The House of the Wicked (The snake and the raven #1)

42. Nora

Nora

alone in dahlia heights

D espite the cool morning wind blowing through the narrow alleyways and winding concrete staircases, the smell in Dahlia Heights is stale, stagnant, curdling. No matter which way I turn, I can’t escape the stench of sewage, dog shit, and dirty water.

My bare feet race forward, down and down again. Cracked steps catch on the tips of my toes as I try to outrun Bassey. I don’t know if August is okay. I try not to think about him. I’m covered in blood—mine, Dima’s, Bassey’s—but I can’t stop running.

The noose Ricky is slowly winding around my neck gets tighter and tighter the further away from Dima’s house I run. I know he sent Bassey, this fetid scramble down an unending staircase snaking between thousands of houses, my only way out.

I’m not here to sightsee, but even drenched in blood and disorientated by the trauma of watching Dima die, I can’t ignore the squalor surrounding me. It’s sickening to think about the way Ricky and I, even my parents, lived, while Dima and August came from this.

Hell . Life in The Basin is hell.

I finally reach the bottom of a stairway, my feet meeting the solid concrete of a bustling main road. As I struggle to breathe, each inhale and exhale is like a saw cutting through my lungs. The smell of the stairwells still lingers around me, but it’s faint; I choose not to focus on it. Fat, sluggish drops of blood roll down my fingertips. The wound from the glass stabbing through my palm stings, but the burst of adrenaline from running keeps most of the pain at bay.

It can’t be much before six AM, but the street is already busy. Even though I’m heaving desperately for air, wild-eyed and bleeding on the sidewalk, no one spares me a second glance. Alone. I’m totally alone in Dahlia Heights. Once my breathing is under control, I begin a lackluster march down the street, vaguely in the direction of Port Manaus—a distant smudge on a smoggy horizon before me.

My eyes scan each passerby anxiously as panic stretches taut beneath my skin. Old, weather-beaten buses clunk by on the bustling street; exhaust fumes drifting toward me on the chilly morning wind.

Most of the stores are still shut. I slow as I pass closed sign after closed sign. Desperate for any help, I check each door to be sure before I move on to the next. A fast-food store, a hardware store, a cell phone repair kiosk. A woman elbows her way past me, practically shoving me out of her path. I stumble to the side, my hand slamming against the wall of another closed store as I glare at her back.

“E xcuse me,” I half-heartedly call after her.

She turns to face me, her brow furling with irritation. I’ve never been in her shoes, never had to rush anywhere, never had to worry about being late, never had a morning routine that went beyond visits to the beach and washing the digital footprint off illegal handguns. I want to be angry about her obvious indifference toward me, but I’m too preoccupied with gratitude that she bothered to turn around at all. She hasn’t bothered to answer or greet me, though. She simply raises her eyebrows before looking me up and down.

“Do you know what the time is?” I ask.

“Six forty-nine.” Her clipped reply makes me cringe internally.

“And the day?” I ask hesitantly, doing my best to sound apologetic for the additional question. “What day is it?” I clarify while she continues to stare at me in disgust.

“It’s Tuesday.” She sighs and turns around. But something makes her turn back. I’m not prepared for the sneer that contorts her otherwise plain face. “You junkies really need to get off the streets.” She spits the accusation at me and honestly, I can’t fault her. I look like hell, barefoot, wearing only a t-shirt, and covered in blood.

“Thank you!” I shout after her as she races away. Flipping me off is her only reply. Bitch.

I try to blend in as I keep a steady pace down the busy street, stopping every other block to stare at the colorful graffiti adorning the various ramshackle buildings. Taking one corner after the next, I eventually get turned around, ending up behind the strip club August took me to. Loud music thunders behind a heavy steel door. The only sign it’s a business, a rusty green ‘Staff Only’ sign above the doorway.

The narrow alley is filthy but quiet and I use the time to gather my thoughts, trying to form a plan. I need to go back to the house to make sure August is okay. But I can’t go alone. I need help. But who can I call when the only people I trust are in the house I just ran from?

I’m about to turn around, to retrace my steps and head back toward the house, when a tall blonde woman in leather shorts and a silver bikini top sprints out of the metal door and past me. She stutters to a stop suddenly, spinning around to face me.

