Authors: Jessica Gadziala
She
had only two thoughts breaking through the fog of her brain.
It
was definitely not Xander.
And
she was going to be found.
The
footsteps got closer. Then stopped.
The
insides of Ellie's chest and stomach felt like they got turned upside
down and shaken. She took a deep breath, spreading her legs to evenly
distribute her weight, and cocking her arm back. The door knob
turned. As soon as the door was open wide enough, she launched her
fist forward, feeling the satisfying and equally sickening sound of
metal on bone.
“Fuck,”
the voice yelled, stumbling back a few steps.
She
didn't even register that it wasn't him. Or any of his men. All she
could think was survival. Escape. She burst out of the closet,
bringing her arm backward again.
But
this time his hand grabbed hers, holding it. Immobilizing her attack.
“Easy tiger,” the voice said, half amused. Then as she
tried to strike with her unprotected knuckles, he said more forcibly,
“Eleanor enough.”
She
froze, her arm in midair for a second as her eyes finally landed on
his face. Gabe. Her hand fell numbly down at her side. Her hit before
had been true, landing just outside his eyes, making the skin
underneath swell, turn red, and split open in one spot. It bled
slowly down the side of his face.
“Jesus,”
he said smiling, shaking his head at her, “that was
impressive.”
“Let
me go,” she said, her voice firm. Her nerves snaked their way
up her chest and to her throat, stopping there and strangling her.
She hated being held down. Detained in any way. She needed him to let
go before she flew into a full blown panic attack.
“Only
if you promise not to hit me again,” he said, smiling a
charming smile at her.
“No,”
she said, the word coming out low and viscous. She felt like her skin
was tingling. She needed him to let her go. “Let. Go. Of. Me.”
Gabe
tilted his head at her, seeing something. The anxiety. Or the fear.
The determination. He nodded once, loosening his grip on her hand,
but pulling the brass knuckle off her fingers.
Ellie's
hand dropped heavily and she immediately took a deep, steadying
breath. She looked down at his feet for a second, pulling herself
together. Whatever this was... it wasn't going to be good. For her.
“What
do you want, Gabe?”
Gabe
took a step back, sensing she needed the space. “I want to talk
to you... Eleanor Piotrowski,” he said, his tongue slipping
easily over the soft guttural sound to her last name.
Her
eyes shot up to his. And she felt the air just completely leave her
body, making her feel almost dizzy.
“Let's
sit,” Gabe said, motioning toward the dining table.
Ellie
followed numbly behind him,moving her box of belongings to the floor
and sitting down across from him. “Okay,” Ellie said,
folding her hands in her lap. Damn him for looking so calm, so
collected. “What do you want?” she repeated.
Gabe
chuckled, a low rumbling sound. “How about you tell me why the
girlfriend of New
Jersey's
biggest drug dealer is taking refuge in my best friend's house?”
And
there it was. She almost felt better hearing it. All the years of
pretending to be someone else, of keeping everything of her life
under lock and key had felt suffocating. Difficult. All the time
foreign and uncomfortable. Here was the truth. Slapping her right in
the face. And she could actually breathe again.
“Ex-girlfriend,”
Ellie said, looking him in the face.
“That's
not the way I hear it,” he said, sitting back in his chair,
looking far too much like a catalog model for polo t-shirts to be
sitting in Xander's rundown apartment talking to her about her sordid
past.
“Then
you need to get new sources,” Ellie said, watching as he smiled
at her words.
“Alright,”
Gabe nodded, “then let me hear it. Straight from the horse's
mouth as it were,” he said shrugging at her. His calm body at
odds with his intense eyes.
“I
left Nick four years ago...”
“Nicola
Russo,” Gabe cut in, for clarification.
“Yes.
Nick Russo. We dated,” she said, putting up air quotes on the
word, “for... two years. Give or take.”
“He
must have made a helluva boyfriend,” Gabe said, and she knew he
was expecting more information.
“For
five months, there was no one better in the world,” she
recalled.
“And
then?”
“And
then the beatings started,” she said frankly, shrugging a
shoulder. Across from her, Gabe's eyes winced at her words. “Slowly.
Infrequent at first.”
“You
tried to leave?” Gabe asked, sounding like he knew the answer.
“Yeah,”
she snorted, shaking her head. God, she had underestimated Nick back
then. “I spent six weeks chained in a cell for that,” she
said, holding out her scarred wrists as evidence.
“Jesus,”
Gabe said, looking a little sick. “How did you finally get
out?”
Ellie
sat back in her chair, allowing the memory to come back.
Nick
had been having a meeting in his office, a huge group of men with
him. Some she had known, suit and tie guys. Some she did not...
teenagers in various forms of sloppy clothing. Dealers. Something had
been really wrong. Some plan falling through.
And
she had her plan. She went into the kitchen, straight into the
cleaning supply closet. She had a bag stashed there. The one place in
the world Nick would never think to look. The maid watched her wide
wide, horrified eyes. Knowing full-well the hell she had been living.
Maria had been the maid to tend to her after her first stint in the
cell. Applying cold compresses to her face. Giving her antibiotics.
Forcing her mouth open and pouring in a god-awful tasting concoction
to help her body finish the aborting process. She owed her life to
Maria.
And
Maria was looking at her, fearing for her own life. Because she
couldn't be the reason Ellie got away. She would die for it.
Ellie
picked up a huge cast iron frying pan from the kitchen island. “I
need to go, Maria,” she said and Maria nodded. She knew. She
would die there if she stayed. Or spent a long life wishing she had
died long ago. “And you can't be blamed for it. So, I am going
to hit you with this. You will pass out for a while, and you'll have
an awful headache after. But he won't blame you. I promise he won't
blame you for this. I snuck up behind you and knocked you out. You'll
have no information other than that.” Maria nodded again,
moving to kneel on the floor so her fall wouldn't cause any other
damage. Ellie overturned the chair she had been sitting on, raising
the frying pan. “Thank you, Maria. I love you,” she said.
