Forever Never

She’d chosen the floor-length emerald green dress and gold filigree earrings because they made her feel as far away as possible from the rough-housing teenager her hometown knew her as.

But as she’d wandered the concrete floors of the gallery, admiring her own paintings, she realized that inside, she still felt like the same girl. The same giddy, wild girl in search of her next adventure. That next adventure was now.

While her smarmy yet somehow charming agent, Rajesh, schmoozed long-distance buyers—or ordered prostitutes—on his phone, Remi gave herself a few quiet moments alone with her paintings.

Starving artist hadn’t been a stereotype, it had been a long, necessary reality. But it was officially in the past now. Just like the girl who’d pined for a man who could never love her. There was a new, wonderful reality to grow into.

The week before, she’d sold a piece for more than what it had cost her to go to art school. She didn’t recognize her bank account with more than three digits in it.

She turned in a circle, watching her paintings drift past. Around and around, a merry-go-round of color and music. Of light and life. She was officially a big fucking deal in the art world. Well, Alessandra Ballard was.

Just a few months ago, she’d sold a piece to some charming British guy in Florida just so he could stick it to an asshole. Remi liked him so much when Mr. Charm came back to negotiate the purchase of another piece his fiancée had fallen for, she gave him a discount that made Rajesh cry.

“Happy?” Rajesh asked, tucking his phone in his suit jacket and adjusting his cuffs. “Because if you’re not, you’re a big enough deal that you can throw a temper tantrum and make them rearrange the whole thing.”

Remi snorted. The gallery had gone above and beyond to make sure the entire collection was beautifully and respectfully displayed. Each painting had a nameplate that included the name of the piece as well as the song it had been inspired by. Throughout the evening, the playlist would run through each song, and the lighting would change to match the colors that synesthesia produced in her head.

It was a sensory experience that would give visitors and patrons an idea of what it was like to be in her world. She approved.

“I still say it would be even better if they could watch you paint something. Have one of the money bag buyers pick a song, and everyone could watch you paint it. They’d drop six figures easy for a piece you create on the spot in front of them.”

Remi rolled her eyes at him. “Nope.” No one watched her paint. That was a rule.

“There you go being difficult again.”

“I’m an artist. I’m temperamental. You don’t like it, go sell car insurance,” she said, snatching a glass of champagne off a tray.

“I’m just pointing out how you could raise your profile and your profits.”

“Yeah, by putting my process up for sale,” she complained. “Not happening. What happens between me and the paint and the music is personal. And I’m not letting your mercenary little heart commercialize it.” She booped him on the nose, just to annoy him.

“You’re missing a huge opportunity.”

“No one watches me paint.”

“Why?”

“I only paint naked,” she said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I’m going to go eat half a tray of appetizers before they open the doors.”

She was mid-conversation with the gallery curator and a couple on the board of the Chicago Arts Coalition when heads turned toward the door.

Camille Vorhees had been bred to turn heads. She was classically beautiful with honey blond hair always chicly styled. Her wide gray eyes had a beguiling innocence to them. And she’d been blessed with a bottom-heavy mouth and the sharp cheekbones that came from generations of aristocratic breeding.

She was elegant, lovely, and apparently she had lost her damn mind.

“Alessandra,” Camille said, reaching out to take Remi’s hands.

“Camille.” They leaned in for an embrace. “What are you doing here?” Remi whispered in her ear.

“I couldn’t stay at home another second knowing I was missing out on this,” her friend said, pulling back and giving her a wavering smile.

“You didn’t have to be here.”

“Ladies, would you mind a picture?” a blogger asked, his camera already raised.

They paused and smiled while Remi ran through the questions in her head. She thanked the photographer and turned back to her friend.

“He’s going to find out,” Remi said, a tickle of panic climbing her throat.

She’d grown up fearing nothing. Never having to fear anything. She’d had her parents, her big sister, her community, Brick. All ready to have her back whenever necessary. But here. Now. She didn’t have their protection and neither did Camille.

“We’ll talk about it after,” her friend insisted. “For now, this is your show, and we’re both going to enjoy it. Now lead the way so I can tell you how brilliant you are.”

Remi linked her arm through Camille’s and plastered on her brightest smile. If anyone could put on an act, it was Remington Fucking Ford, even if she was starring as Alessandra Ballard.

