A/N: GUESS WHO FINALLY TURNED 18 - that's right it's me. But I wanted to stay 17 forever. Now I just feel old :/ And not to mention that I had a chem final ON MY FREAKING BIRTHDAY. But the semester ends tomorrow for me and you bet I'm gonna be superglued to my PS4 all winter long ;)
Anyway, there's a bit more action in this scene so hope you enjoy!
"You deserve to live, Adelaide.
You don't deserve to die."
"We are officially a pickleless deli," Mr. Delmar stated. Adelaide sighed, finishing up the last customer after their rush hour. It felt like she hadn't breathed in an hour. She slouched against the countertop.
"You didn't tell him," she deadpanned.
"I did, I told the bastard!" he defended. Adelaide narrowed her eyes.
"Why didn't you order them yourself?" she said, taking a rag to wipe down the mess of lunch hour off of the countertops. There were still plenty of people sitting at the tables and Adelaide wished they'd eat faster so she could finish cleaning the tabletops and head home.
"I had a flu emergency this morning. My daughter," he added, reading her expression, "I told him to order the pickles."
"Fire him," she stated blatantly, wiping her hands against her apron. Mr. Delmar looked at her curiously, a small smile on his face.
"You don't mean that," he said. She caught his eyes. Why wouldn't she mean that?
"Yes, I do. He has a job and he's not doing it well so fire him. Simple as that."
"Things aren't always clean cut black and white," he argued. She shrugged, unaffected.
"They can be. It makes life easier."
"Easier is not always the point."
"It is for me. Just cut out things that are holding you back," she told him. He was looking at her with his eyes filled with sympathy and she had to look away.
"Then you must have a very easy life," he said quietly.
To that, Adelaide didn't respond.
Soon, it was time to close the deli again. As always, Mr. Delmar warned her against being kidnapped. This time, it was something about learning a thing or two from Kevin McAllister.
Rolling her eyes, with a sub tucked under her arm, Adelaide stepped out the deli, beginning to make her way home.
She only lived a few blocks away so she tried not to spend money on a taxi as much as she could. Though, it was starting to get chilly so she wasn't sure how much longer she could keep up walking home at night.
Suddenly, she missed Happy and their car rides. He was always there for her no matter what. Whether it was school problems or atypical teenage girl problems, he had her back. She guessed stabbing his best friend in the back didn't fall under the trustworthy category. Besides, it wouldn't be fair to him if she called him. He had been Tony's best friend much longer than he had been her friend and she couldn't put him in that position. And just like she had done with Pepper, she wanted to keep everyone from her old life as far away as possible.
For that reason, she wasn't even going back to school this year. Maybe Tony had already told Peter everything and he hated her even more than he did before. Besides, if he was still hung up over the Uncle Ben's murderer thing, then she didn't want to talk to him. After everything that had happened since Vienna, she was sure that she had done the right thing that night. If he couldn't see that, then screw him. She didn't need him anyway.
As for Ned, he'd be upset about it a little while, but then he would get over it. All summer he had blown up her phone with texts, and she had ignored all of them.
Adelaide was done with her old life and there was no going back.
She wasn't sure where to go from here, but she wasn't going to put all the people she loved in danger of herself again. They were good people and they should stay that way. They would get over her eventually. Besides, distance reduced the chances of heartbreak.
Suddenly, a cigarette butt landed in front of her feet. Not just any cigarette butt, but a Russian one.
Adelaide glanced around, but the few people that were walking around her were just a bunch of men and women with their kids. She looked into the alley to her left, seeing smoke coming from behind a garbage dumpster.
Gritting her teeth, she looked around before ducking into the alley.
Shoving her hands into her jacket, she cautiously walked towards the dumpster. She had a small knife safely tucked into her boot, not afraid to use it if she needed to.
"What a surprise," an eye-patched man said with a sadistic grin, "I didn't plan on running into you here."
Her fingers itched to pull out the knife.
"What the hell are you doing here?" she grumbled, narrowing her eyes. For three months, she had gotten no contact from him or from Lukov himself.
It had thrown her into a paranoia for the first month. But now this? She didn't trust him at all.
He patted the rotten milk crate beside him and offered her a cigarette. She scowled at him instead and he rolled his eyes, blowing a puff of smoke into her face.
