Annihilate Me (Vol. 3) (The Annihilate Me Series) Read online

  “What is it?” Alex said.

  I read it again.

  “What does it say?”

  I turned the screen around so he could read it himself.

  “You’re going to die with him,” the email said. “Sooner than later, you’ll both be dead. Say your goodbyes now, Jennifer. Give him that last kiss on the sidewalk. You know, while you still have the chance. We’ll give you two a moment to do so before we blow you apart.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “They know we’re on the sidewalk!” I said in terror to Alex.

  I looked around us. The people walking up and down the sidewalk either ignored us completely or shot us sidelong glances, likely because Alex had left the car door open and it was obvious that we were having an argument.

  I looked up the street, down the street, across the street. At this time of night, traffic was relatively light on Fifth, but the bright headlights of those cars traveling downtown made it difficult to see much of anything up the street or across the street.

  “Somewhere, right now, somebody is watching us.”

  He took me by the arm. “If that’s the case, then get back in the car. Don’t be stupid about this.”

  As furious as I was with him, I had no choice but to agree with him—being out here in the open was stupid. The car was fifteen feet away. The back door was open. Gun drawn, the driver stepped outside the car so that the car—for the most part—protected him.

  But not completely. Not from all sides.

  The sight of the gun caused those on the sidewalk to quicken their pace. Some broke into a run. I saw eyes widen and lips part. By being on the sidewalk, I was putting everyone around me at risk. I needed to get back into the car and deal with Alex later, so I ducked my head and hurried into the car with him.

  We slid into the back seat. Alex slammed the door shut behind us, ordered the driver to get back inside and get us out of there.

  At that moment, the sound of a rifle went off. Instinctively, I jerked away from the window just as a bullet slammed into it. Glass spidered around it, though the window didn’t break. Instead, it seemed to hold the bullet in its clutch like a spider wrapping its next meal in a web of netting. I heard myself scream, though it seemed as if I was standing outside of myself. Not quite there. Not quite present. The bullet was in line with my head. Without this glass and this bulletproof car, I would have been dead.

  The next several moments passed in a blur.

  Alex pulled me closer to him as the car lurched into motion, cut into the traffic moving down Fifth, and sliced across the street, where we nearly were struck by oncoming cars.

  Horns sounded. Brakes squealed. Our car swerved recklessly forward. Across the street, I saw another car—a black car—starting to pull away from the curb. We were heading directly toward it with such increasing speed that our driver shouted for us to get down and to brace ourselves.

  He’s going to ram into it....

  Alex took hold of my head and pressed it into his lap before covering my body with his own. The ensuing collision rocked us forward with such force that I would have fallen off the seat and likely been seriously hurt if Alex hadn’t been holding on to me so tightly. Still, the jolt was significant enough that it strained my neck and I felt something in my right shoulder give.

  Outside, people screamed. Shouted. I looked at Alex, saw that he appeared to be fine—at least physically—and felt relieved and grateful that he was OK despite my earlier anger. I sat up, stretched my neck in a daze, and looked out the front window while rubbing my shoulder. On the street, a crowd of people was on the sidewalk, all slowly backing away from the scene.

  The driver had hit the black car with such force that its driver’s side door was unrecognizable. Smoke started to billow from beneath the hood. I saw blood on the door’s broken window—too much of it for me to fully grasp—but there was no sign of the driver. No sign of someone who was hurt and struggling to get out. My stomach clenched as my mind went to the worst possible scenarios—whoever had been inside was either dead or ready to act again despite their injuries.

  “Stay where you are,” the driver directed. “Do not leave the car unless I tell you to do so.”

  With his gun poised in front of him, he left the car, crouched into position, and slowly moved around to the front. All around us, traffic either darted forward to avoid what was unfolding, or slowed so that passengers could witness as much as possible before they had no choice but to move forward.

  Again, horns blared. In the distance, police sirens wailed. Someone on the sidewalk must have called 911. They must have reported seeing someone standing beside a black Mercedes with a gun trained on a target across the street. I turned to Alex, saw the grim expression on his face, and then I looked at the driver who was approaching the other car with caution.

  “He could get shot,” I said to Alex.

  “He’s wearing a vest.”

  “On his head? Is his chest the only place he could be shot?”

  “He’s trained, Jennifer. He’s far more than a mere driver.”

  “Pull him back. Have him wait for the police.”

  But Alex didn’t reply or act. His eyes remained fixed on the driver. I noticed that his hand was on the door handle and that he was prepared to get involved if necessary. Fear threaded through me, laced by adrenaline and fueled by instinct. If he planned to get out of the car to help the driver, I wouldn’t be able to hold him back. He was too strong. And there would be no holding him back if that’s what he intended to do. Apparently, he thought that his fists would be enough to assist the driver if the shooter in the car was alive and waiting for a clear shot at whomever showed themselves first.

  “Is there another gun in here?” I asked.

