It wasn’t like it was hard to figure out the mayor’s schedule. Especially one that was apparently as beloved as Don Roberts. He'd won by a landslide in the polls a few months ago, and his first initiative was to clean up the city. He was pointing all the blame for the increased crime on the vigilante. Meanwhile, he was letting the mafia infect the city behind his constituents’ backs. And somehow, only my team knew his secrets. He had the cops in his pocket. Hell, he had everyone in his pocket.
Today Don was doing some reading at a local elementary school. It was all so fake. A public service that he did to keep up appearances. He didn’t care about children. For all I knew, he was scouting out his next victim. The thought made the gun shake in my hand again. Get a grip. My finger tightened on the trigger.
“Drop the gun, Summer,” Eli said from behind me.
I didn’t need to turn to know it was him. It was easy to remember what his voice sounded like whispering in my ear. My whole life was filled with memories, but in the present I had nothing. Nothing but this moment to hold on to. “No thanks,” I said calmly. No one was stopping me today. Enough was enough.
“I’m serious, Summer. Don’t make me do this.”
I glanced over my shoulder at him. His gun was raised too, except his was pointed at me instead of the street below.
I laughed. “You expect me to believe that you’d shoot me?” Yeah right. I looked back out over the ledge again. Where the hell is he?
“It’s an elementary school,” Eli said. “You’re putting innocent children at risk.”
The irritation in his voice annoyed me. I would never put children in danger. “Luckily I’m a good shot.”
“No one’s a good shot from this distance with a pistol. This isn’t the way. We’re getting so close.”
I turned back around. “We? Are you serious? It hasn’t been a we since you told V I was going to kill Don. You betrayed my trust. There is no we, Eli.”
His gun was still pointed at me.
“I barely got away from him today. He watches me like a freaking hawk. Just let me finish this thing and then we can all move on.” Saying the words out loud didn’t make me believe them. How was I going to move past this? I was going to end up in jail or dead myself. The thought of Miles tried to crawl back into my mind, but I pushed it aside.
“If you kill Don, you’re not going to get any answers. I agreed to help you do it when I thought we knew everything. When getting back at him for what he did to you was all that mattered.”
“I have all the answers I need. He killed my parents. He destroyed me.” My voice cracked. “To me, revenge is the only thing that matters.”
“Summer…”
“We both know what this is really about, so stop lying to yourself," I said. "I stopped mattering to you. That’s what happened. You don’t give a shit about anyone but yourself.”
“You really have lost it. I’ve been defending you this whole time. I’m on the run just as much as you are. I gave up everything for you.”
I laughed. “And you’ve done nothing but regret it.”
Eli shook his head. “I don’t even recognize you anymore.”
“It’s probably the hair.” The sound of a door closing made me turn around. I peered off the roof. There he was. And just like I had suspected, he wasn’t surrounded by a bunch of kids. I lifted my gun.
And I immediately felt something hit the side of my neck. I reached up and felt the small feathers that accompanied the vial of serum that V used to knock people out. Damn it. I looked back at Eli as I fell to my knees. I hadn’t even realized that he wasn’t holding a regular gun. “I hate you,” I mumbled as I fell onto the concrete. My gun fell from my hand and skidded away from me.
“Yeah, you’ve made that perfectly clear.” Eli bent down and lifted me over his shoulder. “Luckily for you, you’re not so easy to hate.”
I would have laughed, but I was just so sleepy. “I don’t really hate you,” I said with a yawn. “How could I hate you when you have such a nice butt?” I put both my hands on his ass and squeezed.
He laughed. “I don’t think you’ve said anything that nice to me in months. Maybe I should drug you more often.”
“That’s probably a good idea.” I yawned again. “Maybe then I can be happy again.”
“Summer?”
I drifted to sleep at the sound of his voice.
Chapter 4
Sunday
My head hurt. I went to reach for it, but I couldn’t move my hands. The last thing I remembered was getting ready to kill Don. The feeling of my hands being bound made me slowly open my eyes. Had I been arrested? Had I done it?
“Good, she’s awake!” Liza called and sat down in one of the three chairs across from me.
I blinked. “Liza, untie me.” I hadn’t been arrested. It was coming back to me. Eli had interfered. He had ruined my plans. I tried to stand up off the floor and realized my feet were tied together too. “Seriously, untie me.”
“No can do, Summer.”
“Why?” I tried to move my hands again to no avail.
“We’re having an intervention,” Liza said.
I stopped struggling. “An intervention? Are you serious? Why?” I watched as Eli and V sat down in the chairs on either side of Liza.
“Because you’ve been such a bitch recently.”
I looked up at her. “Me? News flash, Liza, you’re always a bitch. At least to me.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” V said. “Both of you.” He glared at Liza.
She shrugged and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “She asked.”
“That’s not what this is about,” Eli said. “Summer, we’re worried about you. You’ve stopped talking to us. You’re shutting us all out.”
“This is ridiculous,” I muttered under my breath as I tried to twist my hands out of the rope. Ow.
Eli leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “Summer, look at me.”
I continued to struggle without looking up.
“Distancing yourself isn’t helping anyone. We need to be able to work as a team, and in order to do that, we need to be able to trust you.”
I had nothing to say, so I kept trying to get loose.
“I’ve known you for a long time and…” started Eli.
My laugh made Eli sigh. It was one of those sighs when you’re truly exhausted. When the battle seems too hard. I knew the type of sigh because I'd been trying to fight it off my whole life. I felt bad that I had made him sigh that way. That I had made him feel like giving up…on me.
“Summer, we’ve all been talking and we think maybe you should go to therapy.”
That made me stop. “Really? And who should I go to therapy as? Sadie Davis? Summer Brooks? All of my identities are dead, remember? I’m wanted for murder, Eli. I can’t exactly stroll up to the nearest psych ward and get admitted.”
“I didn’t say psych ward. Jesus.” He ran his hands down his face. “We could bring a therapist here…”
“Despite what you all might think, I don’t need therapy. I’m perfectly fine.” I wasn’t. Every morning when I woke up it felt like I was drowning.