Unreal Part 3 - FREE AND DISGUISED: (THRILLER ROMANCE AND MYSTERY) Read online

“Or what?” he said. “What else you got it mind?”

  Smiling in the pale moonlight, Kim helped him to his feet, but she stopped short of wiping the dirt from his limbs.

  “A fun idea for both of us.”

  8

  If anyone deserved flowers…

  Juliet was off; she was visiting Kim. Something about that made him uneasy. Ethan knew all too well what she had been through, but now that Kim was home, he… he expected something different. Last thing that he wanted her scared and shaking. But she was cold. Cruel. Not that he could blame her for the reaction, but Juliet back in her orbit still caused him to tremble.

  “Hey there, Ethan!”

  The sound of Danielle’s voice brought him back to earth, and he smiled as she moved to hug him.

  “You know Julie’s not here, right?” Danielle said. “She---”

  “I know where she is.”

  “Oh! So she told you?”

  They were past the point of secrets. Juliet awoke with a smile on her lips and a decision in her eyes. She was going to see Kim, to smooth out the rough patches all around the edges. As much as Ethan wanted her to stay and think better of it, Juliet suddenly seemed so happy. And there was no way that he could deny her any point of pleasure.

  “And she told you?”

  Danielle lowered her eyes, and her hands went back to her roses. He couldn’t help but think that this was the better choice when it came to a friend, but Juliet had history with Kim. And a horror that could not be denied. So he let her go with a kiss and the stroke of his fingers running through her hair. Juliet looked pretty and at peace as she left. Would she strike the same pose when she came back?

  “So this is all about a welcome home gift.”

  Something like that.

  She helped him line a sheet of tissue paper with more stems than it could properly hold, and Ethan buried his nose into the petals before smiling up at her again.

  “What do you think?” he asked as he pushed the flowers away from his twitching nose.

  “I think you’re about to sneeze,” Danielle observed. “Did I get that right?”

  Ethan blushed through his smile and begged her to tie the bouquet with a bow as he wiped his face on the back of his sleeve. Danielle obliged and worked fast, but she kept her eyes on him the entire time.

  “But it’s sweet that you want to give her a present,” she said. “Seem to recall a whole rooftop’s worth of flowers just for her.”

  It seemed so long ago, the night when she he returned the locket and held her close. It was a time when they thought that Kim was dead.

  And god help him, a part of Ethan wished that that was true.

  Stop it! The girl deserves her own second chance. None of this is her fault.

  “Ethan?”

  The sound of Danielle’s voice brought him back from his dark daydream, and as soon as she presented the bouquet, he took it into his hands with a smile.

  “Nice,” he said. “Just the first of many surprises.”

  “What else?” Danielle asked. “Another cake?”

  Should he be angry that she was sharing so much without him knowing? Maybe. But wasn’t it normal for her to share what they were with her friend? And Danielle would smile and say that he could always try his hand at something else.

  Would Kim be so charitable?

  “No cake,” Ethan said. “Thought I’d order out for us.”

  “Well if you want my advice, go for Chinese.”

  “Chinese?” Ethan asked.

  “Call it a hunch,” Danielle said with a shrug and a smirk. “I think she’s off pizza.”

  The pile of empty boxes, off to the side and discarded, seemed to put the point on that, and Ethan had to laugh.

  “So I’ll mix it up,” he said. “Give her her heart’s desire.”

  Tucking the flowers under his arm, Ethan was ready to take off when Danielle held him back and peered into his eyes.

  “Something else is up,” she said knowingly. “Care to let me in on the bigger secret?”

  “Not a chance,” he stated firmly. “You’d only spill.”

  “Ethan, you insult me!” she said. “I would do no such---”

  “Cute. But I don’t buy it.”

  Danielle pressed him a second time, but Ethan held his ground as he waved her off and turned his head to the sounds of the street passing by the shop.

  “Look, she’ll give you a play-by-play in the morning,” he said. “If… just let me get this right for her.”

