The Heart System

I didn't want to hear it. But it hit anyway. Hard. Was this my fault? Had I put Emilia at risk? She helped me… albeit involuntarily. She trusted me. And now she could be lying in a ditch because of it. God… every part of this was spiraling. Guy never stopped haunting my life.

I swung the car around and merged onto the main road, mind running at full speed. I set the GPS to that bowling place across from her apartment building. Couldn't remember the exact address, but the sign outside the alley was burned into my mind.

I parked at the curb and turned to Cora.

"I need to drop you here," I said. "I'm going to check her apartment."

"Alone?" Her eyes widened. "No. Let me come."

"I know someone tougher than both of us. Name's Tuck. I'll call him in. Just go home, okay?"

She hesitated, then nodded. "Y-yes." She opened the door. "Be safe."

"I will. And… sorry for dropping you like this."

"It's okay. I like walking."

"Thanks. Really."

She shut the door, and I watched her head down the street until she vanished behind a passing bus. Then I gripped the wheel again.

Time to move. Emilia might still be alive. And if she was… I wasn't losing another person to Guy.

❤︎‬‪‪❤︎‬‪‪❤︎

I pulled up to the curb and yanked the handbrake. Tuck, sitting in the passenger seat, scanned the street through the window. Not a soul around. No cars cruising by, no dog walking around sniffing trash. Just a few guys in work uniforms on break outside the bowling place, smoking and chatting like the world wasn't falling apart.

"That the place?" Tuck asked.

"Yeah."

"Good." He slid a pistol from under his hoodie and checked the chamber. "Let's go then."

"You're carrying?"

"Hell yeah," he said, then dropped a slur at the end like it was part of his grammar. "I don't even take a shower without something on me."

"Christ."

I stepped out and shut the door behind me. He did the same, slipping the gun back under his long jacket so nobody would see it.

"So you hooked up with Nala, huh?" he said as I joined him on the sidewalk. "Lucky guy."

"Yep. Lucky."

I kept my lie going. I couldn't exactly tell him I'd taken down Guy Nolin and put Nala's sister in his chair. So I'd said we were dating and that this was her car. He didn't ask questions, which was fine. I didn't want to answer any.

"So why are we here?" he asked.

"Well…" I rubbed the back of my neck. "Complicated."

That was the thing about Tuck—he didn't care. The moment I'd told him I needed him for something rough, he just said, "Aight, come pick me up." No questions, no hesitation. He always said that the street in him was gone. That he'd grown past all that and left it behind. I never believed that. It was still in him, just sleeping deeper.

We reached the apartment building. The door was locked this time. The last time I came here, the wind kept it from closing fully, letting me sneak in. No such luck now.

I pressed every buzzer like a psychopath and waited. Someone buzzed us in, no questions asked. Tuck pushed the door open.

"Alright," I said. "We're in."

We climbed the stairs, going two steps at a time, until we reached Emilia's door. I lifted my hand to knock.

Tuck grabbed my wrist and yanked it down.

"What the hell?" I whispered.

He looked at me like I'd tried to drink bleach. "You gonna knock? We might as well stand here and tell a knock knock joke too. What if someone's in there waiting with a gun?"

"So what then?"

"Cover me. I'll pick it."

"Fine. Be quick."

He dropped to a squat, rested his pistol beside him, and pulled out a small leather pouch. From it he took two thin metal tools. One slid into the lock as a tension bar, the other worked the pins. I stood behind him, checking the stairwell every two seconds like paranoia was my full-time job.

This was bad. We were breaking into a missing woman's home while possibly being hunted by the people who took her. If someone was inside, we'd be walking into the lion's mouth. And Tuck wasn't a professional assassin or anything. He was just… Tuck. Which somehow made him more reliable, but also more terrifying.

"Look," I muttered under my breath. "If we get shot, I'm sorry."

"If we don't," he said calmly, twisting the tension bar and working the pick with steady wrists, "you're buying me a pizza."

