Chapter 5

She rose from where she knelt and got back into her bed as if she had simply had a drink of water or had used the bathroom. She hadn’t even bothered washing, much less bandaging her wounded hand. It was nearly 4:00am and she needed to get a couple more hours of rest.

Once her eyes shut and her lips parted in sleep, a knock at the front door sat her up once more. She didn’t pull back the covers until it sounded again.

She pulled on a robe that hung over the footboard and went to answer it.

"Who is it?" she asked, peering through the peephole.

"My name is … uh … Tom. You can call me Tom," he said. "I have something of yours."

He held it up to the peephole. It was a blue notebook.

"You dropped it on the street."

She turned the locks, opened the door, and grabbed the book from him. Her hastiness, apparently, amused him, for he smiled at her and even chuckled.

"I thought you might want it back since it’s almost full."

"Thank you," she said, backing away and pushing the door. His foot caught it before it shut. She pulled it open again, staring at him. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"Sorry about that," he said, chuckling again.

He was tall, much taller than Estelle. His head was shaved close while a long black, braided goatee with beads strung through it hung from his chin. He grinned with white, straight teeth. A pretty-boy trying to look rugged. He pulled it off with the help of gauged earrings, baggy jeans, a black sweatshirt and worn leather coat. He held a beanie in his hand. His nails were clean.

"I read it," he said.

She clutched the notebook to her chest. There was a small can of pepper spray in the pocket of the robe. She didn’t draw his attention away from her eyes.

"You lost someone," he said. "Either that, or you’re obsessed with someone you can’t have." He grinned. "Is it about me?"

She didn’t say anything. He looked past her into the apartment.

"Can I come in?" he asked. He put his hands up. "I won’t hurt you, I promise. I know you have a few guns around there, so I’ll behave."

She stared at him for a long time before stepping aside. She couldn’t help it. Like a dream where things happen that are later explained, she allowed him to enter her home. She left the door open, just in case.

He wandered in, looking around the walls and at the furniture.

"It hasn’t changed much," he said, nodding in approval. "Except the painting’s gone, of course, and so is he. It all happened in there, right?" he asked, moving toward the bedroom. She followed him, startled that he walked into the bedroom and looked around like he’d been there before. "Nothing’s changed in here, either. Those are his shoes, right?" He pulled open the closet door—his side. "What about his underwear? Do you still have that, too?" He grinned again.

He looked around the room. Estelle stood in the doorway, her mouth hanging open. For some reason, she couldn’t speak. Her voice didn’t work.

"It happened over there, right?" he asked. "In that corner?"

Estelle looked to the corner and nodded. Her mouth still hung open. She caught herself and knit her lips together.

"They took a few shots in the dark and killed him, right there."

She nodded for him again.

"Shot in the back." He paused to turn and look at her. "Because he was protecting you."

She was still nodding.

Tom came close enough to her to touch her hair, which she kept back at the base of her head. "You’re too scared to speak?" he whispered. He put his hand on her cheek. His skin was cold but smooth. "I’m not here to haunt you."

"Why?" she asked.

"Why am I here?"

As if he had helped her find the words, she said, "Why are you here?"

"I’ve always been here," he said. "I’ve been waiting for you."

"Waiting for me?"

"To die, Estelle. That night, you were supposed to die. Not Connor."

She let out a harsh sigh, gripping the notebook, pushing the wire into her chest so hard that it imprinted on her skin.

"He’s out of place, out of time. This world’s off balance with you here, with him gone. I need to change things."

Her tears were thick, but her heavy breathing helped push them out.

He backed away from her and looked around the room at the posters of the cities. "I really couldn’t care less what happens in this world. After all, ‘light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.’ This world is supposed to mirror hell, but the other world, my world, is unbalanced and I can’t have that."

"Are you God?" she asked. She shook so badly that she had to lean back against the wall.

He chuckled. "I’m not God. No, I’m not God."

She forced the rhythm of her breathing. She paled. Her fingertips grew cold along with her toes. Her heart kept clenching, over and over.

"I can do without you," he said with a sigh. "I’ll have to—that’s how these deals go. It’s better for my world to be missing someone than to have someone who’s vagrant. In the Bible, John says, ‘And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.’ Those standards are true in all realms. I need him out. I need to expel the light."

She stuttered. She had never stuttered in her life. But to him, she stuttered, "Then, give him back."