They admired her art. Drank champagne. Talked to art lovers and critics. Camille stood by her side while she answered the same questions over and over about synesthesia.

Yes. She actually saw the colors.

No. It wasn’t like being on LSD.

No. She didn’t have brain damage.

Remi didn’t let Camille out of her sight the entire evening. Every time the door opened and a man in a suit stepped inside, a shiver skated up her spine.

Warren wouldn’t let this pass. Not without a reminder of who was in charge.

Remi had never hated before. Sure, she’d temporarily despised. She’d even attempted a few voodoo curses in her early twenties. But she’d never hated anyone until Warren Vorhees.

At the end of the night, instead of elation at how many subtle sold stickers appeared next to her work, she felt a grim kind of fear.

“Want to come back to my place with me?” Camille asked, digging through her clutch for her keys.

“Sure,” Remi said.

“We can celebrate your huge success by packing.”

Remi choked on the last gulp of champagne she’d been about to drain from the glass.

She sputtered it down her chin and into her cleavage.

“I beg your pardon?” she said, eyes watering.

Camille handed her a cocktail napkin with a smile. “I’m ready.”

“Really?” Remi squeaked. She grabbed her friend by the shoulders and looked into her eyes.

Her friend nodded, eyes shining with unshed tears. “It’s time.”

“Yo, Alessandra!” Rajesh called out as she headed for the door.

“Not now, Raj.”

“Don’t you want to know how you did?”

“I’m sure you’ll tell me all about it when you take your percentage,” Remi called over her shoulder.

Camille’s car was glossy yet understated, just like her. The Mercedes purred to life when she pushed the start button.

“Well, that was quite a night. I think the entire art world is going to be saying your name,” she said, waiting for Remi to fasten her seatbelt before pulling out of the parking space.

“Let’s go back to the packing thing,” Remi suggested. Her commercial success was nothing compared to her friend being ready to leave.

“Warren is in Washington for the next four days. Something terribly important about next year’s campaign,” Camille said, pointing them toward the expressway, leaving Chicago’s cold but sparkly downtown behind them.

“Where are you going to go?” Remi asked.

“My parents’ first,” Camille said. “I already called my mother. She thinks it’s a spontaneous visit, so she’ll be very disappointed when I tell her the real reason.”

“But they’ll support you, won’t they?” Remi pushed.

“They’ll have to,” Camille said. “I have a lawyer friend in town and I have an appointment with her on Tuesday. She already has a copy of the prenup.”

“You didn’t send it from your phone, did you?” Remi asked. Camille seemed awfully calm for a woman who’d just decided to leave her husband. A man who’d mentioned on more than one occasion that if she did leave, he’d end her life.

Remi believed him. She’d noticed something, a twinge, really, when she’d met him. But he’d been so smooth, so charming. He seemed like such a doting husband. And she’d never met a real monster before.

Now she knew.

“Are you okay? How much are we packing? When do you leave?” Remi asked, unable to hold back the onslaught of questions. Camille guided the Mercedes down the exit ramp and headed toward luxury suburbia and the senator’s ultra-modern mansion. It made Remi’s semi-renovated loft look like a garage where people got murdered. Well, to be fair, red paint looked an awful lot like blood.

“I’m okay,” Camille assured her with a genuine smile. “I’m terrified, of course. But it’s now or never.”

“Did he hurt you?” Remi asked, trying to keep any of the seventy-five emotions she was feeling out of her voice.

“He always does.”

Camille turned on the radio. Radiohead’s “No Surprises” filled the interior of the car. Its colors and their textures calmed Remi. This was a good thing. This was what she’d fought for. This is what she’d put their friendship on the line for.

“I’ll come with you,” Remi said suddenly.

“Where? To my parents’?”

“Yeah. They can’t misunderstand you or downplay it if I’m there telling them to their faces it’s all true. They can’t try to make you go back to him if I’m there to kick them in the balls into supporting you.”

“You’re a good friend, Remi,” Camille said as the car began to climb into the hills. It was a moonless night, and the sky was thick with clouds. The snow was deeper here, and tree boughs bending under the weight flashed by in the headlights.

“After your parents and the lawyer, you should come home with me,” Remi said suddenly.

“To Mackinac?” Camille asked. “I have to admit, it sounds idyllic from your description.”

“Oh, not in the dead of winter. But you’ll be safe there. It’s this beautiful, quiet snow globe. You could really get away. No one in their right mind would follow you there,” Remi promised.

