We managed to make it back to the city and to our apartment without too much trouble. Geet, once again, met us outside our door, but asked few questions and seemed at least somewhat accepting of the story we had been out trying to find new buyers for Manic. After giving us a sly smile and stepping aside, Gabe and I were able to enter the apartment, closing ad locking the door behind us.
As Gabe walked towards his bedroom, a thought dawned on me. I knew we shouldn’t be talking about our plan inside the apartment, but I also knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep without having at least some kind of an answer for my question.
“Gabe?” I asked. “What are we going to do after?”
He thought for a second. “Well, if everything goes well, I guess we’ll be running off again. I mean, there could be reasons to stay, but I think it’s safe to say we won’t be in Chicago anymore.”
“Always running,” I said, more to myself than to Gabe.
“That’s the life we chose. Even with Harrison out of the way, we won’t be free men. Not now, not ever.”
I nodded my understanding.
“We’ll need money.”
I didn’t speak, but waited for Gabe to explain what he was planning. I could see the wheels spinning in his head, formulating another plan.
“We’ll have to start dipping into the money we make selling Manic. It’ll have to be discreet, and even then, Harrison might figure it out, but we can’t run off without anything to keep us alive. We’ll take a little bit from each sale and set it aside. Hopefully within the next few weeks we’ll have enough to get us new identities and a way out of town.”
“What if we don’t?” I asked.
“We always figure something out,” Gabe laughed. He walked into his bedroom and closed the door behind him.
I knew I should have been exhausted after spending over eight hours running around Illinois with Gabe, plotting our great escape, but I felt wide awake. The moon shone through the wall of windows to my left, and I knew I wouldn’t be sleeping for a long time, if at all. And as if on cue, my mind immediately began to wonder towards thoughts of what would be happening in my life within the next few weeks. I willed my brain to stop, but it wouldn’t. Thoughts of everything that could go wrong flooded through me, and I found myself thinking, ‘Who else is going to die, other than Harrison?’
It wasn’t a question of whether anyone else would die, but who they would be. A list of names fluttered through my mind; Geet, Fuchsia, Gabe, me? I realized quickly the list of names was much smaller than it would have been just over a year ago.
A knock at the front door startled me out of my own thoughts, and I glanced at the wall hanging in the kitchen. It read 12:44. Who would possibly be knocking on the door at almost one in the morning? Who would possibly be knocking on the door at all, actually?
I opened it cautiously, realizing instantly Fuchsia was standing on the other side. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was still curious as to why she would be wanting to see me so late at night.
“What’s up?” I asked.
She ran her hand through her hair shyly. “I can’t sleep,” she said.
“I haven’t tried yet,” I said, opening the door the rest of the way for her so she could come inside. “But I have a feeling I’ll be in the same boat.”
She walked through the apartment, her hair swaying from side to side, and I watched her, trying to take in her beauty. But as she sat down on the couch, I began to wonder why I would never be able to feel the same way about her as she felt about me. Ever since the night we met, Fuchsia had been head over heels for me, and I had treated her more like a rebound than anything else. I never allowed myself to get too close, or close at all for that matter, but I couldn’t really figure out why.
Anyone who knew me would be able to say it was because of my feelings for Riley, but I had very much accepted whatever I had once had with Riley was dead and gone. She hated me, and I deserved to be hated.
“Are you going to sit down, or are you just going to stand there?” Fuchsia asked.
I walked to the couch and sat down next to her, closer to her than I would have had I not been thinking about my feelings. I wanted to feel the same way for her as she felt for me, but I didn’t know if I could force myself. And should I even try to if it involved being forced?
The view from the couch was extraordinary. It faced the windows, giving us a full view of the city, which at night was exponentially more mesmerizing than it was during the day. The glow of the buildings lit up the room as if candles had been placed throughout, and the lights on the Hancock Center antennas blinked off and on, creating an almost hypnotizing rhythm.
“Something’s on your mind,” Fuchsia stated coolly. I shook my head with a small, forced laugh and realized she was staring into my eyes.
“When is something not on my mind?” I asked.
“That’s a good question. I guess it’s all part of your mysterious nature,” she chuckled, laying her head on my shoulder. Automatically, my brain told me to shift my body so she would have to move, but I ignored the thought and let her continue talking. “You roll into town, sweep me off my feet, disappear into the night, and then come back a year later. You’re a mysterious, enigmatic jerk.”
“Oh, I’m a jerk now?” I asked playfully.
“You’re going to tell me you disagree with my statement?”
“I didn’t say that,” I said. “But you didn’t have to put it out there in the open like that.”
We shared a laugh, knowing full well I had earned my “jerk” title, and had likely done enough to hold the crown for years to come. I still couldn’t figure out why Fuchsia seemed to care so much about me.
