Scarlet Rain Part 12

Eva slid out of the pa.s.senger seat and met her friend on the sidewalk. "You don't have to whisper yet, Bridge. We're like, four blocks away." Nervously, she tugged down the bill of her hat to s.h.i.+eld her face from the flickering light of the streetlamp.

"I'm trying to prep myself for stealth mode." Bridget increased the volume of her whisper. "What's the plan?"

"Uh, I don't really have one yet. I figured we'd get closer and see if my mom's home. Then," Eva said, shrugging, "I don't know. Go from there?"

Bridget shook her head back and forth. Wisps of hair floated down into her face. "s.h.i.+tty, s.h.i.+tty, s.h.i.+tty, s.h.i.+tty plan. Come on. Follow me."

Eva kept to the shadows and let Bridget forge a path. Unfamiliar houses surrounded her, and Eva realized she was lost in her own neighborhood.

"I must drive on autopilot," she murmured, really looking at the houses for the first time.

"Almost there," Bridget muttered.

"Finally. I feel like we've been walking for at least half an hour, and we didn't park that far away."

"We've been taking the long way around to get to your house. You've never gone this way? I've done it at least a thousand times."

They turned down Columbia Avenue and Eva relaxed at the familiarity of her surroundings. "Shouldn't we be one street over? We're going to end up behind my house."

"Oh my G.o.d." Bridget let out an exasperated sigh. "Would you just trust me and stop asking so many questions? I've totally got this." She stopped in front of a quaint, Craftsman-style home and inspected the outside. The white siding glowed pale blue in the moonlight. "Looks good," she chirped, before traipsing through the gra.s.s and into the backyard.

Eva cemented her feet to the ground. "Bridget! We can't be back there. That is someone's backyard."

"What did I say about trusting me? Plus, they don't have a fence," she said matter-of-factly. "And all the lights in the house are off. It's not that late, so they're probably not even home."

"But that doesn't mean we can go back there whenever we want. It's not our house."

"I love you, but sometimes you're like an annoying little sister." Bridget marched over to Eva, grabbed her arm, and pulled her through the yard. "Would it make you feel better if I told you I'd asked the people who live here if I could climb their fence whenever I needed to?" Bridget put a foot on the wood and hefted herself up on the first rung.

Eva followed her lead and did the same. "You really asked them?"

"Well, no. But how else do you think I got into your house all those times when I was drunk in high school and couldn't go home?"

"I guess I was under the absurd a.s.sumption that you used the front door." Eva peered over the fence and studied the backyard. Circles of colorful light glowed from the solar-powered gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s Lori was so fond of. Together, they'd chosen the perfect location for each orb and giddily awaited nightfall, when the backyard would be transformed into a disco-like oasis. There was a world full of memories trapped within the confines of the fence. A world in which Eva felt like she no longer belonged.

"It doesn't look like your mom's here," Bridget said, interrupting Eva's thoughts.

Eva blinked back tears and swallowed through the tightness building in her throat. "You're right. I don't see any of the usual lights on."

"Well, let's get this done before she comes back." Bridget hoisted her slender frame over the fence and stuck the landing on the other side. "What are you waiting for?" she asked, tucking a few free strands of hair behind her ears. "Just climb the last two step things and jump. It's only cushy gra.s.s down here." She bounced up and down a few times to demonstrate its cus.h.i.+ness.

Eva did as Bridget instructed, and climbed the two wooden planks before hopping over the top of the fence. "Oof!" Air rushed out of her lungs as she smacked down onto the gra.s.s. "Not so cushy," she croaked.

"Good thing you heal quickly." Bridget offered Eva her hand and pulled her to her feet.

"Doesn't make it hurt any less," she groaned, wiping dirt and gra.s.s from her pants.

"Is it weird being back? I mean, you haven't been gone for very long, but so much has changed."

Sadness rippled beneath her chest as Eva studied the back of her house. "I feel like the girl who lived here doesn't even exist anymore."

Bridget interlaced her fingers with Eva's and gently squeezed her hand. "When the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window."

"Are you quoting The Sound of Music?"

"It's the most positive thing I could think of. You know I'm not good with emotions. It would've been better if I'd burst into song with 'My Favorite Things,' but I figured someone would call animal control, thinking cats were being slaughtered."

Eva controlled her giggles and hopped up the steps behind her. "Dammit. I don't have my key."

"No problem. Mine's around here somewhere." Bridget stood on her tippy toes and felt around the top of the doorframe.

"Bridge, you don't have a key."

"Voila!" she cheered, and slipped it into the lock.

