Page 1 of Vicarious

1

Dele

Seven years ago

“You should grow it out.”

Phae’s words manage to penetrate the stupor I’ve been in for the last few hours. Silent. Only driving and weaving through the roads on autopilot. It’s the only thing I can do right now. Loose myself and not think. Because if I allow myself to think, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to hold myself together.

Because my best friend just tried to kill me. And then he almost killed his wife. And then I…

I shake my head and focus on Phae’s statement.

“Grow what out?”

“Your hair. You should grow it out.” Then Phae adds, “When we get to where we’re going, that is.” When I don’t say anything she continues, “And let the color grow out. Long hair, natural hair color, and trade in all those crop tops and ripped jeans for over-sized lounge shirts and tights? No one would recognize you.”

Adrian. Viper. He’d recognize me. It wouldn’t keep me hidden from him.

Phae continues, “I’m thinking of going super short. Some kind of spiky pixie cut. Dye it black. Or maybe your hair color. Something that’ll make me look edgy.”

“That’s pretty… drastic.”

“That’s the point,” Phae says, and then, despite everything, she grins.

It’s infectious, and I can’t help but smiling some. Count on Phae to always trying to find something to smile about.

She winces and runs a hand over her stomach.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Just those false contractions again,” she says.

“You sure?”

She nods. “I’ve been having them for weeks now.”

We fall back into silence. But unlike before, I can’t take myself back into that faraway place that’s not reality. Where I don’t have to think about everything else that’s happened in the last 12 hours. Where my mind doesn’t replay over and over that—

“What are you planning to name them?”

Phae’s grin turns into soft smile as she caresses her belly. “The boy is Leon and the girl is Lady.”

I frown.

“Go ahead and say it,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “I know you have something to say.”

I start with the easiest question.

“Not going with anything from your Italian heritage?”

Phae scowls at that. “The further away from my Italian heritage that my children can get the better.”

Phae has never made it any secret that she hates anything to do with her family. Particular despising the business they’re involved in. Specifically, organized crime. It’s why she ran away, changed her name to Phaedra, after her love of Greek mythology, and has pretty much dedicated her life to taking down mobsters and crime lords through the power of her journalism. Much to her family’s chagrin, if what little Adrian told me about it is true.

I grip tightly onto the steering wheel. Did he always invade my every thought before now? Or does it just seem that way because of… everything.

“Lady?” I ask. “I just know there’s something about that.”

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