“I
love you too, miel.”
Then
Ellie swung before she could think better of it. The sound of the pan
hitting Maria's head was a memory that kept her awake at night.
She
put the pan back on the island and ran. Not to the access road. Not
to the main road. She ran through the woods. Ran until her legs felt
like jello and her chest felt on fire. And then she ran further.
Until she got five miles out, the woods breaking to the side of the
train station. She bought a ticket on the first train out.
And
then she just kept running.
“I
waited,” she answered, finally coming back to the present
moment, “and I planned. He was having a big issue with his
supply so he had a meeting. I knocked out the maid... who was the
only friend I had in the world,” she admitted, “and then
I just... ran. And ran. And ran.”
Gabe
nodded. “Where did you end up?”
“Seattle,”
she said easily. It was as far as possible as she could get from him.
It was a big, bustling city. She could get lost there. “I was
there the longest. A year or so. I got a job at a restaurant and an
apartment above a Chinese restaurant full of illegals,” she
shrugged. “They didn't like people around asking questions so
they never asked me any.”
“Seattle,”
Gabe rolled the word around in his mouth. “Is that where you
learned self-defense?”
“I
found a guy,” she said, her heart constricting slightly at the
memory of him. Tall, dark skin, bald head. In his thirties. Built
like a boxer. But he was a martial artist. She had walked uncertainly
into his office. A normal office. Desk, chairs, fax machine. He had
come in through the back, immaculate in a three-piece suit, his gait
slow and deliberate.
K.
He had introduced himself as K. And she had giggled slightly and
introduced herself as E. He smiled at her, all big white teeth. “Nice
scars,” he said, gesturing toward her wrists. They had been
bold and red then. New. Painful red reminders.
“I
need your help...”
“Yeah,
you do,” he had said.
From
that day on, he had been her everything. Her friend. Mentor. Teacher.
Father. Brother. Everyone. He was all she had in the world.
“You
found a guy...” Gabe pressed, watching her lost in her memory.
“Yeah,”
she said, shaking her head at the memories. “He taught me how
to defend myself. How to attack. How to run. How to hide. He knew
everything. Like he had helped battered women all his life. He still
helps,” she said sadly. Good, good K.
“But
Nicola found you?”
Ellie
flinched at his name. She would never get used to hearing it again.
“Yeah.” It might have been the most fear-filled night of
her life. Because she knew what would be in store for her if he got
her.
The
door had been unlocked. She had reached for it. And it was open. That
was how she knew. Because she locked all three of the locks before
she left. Every time she left. She swore her heart stopped beating.
For a moment. Until she heard footsteps inside. And then she was
running. Taking off down the streets she knew as well as the ones she
had grown up on. It wasn't long before he was behind her, yelling.
Threatening. Telling her she would never get away from him.
She
had hauled up and down streets, in and out of buildings. She grabbed
her bug-out bag from underneath a dumpster where she had covered it
in black trash bags to protect it. And then she was on a train. For a
new city. New life.
The
phone call to K had been the most gut-wrenching call she had ever
made. Sitting outside the third train station, sobbing big ugly
tears, barely able to catch her breath as she listened to his calm,
authoritative voice on the other end. Telling her to pull herself
together. Telling her what her next step was. And the one after that.
Then the one after that.
“I'm
never going to see you again,” she had wailed, feeling like a
five year old and not caring. K had paused at her words, taking a
deep breath. Because he knew it was true. And he didn't want to lie
to her. When he spoke again, he repeated her directions. Over and
over. Until she stopped crying. Until a long time after that, she
stopped sniffling.
“You
take care of yourself,” he had said. “Never get
comfortable. Never let your guard down. I will be here for you,”
he had said, his tone sounding almost emotional. “Keep in
touch, E,” he said and the line went dead. She stared at the
phone for a long minute before turning it, taking out the battery and
tossing them in different trash bins.
“So,
I kept running. Until I got here.”
“What's
so different about here?” Gabe asked.
“I
don't know,” Ellie said and meant it. She didn't know what
changed. “I guess I'm just tired. Worn out. From new cities.
From new people. From the same ghost chasing me around.”
“So,
you came to Xander?”
“No,”
Ellie laughed, short and humorless. “I went to just about every
private investigator I could find. Told them the truth. And they all
pretty much laughed in my face.”
“So,
you came to Xander and lied...”
“That
wasn't the plan,” she objected right away. “He... he
found me... I just... I needed somewhere to go. This was the first
thought I had. I know I should tell him...”
“Why
haven't you?”
“Gabe...”
she started, closing her eyes. “Nick killed my father. A
decorated detective in Trenton. Shot in the back of the head like
some two-bit snitch. He wouldn't give pause to killing Xander, lowly
private investigator. I don't want him involved.”
“But
you're here... so he is involved. And he will figure it out sooner or
later. I know he seems like a lowly private investigator, but he is
the best there is and he will put the puzzle together eventually.”
“I
know. But...” she shook her head. “I swear if it comes to
that, I will be gone. He won't know anything. No one ever does. I'll
be a ghost. The longer I have been doing this, the less of a trail I
leave. He wont ever see me again. He wont ever need to be involved
with Nick.” She looked into Gabe's eyes, pleading with him to
believe her. “I swear... I won't let anything happen to
Xander.”
Gabe's
head turned to the side, a small smile playing with his lips. “Okay,”
he agreed.