Vicarious (38 page)

CHAPTER 41

My
eyes flick open. My heart threatens to explode out of my chest. This ViSE is a time bomb. If it got out, it would destroy Andy's life. He would never be able to play for the NFL. He must have paid someone to attack me outside the penthouse. And now thanks to me, he knows Gideon's identity and where he lives. He's probably upstairs right this second, demanding that Gideon turn over a recording he doesn't even know exists.

I yank off my headset and flail for the door to the ViSE room. I have to get to Gideon before it's too late.

My phone rings. I lunge for it but my stomach sinks when I see it's Jesse calling. “I can't talk right now,” I say breathlessly. There's no time to explain. I slide the phone back in my pocket and hurry across the gaming floor and into Baz's office.

Baz's eyes turn flinty. “What are you—”

“Gideon's in trouble. The meeting with Andy is a setup.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ro—I recorded him confessing something that could ruin his life.”

“Shit.” Baz reaches for his phone.

”I'm heading upstairs.” I turn and rush toward Escape's exit. Behind me, Baz is yelling for me to stop, to wait for him. I don't even slow down.

I race across the lobby toward the stairwell as Baz heads for the elevator. For one brief moment I consider going with him. It would be faster. Easier. But I still can't bring myself to do it.

I hit the stairs running. Blood roars in my ears as I take the steps two at a time. My muscles tremble. Sweat beads on my upper lip.

As I race up the stairs, my mind slots this new information into place. Andy developed real feelings for Other-me and confessed to fixing the game while he was secretly being recorded. Then my alter ran away and started avoiding him, so when Andy met me he struck up a friendship to see if he could find out what happened to the incriminating ViSE. He or someone working for him tried to threaten me, and when that didn't work, he got me to lead him right to Gideon.

I fly out of the stairwell on the top floor and see that the door to the penthouse is cracked open. I peer around the doorframe. The air is thick with the metallic smell of blood.

Two men stand in the living room. They have their backs to me, but I recognize them—Andy and Ted, his agent. Gideon lies in the center of his fluffy white rug, arms and legs splayed out at awkward angles. His face wears fresh bruises, but his lips and eyelids are pressed together in what looks like sleep.

Around him, the living room is a kaleidoscope of glass and blood. Bits of white sofa fibers hang in the air. The coffee table is completely shattered. Baz is crumpled in the doorway to the kitchen, facedown, not moving.

Andy bends down toward Gideon's body. For the first time, I see the blood pooling beneath it.

“Don't touch him.” I crouch low and slide my throwing knife out of the pocket of my hoodie. The black blade trembles with a life of its own.

Andy spins around at the sound of my voice. “Winter. Thank God you're okay. I was about to call 911.”

“I'm sure you were.” My voice wavers. “Get away from him.”

The curtains twist wildly in the breeze. Air whistles through a gap in the sliding glass door. A tear sneaks down my cheek as I push past Andy. Some part of me knows it isn't safe to be here, that there's no reason for them not to shoot me too.

But I can't abandon Gideon.

With my knife still clutched in my hand, I bend down and feel for a pulse at his throat. His skin is cool and motionless.

“Please,” I mutter. “Oppa, I need you.” My fingers search desperately for any sign of life. Was that a beat? I press harder. I can't tell for sure.

“We saw the guy who did it,” Ted says. “Asian guy. I think he went onto the deck. Maybe climbed into the next apartment.”

“There is no next apartment. Gideon owns this whole floor.”

“The roof then,” Andy says.

I hold my ear above Gideon's lips, listening for any hint of breathing. “Cut the bullshit, you two. I found the ViSE. I know what you came here for.”

Andy pales slightly. “What ViSE?”

“The one where you confess that you fixed the national championship.”

“Don't say anything,” Ted says. “We don't know shit about any ViSE.”

His words trigger a memory.
I don't know shit about that little whore.
Then I remember the way Ted was limping at Andy's house. I must have stabbed him in the leg.

“You're the one who almost strangled me, aren't you?” I ask. “And then you came here and attacked my boss.” I slip my phone out of my pocket to call 911.

“You almost
strangled
her?” Andy gives his agent a look of disgust. “That's your idea of handling things?”