“Hmm. Will I meet Brick?”

“Brick?” Remi repeated innocently.

“You’ve never said as much, but I put a few things together. Brick is the guy who broke your heart, isn’t he?”

“Can anyone break your heart when you’re young and dumb?” Remi asked airily.

“You’ve still got a heart even when you’re young and dumb.”

“Ugh. Brick and I may have had our differences. But I wouldn’t say he broke my heart.”

“Oh, so it was someone else then,” Camille said slyly.

Remi snuck a look at her profile behind the wheel. Her friend was smiling.

“No. He was the one who temporarily dented my ego.”

“Ah, dented your ego. That sounds much safer than broke your heart.”

“Let’s talk about what you’re packing,” Remi said, changing the subject.

A set of headlights appeared in the rearview mirror. High beams that looked as if they were approaching much too fast.

“Remi. It’s him.” Camille said, her hands tightening around the steering wheel.

“Maybe it’s just a drunk—”

But the car didn’t slow around the bend. They could hear the squeal of tires, the revving engine over the music.

“Call 911,” Remi said a split second before the sound of metal crunching into metal rang out.

The Mercedes lurched forward and across the double yellow line. Camille gave a shrill yelp while Remi upended her own purse in her lap and grabbed her phone.

Camille was crying silent tears. The hope, the plans from moments ago seemed to vanish into the dark.

“911, what is your emergency?”

Before Remi could speak, Camille gave a heart-rending sob as the headlights got closer, blinding them in the mirrors.

“He’s trying to kill us,” Camille whispered.

“I won’t let him,” Remi said.

“What is your emergency?” the operator repeated.

But it was too late. The car rammed them from behind again. The impact sent her body lurching against the seatbelt as the Mercedes smashed into the guardrail that separated them from a dark drop-off. Metal scraped and buckled. Sparks lit up tiny pockets of the night.

Shrill screams echoed over the music. Remi didn’t recognize her own voice.

The high beams disappeared around the next bend in the road.

“Hello? Can you hear me?” Remi yelled, blindly feeling for her phone.

Camille was frozen in the driver’s seat, hands gripping the wheel. Chest heaving in shallow breaths. Remi’s own lungs burned.

The Mercedes was still running. But the acrid smell of smoke and rubber filled her nostrils.

“He’s gone,” Remi breathed. “He’s gone.”

Camille was shaking her head. “He’s never gone.” Tears glistened on her cheeks in the light of the dashboard.

“We have to get out of here,” Remi said sharply. “We have to get out of the car.”

“He’ll find us. He won’t stop.”

Remi was reaching for her seatbelt when more lights cut through the windshield. High beams traveling much too fast. For one second, Camille’s lovely profile was frozen in time, burned in the light of the approaching vehicle.

And then there was nothing.

She wasn’t sure if she’d been knocked out or if she’d blinked and the world had gone away. Her vision was obscured by the airbag that had deployed. Something felt unstable, wobbly. Almost as if the car wasn’t on solid ground anymore.

Camille’s head hung limply, face down.

Remi could smell something besides smoke now. The brackish tang of blood.

“Oh my God. Oh my God.”

The music was still on, still loud. But the world tipped. Or was it just the car. Through the splintered, fractured windshield, Remi saw trees and twisted metal.

He’d pushed them through the guardrail. And they were balanced precariously on the edge. How long of a drop was it? Her brain scrambled to calculate how far from Camille’s house they were, but her thoughts were sluggish.

Behind them, maybe above them, Remi thought she could hear the muffled purr of another engine. Another car. But turning her head hurt.

The world tipped. Or maybe it was the car. But this time, it went just a degree farther.

As the nose of the car dipped, Remi opened her mouth to scream, but no sounds came out. There was just the music loud in her ears and the first roller coaster hill drop in her stomach as she went weightless. As gravity pulled the car down, down, down.

There was a crunch, and the car’s descent slammed to a brutal stop. Her seatbelt cut painfully into her chest.

The music cut off and was replaced by a hideous creaking sound. Trees. A pair of them sprouting out of the steep ravine and stretching toward the black heavens had stopped their descent. But how long could they hold back the mangled wreckage of the car against gravity?

“Camille?” Remi whispered. She reached out and touched her friend’s limp arm. “Camille. We have to get out of here.”

