Page 35 of Extraction Play

The hot tears dripped down her face, blurring her vision. Her shoulders began to shake, but she kept on moving. She hadn’t fully cried since everything had happened. This was inevitable. She’d known that, and something about packing up her former life ripped the remaining seams that stitched her together. Her heart spasmed in her chest, the ache intensifying.

She had a trajectory, but the forest she’d planted had gotten razed to the ground. Now she needed to find somewhere new to grow, to flourish.

If only she knew where.

***

After hours and hours of packing up her belongings and hauling the boxes to her car, Eva was down to cursory checks.

She didn’t want to return to this place unless she had to.

Sweat glued to her skin, and she reeked from the sour scent combined with the dust and grime kicked up by unearthing all her belongings. She needed a shower—water, fire, she wasn’t picky—just needed to scorch the remnants of this day off her skin. Jack hadn’t offered to help once. No, he’d made himself scarce. She wanted to be pissed about it, but him not being around made her life easier.

The room looked torn over, but she hadn’t bothered putting things back in their places. Petty? Sure, maybe a little, but not as shitty as he’d been.

Eva’s phone buzzed, and she pulled it out, glancing at the screen. Pixie.

She expected a text message, but a picture loaded instead.

It wasn’t in the finished stages yet, but the surrealist painting was all dark purples and blues, twisting with deep black, evocative of shadows. Eva clutched her phone, emotion welling to the surface. As if she hadn’t already cried a bucket of tears. However, this wasn’t more pain. No, she knew the intimacy in this picture all too well, one that felt personal in a way most paintings didn’t.

Granted, it helped if you were sleeping with the artist.

The more she studied it, the more she noticed the curves of the blackened shadows, the almost figure-like quality of them. Her heart thudded a little harder. It was a bit egotistical to believe this was inspired by their stolen moments together in the velvet dark, but something about it viscerally transported her there. As if this was Pixie’s way of reaching out, like she was thinking of her. Eva’s throat tightened.

Just being at Pixie and Micah’s apartment for two weeks had made Eva aware of how protective Pixie got over works in progress. She didn’t let anyone into her studio, and she didn’t even hang her paintings on the walls of her apartment. No, the talented woman had them on display in different venues across the country. The only reason Eva had seen them was that she’d scurried down some winding Google rabbit holes.

So Pixie sending her an unfinished painting did mean something.

Eva grasped on to that truth with all her might.

She went downstairs, the steps creaking, ready to drive to her motel for the night. The door opened, and Jack walked back inside.

Their eyes locked, and she pressed her lips together, giving him no emotion.

“All of my belongings are out,” she said, her tone as dead as their relationship. “If you find anything else of mine, send me a text, and you can mail it to my new address.”

“I’m sorry thiswas all so sudden.”

This was the most of an apology she’d get from him for going back on his word, so she nodded. She didn’t owe him any wishes for the future, and she didn’t bother with them. Part of her wanted to know what Sienna was doing, if she was in the process of completely replacing her, but her self-preservation kept her from asking. If all he was going to say was they’d been waiting to cut her out of the picture, she would slice herself to ribbons.

“Good-bye, Jack,” she said, walking past him to the door.

She didn’t look back, no matter how strong the urge. She might not be in love with him anymore, but no one wanted to feel forgettable.

Even if she was.

The air had cooled significantly with the night, which pasted the remainder of the sweat to her skin. She opened her car, slid into the driver’s side, and sagged into the seat. Today had crammed the stress of a month into a single day.

Her phone buzzed, and she snatched it up, desperate for any serotonin she could cling to. A text followed the painting from Pixie.

The title isWelcome the Night.

Eva’s mouth dried a little, and the memories from their previous night together ignited a flame in her—maybe small and barely hanging on, but today, that was enough.

Chapter Fourteen

The scent of acrylic paint was always a soothing one.

---