“I wouldn't have had to be involved at all if you had taken care of it at the time. I was trying to protect both of us, and for that I got stabbed.” Scowl lines form in Ted's forehead. “But I didn't attack your boss. Like I said, it was the Asian guy. A big dude with an eye patch.”

My finger freezes, a tenth of a millimeter above the 1 key. “What did you say?”

“The guy who shot him had an eye patch, like a pirate or something.”

Before I can speak, before my mind can even begin to process what it means that the one-eyed man from my dreams who showed up in a photograph at the Phantasm offices was apparently here in this room, the front door of the penthouse swings violently inward.

I flinch. My phone slips from my sweaty grasp.

Jesse rushes toward Gideon and me. “What the hell is going on?”

I wave him off, trying not to focus on his split lip, on the bruises that I inflicted upon him. “Check on Baz. I think he got shot.” Reluctantly setting my knife on the carpet, I place one hand on Gideon's forehead and the other on his chin and tilt his head back to open his airway. Just because I can't find a pulse doesn't mean he's dead. I will give him CPR until the medics forcibly remove me.

It's too dangerous,
Other-me whispers.

She's right. The one-eyed man will bring death. But I'm not leaving Gideon. “You two,” I snap at Andy and Ted. “Call 911. Get out of here. Stay away from the one-eyed man.”

They head for the door, Andy with his phone out. I hear him say there's been a shooting.

Baz groans from behind me. I glance over my shoulder and see Jesse fashioning a bandage from part of his shirt. I pinch Gideon's nose shut and blow a soft breath of air into his mouth. Lacing my fingers together, I place the heel of my left palm in the center of his chest. “You can't be dead. I can't lose you both.” I press down firmly on Gideon's breastbone.

And he coughs.

“Oppa!” I brush his hair back from his forehead. “Hang on. An ambulance is coming.”

And then, from behind me:

A soft mechanical whooshing.

“Ha Neul, is that you?” a man's voice asks. “You look so grown up.”

A whisper of a shadow of a memory settles at the edges of my consciousness. A man who worked for Kyung. A man who used to forcibly retrieve the girls if the clients didn't finish on time. A calm but violent man. I close my eyes for a moment and reach out for the fractured piece of my past.

“Sung Jin,” I say. Slowly, I rise to my feet and turn around. Sung Jin stands before me, a patch over his right eye, a gun pointed at my chest. His black hair is flecked with gray, but otherwise he looks exactly like the man from my dreams. I fight off a tidal wave of memories. Sung Jin blowing smoke in my face. Sung Jin calling us whores. Sung Jin beating a man who refused to pay. But the Sung Jin I knew in L.A. had two eyes …

“That's right. My employer sent me to retrieve what is his. Be a good girl and get it for me.”

The ViSE equipment is stashed inside my bedroom. I take a moment to consider my options. Gideon seems to have lost consciousness again. Jesse has disappeared from view, but I have no idea if Sung Jin saw him when the elevator first opened. My knife is within reach, but there's little chance I can grab it, throw it, and hit Sung Jin before he shoots me.

“Don't make me hurt you,” he says. “No one else needs to die.”

“What you're looking for is not here.” I just need to stall him until the police arrive. I pray that Jesse doesn't do anything rash before then. “It was stolen.”

“If that's the case, then you're useless to me.” He starts to pull the trigger.

“No, wait,” I say, my hands in the air. “You're right. I'm sorry, It was stolen, but we got it back.”

“Where is it?” Sung Jin asks.

I lick my lips and try to think of an answer. I want to get him away from everyone so no one else gets hurt. My mind is empty. Finally I blurt out, “We hid it. It's in a safe deposit box.”

A lone siren blares in the distance.

Sung Jin swears. He's on me before I can even go for my knife. The barrel of his gun presses into my ribs. “Come on.”

“Let her go.” Jesse steps out from the kitchen, his own gun drawn.

Again, my first instinct is to look away from his bruised and bloodied face. But I force myself to meet his gaze. How many things can I convey with a single look?
I'm sorry. Don't die for me. Save yourself. Find someone less broken.

