Angelic Vengeance: Angelic Series, #3

Chapter One

A whole plethora of emotions take me over; confusion, anger, sorrow, fear and impending doom all blend to create turmoil. The thought of Brad and Kate together makes me feel sick but I’m clinging on to the possibility that the man she’s seeing may be a different guy. When I asked her what car her new man drives she told me a Range Rover which doesn’t match the same car that Brad drives. Perhaps the line I’m going to love you like you’ve never been loved before is standard amongst wealthy men who want to seduce their targets or maybe my mind is yet again that rider-less horse that likes to tease and torment me. I want to warn her. I can’t see my beautiful friend getting caught up in this ugly game but I need confirmation that it is the same man. But what will I tell her? I can’t reveal that we’re about to expose this man for the malevolent womanizer that he is or that she’s just a pawn in his plot for revenge against his mother; I’ll look insane.

The quandary turns over in my mind as I drive back home. I’ve turned off that damned GPS so Brad can’t checkup and track me—at least for a few hours anyway. That’s the trouble with phones with the latest technology, they can make it all too easy to trace where you are if you don’t adjust your settings. It does make sense though. Brad and I haven’t been hitting it off and my disappearing act after meeting Cindy may have made him unstable. Perhaps hooking Kate into his game is his twisted Plan B in case I dump him. After all, exposing me as his lover is the crux of his plan to cause mayhem. Alexandra will flip her lid and pull out of dealings with Marlene effectively bringing Fritz House down—I’ll be the devil in carnet and be cast out—jobless and with my career and reputation in tatters. 

I think back to scenarios over the past four months. When he’d literally treated me like gold—nothing was too much trouble. The night we made love by the fireplace at his beach house when he was so tender and I felt we’d made a connection on a deeper level. How can it all have turned so vile and toxic? Can I really mean nothing more to him than just a piece of collateral damage necessary for quenching his insatiable desire for revenge? Surely we meant more to each other than that? The whole thing seems too farfetched to be believable; another reason I’m glad I bit my lip and didn’t blurt it all out to Kate.

I don’t want to go back to my apartment where I’m going to be constantly surveyed so I decide to just drive. Sometimes driving can be so therapeutic even in the heavy congestion of LA’s roads. It offers a welcomed escapism and I turn on the radio to help me tune out of my current life with its multitude of problems.

Oh that’s just great I mumble to myself as the car fills with an old song by The Police—Every Breath You Take. A ballad about an obsessive compulsive stalker who watches this poor woman’s every move. Isn’t it strange how you notice these kinds of things when they’re relevant to what’s going on in your own life? I flick over to another station for a few minutes till the song finishes. I used to love that song but right now it’s making me cringe.

I drive around aimlessly, losing all concept of time. My thoughts keep drifting to Cindy. Brad knows that we’ve met and I wonder if he’s seen her and warned her off. Something inside me burns to see her again. There are questions that I want to ask her; ones that didn’t rise to the surface of my thoughts when we met. Pierre told me where she lives and I know I’m not far away so I make the decision that I’m going to visit her, if nothing else I want to see how she is. She looked so frail and down trodden when we met that in a strange way I’m actually worried about her even though she’s nothing more than a brief encounter.

I park up close to where she lives. It’s a bad area of town, filled with gangs and vice of every description so I carefully look around before unlocking my doors and stepping out of my car. Clutching my bag tightly, I scurry over to the entrance of her bedsit keeping my head down so as not to make eye contact with anyone on the way. Eyes are all over me and a feeling of paranoia is gripping me. I’ve entered a black and white world and I am the only splash of color there is in my red trench coat and matching red shoes. Junkies huddle around the doorway to the building and I pause slightly before bustling my way through them mumbling ‘excuse me’ as I do. They’re too spaced out to cause me any trouble but still intimidate me so I cling on to my bag even tighter.

The stench of urine mixed with a strange and unpleasant aroma hits me like a wall as I enter. Vinegar, burning plastic, rotten eggs with an underlying sweetness fills the air and whilst I have little experience, I know I’m breathing in the pungent smell of hardcore drugs. How the hell can anyone live here; like this? The floor sticks beneath my feet as I climb the stairs to the third floor hindering the quickness of my steps till I reach apartment sixty three where Cindy exists. Standing for a moment to gather my thoughts before I pluck up the courage to knock, I freeze as her door suddenly opens. An African-American man steps out wearing a blue bandana and covered in tattoos doing up the zipper on his pants. He stops and looks straight at me as if assessing whether I’m a threat, or maybe he’s just shocked to see a woman that’s a non-drug user and clean. His face has no other expression than that of hatred that turns me to ice. I have no other defense but to lower my eyes and hope for the best and luckily he continues his journey, brushing past me before disappearing down the stairs.

I lift my eyes to see Cindy standing at the door—one hand holding closed a grubby satin nightdress. She stares at me without recognition. Is she so far gone that she doesn’t remember me? She begins to close the door.

Wait. Cindy? It’s me; Angel I call out before the door shuts completely and she reappears again, leaving the door wide open while she turns to go back inside. I assume this is her way of inviting me in and so rather than stay a minute longer in the corridor I step inside, closing the door behind me. Her bedsit is small and consists of only a tiny kitchenette with a microwave, kettle and sink, a futon and a small broken down table with a couple of chairs. The futon is still pulled out to make a bed, and a thin, filthy duvet is screwed up on it along with a used condom and discarded wrapper. The small table is cluttered with unwashed mugs still half filled with old coffee, an overflowing ashtray, pieces of foil and syringes. The smell of sex permeates with the bitter sour odor of LA ice. Cindy sits on one of the chairs and stares at me blankly for a moment.

I can’t work out if you’re very brave or very stupid coming here she eventually says. Do you know you’re in Crips territory?

I know I shouldn’t have come but I had to see you again I fumble a reply. Brad knows we met the other week

Cindy’s face hardens. I couldn’t give a shit about that bastard she hisses with a voice filled with hatred he wouldn’t dare come here, Jacko would kill him I’m guessing Jacko is the man I’ve just seen leaving Cindy’s apartment but refrain from probing further. So, what do you want from me? she continues. Sitting down on the other chair I begin to tell her more about Brads plan for taking down Fritz House and how I’m a pawn in his twisted game. She listens while she cooks up a crystal on a piece of foil, melting it down before picking up a used syringe from amongst the ashes and filling it with the liquid. Slapping her arm and squeezing her hand she manages to find a vein and injects herself. I remain silent. I’ve never seen anything like this before and I want to stop her but shock renders me unable to move.

The meth courses through her