Page 3 of Ugly Truths
“Call Natalie.” His voice is quieter now, but firm. “I know you don’t want to talk about what happened, but don’t shut her out. All she knows is you won’t answer her calls, and it’s killing her.”
The guilt hits instantly, a sharp twist in my gut as the door clicks shut behind him. I drag a hand down my face, cursing.
He’s right. It’s not fair to Nat. I need to grit my teeth and bear it, no matter how much I’d rather gouge my ears than ever talk about that traitorous bitch ever again.
Even as the guilt eventually settles, something else lingers. The gnawing, relentless irritation that a month has passed and we still don’t have a single damn lead on the men at the warehouse that night.
They vanished like smoke. It’s infuriating and the kind of thing that makes me want to rip through my own team and demand to know what the hell they’ve actually been doing. I handpicked men and women who are trained beyond measure. They extracted the backpack without the cops ever realizing it was there. Scrubbed the one clip of surveillance that showed Scar–Elena–and what she did.
But these ghosts? There are still no connections, no trace of where they came from or where they went. They clearly weren’t working with Elena with how they drew their guns on her, but were they after the same thing? And if that’s the case, we need to figure out exactly what they wanted before we find out the hard way.
In the silence of my office, my gaze returns to the over-decade-old photo of her on my screen. Elena Cross. Scarlett Page. Two names for the same woman—a woman I don’t know at all.
But none of that matters anymore. Regardless of who she’s pretending to be now, I’ll find her.
Chapter 2
Two Months After the Explosion
Elena
In all the different lives I’ve been forced to live over the years, I’d never imagined spending a summer in the Colorado mountains. Even as I step out of the old Toyota Tacoma Luis lent me a month ago, the mid-afternoon August heat feels like a light kiss against my skin, not the oppressive blaze I’ve known of other summers.
Luis’s secluded home sits on an upward slope nestled in a cluster of hills. Off the opposite edge of the gravel driveway, the hill drops off to a small river that offers a comforting, consistent hum of rushing water. On the elevated porch, the view is even better.
I stretch my arms over my head, feeling the pull in my shoulders and lower back. The thirty-minute drive to and from Breckenridge always leaves me stiff, especially after hours on my feet, but it’s hard to complain when I get to look at this.
I climb the incline to the porch with my shoulder bag in one hand, the wooden planks creaking faintly under the weight. The key turns easily, and the cabin greets me with comforting silence. To my left, the open living room is empty, and to my right, the door to Luis’s office is shut tight. I tread lightly up the stairs directly in front of me to the second story, where two bedrooms and a shared bathroom sit.
The guest room is to the left, where I drop my bag onto the bed, turning to rummage for a clean pair of clothes in the dresser. The smellof Bluebird Brunch Co. clings to me like a second skin. No matter how good the food tastes, it always makes me nauseous after a shift.
When Luis brought me here, I barely lasted a week before asking him if he could help me find work. The weight of doing nothing was unbearable, as was the idea of trying to do anything like I used to. By the next day, he lined up a job for me at his friend Sarah’s popular breakfast and lunch spot in Breckenridge. He told me to “dust off my apron” and handed me the keys to his old truck that he rarely used. I cried and hugged him when Sarah said she was willing to keep me off the books.
It was the lifeline I didn’t know I was so desperate for after the few months I’d barely made it out of.
Clothes in hand, I head for the bathroom. Once the door is locked behind me, I turn on the shower faucet, letting the water heat up as I start to strip. My jeans come off first, then the staff t-shirt, which sticks awkwardly to my hair clip as I pull it over my head. The motion makes me stumble, and when I regain my balance as it comes off my neck, I’m partially facing the mirror that hangs from the back of the door.
The scars on the edges of my hips and thighs are visible from this angle, disappearing around my backside. I look away just as quickly, but the cruel reminder makes the memories churn, dragging me back to that night.
“Elena, move! You have to move!”
A sharp gasp rips from my throat as I jolt back into consciousness, vision swimming. For a moment, everything is disjointed–flashes of fire, the acidic bite of melting metal coats my lungs, the ringing in my ears still present but dull enough for Luis’s voice to slice through the haze. By some miracle, the earbud remains lodged in my ear.
“Head for the fence behind you! There’s a gap–get up!”
The fire roars. Every movement sends a sharp, electric pain through my lower back and sides. As if the flames have seeped into my muscles and bones and now burn there instead.
I don’t even know if I can move, but Luis’s voice pulls back.
“Elena! Get up, damn it!” he screams, and this time, my body obeys.
I push myself to my knees. My palms scrape against the gravel, but it’s nothing compared to the pain searing through the rest of me. Stumbling forward, I try to catch myself and groan, trying to answer Luis, but whatever I say is barely coherent. Still, he lets out a shaky exhale when I respond.
“The gap is fifty feet behind you, past the stacked barrels,” he continues. My head pounds against the sides of my skull, making it even harder to see through the towering smoke. “Stay low. Don’t stop.”
Each step feels like it might be my last. My lungs burn. There’s only a little relief the further I move from the fire, and the smoke thins enough to no longer choke me.
The gap Luis mentioned is located at the base of the metal links, and barely wide enough for a person to squeeze through. I unceremoniously drop to my knees, pressing myself against the ground, and wiggle through the opening. The jagged edges of the metal catch on my arms, scraping against my already angry skin, but I grit my teeth and push forward.
