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My mind kept returning to the moment I lost Alex.
I couldn’t turn off the litany of mistakes I made that led to such a catastrophe. The entire horrifying ordeal looped endlessly in my head as the television droned in the background. Each time my mind’s eye relived him slipping from my grasp, a piece of my heart died.
The wedding album sat untouched on the coffee table. I couldn’t get past the first page without my chest constricting tight enough for my breathing to stop. I was sure the rest of the pictures would produce the same acute pain.
The answering machine kept clicking on as the detective in Las Vegas implored me to pick up. I couldn’t help the aggravation that flushed over my skin at her stupidity. I had no god damned voice. How the hell was I supposed to answer the phone?
The next time the machine picked up the call and her voice came over the speaker, I actually lifted the receiver, but instead of putting the phone to my ear, I tapped it on the counter. Silence filled the line and I went to disconnect.
“I’m an idiot,” the detective mumbled. “Mrs. Cervas, I apologize for my repeated calls. Tap if you can hear me.”
I thought about just hanging up. Instead, I tapped the phone.
“First, are you okay? Tap once for yes, twice for no.”
My body had been healed by the ocean, so now it was all a mental game. I knew I wasn’t right in the head, but she wasn’t asking about my state of mind. I tapped once.
“Thank God,” she whispered. She was silent for a moment. “Do you have the ability to video chat?”
I tapped the phone once.
“Do you still have my card?”
I thought about the soggy papers I pulled out of my pocket and tapped the phone twice. She rattled off her video chat number, and I quickly scribbled it down and then put the useless phone back on the charger.
I scanned the apartment for my computer.
Oven. Alex’s soft voice filled my brain. Having the narrative of my dead husband in my head for all eternity was going to suck. Each time I heard the musical timbre of his voice, my chest tightened and my lungs forgot to work.
It took me a moment to recover, and then I turned towards the mostly unused kitchen appliance. If he hadn’t told me where he had hidden it on our way to Las Vegas, it would have taken me months to find the damn thing considering my laziness in the culinary department. I still couldn’t believe he sabotaged my electronics and destroyed Fate’s instructions in order to make it impossible for me to insist he not come along. If only he had just listened to me in the first place.
I sighed and lugged the laptop back to the couch, propping it up on the wedding album. With a few keystrokes, I had my video call program up and I typed the detective’s number. The computer buzzed twice before the frame filled with Detective Mills’s face.
“Mrs. Cervas, thank you for calling me back. I apologize for my lack of etiquette before, but we hadn’t heard from you, and honestly, I was a little worried.”
I am okay, I signed. I’m sorry I didn’t call as soon as I arrived, but I wasn’t in any condition to carry on a conversation. I still wasn’t, but at least I didn’t look like death anymore. Her concern touched me.
“We have some questions that you might be able to help with.”
Her gaze turned away from the camera longer than what I considered normal and her lips scrunched in a way that made me think she was chomping on the inside of her mouth as she formulated her questions. When the detective’s gaze came back to the screen, she sighed and shuffled through some papers in her hands.
“You referred to that thing as a monster,” she started and left that statement hanging.
I nodded and rolled my hand for her to continue.
“Our forensic experts are stumped. We have no idea what the hell it is.”
Do you know what we do? I signed.
“No,” Detective Mills said.
We own a paranormal investigation agency.
Her eyebrows went up. “Do you know what that thing was?”
A bicorn. An ancient being that eats the souls of the virtuous. At least that’s what the lore says, I signed. I had nothing to lose by giving her this information. I had already lost everything that mattered to me.
“Bicorn?” She glanced at the papers in her hands again. “How do you know?”
You’ve had missing persons’ reports recently, right?
Her eyes narrowed. “Yes,” she said, drawing out the s.
We watch for things like that. Plus it gave us the excuse to finally get married. If we had been wrong, we would have had an exceptional honeymoon. A lump formed in my throat, and I closed my eyes, willing the tears not to spill over. The hot paths descending my cheeks told me I failed at that, too.
“You purposely came after that thing?”
I nodded and another stream of heat flowed from my shut lids.
“Even in your condition?”
I opened my eyes. What condition?
She glanced at the paper in her hand. She licked her lips and opened her mouth to speak. It took her a minute before she formed any words, and when she finally looked up at me, she said, “The forensic tests on your blood...” She let out a shrill laugh. “You’re pregnant.”
My eyes widened and my jaw fell. The words hit like a brutes punch. My hand dropped to my stomach.
“You didn’t know,” Detective Mills whispered.
I shook my head, confirming her statement. Stunned didn’t begin to describe the numbness that grasped me. Millenniums had passed, and I certainly hadn’t been a saint over the years, so this news rattled me. I thought Fate had made me unable to conceive.
Alex’s quiet chuckle filled my mind and I shivered. Our child would never know his father’s off-key voice. Our child would never know the strength of his arms or the compassion in his heart. Sadness enveloped me, and with it another deluge of tears.