"A slice?"

"Whole thing. What am I, a kid?"

"You're committing a crime. At that rate you should pay me hush money."

"Kiss my ass," he chuckled, tossing another slur my way without even looking up.

I watched him work. His movements were quick and confident, no hesitation. The lock wasn't fancy—old metal, rarely maintained. He probed for the pin stacks, lifting them one by one until they clicked into place.

"These locks are ancient," Tuck said. "A nun's private parts got more resistance than this."

"Jesus. Private parts? You mean her vagina?"

"You can't use those in the same sentence. Sinner."

"Says the guy who commits a sin right now."

A small click sounded. The knob turned.

Tuck picked up his gun, stood, and gave me a nod.

The door had given up.

Time to find out if Emilia was dead, missing, held hostage—or something even worse.

Tuck didn't bother turning the knob. He just hauled back and kicked the door open, gun out before I could blink. I damn near jumped out of my skin, heart punching my ribcage, ready to see a body or some guy waiting with a shotgun behind the frame.

Instead… nothing.

Empty.

No couch, no TV, not even a cheap rug. The place looked like it had been wiped clean in a single afternoon. Tuck and I shared a stare, then we stepped inside, slow and cautious. The only thing left in the living room were the curtains… and even those looked newly washed, like someone tried to erase fingerprints off the threads.

"Well," I muttered. "Wasn't expecting that."

"Check the rest."

We shut the door behind us, footsteps padding quietly through the hollow space. I could hear my own breathing loud in the silence. The place felt dead—not the usual quiet, but a kind that suggested no one had lived here for days.

The corridor led to the bedroom. I remembered it too well—the bed I'd hidden behind, watching that sick scene unfold. Now it was stripped bare. No mattress, no nightstand, no clothes on hooks. Just dust outlines where furniture used to be.

Tuck swept in first, clearing corners like he'd been doing it forever. Then we moved to the bathroom.

Same story. Empty. No toothbrush, no towel, no soap dish. Like someone rented a truck, loaded everything they could grab, and vanished.

"Where is she?" I muttered. "Damn it…"

"Who's this girl to you again?" Tuck asked.

"You know how I told you Nala took Guy Nolin's spot?" I said, keeping my voice steady. "Well, Guy didn't like that at all. And he threatened her by hurting someone close to her. Emilia."

"Uh-huh."

The lie was flimsy as wet tape, but he didn't care enough to poke holes in it. Lucky for me, Tuck wasn't a guy who needed every detail. He was a 'you point, I handle' type.

I leaned my shoulder against the wall, tired, and instead of finding a hidden switch like in the movies, I got white paint on my jacket.

I turned and checked my shoulder.

Wet paint.

"What the hell…?"

These walls used to be light grey. Now pure white. Fresh. The scent hit me—acrylic. Someone had painted the whole place recently.

"That paint?" Tuck asked. "The hell?"

"This place was redone," I said. "Still drying."

He lifted his gun to the ceiling and pointed. "Hold up. Look."

"Huh?"

I raised my eyes… and there it was. A tiny smear near the light bulb. Dark. Rust toned. Dried up.

Blood.

Cold spread through my chest. My hands went numb. Emilia… was this where she…

"Shit…" I whispered. "That's blood."

"Hang on," Tuck said. "I'm calling Greg."

"Greg the Gaper?"

"Yeah. He a cop now."

Of course he was. Greg, the guy with the curse of being too gifted downstairs, according to neighborhood legend… that's why they called him Greg the Gaper. Used to swing by the gas station the days Tuck worked, chatting, buying smokes, telling dumb stories. Last I heard he had a stable life now—wife, kids, steady paycheck.

"And we call him because?"

"Trust me," Tuck said. "Come on. We leave this place now."

"Alright…"

I looked at the white walls one last time. Fresh paint. Blood in the corner. Furniture gone.

Whatever happened here… someone wanted to erase it.

Someone didn't think we would come looking.