  Her curiosity appeared on the point of exploding, but somehow she dialed it back and folded her arms across her chest.

  “Must be good,” Danielle said. “And I hate being out of the loop.”

  “In good time, Danielle,” Ethan said as he patted her cheek and started to take off again. He was nearly out the door when he whipped his head over her shoulder and flashed a grin.

  “It’s going to make her happy,” he said. “Can you just live off that for now?”

  “Guess I have no choice.”

  A customer in search of tulips interrupted them, and Ethan stole the chance to escape as he darted out the door. Chinese. Easy enough to make that happen. He’d dial Szechuan Manor. Juliet was partial to the shrimp toast, so he would be sure to double up on that order. And the duck. It always took forty minutes on a good day, so he’d have to plan accordingly.

  Stepping back into his apartment, their apartment, he set the flowers aside and looked at the clock.

  Plenty of time before he had to make the call. The thing to do now was to shower and shave. And then there was the scene that he wanted most to set for her eyes.

  Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing if she took a little more time with Kim.

  9

  “Remember this?”

  Sitting on the edge of Kim’s bed, Julie’s eyes were on her feet as she picked at her nails. In the space of the room, Julie was struck by how little it had changed. No doubt Amanda Beyer kept it in place like some kind of a shrine. Clutter still hung in every corner, and Julie tried to smile at the thought that they had turned back time as Kim pushed her body into same shabby sweater that she always selected when the air turned cold. It was almost spring, the buds were just starting to poke around the branches of the trees, but a crisp day could always rear its head along with an icy chill. Feeling the cold pouring across her own flesh, Julie grabbed the crumpled blanket resting at the edge of the bed, and she wrapped it around her arms as started towards the pillows.

  “When we were young and pretty,” Kim said.

  She presented a photo of the two of them, sticking out their tongues after a long day of clearing a trail behind their high school for long nature walks. Every scrape of brush was in honor of Mrs. Sever, struck down by a drunk driver well before her time. After the mourning came the decision that some hint of the woman should live on. The idea of a scholarship was the first idea on the agenda. But the funds at hand would come and go, the lucky students leaving to create new kinds of lives without any signpost of the woman who made their tomorrows possible. And it was Julie, still meek and shy, who suggested clearing the trail and placing a plaque at the entryway. Once it was done, the place beyond the tire swing seemed special. Eternal. And the image of the two of them poking out through the photograph painted them smiling before an old oak, their arms clasped around one another as their eyes smiled into the lens. Would there ever be a time when they would, when they could smile like that again and only look ahead, never glancing back?

  “You’re still pretty, Kim.”

  Kim touched her shorn locks even as the hair was styled and growing back into place. Tucking the picture away under her mattress, she grabbed Julie’s hands and smiled.

  “We know worse woods,” Kim said. “Don’t we?”

  Shuddering around the memory, Julie nodded and tried to speak when Kim drew her into her arms. Her hold was soft, and Julie buried her head into her chest and started to sigh when Kim pushed her fingers under his chin.
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  “But you came out alright, didn’t you?” Kim asked. “Because he saved you.”

  How she wished that he could have managed as much for both of them.

  “He would have gone back,” Julie said. “If he’d only---”

  “How about we let that drop now?” Kim said. Reaching under her mattress, she pulled out a pack of smokes and struck a match against the end table. Sucking down a quick drag, she offered Julie a turn at the butt. Julie was nearly tempted, but the last time she had indulged meant rape and ropes. Waving Kim’s hand away, Julie watched her friend puff and exhale. Smoke rings swirled all around the room, and Julie lowered her eyes as she took Kim’s hand.

  “He calls you Juliet,” Kim said. “What’s that all about?”

  “It helps me,” Julie said. “It… it makes me feel special. He makes me feel special.”

  Kim sucked on her smoke again and raised her eyebrows as she folded her legs close to her chest.

  “It was my fault,” she said.

  “You’re… what do you….?”

  “Making you go off with them,” Kim continued. “You weren’t ready. And it… it was the worst thing that could have ever….”

