Page 26 of Revenge of a Queen

My head is so fucked up, but I am far too hungover to be able to deal with it. I sit up and rub my eyes, desperately trying to clear the ache in them, but it’s useless. That pounding feeling spreads right across my temple and round the back of my head. Fuck. I want to stay in bed, but I can’t today for one reason and one reason only. It’s my dad's anniversary.

Three years. Three fucking years since he was shot and killed by that fucking animal Elliot Donovan. Now my father was far from innocent, I am sure he had plenty of skeletons in his closet, ones I don’t even know about but as far as I am aware, he never killed an innocent man in cold blood. People who say time is a healer, talk fucking bullshit, three years and it still feels like yesterday. Time hasn’t helped me with shit.

I make my way to the bathroom in this place and attempt to flick on the light and it’s only then I remember there is no electricity, it’s probably cold as shit in here too, but my hangover is overpowering my senses. I can’t feel much else. The window allows some natural daylight to filter in, enough for me to see my reflection in the mirror. I look like shit, pure and simple. I still haven’t shaved so my usual light dust of scruff is practically a full-on beard and the circles under my eyes are almost as dark as my coal-colored hair. Grief really is a killer. Not sure if I am grieving my dad or the future I will never have with Elle, but it doesn’t matter. Both left me behind without looking back.

After taking a leak, I splash some water on my face and go back into the living room to retrieve my leather jacket and head out the door. The daylight is harsh, and I find myself wanting to turn around and go back inside to sleep some more but trying would be useless, I’m too wired. I just need to go see my dad and then maybe I should get back out of this hell hole of a town.

I climb on my bike and go on my way. The air whips past me in quick succession as I guide the bike in the direction I want to go. I love my bike, I love feeling the power beneath me, knowing just one wrong flick on my wrist could end it all. Probably a little sick to think of it like that but it keeps me on my toes. I push through ignoring the rain as it starts to fall and make my way to the gates of Hallows Cemetery.

It’s funny, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter how much money you have, where you're born, or who you're born to. When we die, all our lives amount to the same wooden box, in the same mudded hole, with the same concrete stone above us. Doesn’t matter how different we all live; we all decay the same.

I swing my leg over my bike and lean it against a picnic table next to a bunch of other cars. The rain is really fine and it's soaking me through but the cold bite of it is a welcome touch to my burning skin. I don’t bother to even look where I am going as I enter the cemetery, I don’t have to, I know the way to my dad's stone by heart. I spent every day out here for weeks after he was buried. The pain of losing him and losing Elle was something I didn’t know how to deal with, I guess considering how hungover I am right now, you could say I still don’t.

I reach his stone and release a deep breath. Looks the same as always. Beautiful, clean, and expensive. I still wonder now who paid for his funeral costs after all our funds were taken, but it's not important. Whoever it was, I will never be able to repay them.

I do my usual and head past his stone until I am round back and take a seat. His stone is so big I can easily lean my huge frame against it. Add that to the fact that he is buried around the edge of this place, it offers me the privacy to grieve in peace. I pull out a crumpled joint from my pocket and light it, inhaling deeply. Hopefully, it will numb me from the pain that pumps through my body. I don’t know how long I sit there but I must have drifted off because I don’t hear her approach and it’s clear, she doesn’t know I’m here when her voice hits my ear.

“Hey, stranger,” Elle’s sad tone pierces through the soft drizzling rain. “Sorry, it’s been a while, but I am sure you’re watching me and know what I’ve been up to,” she adds, with a little scoffed laugh.

I daren’t move, I don’t want to reveal my presence and deal with our issues today of all days. So, I remain completely still and silent. I hear a shuffle and I can tell she has moved closer to the stone.

“I know you told me not to come back here,” her voice is lower now but still perfectly clear, meaning I was right, she has moved closer, probably bent down in the mud, “I’m sorry I didn’t listen, but I couldn’t. I hope you understand. They had already taken so much from me that I was barely surviving until a heartbeat changed my life,” her voice is straining, and I can tell she is barely holding back tears.

