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I hadn’t planned to come back ever, and the reason for it . . . fuck my life.
One small relief was that Dante didn’t pick me up himself when I arrived. I’d been almost certain that he would.
Instead it was an unfamiliar middle-aged man wearing a comfortable looking T-shirt and jeans and holding a small sign that said SCARLET.
Despite the spelling of the name, I figured it was meant for me. Who else?
He was the only one in the tiny airport holding a sign, so it was a bit laughable, but I walked up to him with a straight face.
“You Scarlett?” he asked me, looking bored out of his mind.
I nodded and held out my hand. “And you are?”
“Eugene. I’m, er was, Mrs. D’s gardener. Dante, er, Mr. Durant asked me to pick you up and take you to your, erm, lodgings.”
“Lead on,” I told him wryly. It was a random welcoming committee Dante had sent, but frankly, it was a warmer reception than I’d expected from the town of my nightmares.
He took my one rolling suitcase without another word and started to walk.
I followed silently.
The town was a small one by city standards, but not tiny. At about a hundred thousand residents, last I checked, it had a whopping three high schools, and more importantly, four Walmarts.
I couldn’t remember how many hotels it had, and didn’t particularly care which one I was staying at, so I didn’t ask. Anything would do, because whatever it was, I was used to worse.
Eugene didn’t open the door for me, and I didn’t take exception to that. I just got in the car, which happened to be an old beat-up truck, and stared out the window while Eugene steered us wordlessly through my despised hometown.
Time hadn’t been kind to the little hellhole. I’d read a few years ago that it’d become the drug capital of Washington, the entry point for cartel distribution into the northwest, and the signs were apparent nearly everywhere I looked.
I took in every change I saw with a stoic face. It was dirtier than I remembered, with more dead behind the eyes pedestrians loitering aimlessly in the busier parts of town.
It was as though every negative thought I’d ever channeled into this little slice of purgatory had taken root and poisoned each dark corner of the place while I was absent.
It gave me an unwilling and brief spiteful thrill. The way I’d been treated here, it felt almost like justice, like it’d finally gotten the reckoning it deserved.
But all of that was stupid, emotional drivel. It was only a place. A spot on the map.
It was the people here that deserved a reckoning. Not all, but many. Too many hostile faces and names for me to recall that had helped to shape me into the bitter, little ball of hate I was today.
We were nearly to our destination before I shook myself out of my memories enough to realize just where we were going.
“I’d like to go straight to my hotel. I need to freshen up and change before the funeral, since I still have a few hours,” I told Eugene, voice firm. “Thank you.”
He shot me a glance, cleared his throat, and kept driving.
“Did you hear me?” I asked him when he didn’t respond.
“I did. You’ll have to take that up with Mr. Durant. He didn’t tell me anything about a hotel. He just said to bring you to Miss D’s house.”
My jaw clenching in agitation, I pulled out my phone, sending off a hasty text.
Me: Which hotel am I staying at?
Bastard/Stalker/Liar/Cheater/Ex/TheDevil: You’re almost to the house, right? We’ll talk when you get here.
I shot Eugene a hostile look. He’d officially reached collaborator status in my book.
I punched out another furious text.