“Mrs. Cervas?” Detective Mills said softly. When I looked up, she continued. “You might want to get that checked out just to make sure everything is okay.”
I nodded slowly, but I wasn’t sure I would be able to bring myself to make a doctor’s appointment. I didn’t want another tragedy on top of losing Alex. The fear I felt daily when he was by my side was unbearable, but whatever had taken hold of my body the moment the news of my pregnancy tumbled from the detective’s lips had me paralyzed in place.
She blew a stream of air out and glanced at another sheet of paper.
I harnessed the untamed stallions that were trampling my heart and pulled myself together.
“Are you okay to continue?”
Yes. I nodded.
“We wanted to ask if you were sure there was no one else in the building when you left. Perhaps someone hiding?”
I shook my head, and my throat constricted. My heart started that wild gallop again. I didn’t see anyone when I left. Why?
“We think there might have been someone else there at the time.”
I cocked my head as my internal alarms ramped up.
“We think they took one of the cars from the parking lot and drove to the town of West Canyon which is only a quarter mile down the road.” She turned one of the papers in her hand toward me.
A picture of a red Volvo with the windows blown out filled the computer screen. “Do you remember this car?”
That car had not been in the parking lot with the town car. My heart plummeted and a high-pitched buzz filled my ears. When Detective Mills pulled the photo away, I shook my head.
No. Why?
“The couple driving this car slaughtered an entire neighborhood before an off-duty police officer shot them down.”
The buzz in my ears grew, and my vision tunneled.
“Mrs. Cervas? Are you okay?” Detective Mills asked.
I reached out and closed the computer without signing anything. The hot flush of panic jumpstarted my muscles. I moved, faster than I had since I stepped back in my home. I vaulted up the stairs and threw a suitcase on the bed.
What are you doing? Alex asked.
I didn’t bother answering him. I needed to get out of here as fast as humanly possible. I stopped at my bedside table and grabbed a permanent marker from the drawer. With a shaking hand, I drew a failsafe sigil on my wrist. It looked like a weird weather vane with squiggly lines and dots between the four points. I had painted these on all the doors in this house when we got back from Greece. From that day forward, Fate had never set foot in my home.
I would need to do the car as well, because as fast as I could pack up, I was out of here.
What. Are. You. Doing? Alex blared in my head.
Running.
Silence blanketed me. I still felt Alex’s restless soul, so I knew he was in there. I didn’t have time for a conversation with him. I needed to get my shit and boogie because as soon as Fate figured out what happened in Las Vegas, I would be on her hit list.
Once my suitcase was filled to the brim, I took the largest duffel bags I had and hit my weapon rooms. Knives, daggers, machetes, hatchets, arrows, spears, katanas, sabers, spadroons, and all manner of sharp weapons dropped into the biggest bag. All my spices and crystals went into the next one.
In the third bedroom, I stopped in front of the long cabinet that contained Neptune’s trident. The trident was the only weapon that could kill me, and I thought twice about freeing it from the boxed trap. I would be safe as long as it was locked away.
I stepped away from the bureau with my cache in hand and headed back to my bedroom. I placed everything on the floor and scanned the room. My gaze landed on Alex’s clothes basket. Before awareness settled in, I had crossed and dropped to my knees next to his discarded clothing. I pulled out his old chambray work shirt and brought it to my nose. The subtle smell of his deodorant clung to the shirt along with a mix of sweat and aftershave.
Kylee. His sigh filled my world.
I slipped the shirt on over mine and started down with the first group of bags. When the trunk was full with the packed luggage, I pulled the permanent ink pen from my pocket and drew the same sigil on the inside of the trunk before I closed it. I stood with the keys in my hand.
I didn’t have a destination, or even a plan in mind. Wherever I ended up had to be near the ocean. There was no other way I would survive. The tropics were the logical choice, but I wasn’t getting past the border patrol with the trunk full of weapons. The Gulf of Mexico would be the next logical place, but I knew it would only be a matter of time before someone found me.
The Pacific Northwest was too close.
I needed to figure out a place they would never look for me. And I had to get there without traveling a shore route. My gaze drew to the back door and the sea beyond as I entertained a comment Alex had made on our way to the desert.
Use the fish cooler, Alex replied.
I nodded and jammed the cooler in the back seat. With two gallon jugs, I jogged to the shore, filled them, and trotted back to fill the cooler. I made four trips and then one more to fill up the jugs. With ten gallons of water, I was ready. I paused at the driver’s door and glanced at the house.
I pocketed my keys and went back inside for two things. My hidden stash of cash and the wedding album. With the attaché case full of cash stowed under the driver’s seat and the wedding album in my old backpack, along with my purse on the passenger seat, I pulled out of my garage.
I took one last look at the house I shared with Alex and pulled away, heading east with only a random thought.
Maybe I would stop to see the world’s largest ball of twine.