“I wish you could meet her; she would adore you, and I know you would look out for her like you did me,” I hear her sniffles and deep inhale like she is forcing herself to keep her emotions in check. “God, you have no idea how much I wish you were here, wish you could see the things I have done, see the amazing man your son has become. Marcus, my beautiful River, you should see him, Michael. You would be so proud of him. He’s a little lost right now, and I wish I could help him more but it’s too dangerous. He already knows too much,” her voice cracks when she says my name and it takes everything in me not to move to comfort her.

“I think I could have survived if they only took from me, but then they came for you, took from him and I can’t, I just couldn’t ignore that. I’ve done things, things you wouldn't be proud of, but I don’t regret them. Every move I make is to keep my family safe, to keep her safe. I won't let them get her.”

Her statement gives me chills and starts an inferno of rage inside at the same time. What the fuck? What is she talking about? Who? Elliot? What has she done? What was taken? More questions without answers. Except the answers my brain is conjuring up make my skin crawl, no that’s not right, it can’t be. Did Elliot do something to her? No. She would have told me, right? We’re best friends, we told each other everything. She would never keep a secret that big from me, except she already has, hasn’t she? We aren’t best friends anymore. She pushed me away. No this is just more of her lies and mind games, it has to be, the alternative is too fucking sick even for someone like Elliot Donovan.

She doesn’t speak for so long that I would think she has gone but I didn’t hear her move, so I know she is still here. I can feel her like she is part of me and just as I am about to give in and go to her, she speaks again.

“Anyway,” she says, dragging out the word forcing a cheery tone to her voice that sounds so fake it almost doesn’t sound like her. “These are for you, I know orange is a weird color, but I didn’t pick them out,” she laughs, “but I hope you like them.”

“I’m sure he’d love them, princess,” the dark sinister voice causes my entire body to flinch, I’d know that voice anywhere.

Elliot Donovan.

I know I should move, make myself known and face him like a man. I have been waiting for an opportunity like this ever since he murdered my father. To come across him somewhere quiet and secluded like this is a rare occasion and I could use it to my advantage.

Except I have nothing but my hands as weapons and as much as I would love nothing more than to make him bleed, I also want to see how the dynamic is between him and Elle. She made her distaste clear for her parents when they came to school for her and from the little snippets of information, she allowed me it seemed as if that would extend to Elliot too. I started to think he had done something to her but then she dropped the Asher baby bomb. Now, I don’t know what to think.

It seems in this town people only speak freely when they think they are alone. So, I stay, remain quiet and pray for some of the answers I long for.

Chapter 15

ELLE

Iam soaked through but I don’t care. I have been putting off coming here ever since I came back to town. It’s like I thought once I came here and visited his grave, it finally made it official. Michael Riviera saved my life and paid the price with his own. No one will ever understand the guilt I feel because of that. Standing here now and seeing his life cut short and reduced to nothing but a fucking huge block of stone, makes that guilt even more soul crushing. Zack paid for his funeral and I wish I could have been there to say goodbye, but it was too dangerous.

Talking aloud to him feels silly but there was too much left unsaid, too much I had to tell him. I voice it out loud, said everything I wish I could say to him in person and pray to all the gods that the afterlife is real, and he can somehow hear me. Once I have nothing left to say I just grieve in silence until I am so cold that my body hurts as much as my heart, my own version of self-punishment.

When I think it’s time to go, I place the orange roses that Cass and I picked out into the empty vase. Orange makes everyone happy, she said when we bought them. I hope she is right.

I prepare myself to say goodbye, not knowing when the next time I will get a chance to come here will be, when the voice of the devil himself hits my body like a wrecking ball.

“I’m sure he’d love them, princess.”

I repress a flinch and force myself to turn around slowly and come face to face with the devil himself. Elliot Donovan. Fuck. I feel my wrist wanting to flick out the knife at my thigh for protection, but I refuse to allow him to push me back into the fear I felt that night. Besides pulling a weapon would show me as more than the girl he once kidnapped and the longer he stays in the dark about me the better.

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