"Since when has that been there?"

Bridget shrugged. "Since your mom asked me to house-sit back when we were, like, twelve or something." She put the key back in its spot and slowly pushed the door open. The distinctive ding of the alarm sounded, and Bridget let the door swing open the rest of the way. "Alarm's on. That means no one's home."

Eva jogged to the keypad and entered her code. "Okay. Mom packed up all of Grandma's books and put them in the closet in the spare room upstairs. All we have to do is find the box, then leave the way we came in."

"Easy peasy," Bridget chimed.

"Yeah, except that it's dark, and we can't see anything since we can't turn on any of the lights."

Bridget made a few clicks on her phone and a blinding fluorescent light shot Eva in the face. "We have light now."

Eva held onto the railing as she walked upstairs, blinking the white bursts from her vision.

"I'm so glad Lululemon finally opened a store here. Your b.u.t.t looks amazing in those pants, by the way. It's probably all the running you've been doing lately. You should really keep it up." Bridget poked Eva's cheeks.

"A firm a.s.s. At least there's one pro to being wanted by the police." They reached the second floor, and Eva paused before continuing down the dark hallway. "Bridge, hand me the light." Eva took control of Bridget's phone and headed toward the guest bedroom's closed door.

Bridget's words tickled the back of Eva's neck. "I'm so nervous. Aren't you nervous?"

"Yeah, but only because you're making me nervous by spider monkeying me." A chill sprouted in her spine, and she shook her shoulders. "There's nothing to be nervous about, Bridge. It's just my house. It's not like there's going to be some crazy axe murderer hiding under the bed."

"Well there probably will be now that you said that," Bridget hissed.

Eva rolled her eyes and threw open the door. The narrow beam of light barely reached the opposite wall as she shone it around the room. A quilt-covered bed and two end tables were packed tightly against the wall across from the closet and a towering armoire. "See? Nothing bad." Eva walked through the cramped s.p.a.ce and opened the closet door.

"Not nothing." Bridget fanned the air in front of her face. "It smells like old people in here."

"This was my yiayi's room. All of her stuff is packed up in this closet. No one comes in here, and it hasn't changed much since she pa.s.sed. And, luckily for us, my mom has some kind of OCD when it comes to labeling things."

The white light illuminated Lori's neat handwriting on the side of each box. "Books" was written in bold, black sharpie on two of them. "Of course they have to be on the bottom," Eva sighed. "Come help me with these. You're being a horrible sidekick."

Bridget moaned and dragged herself over to the open closet. "You know I'm not good at manual labor."

"Put all those hours you spend working out with your hot trainer to good use and lift up these boxes for me. They're just full of clothes, and Yiayi wasn't big, so they shouldn't be too heavy."

"You really think my trainer's hot?" She squatted down and dug her fingers in between the two boxes. "I didn't even give him that much time. I was like, meh, beige paint."

"Just lift when I tell you." Eva positioned herself next to Bridget and gripped the sides of the second cardboard box. "Okay, go." The weight lifted from the top of the box, and Eva slid it free from the stack. "Perfect. Only one more."

Bridget released the boxes, and they collided with the floor with a soft thud. She shuffled over and readied herself for another round. "If I break a nail because of this, I'm seriously going to be p.i.s.sed."

"Lift," Eva instructed, ignoring Bridget's whines. She yanked the second box free and slid it next to the first. "You open that one, I'll open this one," she said, grabbing the phone and s.h.i.+ning the light over the two boxes.

"Why don't we just take both of them with us and sort it out once we get back to my place?" Bridget asked.

"Do you want to have to carry an extra twenty pounds for no reason?"

"Right." Bridget tore through the cracked packing tape and opened the cardboard flaps. "Any of these the book you're looking for?"

Eva peered into the box and dug through the unorganized piles of paperbacks. "Nope. All of them are just regular, everyday books." She scooted over to the second box and used her free hand to peel off the tape.

"Well what's the difference between your book and a regular book?"

"This," Eva whispered as she uncovered the pile. Cracked leather bound the oversized pages of each of the four books nestled in the box.

"Whoa. That looks like some serious reading."

"Yeah, and I didn't realize there was more than one. Let's put that box back in the closet, and get this one to your car before my mom comes home."

"I can't believe this actually worked out," Bridget grunted as she hefted the box on top of the others. "This whole thing has been way more intense and exciting than when I used to hide bottles of vodka in your room."

"We're not in the clear yet." Eva handed Bridget her phone, and lifted the bulky box. "Wait, you used to hide liquor in my room? What if my mom had found it and I got in trouble?"