There was no response. She was sick and woozy and fucking terrified.

But in the eerie silence, she heard something else. A car door closed.

If she could hear that, they couldn’t be that far from the road, she realized. Maybe they could climb back up and—

She realized whose car door it was. Whose footsteps she could hear through her broken window. Her breath was nothing more than ragged whimpers, and she clamped her free hand over her mouth, trying to muffle the sounds.

He was looking down at them, debating if his job was done. If he could go home and start practicing looking concerned, then shocked. That motherfucker. Hate fueled her, giving her a cold kind of calm she’d never before experienced. An icy rage took root in her soul. He wouldn’t win this. He wouldn’t end Camille’s life because he found her humanity inconvenient. And he sure as fuck wouldn’t end her life. She had paintings to paint. Men to kiss. Worlds to explore.

He wasn’t going to take those things from them. He didn’t deserve to wield that power.

She let it play on a loop in her head until her breathing slowed. Until she didn’t have to fight the panicked screams in her throat.

She sat in silence, ears straining for the sound of his approach. If he climbed down here to finish the job, there was nothing she could do. They were too vulnerable. All he’d have to do was give the car a push, and they would plummet out of existence.

She sat and she waited, gripping Camille’s limp hand in her own. Brick Callan’s stern face flashed into her mind. He’d know how to fix it. He’d ride to the rescue and save the day. He always did.

She held on to that image of her hero as she waited for the villain to appear in the dark.

The tree in front of her gave an ominous creak, and there was a cracking sound. Tears leaked from her eyes as she silently willed him to walk away.

That’s when she heard it. That faraway, dismissive laugh.

That disgusting motherfucker was laughing at them.

The laughter carried down to her, sounding inhuman and evil. Just like the man himself. The sound of it branded her soul. When she heard the car door slam again, the engine rev and then grow fainter before finally disappearing, a keening wail built from aching lungs.

He’d left them there to die.

Remi blinked through the tears, peering into the black beyond the trees. The car gave another shudder as one of the tree trunks groaned. “Fuck,” she whimpered, unbuckling her seatbelt. “Please don’t let me step into nothingness.”

A thick branch tumbled out of the dark and landed on what was left of the hood of the car.

“Okay. Fuck. Calm the hell down,” Remi warned herself. The sound of her voice cut through the unbearable silence. “Just climb around and get Camille out. That’s all I have to do.”

Easy peasy. No big deal. She felt for the door handle, but it wouldn’t budge. She tried muscling it open, but the motion rocked the car, terrifying her into stillness.

“Okay. No on the door. That’s okay. I’ve got three others to try, Camille. We’ll be fine.”

Carefully, because her friend’s life depended on it, Remi climbed into the back seat. Her lungs were on fire, and each breath became like an impossible task.

“How lucky am I that I didn’t end up conked on the head or with a broken face,” she wheezed conversationally. “This is good. This is fine.”

The rear driver’s side door was jammed shut, but the one on the passenger side eased open when she tried the handle.

“Oh, my God. Thank you, Sonny and Cher.” Her cheeks were wet, and she realized that she was crying. “Thank you thank you thank you,” she chanted as she eased herself out into the snow.

She sank in up to her ankles, immediately losing both her stilettos. It was fucking cold. But damn it, she’d been born on Mackinac Island. She could survive a barefoot stroll through the snow.

Her teeth chattered until they felt like they were going to pop out of her head, but fear and determination kept her warm as she slipped and slid her way around to the front of the car. Only one lonely headlight illuminated the dark. Smoke and snow glowed eerily in the beam. Beyond it was nothing but a dark void.

In order to get to Camille, she was going to have to crawl in front of the car. The car that was suspended by two skinny, splintered saplings.

Her breath coming in wheezes, Remi slid and scooted her way along the hood. She wrapped her hands around the first tree and scooted forward, her foot catching on a rock. Pain warred with the numbness. Air became a precious commodity.

Another foot forward. Another tree. This one was leaning hard toward the valley or ravine below. She was almost grateful for the dark. Almost relieved that she couldn’t see what was waiting for her below.

The tree gave another groan, and the carcass of the car slid forward another inch.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” she whispered. Picking her way carefully around the base of the tree, her heart pounded so loud it sounded like a drum beat.

This was fear. She’d never experienced anything like it before. Never come face-to-face with her own potential demise.