Sung Jin chuckles. “Oh, Ha Neul.” His voice is hot in my ear. “What is it about you and your sister that inspires men to such rash stupidity?”

“Go to hell,” I say.

Jesse takes a step forward, his weapon still out and ready. “Let her go,” he repeats.

Outside, the siren draws nearer. “Jesse, don't—” I start.

“There's no time for this,” Sung Jin snaps. He pulls the trigger twice. Jesse flies backward into the wall of the dining room, his neck snapping forward, his body crumpling to the ground.

“No,” I shriek, flailing toward his fallen form. As furious as I am at Jesse for lying to me, as destroyed as I am at the realization that we've slept together and I don't even remember it, some part of me cares deeply for him. Some part of me has made him my family. I can't lose him too.

But I might.

With the gun still pressed into my side, Sung Jin drags me toward Gideon's private elevator. Rage turns to terror. “Not the elevator. I can't,” I try to say, but the words don't come. My breath catches in my throat as he hauls me inside. The doors close behind us and my chest goes tight. I am weak. Limp. I am a thunderstorm of sobbing and tears. I collapse onto the floor with Sung Jin staring down at me.

The elevator begins its descent; the red numbers count down: 14 … 13 …

And then I am back in L.A.

I am in an elevator. I can see myself reflected in the dull steel walls. Not just me. Rose and Gideon too. Only they are still Min Ji and Ki Hyun. Ki Hyun managed to sneak us out of the hotel room, but we still have to make it out of the building and all the way to the airport. And then to somewhere safe.

It seems reckless. It seems almost hopeless, but I sense joy in the way my sister squeezes my hand.

I cling to the red numbers: 10 … 9 … The elevator chimes merrily as we descend. It doesn't stop until we hit the second floor. I see Ki Hyun tense up. My sister steps protectively in front of me. The doors open. Sung Jin is waiting. My eyes drop immediately to the knife clutched in his hand.

“No!” my sister screams. She steps forward to punch the door-close button. Sung Jin thrusts himself into the elevator. My sister lunges for him, pushing him against the wall. Silver flashes in her hand. It's the tiny vegetable knife I found in her pillowcase. The blade sinks into Sung Jin's eye just as his much larger knife tears through my sister's body. Blood spurts out from the center of her, a fountain of sideways rain. “Go,” she yells. “Save her.” Sung Jin is screaming in pain, flailing for the knife still stuck in his eye. My sister is slapping and clawing at him, lashing out even as her life pours from her wound.

“No!” I reach out for her. Blood. Blood on my hands. And then the elevator opens again and Ki Hyun is gripping me around my midsection, pulling me away. “No!” I scream again.

“I love you,” he tells my sister's fallen form. And then he is running. He is carrying me to safety.

6 … 5 … Now the numbers are white, the walls mirrored, and Gideon is not here to save me. Rose is gone, but once again her killer stands before me.

It all makes sense now. This is why I am afraid of elevators. I watched my sister die in one. My alter whispers inside my head.
Remember. Don't let her death be for nothing.

I will not let things be for nothing.

This man is part of the reason I've been living half a life.

I sweep my leg suddenly, hooking my toes around the back of Sung Jin's ankle and landing him on the floor beside me. He raises the gun but I slap his arm to the side. The gun goes off. The barrel burns my hand but the bullet misses. Behind me, a wall of mirror shatters to fragments. Leaping to my feet, I grab the gun with my other hand and try to wrench it away. But Sung Jin is too strong. Grunting, I slam his elbow against the wall of the elevator. The gun falls to the floor. We've reached the lobby now. Then the basement. The doors open onto the parking garage.

Sung Jin hisses like a snake as his foot connects with my stomach. I stumble. The elevator doors slide shut but the compartment doesn't move. He kicks me again. The pain makes my body fold in on itself.

I struggle to stay on my feet, dancing back from his cobra-like strikes. I can't beat him at martial arts. He's a master and I've been training for only a couple of years. I duck low under his sweeping elbow but his other fist connects with my jaw. I scream in frustration as my body slams hard against the control panel. I taste blood. The elevator begins to climb back toward the penthouse. Once again, I remember the curved knife. I see the blade slice into my sister's body, the spouts of red that follow.