  “No!” Julie insisted as she took her back into her arms and kissed her flushed cheeks. “It started out like that, but---”

  “Did they string you up on the tips of your toes?” she asked. “Did they… did they touch you everywhere? Did they have to have their hands… their hands all over you… inside you? Did they… did they…?””

  Kim started to break down under what had to be the weight of her memories, and Julie kissed her hair as she rubbed her back and remembered what it was to be a captive. She had the scars to show for her time in their hands, but when Kim took hold of her face and completely met her eyes, Julie started to fall back, her body wracked with fear as he spoke slowly.

  “I… I had it bad, too,” she started. “So many days I… I just wanted to die.”

  “I get that,” Kim said. “Better to bleed out than have to stay their slave.”

  Julie nodded slowly, and she started to hold Kim again when her friend pushed back with a strange smile.

  “But it’s not like that with Ethan.”

  Julie blushed and tried to look away. No need to hurt Kim with the truth of how sweet salvation could be when she had endured the worst end of it. But Kim forced her friend to look into her eyes, and Julie took her hand as she muttered lightly.

  “No,” she said. “No it’s not.”

  Julie started to push away, but Kim brought her back to her chest and stroked, her eyes hard and focused as she kept talking.

  “Tell me how it is with him,” Kim said.

  “I don’t know,” Julie muttered. “He’s so nice, and---”

  “And what’s he like between the sheets?”

  Julie blushed and longed that they could have had this conversation in the days leading up to the summer. Or somehow afterwards, with none of the darkness ever real. But some things never changed. Even if she was changed, maybe even ruined in places where she could never hope to scrub the grime away, Julie still was not one to kiss and tell.

  “When I’m with him, I feel safe,” Julie said. “He says he loves me, and I… I believe it.”

  Kim’s face stayed blank as she processed the information, and she ran her hands through her cropped hair and finally sighed.

  “Good for you,” Kim said. “Not a lot of love when we were out in the woods, right?”

  She took hold of Julie’s hand, and even as Julie savored the feel of her fingers clenching around her palm, she felt as if they were dancing too close to something that she didn’t want to see. Even as she knew that Kim would want to talk, would need to talk. Meeting her eyes, Julie rolled her tongue across the inside of her cheek and lowered her eyes.

  “I… I always knew that you were close by,” Julie started. “Sometimes I hoped they would make us… make us…”

  Julie’s voice started to stick in her throat, and she nearly pulled away when Kim wrapped her arm around her shoulders and pressed her lips to her friend’s ear.

  “Double team them?” Kim asked, seeming to already know the answer. Julie startled where she sat, and she started to shake her head when Kim pressed her free fingers to her cheek and narrowed her gaze.

  “Would have been something to see a friendly face,” Kim muttered. “All things aside, got a taste of that when I was with Boone.”

  “Boone?” Julie asked.

  “My… my second handler. Way worse working conditions then Pete and Matt’s cribs. If you can believe that.”

  Julie couldn’t contemplate of anything more brutal than the months between their capture and her first glimpse of Ethan, but she managed to take a deep breath and curled closer to Kim’s side.

  “So you had a friend to see you though it,” Julie said. “Do you… do ever think about her? About getting her out?”

  Kim snuffed out her smoke and pushed away as she folded her hands together.

  “She’s already out,” Kim said. “Resting in peace. That’s what I hope.”

  Turning away, Kim’s shoulders started to heave as she sobbed. Julie started to touch her back when she suddenly drew her hand back. It wasn’t her fault; Ethan told her that over and over again. But had she never met her, there would have been no summer without end, no months when Julie pictured her dead, and to see her now, maybe she would have been better off, resting in a kind of peace. Should she slink off and make it so they never had to see each other again, the pain far too much to bear? Julie was on the verge of making that move when Kim suddenly whipped her head over her shaking shoulders and clasped her arms.

  “But seeing you now… like this… it helps,” Kim said. “Let’s me know that the right ending is possible. Jules.”

  Julie burst into tears as Kim folded her into her arms.

