The Six: Complete Series Page 10

  The guilt ate her up inside. She vowed that when they finally caught her, she would take ownership of what she had done. It was too late now. She couldn’t save that boy and she wasn’t going to be able to save the people inside. Hannah was just a roadblock to getting a job done.

  The staff room was around the corner, next to the bathrooms but protected behind a giant locking mechanism welded to the door handle. Hannah had explained that in the past they’d had a problem with high schoolers sneaking in and stealing cell phones and credit cards while people were working. Hannah clicked it open and revealed a small dark room with a couch, a small TV and little else.

  “You need some company?” she asked. “I can get someone to cover me for a little while.”

  “No,” Lila said as she patted her stomach. “I just need a little privacy. Is that okay?”

  Yes, of course she did. That sweet smile was the last thing Lila saw as she shut the door.

  She peered at the clock. Twenty-five minutes. There weren’t going to be many chances at this job. If a valiant hero came in with a fire extinguisher, the game was over. It was going to have to be overwhelming and unstoppable. They would need to not see it coming until it was too late.

  The gasoline sat at the top of the bag. She could light the leg of the table or the couch but it wasn’t going to be enough. The room wasn’t furnished much, but there was a line of curtains that some twenty-year-old had pinned up over the window with thumb tacks. She yanked them down and threw them on the ground.

  “Please let this work,” she said as she placed the curtains against the wall and drenched them in gasoline. As the chemical stench filled the room, all she could hear was the boy’s mother’s scream, muffled through her car windows.

  There was a stop sign, she knew there was a stop sign. Lila had driven past the Oak Drive intersection a hundred times. That day, she was late for work and it had been a long night at the bar. She woke up late, hung-over, and in a rush. One more late day and she’d be fired.

  Her mind was in a thousand places when she raced down the street. Already going twenty miles over the speed limit, she didn’t even slow down as she got to the intersection. The chorus of “Dancing Queen” revved up as she came to the stop sign. She briefly looked left, for an oncoming car. There was none. It was her lucky day. What she didn’t do was look right, where an eight year old boy was riding his scooter in the crosswalk.

  She hit him going forty miles an hour. It was only the side of her car but it was enough to send him rolling up her hood and back down to the street.

  It all happened in slow motion. His face, frozen in fear, slid across her windshield. She saw him grimace as the glass cut his face and he fell to the asphalt. His mother released a scream Lila had never heard before or since. It was an inhuman guttural noise that hit her in her soul.

  Lila sat in her stopped car and just stared at the boy. She was nineteen years old and stupid so she panicked. There was no one around, not a goddamn soul except his mother. That poor woman didn’t even have time to look at Lila’s car; much less get her license plate number.

  The tires squealed as she left the scene. She turned the corner and drove away. She was on the highway for hours. By the time she finally ran out of gas she’d driven 300 miles in total silence. She didn’t dare turn on the TV or check her phone for fear of what it would reveal.

  The boy was dead, she knew he was, and she’d left the scene. Sitting in a dingy motel room with the lights out and the curtains drawn, she knew she was a different person. She debated buying a bottle of aspirin and ending it all in the dirty motel bathroom. She had never cried so hard in her life. She cried until her chest ached and her cheeks burned.

  It took her a week to finally come home. By then, she’d lost her job, her boyfriend and her sense of self. For the last four years, it had been a numb parade of partying and hookups. Hannah had been the only ray of light in her life and the only person who was nice to her, even though she was nothing but cruel. She was the one person who still cared and the only person who still had any hope left. And now, she was about to die, for no reason except Lila’s selfishness.

  She sat in front of the curtains and stared at them. They were cheap, probably some discount fabric from Wal-Mart. As she turned them over, she recognized the hemming. When they used to watch TV after work, Hannah would sew little skirts that had hems done with neon pink thread. She said it was a fun little surprise when you turned your clothes inside out. Lila let her fingers trace over the thread. It was Hannah’s hand.

