Page 76 of Hunter
CUARENTA Y SEIS
The bellabove the front door cries out, and the high-pitched sound lingers in my ears for longer than it has all night. My hands shoot up to cover the sides of my head, and I squeeze my eyes shut like I was bracing for impact.
¡Carajo, wey!My eyes fly open with the loud crash of metal folding chairs falling to the tiled floor, as I catch Alvi and the others jumping up to surround these two guys who tried to walk up in here.Peroneither of them gets past the fucking entrance.
I can't make out who they are and try to look through the open crevices between the big-ass middle-aged men. I only catch glimpses of a blue suit and slicked back blonde hair, before every light in the shop starts to flicker. Once. Twice. Three times, and I know it’s her.Hola, Hecate.
Ella está aquí para protegerme. She’s here to protect me.She’s also here for guidance. She’s always spoken to my soul, and I hear her loud and clear in my head when she whispers, “No te rajes (don’t be afraid).”
I instantly believe her, even when my eyes snap to two black cavities that are drilling into me like I’m the reason for their decay.
I panic-freeze for the first time in years. That’s what I used to call it when some shit would happen that would upset me to the point that I couldn’t move or talk for a minute. The anxiety was so fucking powerful it wouldliteralmentefreeze me in place.
I’m trying to be brave and fight through this surprise fucking winter storm. I repeat,“No te rajes,”three times in my head to honor her advice.Pero, it’s hard when I’m looking at a ghost.
Mi primo,Gabriel, looks like a version of himself that I haven’t seen before, and I tilt my head to look at his face. The voices in the shop fade away to silence and are replaced with the sounds of New York City streets.
I’m not in Havenwood even though my feet are on the ground in Virginia. I’m not even living and breathing in the here and now anymore, not when I feel myself float above a specific memory, and my reality bends back to my past.
I can see everything from up here, including a day that now seems to have been a missed opportunity to have warned him.Maybe that was a Tuesday that could’ve changed everything.Nunca lo sabremos. We’ll never know.
And now I really think that I might be hallucinating when I start to regret not telling him what I was planning. I could’ve given him the heads-up and left New York with a clean cut edge, instead of this nasty-ass ratty fringe.
He’s staring at me like he’s got fucking questions that need answers, and my remorse instantly makes me feel like shit. I feel bad. Like really bad. It's all so fucked up.
I feel like I’m giving myself emotional whiplash when I think that I might have actually missed him.¿En serio de esto se trata? Seriously, is this what it’s all about? Do I care about him like he’s my actual family?
I can see the hurt in his eyes, and my own phantom pain overpowers my body as I instantly remember why it wasn’t an option then. But he couldn't give a fuck about what I have to say now. It’s too late. I’ve already been called to the stand, and he’s both the presiding judge and jury, for my long-awaited Judgement Day.How fitting.
My hands start to shake uncontrollably, and my palms are sweaty when I put them up in front of my chest. I honestly don’t know why I do that; we both know I’m not innocent.
I’m fucking guilty of possession; he caught me holding onto the pieces of who I was, who I’ll always be, and who I am now.
The shift in energy is so strong, it’s like I’ve already been convicted on all charges and sentenced to a sunrise execution. He wants me dead and gone.
I feel Hecate embrace me as her hand guides mine back down before I flip over my phone from behind the barrier of the desk. It’s either her, or my fingers really do have a mind of their own. Because here I am typing out a message to the only person I’d want to say goodbye to… while staring at the man who has the power to fucking end me.
Me:
He’s here.
Te amo, mi cabrón.
The sounds of the room echo in my ears as the shop comes back into focus. I hear Alvi demanding to know who the fuck they are as he gets into blondie guy’s face.
“Are we late? I wasn’t sure what time the party started, our invitation got lost in the mail,” he says with a white toothed smile.Pinche baboso, fucking slimeball, I’d like to punch him right in his dumbass mouth. “But then again, we’re still new to the area, so maybe you didn’t know where to send it.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Alvi spits out. He has this look about him that demands respect. Unlike this fucking idiot who’s got sweat rolling down his face. Motherfucker can’t take the heat. That’s how you tell a fucking OG from a fake-ass gangster. Fucking pussy.Es un chiste. He’s a joke.
“We heard you’ve been asking about us, so here we are, man,” Gabe says with a bulletproof tone as his eyes shift from me to tattoo guy, and then back to me. “In the flesh.” He’s got this newjefe bossenergy that I haven’t seen before, and it matches Alvi. I can already fucking tell that cheap blue suit guy is a sad excuse for a number two man.
The tension in the room is suffocating, and my mouth is dry. All I want is a fucking Cherry Coke, but I don’t think I’ll be granted any final wishes. I clear my throat, and the noise grabs Gabe’s attention.
“And I see that you’re alive too, Val.” The sound of my cousin’s voice is both foreign and familiar. My brain has a hard time processing that he’s standing in front of me and saying my name. It makes my brain itch to the point of literal pain, and has my eye twitching.
We were never supposed to be anywhere together again, yet here we are.No lo creo, I can’t believe it.“Of all the places,prima,” he says, and it quiets the room, grabbing tattoo guy’s attention. I feel fucking exposed and ashamed as every set of eyes in the shop zeros in on me like the red-light dots from the SWAT team guns.
“¿Así que aquí es a donde huiste? (So this is where you ran to?)”As soon as he says the words, I see myself in my mind’s eye getting away, grabbing my shit, and running out the same back door that I ran into a few days ago when all this shit started. They found my secret hiding place; Havenwood will never be the same for me again. Not with GabeyPayton here.