“You need to get out of here, hun.” She looks between me and the end of the alley. “Cops are coming.” A sickening sense of déjà vu takes hold of me as she steps forward and grabs my arm.

“Police! Get on the floor.” Someone roars from the direction she just ran from.

“Now, hun. Come on!” One more tug on my arm and my feet jump into action.

Together, we race down the alley for a few seconds; I almost sag with relief as we near the end of it. Gulping down deep lungfuls of air, I turn to thank her. She’s young; maybe eighteen or nineteen.

I open my mouth to say something, but she cuts me off. “You need to get off the street. I’m going home.” She points to the pedestrian staircase on the opposite side of the street. “Up there. You go that way.” I follow her finger as she points in the opposite direction of the street I was about to race toward. That side of the alley turns in a bend, impossible to see where it leads. I turn back to her, working up the courage to beg her to let me follow, but she smiles at me. “Good luck!” she shouts, and a second later, she’s darting across the narrow street and up the staircase.

Fuck.

I’ ve come full circle, but the circle is just a loop of me thinking I’m close to freedom only to be fucked again. I look at the side of the street that leads back to the door she came out of. It’s quiet. The soft, pulsing flash of red and blue lights on the buildings at the end of the road. I could ask the police for help.

Shit. I sigh. What am I thinking? Turning toward the end of the alley the girl pointed to, I resign myself to this new destination and start my brisk walk down the street.

“Stop.” I freeze as the man’s harsh command races across my skin like needles. “Get on the ground, hands behind your head,” he instructs.

My entire body shakes with fear as I slowly drop to my knees.

“Face down,” the officer says.

It’s humiliating. I feel the back of my blood-stained t-shirt riding up, baring my thighs as I lower myself to the sidewalk. Tears burn the corners of my eyes; I blink them away. I will not cry. Here, with my face against the concrete and my arms braced at the back of my head, I will not cry. Not because I’m strong, but because I know if I allow even one tear to fall, I won’t be able to stop. So, I squeeze my eyes shut and will them away.

The sidewalk’s wet and cold and the smell of piss and something I’m unwilling to identify burns the inside of my nose. I can hear his heavy footfalls as the police officer comes closer to me. His radio crackles and buzzes to life; a voice saying something about the office upstairs. I strain to make it out, but can’t decipher more than a few broken words.

He stops somewhere behind me, out of my line of sight, but I feel him there. A fresh wave of humiliation washes over me as I think about how I look to him right now. Blood riddled, with a generous helping of my ass sticking out, my hair a tangle of limp curls and knots.

“Do you have any weapons on you?” he barks the question. I shake my head. Tears are still too close to the surface, words are not possible. Not yet.

He unclips something and fear twists inside me once again. Squeezing my eyes shut, hopelessly trying to smother the tears already spilling from my eyes.

“Hey, what the—” The police officer stammers as footsteps race somewhere behind me.

Before my brain can process what’s happening, a low grunt echoes through the alley, followed by a sickening, wet thud. In a split second, the officer is sprawled face down on the sidewalk beside me. Blood slowly trickles from a cut on his temple, dripping in lazy, fat drops onto the concrete.

Twisting my body, I strain to see the attacker. Gradually, a slight smile ghosts across my face as my eyes settle on the bikini-clad blonde. A wooden baseball bat clutched in one of her hands, the other stretching out toward me.

“You should get up. We need to move before another one arrives.” She smiles at me.

“You came back?” I say, standing from the sidewalk, dusting the dirt and grime off my legs, a pointless exercise considering I’m covered in blood.

“You looked utterly pathetic. I couldn’t leave you here.” She smirks as she answers me. “Where are you from?”

“Port Manaus,” I reply honestly. She whistles and looks back in the direction the officer came from and then back at me. “You got cash?” I shake my head, watching as she reaches into one of the silver bikini cups covering her smal l breasts. “Here, for a taxi.” She offers me the cash before turning and walking down the sidewalk. “Well, come on. Let’s get you home.” She walks off, not bothering to check if I’m behind her. My feet fire to life, rushing forward. I catch up with her just as she turns into another dark alleyway, leaving behind the club, the police, and August.

