Page 55 of Black Hearts

19

Alex

1 year later

“Celeste? You out here?”

I frowned and looked out over our spacious backyard. The sky was washed with gray, the ground was a slushy mixture of snow and mud, and the leaves that hadn’t dropped from the trees during fall were lined with ice crystals. Celeste was nowhere to be seen.

It was our second winter together, and our first at our new house. I’d sold my old property and bought this place so that we could make a fresh start, a decision we’d arrived at together after our exploits last year. New place, new chapter in our lives.

Our house was set on a sizable block of land in Point Breeze—much closer to everything than the property near Burgettstown, and bigger than my investment condo and house in Shadyside.

It wasn’t easy saying goodbye to the old house, but we needed to move on after all that had happened last year. The Circle was gone, my sister was avenged in my eyes, and I no longer felt any burning urges to kill. Remaining on the property where I’d kept and killed so many people felt too much like lingering in the past for my liking, and I knew it held some bad memories for Celeste too, as much as she loved certain aspects of the place.

She’d finally managed to sell her parents’ old house in Fox Chapel too, so that was yet another place from the past that would no longer haunt her. She didn’t keep any of the money from the sale—it all went to a charitable organization she and Samara had set up for the kids and maids who we’d rescued from the mansion last year. They needed a lot of help adjusting to life in regular society after the horrors they’d endured, some for years on end, but with the help of angels like Celeste, I knew they’d get there eventually.

I went back inside to look for her, wondering if she was in the bathroom. She hadn’t been when I searched for her earlier, but the house was big, so I might’ve just missed her. I knew she was home, because her car was here, and she’d finished college weeks ago.

A light bulb seemed to switch on in my mind as I found the bathroom empty yet again, and I headed back outside. Of course. The greenhouse. It was the one thing we’d transported over from the old property, because I knew how much she’d adored growing things in it during her time there.

It was around the left side of the house, and when I stepped inside, I marveled at what she’d achieved. Contrary to the dead, barren whiteness of the wintery outside world, the greenhouse was alive and blooming with colorful flowers and vegetables. Clusters of white orchids reared their heads from a planter box to my left, and beyond that was a rainbow mixture of yellow, orange, purple, fuchsia and red-hued lilies and roses lining the edge of the little building. On the far side was a multi-tiered planter filled with herbs, and the rest of the place was taken up by large vegetable patches.

“I should’ve known I’d find you out here,” I said with a grin as I approached Celeste. She was crouched on the ground with a hand pruner, trimming some wayward leaves. “I’ve been looking everywhere.”

She glanced up with a smile. “Sorry. When I’m in here, I’m always off in my own little world,” she said, setting the pruner down and wiping her hands on her jeans. “What’s up?”

I tapped on my watch. “We were going to go for a run when I got home, remember?”

She slapped her forehead. “Oh, duh. I knew I was forgetting something. Give me a minute and I’ll get changed.”

She thought we were just going for a casual jog along her favorite path through Frick Park, but it was so much more than that. A few hours from now, we’d be setting off along a whole new path entirely.

Half an hour later, we started along Celeste’s usual trail, bundled in thick jackets and knit caps. The thick of winter had settled on us, bringing with it snow-covered trees, bitterly-cold air, and the occasional swirl of color from dead leaves dancing in the icy winds.

Most people preferred to stay inside on days like this, but Celeste loved being in the park come rain, hail, or shine. It was her way of escaping the grit of city life, and when she ran, she was able to put any worries right out of her mind.

She’d had a lot of those in the last several months.

After the Circle story broke, she (along with the kids who’d been imprisoned and tortured there) had been inundated with all sorts of interview requests by the media. Not only that, people simply stopped and stared at her in the streets sometimes, recognizing her as ‘that girl’ the Circle wanted dead so badly, and many of them rudely asked to talk to her about it, wanting to hear all about her experience to satisfy their cravings for sick, sordid drama.

A few people even accused her of knowing the cabal existed all along, given her father’s involvement with them, but they were thankfully few and far between. If I ever heard anyone say that to her while I was around, they’d find themselves missing a few teeth. They’d also be lucky they didn’t find themselves cuffed and bleeding on my table, down in the old fallout shelter. I’d given that life up, of course, but assholes like that still made my blood boil.

Celeste had been stressed by it all, but she’d taken it in stride, and I was proud of the way she’d handled it. She kept quiet despite the media furor and set up the charity with Samara to help the mansion victims, and that was as far as it went. She didn’t respond to any requests for interviews, and the only thing she’d ever publicly commented on was a book written by Emily, the maid who helped us get everyone out of the mansion that momentous night.

As it turned out, in the fifteen years Emily had been kept at the mansion, she’d spent her time reading (when she wasn’t being tortured or forced to work) and that had inspired her to write a book about her captivity once she was free. Not to make money, but because she found it cathartic to get it all out onto paper.

At first she’d been worried that Celeste and the others would think she was doing it for fame and exploiting their terrible experiences for money, but Celeste understood why she’d written it and fully supported her. She helped her find an agent and a publisher, and when the book hit the bestseller lists a few months ago, she made a brief statement to a well-regarded news site, stating the significance of the book and how she hoped it might make people stand up and pay more attention to the plight of at-risk kids. After all, many of the kids taken by the Circle—Emily included—were the sort of children that tended to slip through the cracks. Not from the ‘right’ families, or the ‘right’ neighborhood, or the ‘right’ socioeconomic group. More than half of them had been brushed aside as runaways when they went missing, and their disappearances were never investigated beyond that.

“Did you hear back from your parents about Christmas?” Celeste asked, resting her hand against a tree trunk for support as she took a quick break from the jog.

I nodded. “They’re coming to visit next week, but only for a few days.”

I hadn’t been particularly close with my family since they chose to disbelieve Lina all those years ago, but now that the harrowing truth had finally come out, they’d practically crawled on their knees begging for my forgiveness, seeing as I was the only one who never stopped believing her. I told them I wasn’t the one who they needed to apologize to—my sister was, only she wasn’t around anymore.

I didn’t want to say anything other than that, but Celeste talked me down. She told me that family was important, and if they were truly sorry for what they’d done, I should at least try to let them into my life again, or I might end up with regrets later. I’d already held onto so much grief over the years, and pushing away people who wanted me in their lives wasn’t going to help.

She was right. My parents and other sister were repentant, and I knew if they could turn back time, they’d believe every word Lina told them. And so I’d let them back into my life. We chatted on the phone every couple of weeks, and they’d even met Celeste a few months ago when we took a short trip to Maine to visit them.

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