CHAPTER 10
This was one of the rare times, when I allowed myself to drink something other than water. A shot of fine vodka in the morning. How could it even happen? No, I was not talking about my drinking problem, but about Ana. Was she hiding something from me? Of course she was, working for killers and mafia godfathers begged for hiding some info for their own good, but as far as I knew her, she had never been too deep in the crime sphere. Just basic drug deals. Was she draining Shadows off his money yet again? Too many questions and too little answers. But more concerned I was about my money. I was getting a little short on the finances and I haven’t been called in the past week. Not once. Not a single job. What the hell was going on?
"Easy on that…" A heavily tattooed arm took the glass out of my fingers when it was only an inch apart my lips.
"Let go…" I jerked it back, spilling a large part of the content on my pajama pants. I liked them, marine blue with sponge Bobs and now reeking of booze. What was he even doing home? He wanted to go to the Police department and report about Anastasia although I said he wasn’t obligated to do it, nobody saw him with the body. If the police wanted, they would come to us for interrogation.
"It’s fucking ten a.m. on Wednesday, Morrison…" I looked up, seeing his always spiked up hair loosely falling over his forehead. The memory of me kissing him hit me without warning. I needed another shot. I grabbed the small glass piece out of his slender fingers and poured myself another drink.
"I’m sinking my sorrow… go away and let me mourn…" I downed the burning liquid and bit on a tomato which did no goddamn help in erasing the disgusting taste. Maybe I had been wrong with choosing Smirnoff, it couldn’t be that every single vodka tasted this awful, or could be? If it was so, I didn’t understand the people who drank this stuff on daily basis.
"Aren’t you supposed to be at work?" I looked down on his nike sneakers. Ready to go? Then go. Work? If my journal wasn’t a pathological liar- I didn’t have any work today, neither tomorrow nor the day after tomorrow. And to make sure of it, I had even turned my phone off. "Listen, we need to talk…"
"Is that so?" I tilted my head back, supporting it against the couch back. What could we possibly talk about? I closed my eyes. Another one of my bad ideas, everything was spinning. I was forced to open them and lean forward, my elbows braced on my thighs and my cold palms holding my face.
"I need some explanations…" Oh, did he? I shook my head to the side, seeing a blurry Duke. "Your friend was fucking shot in the bar and you tell me everything is fine- she was a drug dealer, nobody will miss her. You tell me… no you order me to keep the fuck away of the police, so you could take care of everything and then I find you here. Getting fucking shitfaced,"
"Shitfaced?" I whispered not knowing what that even meant.
"This is not you handling everything." So then he wasn’t willing to talk about us? Good. There was no us. I noticed him ducking in front of me and placing his palm on my knee. "I’ll go and report on Anastasia and when I return we will continue this conversation. I think I need answers to some questions."
"Fine… Go!" I pushed his hand off. My head turned to lay a blurry vision upon the window; I bit on my lower lip. Why was he telling me this if he knew I will get mad? He could’ve done it without saying it. Did those rockstar people even have brains? This was willing to get himself killed and the other guy, Trent, was the one who was going to kill him. And yet I wasn’t sure if he was the one to kill Ana, but who else could’ve done it? He was the only one, who went in and left the bathroom in the time span of fifteen minutes, but more interesting was how none saw or heard bullet being shot from a gun.
He left me fighting my demons. No, the alcohol was doing no good to me. I decided to lay off some steam by doing some drunken exercise- my goal was thirty pushups. Couldn’t let my arms lose their strength. I got lucky, I managed to do twice as many pushups, flunking completely drained on the couch. I wiped my forehead from the sweat. The exercise managed to do something else- it got me sober.
Knock, knock, knock...
An angry groan escaped my lips. I had sat down only for a second and somebody had to go disturbing my peace, as per usual. I pulled my legs off the coffee table and went for the door. When the hell was I going to repaint them? They looked worse by each passing day.
A smiling face along with the bright rays of morning sun blinded my sight. I had opened the door slightly, just for the intruder to see me and nothing else.
"Is Duke home?" Michelle’s annoying shrill voice could always drive me off the edge.
"Nope," I popped the ‘p’ with a false smile on my face, already closing the door, when she stopped me, pushing her foot in the slight space between the door frame and the door itself. She pushed them open, hitting my shoulder on the way. Was she mental? This was called trespassing.
"May I come in?" Still smiling. Was there something deadly wrong with her and she couldn’t stop? I sighed, pushing the door and doing the curtsy for the princess. She walked past me, swaying her hips and making me roll my eyes on the view. Was it too much to ask for some privacy? "Can I make a sandwich?" I waved her off taking my previous place on the couch and digging in the tv screen. Nothing interesting on the news and nothing interesting on the Cartoon Network channel.
I heard her open the fridge, later the drawer. A knife hit the surface of the counter. "Where do you keep the peanut butter?"
"Top shelf," I made myself more comfortable by placing my leg beneath me.
"I don’t see it," Another sigh from my side. I stood up and suddenly she was in my face, licking the jelly off her finger as she shoved a knife in my stomach. I watched her in disbelief, not feeling any pain because of the shock. My eyes widened as I looked down and saw the handle sticking out of me. I touched the sides of my stomach, making sure I really had been stabbed with a knife of six inches. Never liked those ‘cold’ weapons. Never should’ve bought it in the first place, too big and too dangerous, but at the time when I saw it in K-mart, it looked just perfect. Perfect for cutting veggies, not for being stabbed with.
"Why…" I broke off locking my eyes back on her. Suddenly the pain came along with an enormous wave of heat. My vision got blurry as the pain stroke every cell of my body, the pleasant invitation for passing out was too tempting, nevertheless, I shook it off.
"Why? You silly girl… You’ve been on my list for weeks. They wanted you dead…" Her smile, I wanted to cut it out of her face with this same knife. I realized I was shaking, an awfully bad start of the morning. My breathing became shallow and fitful.
"Who…" I whispered, it took big effort to even whisper it. My hand tried to grab her, but she outran me, she grabbed the handle of the knife and turned it by ninety degrees, making me cry out in pain. Who the hell was this woman? She clearly was messing with the wrong person.
"This is for screwing my boyfriend…" She brushed her hands against her skirt. Ugly green skirt. I fell down, not understanding anything. She took the jar of jelly as she walked out of the apartment. I could see her black pumps clicking against the wooden floor, knowing the only thing I had left was bleed to death. Wasn’t she supposed to wait until I was really dead and then dispose of the body? A sloppy killer she was indeed. For pity sake, I loved the Persian carpet too much to bleed on it. And bleach would only ruin the pattern. God only knew how difficult it was to get blood stains out. Wait, had she said that I was screwing her boyfriend? With that she meant Duke? What did ‘screwing’ even mean? It became difficult to breathe, I took shallow breaths, because every inch of my body screamed in pain when I tried to breathe normally and now I couldn’t breathe at all.
I’ll find a way to kill her, even if it meant crawling on my fours out of hell. She was going to pay for my ruined carpet. Such a pretty pattern… all ruined. Two thousand dollars for me to bleed on them. Seemed right. Not.