Bridget closed the door behind them and led the way down the hall. "She'd never have believed they were yours anyway. You barely drink even now."

Safely at the bottom of the stairs, Bridget switched off the flashlight and tucked her phone into her pocket. "You want to take that out back while I set the alarm and lock up, or-"

"Shh!" Eva interrupted. "Do you hear that?"

Murmurs wafted in from the front of the house as Lori's silhouette closed in on the front door.

"s.h.i.+t!" Bridget squeaked and ducked behind the banister. "What do we do?"

"c.r.a.p!" Eva gasped. "You can see straight through to the backyard from the front door. There's no way I can make it over the fence before she gets inside. I have to hide."

Bridget poked her head out from behind the swirly wooden railing. "You have to hide? What about me?"

"You need to do what you do best and create a distraction. Think of it as a lesson in acting. Get enough practice in, and maybe you'll be playing yourself in my memoir's movie adaptation."

Bridget stood, her eyes widening. "Oh my G.o.d. What a great point!" She dug in her pocket, pulled out a jangly clump of keys, and dropped them on top of the box. "I'll meet you at the car as soon as I'm finished winning this Oscar."

The deadbolt clicked, and Eva hurried into the kitchen. The pantry door hung open, and she pushed the box into the small s.p.a.ce before squeezing in behind it. She tried closing the door, but the toes of her tennis shoes stuck out about an inch too far. She shuffled as far away from the sliver of moonlight spilling in from the open door as possible and prayed Bridget's acting skills were up to par. The front door creaked open, and Eva held her breath and waited.

"Bridget, what are you doing here?" Lori's voice filled Eva with longing and regret.

"I am so sorry that I broke in, Ms. K. I hope you can forgive me. I just-I wanted to be closer to my best friend, since she's not here. I-I'm worried about her." Bridget's voice cracked, and she let out a haggard sigh. "And I want her to come home. I thought if I came here, it would make me feel better. But I also didn't want to bother you. I know you're going through so much right now."

"Oh, Bridget. You're no bother at all. And I understand how you feel. Sometimes I sit up in her room. I picture her coming home, sitting next to me, telling me about her day, the boring cla.s.ses she's in, and all of this fades away like some kind of horrible nightmare." Lori's voice drifted away into a long pause. "But there's no reason for you to be sorry. You're welcome here anytime. Like you always have been."

Eva wept silently in the closet.

"Thanks, Ms. K. That means a lot."

"Now, why don't we go into the kitchen? I'll make us some nice chamomile tea, and we can talk about what else has been going on in your world. It will be good for both of us," Lori said.

Eva went rigid, and half-conceived excuses tumbled through her head as she raced to choose one before Lori found her hiding place.

"Actually, I'd like it a lot better if we just stayed in the living room." Panic momentarily increased Bridget's volume, and she chuckled nervously. "I mean, the kitchen is great and all, but it doesn't have a couch, and couches are comfortable. Don't you think?"

"Then I'll just get the water going and come back in here. You don't take honey in your tea, do you?"

"Oh no, oh no, oh no." Eva squeezed her eyes shut and tried to tuck herself deeper into the pantry. "Come on, Bridget. Hurry up and stop her."

"I uh-I uh-I-" A loud thud rattled through the house's first floor.

"Oh G.o.d! Bridget!"

Eva opened her eyes, and waited a few moments before slipping out of the pantry. Quietly, she tiptoed pa.s.sed the refrigerator and leaned into the opening to the living room. Bridget lay sprawled out on the wood floor, Lori gently caressing her blonde curls. "I owe you, Bridge," Eva breathed before pulling herself away from the doorway. She darted back to the pantry and lifted the box and maneuvered to the backdoor. She wanted desperately to run to her mother, bury her head in her shoulder, and tell her everything that had happened. Instead, she silently opened the door and left only a whisper. "Bye Mom. I'll be back soon. I love you."

Sixteen.

James was ready to outrun whatever creature they might encounter beyond the safety of the exam room. He took a deep breath and prepared his legs to quickly carry him to the exit.

"Wait!"

James stopped centimeters short of pulling the chair away from the door.

"I said to turn right, but I meant left. Turn left."

"To the left at the end of the hall."

The nurse nodded confidently.

"To the left at the end of the hall," James repeated, so his body would move on autopilot. "Easy enough." He gripped the chair and readied himself for the mad dash to freedom.

"Before we go out there, I should tell you that I'm not a fighter. No, that's a lie. I've been in a few fights, but I've never actually won, or fought back, really."