Page 127 of Wanted
The palace’s alarm stopped. I felt instant relief, ready to tackle the task of getting up from the floor without tearing up my vagina some more. Just as I removed myself from Valentina and attempted to rise from the floor, another siren resounded. Longer and more threatening than the one before, the menacing sound already haunted my dreams.
Valentina cursed under her breath. She moved so promptly that I couldn’t keep up. She urged me, “Come on! We have to go!”
“What’s happening?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. I rose from the floor, cringing at the pain, and I followed her up the stairs. The pregnant woman raced through her house like she was being chased. When we reached the top floor, she halted. They didn’t use this floor as a living space, so there were no chairs, just moving boxes stapled upon one another. I couldn’t sit on the floor again. I decided to lean against the wall. While I panted and broke out in sweats, Valentina studied the view outside of the window. The water was a three-minute walk away from this three-story house, but the gardeners had trimmed the trees just enough to glimpse at the beach.
“Fuck!” she cursed. “The ocean water is receding! Keep calling the others!”
Panic laced through me, and I picked up the phone to continue my calls. While I waited for responses, I typed in messages.
“Valentina? Where are you? Mandy?” A female voice roared through the house, battling the sirens from outside.
“We’re up here, mom!” Valentina yelled back. “You should’ve stayed home!”
In frantic steps, Felicita joined us. She looked like death, but I wasn’t going to comment on it. We had bigger issues at hand than Felicita’s lack of sleep. She took a seat on the floor, hugging her knees tight. Valentina’s mother stared ahead into nothingness.
Too preoccupied with the view, Valentina overlooked her mom. I didn’t. Her silent sobs scared me.
“I have to tell you something,” Felicita gulped.
♥♠♥
Absent-mindedly, Weston dangled the keys of the Wraith with his fingers. We’d walked for half an hour to get to the area where his mom’s vacation home had once been. It had been an old construction. It was one of the houses that didn’t survive the tsunami that hit Katantia.
Before, this street was full of houses, cars, and joy. It was one of the calmer districts of Katantia. Whorehouses kept quiet in this area. Families resided here, enjoying the beach.
Now, it was all ruin. Most of the houses hadn’t survived. First responders skimmed every corner.
Weston had been summoned here by his goodwill. We were supposed to stay inside and hide in the palace, but Weston wanted to come out here.
“He went and got himself killed protecting my sister,” Weston blurted out. He didn’t look at the ruins of his mother’s vacation home. “He gets to—”
“I know you’re grieving, but you shouldn’t talk ill of the dead,” I said.
“Look at this shit.” He gestured around us. “People died here because we were too busy biting each other’s heads off.”
“You can’t fight nature,” I stated. I didn’t have a connection to the houses here. I didn’t bear responsibility for any of the damage. Yet, I found myself staring at the bricks. The first responders murmured around us, working and digging people up.
Valentina and I had been spared, but the women of the South Side hadn’t. Most of them had been left behind. Almost every other body that the first responders found was female.
“Spencer wanted us out,” Weston told me. This was a reoccurring statement from him. “He wanted us out, but if he sends us away now, he’ll have an angry Katantia. People know we’re under a hostile takeover.”
“The people won’t ever recognize Spencer as their king,” I assured him, hoping that there was truth in that belief.
Weston shook his head. For all intents and purposes, he’d attempted to look as put together as possible today. The country suffered, but they needed their beloved celebrities to shower them with hope. His suit was perfect, but his eyes were sunken and hollow.
“You don’t know that. I’ve disappointed the people of Katantia. Look at the chaos around you. It’s been a week, and they’re still digging up people. Protesters have started assembling in front of the palace…”
Weston hung his head, and my heart broke for him. He wasn’t supposed to show emotion publicly, but there was so much going on that he couldn’t keep it in anymore. Katantia was his home. Yet, it wasn’t what it used to be anymore. In solidarity with the victims, Hole Stores remained closed. The protesters in front of the palace claimed that they only closed because many of their workers died in the tsunami.
“It happened so quickly. I had no idea about Aram’s hidden guns in his office. He wanted to show off to his brother. Spencer talked our ear off, cursing us out for disrespecting the Wraith name. Aram picked up a gun, and he tried to shoot his own daughter… Kamila cried so hard. The last time she cried like that, it was for our mom,” Weston told me. “Fylox had to calm her down. She was outraged.”
“You don’t blame her, do you?” I asked cautiously. Outside of the palace, every other citizen was upset. Inside the palace, there was grief. Things were changing, and Spencer was eager to take control.
Spencer being my father was kept quiet because Katantians were not too shy to tell me how much they hated my father. There was no violence in public. People that moved here wanted to fuck, not fight. Katantians didn’t assassinate people. The palace did. Spencer Rawlins attempted to have Aris assassinated. Remotely controlled, he sent a driverless car to Katantia to cause a fatal car accident. Aris and Valentina should’ve died that night if things had gone according to Spencer’s plan. According to Jordan, Aram was in on everything. He played Spencer’s puppet to earn some cash and live out his retirement in the Bahamas.
Valentina knew who had harmed her husband now. Instead of going after him like she had promised, she didn’t get out of her room. Actually, she hadn’t left her bed ever since…