  When I spoke, Alex seemed to come back into himself. His eyes blinked, he glanced at me with a fury I hadn’t seen in him before, and then he reached beneath the seat. With a firm tug, he pulled out a sophisticated-looking handgun. It was sleek with a matte, dark gray metal finish. Except for what I’d seen on television or in the movies, I knew next to nothing about guns. But even that exposure was enough to inform me on some basic level about how they worked.

  As for Alex? He obviously was comfortable with a gun. With skilled ease, he removed the bottom part of the handle, which slid out so he could check inside the chamber, presumably for bullets. Satisfied, he slammed the clip back into the gun and watched the driver move closer to the damaged car, which was spewing so much smoke that I was becoming less worried about a fire, and more about an explosion.

  “Stand down!” the driver yelled into the car. He was on the sidewalk now, inching toward the passenger-side window. “Stand down or I will shoot you!”

  Is the person inside alive?

  The crowd on the sidewalk seemed to ebb and flow, like a tide sweeping in on currents of curiosity before being pulled away by fear. But this city was nothing if not a city of heroes, and I could tell by the way some of the young men in the crowd were behaving—standing on their toes, jockeying for position, looking for a way in to get inside and help—that the situation was about to get out of hand.

  “Look at the smoke,” I said to Alex. “The car is either going to catch fire or it’s going to explode. Get him back in here. We need to get a safe distance away, and then wait for the police. They’re on their way. Let them handle this.”

  “The police could be too late.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because they fired a fucking a bullet at you. They tried to kill you. Whoever did that to you is in that car. Do you really think either of us is going to let them get away with that? Not make them pay for that? Do you think I’m going to allow that? Are you serious, Jennifer?”

  Before I could say another word, he opened the car door and stepped out into the night. Frozen, I watched him move, crouching toward the driver and the car we’d ruined. Terrified that I might lose him, I sat breathless and watched him bend low, his gun held firmly in front of hi
m. He started to move toward the driver, who suddenly moved back when a spark of fire erupted from beneath the hood. I watched Alex rear away from it in surprise. Despite the fact that the sirens were growing closer to us—that the police were indeed almost upon us—I needed to do something. I needed to get him away from that car before anything serious happened to him.

  So I got out of the car.

  “Everyone, move down the street!” I shouted at him and at the crowd. “Get away from the car! Go where it’s safe!”

  At that moment, the fire took hold and started to grow. Flames shot out from beneath the hood. They curled over it and around it, and lifted into the air. The people on the sidewalk immediately started to move away, knowing what might happen next.

  “Jennifer!” Alex shouted.

  But he was too late.

  One of the men I noticed earlier in the crowd darted forward and kick-punched the car’s passenger-side window, shattering it on impact. He was young, fit, and strong. I put my hand over my mouth as he instinctively reared back, and rolled onto his side in case the person inside reacted with rounds of fire. A woman yelled for him to return to her. He submitted, hunkering back into the teeming crowd. Alex looked at me and ordered me down the street, away from the car.

  But I went closer to it. I could feel the heat press against my skin and tighten it. It scared me to death, but I was damned if I was going to lose him now, regardless of how furious I was with him. The only way he’d leave now was with me. I looked him in the eye. “I’m not going without you. Come down the street with me.”

  He swung around and looked at the driver, who now was upon the car and pointing his gun through the smashed window. He assessed the situation and, after a moment, he reached inside. I saw him move his hand, and then he was all business.

  “He’s dead,” he said to Alex as he opened the passenger-side door. “I need you and Jennifer to get away from here. Now. Before this thing blows. Get out of here, down the sidewalk. Move away now so I can do my job.”

  Alex and I began to retreat. The driver pulled a man onto the sidewalk and dragged him away from the car. Alex and I watched him over our shoulders, and then we turned away from the car and started to run.

  Tried to run.

  That’s when the car exploded.

  That’s when the force of the explosion lifted Alex and me off the ground and somersaulted us through the baking air.

  We landed heavily on the ground, one of us into oncoming traffic.

  And that’s when everything changed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Somehow, neither of us was seriously injured. I cut my arm when I landed in the street, and bruised my hip so that two days after the incident, it still hurt to walk.

  Alex got the worst of it.

  He had abrasions on his face and on his hands, and he was diagnosed with a severe concussion, the result of his head striking the pavement. It wasn’t life threatening—he’d pull through it—but the hospital was keeping him sedated so he could rest. They planned to keep him an extra day to make certain that he was fine before they released him.

  What I knew with certainty was that I could have lost him that night if he’d been struck by one of the cars that had successfully swerved to miss him. He’d been lucky. I’d been lucky. It all could have been so much worse.

  But did it have to happen at all?

  That’s the question that consumed me now. At some point in our lives, all of us face tough, split-second decisions that, in hindsight, we come to question whether they were sound decisions. If we had the chance to do it all over again, would we? Or in the heat of the moment, would we have done something differently, if that even were possible?

  Given the chance, would we have acted in another way?