  The store bustled on the other side of the door. Around five o’clock, the wave of office workers always strolled in for a pick-me-up after work. She didn’t have time to wait any longer. The gasoline wafted around her in a hazy wall that encased her body.

  A flick of the lighter and it would begin. Lila let it pass from hand to hand but she just couldn’t turn it on.

  There was no way they could have known about the boy. She never learned his name or what had happened to him. No one knew what had happened except for his mother. How could they know?

  Hannah would have understood if she told her. There wouldn’t have been any back and forth about morals and whether she should confess. Hannah would have listened to the whole story, given her a hug and brought her some tea.

  She began to feel the effects of the fumes. Lila held the light up against the curtains. Her hand shook as she looked for the fold where the gasoline had saturated the fabric. Her hand rested against the stiff cotton but she couldn’t do it.

  She prayed for Hannah to knock on that door and make the decision for her. She didn’t want to do it. She couldn’t be responsible like that again. The first time had destroyed her. The years of trying to forget and numbing the never-ending well of guilt had worn at her heart. She didn’t have it in her to do this again.

  There was so little time. She could just wait in the room, in this quiet room, until the time ran out. They would find her and assume what they wished.

  It seemed so easy. Give up, Lila. Give up.

  Lila threw the curtain to the side and slid the lighter across the floor. This was it. All those years of taking pills and pushing people away was a waste of time. Her life had ended at that intersection. She hadn’t atoned for what she’d done. All she had done was waste four years by running away.

  Hannah deserved more than this. She deserved to know the truth.

  The minutes were slipping away. If only for her friend’s sake, she needed to tell the truth. She didn’t want to be remembered for late-night vodka shots and daily yoga classes. There was so much they didn’t know and couldn’t understand.

  With the stench of chemicals slowly filling the room, Lila reached over and grabbed a pen and a folded up paper from the table next to her. This was her chance to make things right and let Hannah know what was really going on.

  She began to write and the tension in her shoulders began to lessen. It began in all earnest, platitudes about Hannah being a good friend and someone with whom she could talk to. It felt good but shallow. Someone had to know why she was doing this. Lila deserved the chance to explain herself, even it meant nothing to the person reading it.

  I did a terrible thing, she wrote, I hit a little boy with my car. I wasn’t paying attention, I hit him and I ran away like a coward. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you. I know you would have understood. You wouldn’t have turned me in, I know you wouldn’t have. I don’t expect you to forgive me for what I’ve done or for not telling you, but I want you to know that it’s hurt me every second of every day.

  She looked at the purse with the bomb still nestled inside. They would find that first and there would be questions. There was no reason to not to be honest. If there was a chance, even a small one, that Hannah could get the word out and rescue the others, then this wouldn’t be in vain. They were going to kill her, so there wasn’t much else to hurt her with if she exposed them.

  Hannah, it’s too late for me, but what you see wasn’t my
idea. They kidnapped me. They’ve kept me in a room, in a place that’s an hour away. The people who have us are forcing us to commit these crimes. I couldn’t go through with it—that’s why you’re finding me like this. She had to take a break as she wrote. The words felt surreal when she read them over. By the time Hannah saw them, she would be dead.

  There wasn’t much time. She had to continue. Tell anyone you can about this. I don’t know where they are held, but there were six of us. Please, try to help them. There’s no hope for us without your help. This will be the only chance any of us will get.

  As she wrote those words, her eyes began to tear. If she read the letter, Hannah would know. She would try. The others would have a lifeline in the outside world. There was someone who would try for them, however she could.

  This was it. She could go through with this with the knowledge that there was a purpose to her death. She’d spent years lying in her bed at night thinking of how she would end it. Overdose, hanging, jumping off the bridge. They all seemed doable but she never had the guts to go through with it. She didn’t want to live, not with the life she had. At least now there was a point to it. She could save a lot of lives this way.

