Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Ella expects her life to flash before her eyes when Pete’s hands are around her throat. Her vision blurs between darkness and his furious face, contorted with vile effort. His hands cutting off her oxygen, blood pooling in her head while she weakly fights, hand fumbling with the syringe she stole. There is precious time left and little options for her to escape. Yet fighting for her life Ella doesn’t think of her brothers, her parents or the fact that maybe Pete has already killed Chloe, a single face pops up.
Dez.
Dez is ten years old on the swings her hair loose and wild. When Ella wanted to smoke joints in the park with her friends to occupy Dez she would put her on the swings to keep the smell off her. Uncle Ro was so protective of her. Dez loved propelling herself into to air as high as she could and jump off like she was a gymnast throwing her arms up whenever she landed on her feet. Ella would get her friends to clap and cheer each time she didn’t fall. Dez had just started learning how to comb her hair on her own and on her laziest days she’d run wet fingers through her hair which frizzed out by midday like an angry mane. If she had gone to Catholic school the Sisters would have sent home a dozen notes but, in public school they didn’t care. It was what Uncle Rogelio did when he was running late so it was good enough for Dez. Por Dios, a messy head isn’t the end of the world, he would grumble whenever Abuelita complained.
Another flash. Dez is sitting with her in a stolen car, she’s thirteen and starting to grow tall now able to see over a steering wheel. She knows it’s stolen but doesn’t say a word, only looks at her with, questioning green eyes. She and Uncle Rogelio had the same green eyes, same eyes as Abuelo that no one else got. Men in the neighborhood called Uncle Ro Snake Eyes because of them and Ella’s brothers often said Dez stared like a lizard which hurt her feelings because lizards were ugly, cold and slimy. I’m not cold and slimy she would say throwing whatever her hand reached first at whomever said it. At her angriest Abuelita went tender at the sight of them if Dez made the right face which wasn’t often because Dez was always defiant in her anger. Ella encourages her to sit behind the wheel, feel the rev of the engine, maybe even take it for a spin before Ella takes over. She hesitates before she does just that, laughing in glee when she feels the purr of the engine. Her eyes are bright without the apprehension of before. That’s so cool, Ells. That’s what Pete called her, Ells. No one called her that since Dez. Is that why she fell so hard for him?
Another flash. She imagines Dez on the ground, it’s cold and she’s all alone. Dark blood soaks her shirt and her breath is faint as she tries to weakly stop her own bleeding. One her friends braided her hair in a faux hawk style, dollar store shadow smudged on her eyes and cheeks. Litter is strum around her, wrappers, baggies, plastic cups, and people are leaving her behind, running through the streets and jumping into cars. No one realizes she’s shot, and dying. Ella sees herself getting into a car with her boyfriend, one of many disastrous bad boys, leaving her behind. Don’t worry about her. Everyone knows to run when you hear gunshots. I saw her friends go that way. Shut up and let’s go Ella. Why did she believe him, like how she trusted Pete? Dez was her family, practically her sister, and Ella left her to die.
Was this God punishing her for that night? To know how it feels?
Ella fights back like she imagined Dez did, struggling and crawling, expecting no one to save her. Dez is a fighter. Never staying down, never giving up even when there’s no hope. Ella stabs the syringe into her back, pushing down and waits for him to go limp. When he slumps on top of her Ella shoves him off of her and take big, gulping breaths. She did it. Breathing feels normal but, that dread is still there. The victory is hollow, Ella’s trembling with each breath she thought was her last and each breath after that feels surreal. Worse than that is the echo in her mind, those old memories suddenly as vivid as her life in L.A. She imagines Dez on the ground next to her parallel to Pete, rasping for breath while calling her name. Ells… Ells… Ells…
Ella always owned her inner demons. She went to therapy for that very reason and to get better but, when Pete spoke of her darkness it’s feels like a secret she never told. Like he can see Dez in the room with them, bloody shirt, her face all done up for her first block party standing behind Pete as Ella’s judge, jury and executioner. And even when things go back to normal, as normal can be, Dez follows her like a phantom. She’s not like Rae Rae who at least talks to her, Dez just stares at her from the corner of every room disappearing whenever she stares a second too long her eyes glassy from early decay. At first Ella simply rolls with it. When she was confronted with her first teenage vic the same happened, the murdered raven haired girl and Dez became one, floating in the corner of her eye for weeks well after the case was solved. This was just because she almost died, it was that simple. Yet Dez doesn’t leave after Pete is convicted.
“Is she in the room with us?” Linda asked as delicately as possible.
