Her fingers closed uncertainly on a smaller box, making its contents rattle. She drew a deep breath and lifted the cover, smiling inadvertently at the tiny sparks of memories that still lived in the handful of cheap plastic jewelry. It took her a moment to find the silvery necklace with an ornate A on it—one of her early birthday gifts to her mother.
She remembered the moment she found it in her parents’ bedroom while Peter was packing their things. She hated the stupid thing then, but something had made her keep it. Now she sat turning the necklace around in her fingers and tried to remember what was so upsetting about it, but the memories faded with every year, and this one was long gone.
She blinked and realized her face was wet. The sleeve of Chad’s flannel came out black when she wiped the tears, reminding her she’d slept with her makeup on.
“Goddammit,” she muttered, stuffing the box back into the nest of clothes.
Jane’s drowsy voice froze her in place. “Hey.”
Pain stayed behind the wardrobe door, anxiously searching for a way to slip into the bathroom, until she found Jane’s t-shirt and pants on a chair.
“Wake up, we got work to do,” she said in a flat tone, tossing the clothes at her sister.
Jane caught the pants awkwardly, with the shirt landing on her face. By that time, Pain was already in the bathroom.
“What work? How’s Dave?”
“He’s fine. Someone gotta pack Elena’s things. Don’t want Peter to have to do it.” She paused, toothbrush in hand. “And it’s time we sorted out Mom and Dad’s things at the storage. We got the whole day.”
She heard an annoyed grunt, and something clattered to the floor.
“Fine. Gimme five minutes,” Jane grumbled.
Pain dropped her clothes and turned the shower on to drown out the chaos in her mind.
Chapter 14
Dave put on his gear jacket and stood in front of the mirror.
He stared himself in the eyes, his gaze glassy, his mind withdrawing further and further into a stupor since he started getting ready for the funeral. He reached down the collar of his shirt and pulled out the silver chain for the tenth time that day. It was the only thing he’d decided to keep, after all.
He’d spent hours checking every link in the chain to make sure it wouldn’t break and get lost. The rest of the day had been dedicated to tracking down every little thing Elena had left in his room and packing it all in a box. Having fallen into a trance a few times at the sight of a shampoo bottle or a bobby pin, he’d realized his already traumatized sanity wouldn’t last a day if he didn’t take measures.
Still, her presence was all over the room. It lived in the trace of her perfume on his pillow, in the way bottles were organized in the bathroom, in the small lipstick doodle he’d discovered with shock when he stepped out of the shower. All the things he never really noticed before were screaming of her having been a part of his life now.
But he didn’t mind her lingering presence, knowing it wouldn’t last long; it was her absence that turned his room into his own private torture chamber. It lurked in the emptiness of his bed, in the smoothness of the thick carpet with the last of her small footprints gone; it weighed him down with its silence, the echo of her laughter living only in his memory now.
He would have to do something about it later. Maybe move to a different room; maybe move out altogether. But not today.
He put on his boots, seeing Chad shadowing the doorway at the edge of his sight.
“Ready?”
“Never,” Dave muttered to himself.
He looked up to find his friend geared up and armed. The thick hilt of his father’s longsword stuck out over his left shoulder, and Eugene’s black knife peeked out of his unzipped jacket.
Elena wasn’t religious, so Peter had suggested to send her off as a fighter. No priest and sunlight. No pretty dress. She’d be wearing gear, her favorite blade in her dead hands, in a black coffin. Gina and Doc had taken care of everything.
Dave grabbed his shortsword and strapped it onto his belt on his way out. He locked the door, doing his best to ignore Chad’s probing gaze.
“Where is everyone?” Dave asked as they took the elevator downstairs.
Chad cleared his throat. “Outside, waiting for us.”
The small parking lot was full. Everyone hopped into their cars the moment Chad and Dave walked through the sliding doors. Dave’s breath clouded before him, along with rare snowflakes.
Dave saw the sisters in Chad’s black pickup, Pain following him with a laser-sharp gaze from the driver’s seat. Peter’s mean-looking SUV was idling in the spot where Dave’s Mercedes used to be. It had been found by the police the morning after the attack, wiped clean of fingerprints. Dave refused to even look at the vehicle. He’d asked an old friend to sell it for whichever charity purpose the man saw fit.
They climbed in the back of the SUV, with Peter and Skull already in the front. Skull guided the car down the narrow road around the building, followed