  For the first time in years, she was finally at peace.

  Lila looked up at the clock. Her time was clicking closer and closer. One minute left to go. She got up and made the room look as presentable as she could. Lila hid the purse behind the couch and the letter was laid out in front of the door so it would be the first thing Hannah saw.

  Lila settled against the wall and waited. The people inside were safe. She had saved their lives. She wasn’t scared, not anymore. This was the ending that had been written for her from the beginning. She could end her life as a hero, even if no one would ever know.

  She zipped the jacket up to her neck.

  A hero. She would die a hero.

  She shut her eyes as she felt the flutter in her chest.

  A hero.

  This was the part he hated the most. Eduardo stood outside the coffee shop and prayed to see even an inkling of flames. Just starting the process was good enough. They just wanted to know she was going through with it. Even with a few extra minutes, there wasn’t so much as a puff of smoke.

  She wasn’t doing it.

  Eduardo fingered the button in his pocket. They were waiting for his report. The radio had been blasting from headquarters. They wanted to know what the holdup was. He’d concocted an excuse, that his view was obstructed and that he couldn’t see. What they wanted was a five-alarm blaze that could be seen from space, not a kitchen fire that could be put out with a damp cloth. “It shouldn’t be taking this long,” they said. He knew what happened when he didn’t report. They could do to him what he was about to do to her.

  She was beautiful but stubborn as hell. He wanted her to go through with it. She had balls and those were the people that usually didn’t crumble on their first job. He thought she’d make it.

  “C’mon...” he muttered as he stood in front of the store. Moms and teenagers filed in and out nonchalantly. All was calm inside.

  She’d failed.

  He had to do it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said as he lowered his finger onto the black button buried in his pocket.

  By the time he’d let the button go, it’d be over. They’d tell him where she was, he’d collect her, and she’d come back with him in the back of the van. The button sprang up from under his thumb.

  It was done.

  He waited for the phone to buzz in his pocket so he could get her. This was the part he was the best at. It was the only reason that they still kept him around. Never been spotted, never been caught. One witness, one person seeing him take them away and that was the end. They had his mother, they had his wife, and they had his heart. He couldn’t risk it.

  Eduardo felt the buzz in his pocket.

  A computerized voice rang through the receiver, “Room in back. Emergency exit on Bernard St. disengaged.”

  He rummaged through the IDs they had provided for him. Eduardo pulled out the trusty LAPD badge and yanked up the collars of his coat. With glaring aggressive confidence, he pushed at the doors to the coffee shop and went right up to the front counter.

  Hannah washed the last blender and squeezed it in next to the others. The crowd had dwindled and, for the first time in the last hour, she finally had a chance to breathe. Lila had torn her up. It had killed her to make her friend move out, but it was for the best. She wouldn’t have met Kyle, or finished school and she wouldn’t have stopped feeling guilty every moment.

  Seeing Lila had brought all that up again. For once, it seemed like she was getting her life back on track. Now, she was going to have some loser’s baby and be back in the same hole she had dug for herself. Nobody else cared about her. It was going to fall on Hannah’s shoulders all over again. She slammed the blender against the back of the wall in frustration. It wasn’t fair.

  Kyle was going to be furious. He’d demanded Lila move out last year and it had almost broken them up. It hurt like hell to send Lila out, but it had to happen. To have her back in their lives, with a baby and all that came with it, was going to be bad. Hannah could already hear what he’d have to say and she dreaded every hurtful word of it. How dare she come back like that with those sad eyes and that whiny pitiful voice. How dare she.

  Hannah untied her apron and threw it under the counter. She had to end this once and for all. She had worked too hard and for too long to lose it all over again for a leech that didn’t care about anyone but herself.

  The closer she got to the back room, the stranger the smell got. They’d dealt with a lot in the store, with the stopped up bathroom and the odd coffee blends the owner got from a cut-rate dealer, but this was different. The chemical odor got stronger as she made her way to the staff room.

