't go back, and all that's left is forward.
I don't know what the future has in stored for me but I do know what I have in stored for Jinx. I get off the motorcycle and I slide my hand down my pocket feeling the tip of my fingers clash with the cool metal object.
I walk up to Jinx's house counting each step to the door, 22.
22, just just became my favorite number because those were the first steps that I ever took that actually meant something. Well, something that was real. I ring the doorbell and the sound vibrates around me, and my hearts beating this solid rhythm that I'll- never forget.
A few seconds later a middle age women with flowing brown hair knotted up in a tight bun and sweats opens the door and the more I look in her eyes, the eyes that aren't even the exact color as Jinx's, I realize in fact it's Jinx's mother. Her eyes are red and disappointment shines in them as she realizes who in fact answers the door and guilt eats away at my chest and I tell her everything. From the beginning when I pulled her daughter from her swimming pool to after when I ruined her marriage to now when I let her go, I do leave out the part about the murder.
Her face had dropped and she put a hand over her mouth as she heard me talk and the disgust and hatred glowed in her eyes. Her face is green and it looks like she just might puke, when she speaks some of the most painful words I've heard in a while.
"Stay away from my daughter or so help me God if I even see you breathing the same air in the same area that she's breathing, I will find you and I will kill you. I will then call the police and tell them you had been harassing me and my daughter,” her eyes held mine for a moment longer before she slammed he door and I actually flinched at how real her threat sounded.
Sighing I run my fingers through my hair and throw my fist at the air.
"What are you doing here?" My blood runs cold and something in my stomach goes wild and I came to the conclusion in that moment that I never not want to hear the sound of her voice.
I turn my head to the side and my eyes capture Jinx. I also realized in that moment looking at her with her pixie cut hair style wide brown eyes and glowing skin, just how in superior and unfitting her name is. She may have had bad luck when it came to me but she's the best things that ever happened to me in a long time.
"It's over. Its all over Jinx I told your mom everything and I told my dad to have Shelly leave your dad alone and I know its too late, that the damage has already been done I just-"
I'm cut off by a wicked laugh that comes from an angel girl. She wipes tears away from her eyes that have slipped from the cracks of her broken pieces.
"You know what Ace when I first met you I thought that you were scary, but the truth is your just insane. Get the fuck off my property before I call the police," her voice is low and slow and it takes me a minute to process what she saying and a dull sensation covers my heart and suddenly I could hardly breathe.
She glares at me harshly and walks pass me brushing her bony shoulder into mine and I turn around and grab her wrist to stop her.
She instantly turns and slap me across the face so hard I stumble backwards.
I pause in shock but laugh darkly as I regain myself spitting out blood. She has a decent hand.
"I think that's what I'm starting to love about you, how you look like a angel and act like the exact opposite. Or maybe its the way even though your whole worlds falling apart your still okay. You didn't break like me, you just cracked and kept rolling. You lost your best friend and father and I took that from you hoping it would make you like me, like a monster, " I say still tasting the metal like taste in my mouth.
Jinx's looks ready to strick me again but she stops. "What is it that you want for me? If you know that you took everything good I had what possibly could be left?"
I reach into my pocket fully taking out the silver gold object. I place it in the palm of my hand and stretch it out for Jinx. Her eyes meet mine and I wonder if she remembers what Chase told her.
She takes it.
"Its your great great grandmother's locket right? Chloe the one who found it and great great grandfather let her have it after the debt was broken. She's the one who started this whole Anderson debt horror," Jinx says thoughtful brushing her dainty fingers over the old piece.
" Its worth around 2. million today. The locket not the chain, it goes way down in our family beyond my great great grandad when the California Gold rush was still around. That was why it was so important when it went missing. Take the money and get away Jinx. You don't have to worry about anything else anymore. I'm so sorry and i don't know what's going to happen tomorrow or next week but I want you to promise me you won't let the waves drown you became once they do I won't be here to pull you back out." Jinx's frowns and shakes her head tears glossing her brown eyes.
"I don't know how to do this without you," she says her tone suddenly scratchy.
"Do what?" I ask. She looks down and her eyes are dazed.
"Live, normally. Live the same, I don't know how to go back to a be who I was before you. You can't just force yourself in someone's life and leave like you were never there. You can't just change me and leave, " Jinx states and the anger pent up behind each word is heard clearly and the single tear that drips down her high cheek bone makes it hurt all the more.
"I'm sorry, that I met you, but I'll never be sorry that I saved you. And as messed up as it is I would ruin your life all over again and put you through hell and back to hell again if it met that I could be the same person that I was before Amelia. I'm not going to go as far and say that you changed me, but you did make me want to be a better person. So let me be a better a person, a unselfish person. Let me leave, Jinx because I won't be able to if you say shít like that. ”
Jinx's shakes her head and look ready to throw the locket at my face.
"I never wanted money I wanted my life back, but now that's gone and I want you more then- anything," her voice cracks towards the end and that was all the restraint I had left before I grabbed her by the face and my lips brushed against hers. And it wasn't like anything I ever felt before. Did I ever mention Jinx was the first girl I ever kissed? Even though I had messed around with plenty of girls kissing wasn't my thing, it seemed too important. That's probably why I was always hesitant about kissing her.
I pull away and try to remember how her face looks now. In this moment. And I hope to a god that I don't even believe in that she never changes, more than she already has.
Then I left her. No matter how hard she screamed for me to stop I ignored her calls. We had to leave. My brother killed a man and he had to come first. Above all.
//
Debating on where to go from here. I really don't know if I should stop here or do a couple more chapter's.
Maybe a second book?