He laughed. He laughed from his belly. "No fun, Estelle. No fun at all—for you or me. Besides, there needs to be a trade. A fair trade. I can’t simply give up someone as valuable as Connor for nothing. Do you know what lengths God will go to keep him? I can’t just give him up. After all, God’s allowing this for me and I can’t turn down an offer from God. Any chance I get to play like this, I have to take it to its limits. He calls it mercy, and I call it...fun."

"But if God has him," she said. "If God has him, then he’s in a good place."

"God doesn’t have him," he told her. He chuckled again, as if she were cute. "I have him."

"Who are you?" she asked. But she didn’t want to know the answer.

He didn’t give her one. He grinned.

"Where is he?"

He looked proud when he answered, "In hell."

She shivered. The room was freezing. It was getting colder. There was frost on the edges of the mirrors.

"Do you know what hell’s like, Estelle?" he asked. He started pacing the room, walking to each framed city to get a better look.

She shook her head.

"Sure you do," he said, looking closer at London. "Isolation, anger, sadness, hunger, helplessness—to an infinite degree. It’s not that fire and brimstone shit people try to hype up. It’s worse. Because all that fire and brimstone comes from you. You ache and burn inside all the time. Some might tell you it’s because of sin or because of hate. It’s not." He peered at Prague. "It’s an inability to let go of life—of what happened here, what should have happened here, what could have happened here. It’s guilt. Disappointment. And then that mounts into anger at yourself or others. Nothing can change it, so then there’s despair and sorrow. That only grows into a need, an urge for comfort. And when that doesn’t come, there’s that cornered, panicked feeling. They become animals. Once that gets tiresome, they get a brief taste of the joy they could have had, and then it starts all over again. Like they’re trapped inside a cute little hamster wheel of torment. I don’t do it. They do."

Finally, she asked, "What’s he doing there?"

"He doesn’t deserve to be there, if that’s what you’re asking," he said. "Which is why I need him out. You see, Estelle, as much as it sickens me, and no matter how pathetic I think it is: my world, God’s world, and your world are all interdependent. They all count on the others to work smoothly. Your world is out of balance—you feel it. You don’t belong here. Right?"

Her mouth gaped again.

"Do you remember who you used to be?" he asked. "The woman who existed before he died? You had passions and ambitions. You were whole, before and while you knew him. You had friends and a job you liked and everything was settled. Not even your parents or brothers worried you—they were taken care of. But since then, Estelle, you’ve become nothing. You work a nothing-job, and your parents don’t like you, and your brothers are gone, and your friends don’t know what’s happened to you. People try to approach you, and you don’t know what to do. People don’t care about you, and they only want you around to get what they came for and then they leave—and they do nothing for you. It’ll be true until you fix this. You don’t belong here anymore. You stopped living the day he died, Estelle, and everyone knows it but you. Because it was supposed to be you. You don’t matter to this world anymore for a reason—because you’re supposed to be dead."

She was stuttering, or was she shivering? "But everything happens for a reason."

"I’m here for a reason, Estelle. This world is out of order. Because this world is out of order, there’s an imbalance in my world. You were supposed to die and go with God. Connor was supposed to go on with his life, saving people like he was so good at doing. But Connor died, went to my world, and others have died because of it, which creates a greater imbalance and it’s only getting worse."

"What do you want?" she asked.

"Why don’t I ask you that question?" he asked.

"You know what I want," she said, holding the book as if reminding him of it would make him take it away.

"Good," he said with a smile, then peering at Rome. "Then we can discuss business."

She gripped the notebook to herself, folding her arms tightly to warm herself.

Tom took a last look at Paris and shook his head before walking back to face her. He stared into her eyes for a long time. "Do you know how many sins you’re worth?" he asked, sneering. "I know men willing to dwell in hell for a woman like you." He chuckled. "Funny, I know a man who gladly endures it for you now. He’d stay there forever, you know. It’s just whether you love him enough to do all you can to get him out."

She kept her gaze steady and waited for the deal.

He smiled. "He took the fall for you that night," he whispered. "You’ll have to take a fall for him."

He took her hand, her right hand, and kissed her wounded knuckles. The wounds closed and disappeared.

He gave her another smile and walked from the room and out of the apartment. When the door slammed, she sat up in her bed, the sheets wrapped around her bare legs. Her robe hung over the footboard and her notebook peeked out from her nearby purse. Every window in her room was locked shut, yet there was frost on her mirrors and bloody fist prints on the wall in the corner.