I never asked her name, and she surely didn’t volunteer it, but as we race down one of the main roads of The Heights, her hand wraps tightly around mine. I know that despite the absence of her name, I will never forget her.

She pulls me to a stop, pointing to the row of taxis at the end of the street. After shaking my hand loose, she rushes forward, knocking on one window and then another. She points to where I stand, speaking animatedly with a few of the drivers. It doesn’t take long to find a cab, but finding one willing to make the long journey back to Port Manaus proves to be harder than I expected.

After she begs and pleads and agrees to pay way more than the standard fare, I end up here, seated in the back of a taxi, heading toward Port Manaus.

The soft neon glow of lights rushes past the car window as we pass through Dahlia Heights, and then Hell’s Basin. The blur of oranges and reds and yellows distracts me from the musty confines of the backseat, and I feel the dam of emotion inside me slowly swell. Soon, it will burst, and I will let it.

I suck in a deep breath and surrender to the overwhelming emotions surging inside me. A single tear, hot and weighty, traces a path down my face.

For as long as I can remember, all I have wanted is freedom. And for a moment this morning, I strayed further away from that goal than I could ever have imagined. Despite the reality of escaping police custody, despite the speed with which we are racing toward Port Manaus, toward the place I have only ever longed to leave, I know with so much certainty that I’ll never truly be free. Not from Ricky, and not from the legacy of my father.

T he taxi slowly climbs the mountain leading back to Ricky’s house. This is the first time I’ve ever taken a taxi directly to the front door. I’m not sneaking in anymore. There’s no one home to reprimand me for being reckless, no one to report back to Ricky about my sneaking out. We come to a stop in front of the gates to the house; I smile bitterly. I’m finally back in Port Manaus. Only now I can’t shake the feeling that I’ll never be able to leave.

I hand the driver the crumpled ball of bills and climb out of the car. Shadows from the early morning sunlight envelop the house. Shifting on my aching feet in front of the massive iron gates, my eyes glare at the only home I’ve ever known. And then I step forward.

One gate is slightly ajar, like it was closing and simply stopped. I shimmy my body through the small gap, wincing as the metal creaks loudly. It’s strange to see the house like this. As I walk toward the front door, I try to think of a time where it’s ever been so still, so deserted, so devoid of movement. I come up empty.

Stopping in the middle of the vestibule leading to the front door, my eyes drift down to the black and white mosaic tiles beneath my feet, frowning at the thick layer of dust and muddy boot prints covering the floor. I do n’t want to be here. I walked out of this house and promised myself I’d never return, and then everything went spectacularly wrong, and now I’m back.

Looking up, my fingers brush my hand over the brass plaque next to the front door. The House of the Wicked , I laugh quietly to myself. The wicked indeed, all of us. Ricky, Gracious, Adam, and me. All of us are wicked. All of us deserve to burn.

The front door stands partially open. I step into the entrance hall; the place looks exactly as I left it. Chaos of the SWAT raid has settled over everything like the aftermath of a tornado; papers, broken glass, toppled chairs all sit as if that’s where they’ve always been. I sigh and creep down the hall to the kitchen, flicking on lights as I go. I don’t want to be alone in the dark. Not in this house.

After dragging the blood-crusted t-shirt over my head and drop it on the floor. The thought of spending another second covered in Dima’s blood is too much to bear. Partially naked, I weave through the kitchen and into the living room. Swiping mindlessly at the tears building in my eyes, before turning my back on the room that once held so many memories, most bad, but some good. Memories of Dima, and August, and Thalia. All of them are now gone from my life.

Rushing to Ricky’s office, I push the door open and march to the wall safe behind his desk, not expecting to see it intact. I sag in relief when I see the door ajar. The SWAT team obviously searched it, but didn’t empty it out.

The inconspicuous bunch of keys I know will open a safe deposit box waits undisturbed on a hook on the inside of the safe door. Ricky and I are the only people allowed to open the box, despite who has the key. I struggle to remember exactly what’s in it—photographs of politicians engaged in compromising activities, money, a gun, hopefully a fake passport. I slip the keys off the hook, clutching them in my fist before turning and making my way up the stairs to the loft.