  “Lila?” she said as she knocked on the door.

  When there was no answer, she knocked again.

  The smell was definitely coming from inside. What had she done?

  “Lila?” The panic rose through her.

  As Hannah opened the door, she was knocked back by the gasoline fumes which stung her lungs as she struggled to take a breath. With her mouth covered by the sleeve of her shirt, she walked in.

  It didn’t surprise her, she almost expected to see Lila on the floor. The first thought through her mind was relief. Thank God.

  And then it sank in. This wasn’t a joke and this wasn’t a fantasy. Lila was on the ground and she needed help. “Shit,” she said as she ran to her friend’s side. “Lila. What did you do?” Hannah felt for a pulse but there was nothing there. Even though it was hopeless, Hannah began to pound on Lila’s chest.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have left you alone.” The tears weren’t coming, just the angry thrusts of years of resentment and heartache. “Why? Why would you do this to me?”

  It was useless. Hannah fell to the floor in a heap.

  “Ma’am?”

  There was a voice at the doorway. A tall muscular man in a dark jacket stood with a police badge dangling from his hand.

  Hannah pointed at Lila’s lifeless body. “She’s dead,” she said with harsh panic.

  The man simply nodded. “I see,” he said. “Will you please excuse me?”

  His calm was disarming. No one had been back there since Lila went to lie down, much less discover her body and call the police. “She’s pregnant,” Hannah said as the moment washed over her. “Can you not tell her mom that?”

  The man didn’t look her in the eye. He simply pushed past her and to Lila’s body on the ground. “I need you to leave,” he said.

  “I want to stay,” she said. “She’s my friend. I don’t want her to be alone.”

  The man shook his head as he ran his hand down Lila body. “Go,” he said, “and don’t tell anyone what you saw in here.”

  There were twenty people in the shop who had no idea what had happened. “We need to shut down for the
night. I have to get them out of here.”

  The man sighed. “Do what I ask.”

  The adrenaline pounded through her body. “I can’t. I have to—I have to call my boss and her mom and—they have to go. There are kids out there.”

  “All right,” he said with a snarl as he rose to his feet. It took a moment for Hannah to realize that he had a gun in his hand and it was pointed right at her. “You need to leave. Get out of the building... hell... get out of the city. You weren’t back here, you have no idea what happened to her. You didn’t see me back here. Your friend just left. Got it?”

  Lila looked so small on the dirty staff room floor. All those fights had led to this—her dead on the floor with a goon taking her away to make sure she never existed. Such a waste. “Okay,” she said under her breath.

  “Excuse me?” The man jutted the gun at her.

  “Yes!” she said. “Just put that away.”

  He pointed towards the door. “Then go.”

  Her entire body shook as she backed away from the door. The man was already wrapping Lila’s body in a black blanket, her beautiful face shrouded in heavy wool. As she got to the door frame, a paper crunched under her feet.

  Before the man could do anything else, she grabbed whatever it was, stuffed it in her pocket and ran out to the front of the store.

  Her entire world had been rocked to the core and everyone just sat and talked like nothing had happened. She wanted so badly to scream and tell everyone what she’d just seen. Hannah could hardly see straight as she plowed through the line of customers and walked straight out the door.

  She didn’t look back, not even once. Whoever that man was and whatever he planned to do with Lila was out of her hands. Never again was she going to get her own life entwined with late-night police visits and have sketchy men randomly coming to her door in the middle of the day. No more.

  Hannah walked a mile, straight across downtown, before she even slowed down, much less stopped. It wasn’t until she hit the highway that she finally sat down on a splintering bench sitting in front of an abandoned hamburger stand. She sat and cried. Big unwieldy tears rolled down her cheeks and onto the sidewalk. People passed by, but no one said a word. She let all the disappointment and horror roll out of her body, to be absorbed by the concrete.