She sighed and pulled her feet up on the couch, using me as a pillow.
“Why do you put up with me?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
I decided to put it out there on the table. “I’ve never treated you particularly well, as you just pointed out, but you stick around. All that on top of this situation Gabe and I are in… Any normal girl would have been on their way out of town the second all this started happening.”
Fuchsia thought about it for a moment, staring through the windows at the city. “I guess I’m not a normal girl, then,” she answered.
“That’s the truth, Madame Serena.” We laughed again as she gently punched me in knee. “Ow,” I said.
“You deserved it,” Fuchsia said with another laugh.
We sat in silence for a few minutes after that, and while I don’t know for sure what Fuchsia was thinking, I had thought about how little she really knew about me, and how even she, a self-proclaimed “not-a-normal-girl,” would want nothing to do with me if she knew how much pain I had caused everyone in my life. She would be on the first flight back to California if she knew every meaningful relationship in my life, not counting whatever I had with Gabe, had crumbled and imploded, all because of me.
“You’re thinking deep thoughts, again,” she said, breaking the silence.
“I am.”
“What are they?”
“You tell me. You’re the psychic,” I said, giggling.
She grabbed my palm and immediately began feeling creases in my hand as if I was an actual paying customer at her shop back in California. In the dim light, I could see her brow furrow, and glanced up at me with a look of concern on her face. I knew at least part of her took the psychic-thing seriously, but I couldn’t be completely sure if she was acting or not.
“You’re very, very stressed,” she said quietly. “And you’re worried about what’s going to happen in the very near future.”
I tilted my head in surprise, but told myself someone pretending to be psychic could get pretty much anything right if they used vague comments and pried information out of their clients. “You’re going to have to do better than that,” I said.
She continued rubbing my palm and closed her eyes. “You’re worried about Gabe. You’re worried he??
?s going to do something to put you both in danger.”
I was a little shocked. “That’s pretty close,” I said, waiting for her to continue, but she didn’t. She let my palm go and raised her head off my shoulder, turning it towards my face. I turned to look at her, and she kissed me, square on the lips, deep and passionate.
As she pulled her face away from mine, she looked down, saying, “You can’t let him make decisions that can get you hurt, Jamie. You have to stop doing what’s best for Gabe, and start doing what’s best for you. He doesn’t care about you as much as you think he does.”
I let out a frustrated sigh and looked away. For some reason, my eyes were beginning to water, and I didn’t want Fuchsia to see. “It’s not that simple. It’s never been that simple. Gabe has a way of making his ideas seem like the only ideas.”
“You’re going to get yourself or someone else killed,” she said.
I was shocked by her words, but decided to be candid. “I already have gotten someone killed. Multiple someones.”
That’s when it dawned on me: I wasn’t allowing myself to get too close to Fuchsia because I didn’t want her die.
She took my hand in hers again, this time not holding it to “read my palm.” She looked at me with so many different emotions I couldn’t tell them apart. “You’re not a bad person,” she said, as if actually reading my mind. “I know I don’t have the whole story, and I don’t need it. I know how I feel about you, and I know you might not feel completely the same way, but I’m in this with you, until the very end.”
“Gabe’s planning for us to kill Harrison, and I don’t know what to do,” I blurted. I wasn’t sure if we were going to tell Fuchsia or not, since we hadn’t discussed it.
While she seemed oddly calm for being someone who had just found out the guy she had feelings for might be a murderer within the next few weeks, she still looked a little worried. “You don’t think it’s a good idea?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. I had no idea whether or not killing Harrison was a good plan or not. I was torn as humanly possible on the topic.
We sat silently again, staring through the windows. I couldn’t be sure in the dark, but it looked and sounded as if a storm was rolling in. A storm always seemed to be rolling in.
“You can’t do it, Jamie,” Fuchsia said, breaking the silence once more.
“I think I have to,” I answered.
“I’m serious,” she said. “I have a lot of free time now that we’re in Chicago, and you and Gabe are working all the time. I hear things. I see things. Harrison is way too powerful for the two of you to go after him. You don’t know what you’re doing, and you’ll die.”
I put my arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer to me, squeezing her arm only slightly. “It sure seems likely, doesn’t it?” I asked.
Thunder began to roll ominously in the distance.
“I don’t want you to die,” Fuchsia said quietly.
“I don’t want me to die either,” I said.
A few minutes later, Fuchsia had fallen asleep and was snoring softly. I thought I would be awake all night, staring out the windows as the rain began to pour, but before I could think too much about the decision I would have to make in the coming weeks and how it would affect mine, Fuchsia’s, and Gabe’s lives, I dozed off and did not wake up until morning.