"I haven't seen you in months, Rivers, and that's the first thing you say to me? I'm hurt," he said. Adelaide gritted her teeth, stepped forward.
"I said what the fuck are you doing here?" she hissed. Graves didn't flinch. As usual, he was unaffected by her.
"Not so happy, are we?" he grinned. She crossed her arms across her chest, glaring at him.
"Who's fault is that?" she scowled.
"Oh no, sweetheart. It's all yours," he said, standing up and blowing another puff into her face. She didn't look away as much as she wanted to.
"Why now?" she asked, narrowing her eyes, "Nothing for three months and then this. What the fuck does he want?"
"You know the answer, Rivers," Graves grinned, tossing his burning cigarette onto the concrete, "Just think about what you've been doing for three months."
Adelaide ran through the past three months in her mind, wondering what it was that was so special, but nothing stood out to her. She had literally spent three months sulking and brooding in her pathetic apartment. Nothing had happened in the past three months.
"I don't–"
"You'll find out. Soon. Until then," he gave his infamous grin before turning around and walking away from her, leaving her to wonder what the hell he was talking about.
It was that road again.
She was on the motorcycle, but, this time, she was driving it herself. No one else to blame but herself. No one's fault but her own.
A pair of headlights came towards her. A memory flashed in her mind.
HENRY!
The car skidded off the road, hitting a tree.
Momma...
She pulled over, turning off the bike and pulling the gun out of her holster. Smoke came out of the hood of the car as she stalked towards it. It was absolutely silent here in the middle of the woods.
She stopped at the first door, bending down to look inside through the shattered glass.
She pointed the gun at the man with greying hair. He rolled his head against the seat painfully.
"H-Help...my..." Howard croaked.
I win.
And she pulled the trigger.
In the other seat wasn't Maria. It was another man, his face shielded from her view. She walked around the car to his side, pulling open the door. It wasn't Howard's wife.
It was his son.
"Dellie," Tony mumbled, half unconscious. He looked up to meet her eyes.
Against her will, her hand moved forward, grasping his throat. He struggled under her hold, gasping for air.
"Please don't do this," he choked out, "Dellie!"
And then his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he slumped in his seat.
She stumbled back, suddenly coming to her senses. Oh no. What had she done? She looked into the car, seeing both of the men she had killed.
No, no, not again.
Her ankle twisted and she fell to the ground.
"Help!" she screamed as if someone could bring them back, "Help!" But here in the middle of the woods, there was no one. Just her and her mistakes.
It was then that she realized it was just another nightmare.
She tried and tried, but she couldn't wake up.
And then there was only one choice. With shaky hands, she reached for the gun on the ground beside her. She held it up to her forehead, looking up at the man sitting in the passenger side.
He was the last thing she wanted to see.
And she pulled the trigger.
But nothing happened.
She pulled it again. And again. But no bullets. No pain. Just unbearable silence.
"You deserve to live, Adelaide," came a voice, "You don't deserve to die."
"Yes I do!" she cried, pulling the trigger again, "Please let me."
"Suffer your consequences," the voice said again and then he began laughing as she tried to pull the trigger again and again.
"Let me die!" she begged him, but he never stopped laughing.
Adelaide screamed, gasping for air. She looked around, realizing she was just in her apartment. She looked down.
Her hands were covered in blood.
"No," she breathed, stumbling off the bed, "No, no, no!"
Adelaide managed to get to the bathroom where she turned on the sink, letting the rushing water wash the blood dripping on her hands. She scrubbed her hands vigorously. Why wouldn't it go away?
Suddenly, she looked up, catching her glowing eyes in the mirror and when she looked down again, there was no blood on her hands.
She stumbled away from the sink, almost falling back into the tub.
She let out a shaky breath, running her hands through her hair which was matted with sweat. She let out a muffled scream, pulling her hair and kicked a box on the floor.
Why me? How many more fucking times!
She sunk to the bathroom floor, pulling her knees up to her chest and rocking herself back and forth as the sobs broke her in half.
She couldn't sleep. Every dream was a punishment. She was tired of it. Of everything. She didn't think she could take it much longer. She was well past her breaking point.
It was all too much...It was all too much.
A/N: Ah, pain. So much fun to write about.
Question: how do you think the whole adie/lukov/graves thing is gonna end? (kinda asking bc im curious but also cause i need ideas lol)