  “Kimmy… I am so sorry,” she said. “I---”

  Kim’s tears mingled with hers. The right ending was something that she didn’t yet know how to define. But this should have been the middle, clinging to one another as they hoped that the horror would pass even as they knew that within a matter of seconds, they would be hosed down and forced to service monsters all over again. Before Ethan, she wanted nothing than the feel of Kim’s arms around her, her head resting against her shoulders as her hands moved slowly down her back. Holding onto her, she was back in chains, wincing at the sound of Pete’s voice barking orders. But at least she had Kim in in her arms. At least she was Jules again in all of the right---

  “What the hell is going on here?”

  Amanda Beyer stood in the doorway with her hands pressed to her hips. Julie trembled at the sight of her, the woman looking like the jailers she feared most. But Amanda had a right to her rage, and Julie wiped her face with the back of her hand, ready to beg for forgiveness and just be allowed to leave when Kim sat up straighter and kept her close.

  “Just talking, Mom,” Kim assured her. “We’re fine.”

  Turning in her nose in the air, Amanda continued to hesitate before the door, and Julie grabbed the moment and extended her hand.

  “Mrs. Beyer,” Julie said. “I am sorry. Please know that I didn’t want this to happen. I’m just happy she’s home. I---”

  “Didn’t stop you leaving her behind though, did it?”

  Sinking under the weight of the accusation, Julie’s trembling increased, but Kim clasped her arm as she stuck her chin in the air.

  “I’m going to make peace with it, Mom,” Kim said. “Think you try to do the same.”

  Amanda started to speak again before turning of her heel and slamming the door behind her. Julie shook at the sound, and Kim pulled back with a sigh as she reached under her bed and pulled out another smoke.

  “It’s been tough on her, too,” Kim said as she lit up and took a fresh drag. “You know how moms are.”

  Julie started to laugh and speak. She didn’t know how moms are, how they should act when their chil
dren suddenly came back from the dead with a tale to tell.

  “I don’t speak to her anymore,” Julie said sadly. Kim pulled on her cigarette and offered Julie a puff. Now she accepted and sputtered as she exhaled.

  “Never would have thought that your mom would play you like that, Jules,” Kim confessed. “Didn’t she always like want you home forever?”

  “That’s what I thought, too,” Julie confessed as she spoke again. “But she’d rather not be alone.”

  “And you’re with Ethan now.”

  “I… begged him to come and get me,” Julie admitted as she passed the smoke back. “Hardly left him since.”

  “Hardly?” Kim asked, smoking through her speech. “Thought he was like your perfect man, Jules.”

  Sighing through her fingers, Julie brushed the hair from her eyes, her hand light against her scar.

  “When I… I found out that he wasn’t sure if you were really dead, I… I started to doubt him. Went to Danielle’s for a while.”

  Kim snuffed out her smoke on the back of her shoe and pressed her fingers to her chin.

  “That’s your flower boss, right?”

  Julie started to nod when Kim grabbed her shoulders and stared at her hard.

  “So is she like you’re new best friend?”

  Julie’s tongue tied in her mouth, and she tried to put Kim’s mind at ease as her friend gently tugged at her hair.

  “Just glad you had all these sweet souls hovering all around you,” Kim said with a quick shrug of her shoulders and her hand over hers. “Is it wrong to say that it all makes me a little jealous?”

  Kim winked around her words, and Julie was ready to launch into a new set of apologies when Kim shook her head and kissed her hair.

  “You have your guy, and I have Brian.”

  Seizing onto the sound of his name, Julie started hard into her eyes.

  “I always liked him for you,” Julie confessed. “And he’s taking care of you?”

  “He’s doing what I need him to do,” Kim said. “So who knows?”

  “We’ll all grow old together yet.”

  Not that there had been any talk of something that permanent, but someday, maybe, Ethan would ask for her hand. She saw no reason why Brian wouldn’t follow suit. Someday the past would be just that, and they would live again and only think of this moment in the darkest spaces before sleep and between husbands’ holds.