  When I was young and my father was abusing me, would I have done something then to stop him from beating me, especially knowing what I know now as an adult? Would I have gone to a neighbor, a teacher, or perhaps the school counselor, and told them that, despite the shame I felt for not being the daughter my father wanted—if, in fact, he ever wanted me at all—there was an ugly, unwanted truth happening to me at home? And that perhaps a better home for me then was with a new family that might come to love me?

  Knowing what I know now, of course I would have. But as a child, blind to the fact that my father’s rages had less to do with me and more to do with him being a drunk, I remained quiet. I took his abuse because, for years, that’s all I knew. Being punched and verbally assaulted was so commonplace that I got used to it. His abuse was around every corner, and like a guard dog being called, it always came running with bared teeth.

  Before I had grown up enough to know better, the frequency at which my father lashed out at me seemed normal—that’s what I thought life was. I was helpless then. Looking back, I could make excuses for my behavior as a child. But now? After spending two days in the hospital watching over Alex? I wasn’t at all sure if what I’d done that night was right.

  Over and over again, that night played like a movie through my head. Had he betrayed me by not telling me that there was a threat against his life? At the time, I thought he had. I’d just received a threat against my own life, which had fueled my anger and the decisions that followed when we literally came under fire. Then, I acted out of fear for myself, fear for him, and anger with him. Then, the unthinkable progressed to where we were now.

  Would he be lying in this hospital bed now if I hadn’t intervened?

  That’s the question that haunted me. That’s the question I couldn’t answer. Because if I hadn’t tried to get him away from that burning car, I don’t know what would have become of him.

  Would he have lost his life if he’d remained near the car a moment longer than he had? It was possible. Or without my intervention, would he just be recovering from a concussion, as he was now? Who knows? I didn’t, and I never would. What was worse was that there always was the chance that if I hadn’t distracted him that night, he could have walked away from it all and been fine. Maybe he wouldn’t be in this bed now. Maybe he wouldn’t be ailing, but well.

  I looked at him, and my heart went out to him. He was sleeping soundly. The doctors said he would recover. It was only earlier this morning that he was awake long enough for us to have a brief talk.

  “That’s bullshit,” he said when he learned he had to stay an extra day. He was groggy from medication and was slurring his words when he spoke, but his eyes were relatively clear, which was a good sign that I latched on to.

  I didn’t engage him because I had sided with the hospital and wanted him to leave here healthy. I just reached for his hand and squeezed it. He’d slept most of the day yesterday, only exchanging a few words with me, most of which I couldn’t understand because he was so out of it.

  “Are we OK?” he had asked me earlier.

  “We’re fine. We’re better than fine.”

  “I’ve been worried.”

  “There’s no need to worry.”

  “I thought it was a prank, Jennifer. I swear to God—”

  “I know you did. I overreacted.”

  “No, you didn’t. I should have told you. I should have taken it seriously before we went to Maine. I didn’t. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

  “If anyone should be apologizing, it’s me. If I hadn’t gotten out of the car, none of this would have happened.”

  He closed his eyes. “But we don’t know that, do we?” His voice grew softer and I could feel his exhaustion. “Either way, that fucker was going to try something else, whether we kept driving or not.”

  When he slipped back into sleep, I thought about what he had said and decided that I didn’t know if it was true. I’d never know if it was true. What happened that night unraveled so quickly that I wasn’t sure about anything but the guilt that consumed me now, regardless of whether it was earned. Guilt had been my companion for years, and here it was again, resting on my shoulder and goading me just as it had when I was a child, when I felt guilt for not
being the daughter my father wanted.

  Now, I watched Alex sleep. I looked at the abrasions on his face and on his hands, and I started to cry again. I cried for Alex, I cried for the mistakes I might have made, and I cried for all that happened that night, much of which I might never know despite the fact that the police and the FBI now were investigating it.

  It was at that moment, when I was at my most vulnerable, that Blackwell entered the room.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  For a moment, we just looked at each other before her gaze swept to Alex, who was lightly snoring. She then turned back to me. She held a vase filled with white peonies in her hands, which she quietly put down on a table already filled with flowers from Alex’s many friends.

  She then came over to me. And without a word, she leaned down and cupped my face in her hands. Then she released me to fish a Kleenex from the tiny handbag slung over her shoulder. With care, she patted away the tears from my eyes, smoothed the tissue beneath them where my mascara likely had run, and smiled ever so slightly at me in a way that was oddly comforting.

  She lifted my chin with her index finger, assessed my face with a critical eye, and then dipped her hand back into her bag. She removed a Chanel compact and dusted beneath my eyes before attending to the rest of my face. Silently, she pointed to her lips, then at mine, and then she nodded down at my own handbag, which was at my feet.

  She held out a hand for it. I reached down and gave it to her. She found a tube of lipstick, held my chin firmly with one hand, and then reapplied my lipstick with the other.

  “Voilà,” she whispered in my ear when she was finished.

  “Thank you,” I whispered back.

  “I’ve been keeping tabs on you. You haven’t eaten in two days, which is unacceptable, even to me. So, come with me,” she said in my ear. “You and I are going to eat, we’re going to talk, and we’re going to work out at least some of this.”