It wasn’t fun. She didn’t recommend it. But everything that had mattered to her to this point stretched out in front of her in a glorious kind of clarity. Mackinac. Her parents and sister. Brick. The way she felt when her brush moved across the canvas, erasing the blank whiteness, fulfilling potential.

She thought of the things she loved. The people she loved. Of cold Vernor’s on a hot day and red lipstick. She wanted more. More of all of it.

She wanted to be loved.

She wanted to live.

She let out a broken cry when she finally made it around the car, crawling her way up the steep grade to Camille’s door.

“For the love of Ella Fitzgerald,” she whispered and wrapped her frozen fingers around the handle.

Tears froze to her cheeks as the door creaked open. Then she realized it wasn’t the door, it was the tree. There was a horrible splintering noise and then a groan.

It was going to give. And without that anchor, the car could fall.

Now or never. She reached inside, pushing the airbag down and fumbling for Camille’s seatbelt. Her friend was still horrifically motionless.

Don’t move an accident victim, she heard her mother’s voice clear as day in her head.

But it was either move Camille now or watch the car plummet to the bottom of a goddamn ravine.

The car slid another few inches forward, dragging Remi’s feet with it.

It took a long moment before she realized that the broken sobs she heard were coming from her.

“Come on, Camille. We’re not letting him win. This is not the end!”

Her fingers finally found the buckle and released it. Trying to figure out the best way to pull her friend from the car, planning swiftly changed to action when the first tree gave up its fight and cut through the beam of the headlight in slow motion.

“Shit!” Remi grabbed Camille by the shoulders and heaved.

She fell over backward, awkwardly dragging her friend’s unconscious body with her. She barely had time to get them both clear before the wreckage shifted and slid. Only this time, it didn’t stop. The weight was too much for the broken tree to bear.

With a terrifying snap, the tree and car disappeared into the black.

They were sliding, too. Slipping into nothingness as the wreckage crashed and crumpled its way down the steep incline. With one arm looped around Camille’s chest, Remi scrambled for a grip with her other.

Her arm struck something. Hard. She only imagined the sound of the snap, Remi told herself as pain lit up numb nerves.

Through the pain, she managed to curl her arm awkwardly around the thing, arresting their decent. She dug her heels in. And tried to breathe. Tried to think of what next.

The guardrail and road were above them. Somewhere. She didn’t know if it was danger or safety that waited.

“Fuck,” she whimpered through chattering teeth.

She closed her eyes and pictured her parents’ kitchen. The place she was happiest. She’d missed Christmas with them. Why hadn’t she gone home? Because she’d found out about Warren, she reminded herself. She found out her friend was married to a monster and didn’t want her to be alone with him.

What if that had been her last chance at Christmas morning with her family and the monster still won?

“NO!” she sobbed out the denial.

He wasn’t stealing anything else from her or Camille.

“Camille, we are going to climb up there, get some help, and we are going to put that motherfucker behind bars,” Remi whispered. Her friend remained motionless in her grasp.

“I know I give you shit for being so thin. But it really worked out in your favor tonight,” she said as she carefully set her heels in the snow and scooted a few inches up the incline. When she felt her footing was secure, she released her grip on the rock. Her arm sang when she tucked it under Camille’s. But it was either feel pain and move or feel pain and freeze to fucking death on the side of a ravine.

Or pass out from an asthma attack and let them both tumble into the dark.

Gritting her teeth, she leaned back, pulling Camille with her. Again and again. Inch by inch. There was no time. Only distance. Darkness. Cold. The hitching sound of her own labored breathing.

And then there was a flicker. Blue. Then red. Again and again. It landed on the brush surrounding them, lighting up the fog, painting the snow and her breath. Blue. Red.

There were voices now. And more lights.

Her heart sang. She wanted to call out, but her lungs wouldn’t allow her to suck in enough air. So she hung on to her friend’s limp body and sent up a silent prayer.

When her eyes opened, a beam of bright light blinded her. Was she dying? Was this officially it?

“I’ve got two vics on the slope,” a voice reported.

“Get me a rope and the sled,” someone else barked.

Remi squinted up into the light, still clinging to Camille. They were safe.

She’d tell the police everything, and they would go break down Warren’s door and arrest him. She’d go with them and kick him in his motherfucking balls.

That’s when she noticed the tall shadow looming over the guardrail.

“Senator, we need you to step back.”