Teenage Dez stares blankly at her, face lax and Ella painfully bobs her head. “She’s behind you. I know she’s not real, this version of her, it’s just…”
“You couldn’t imagine what she went through but, now you can. You’re experiencing the guilt from when you were eighteen with what happened with Pete.” Linda’s tone is professional yet warm. “Tell me about her.”
A small, fleeting smile appears on Ella’s face. “She was… a hellraiser,” she said, laughing. “Such a tomboy. You know one time one of my brothers was picking on her, everyone was ready to coddle her. Tell her not to feel bad and stuff like that, how it happened to me too. That, it’s just how boys are. Not Dezzy. She grabbed a toy car and cracks it right in his face. It didn’t matter how much bigger any of them were, or stronger, she always fought back. My mom used to say it was because she didn’t have a mom. She died before my uncle came to Detroit. And my uncle was the one who taught her how to fight. You would see him holding up his hands and coaching her how to snap her punches and how to dodge. He never got angry with her when she got into fights and always had her back whenever anyone had something to say about it. If somebody messes with my girl they can catch her hands, that’s on them. No matter who.”
“It sounds like you admire her,” Linda observed. “That she was so strong and tolerated no mistreatment from anyone.”
“Her dad was a drug dealer,” Ella explained. “He was…one bad dude. Prison, gang tatts, bad temper. The first time I met him was the first time I met Dez. My brothers had nothing but horror stories about him. I was legit a little scared of him. I heard all these stories about him. How he was such a bad kid. How he was in and out of prison since he was a kid. He was charged as an adult while he was in high school, dropped out and left home the second he was out. No one expected him to be a good dad yet… He loved Dez so much. He turned his life around for her.”
“And so he wanted her safe. Taught her to be strong,” said Linda.
“He trusted me with her,” Ella said tearfully her voice cracking. “Whenever he had to work he would say, go with Ella. He would even slide me a little money when no one could see, for taking care of her.”
Linda slide the box of tissues closer to Ella as her tears fall freely down her face. “And you believe you failed him.”
“I know I did! She wasn’t supposed to go to that party, she told him she was going over to a friend’s house and I didn’t stop them – I didn’t stop her. I let her go off with her friends and I broke the one rule you never break, I left her. I heard the gunshots and I listened to my stupid boyfriend instead of running off to find her. She almost died alone because of me… It tore our family apart.”
“How so?” Linda wondered.
“The second she was better he moved away. He didn’t tell us where he was going, he just packed up everything and left. Not that it mattered,” she said grabbing a fistful of tissues. “I left town a few weeks before she left. I couldn’t face her. She was really messed up and I didn’t know what to do, if I could do anything. It was like all that fight inside her was snuffed out… I did that. I took that from her.”
Linda made a gentle counter. “Did you? It sounds like that gunman did that.”
Ella was adamant. “It was my fault.”
“Have you ever tried reaching out to her? To make amends with her?” Linda suggested.
Ella hadn’t thought of that. Shame prevented her from personally reaching out and as years went on along with birthdays and holidays it was clear her uncle had cut ties with the entire family. Uncle Ro wanted nothing to do with them. So Ella honored his unspoken wish and carried the guilt she felt she deserved. Over time she buried that guilt so far in her mind it was almost nonexistent, until Pete. Perhaps he was a sign from God to stop running from her darkness, to turn it into light.
After her session with Linda she looks up her cousin for the first time in years. It takes her a few minutes of scrolling to track her down, mostly thanks to her years at the LAPD. Her expectations are low, all she plans to do is look to see how she’s got on, to confirm Dez was better off with her cousin in her life. Within seconds she finds herself enthralled with the woman Dez became obsessively noting each detail her Instagram posts revealed.
The injured, moody and withdrawn teenager was entirely gone. It was a little jarring seeing the little girl she towed around in her hand-me-downs with friends she didn’t recognize, going out to parties and concerts. Her smiles are bright and toothy. Her clothes fit her properly. Her page is an eclectic collection of well-thought out selfies and landscape shots, professional and creatively stunning, and candid shots blurry and random. She had travelled, graduated high school, college, fell in love, got broken up with and so much more. Dez had a life. During her mindlessly scrolling Ella noticed a similar addresses popping up. They were all places in California, within reasonable driving distance around LA and they were all from recent posts. Dez was in LA, and judging by the dates of certain pictures, for quite a while.
Linda’s suggestion echoed on repeat in her head. Should Ella message her? What could she say?
Ella sat in her living room agonizing, her figure hovering over the DM button. She envisioned the woman in the latest selfie raising her eyebrow at the yet unwritten message. What the hell? She would probably say. Or maybe because she was grownup she would go, Yo what the fuck? Or maybe Dez would be happy to hear from her, that was the other possibility. It filled Ella with such hope, picturing them together again, introducing her to all her friends and being the cousin she should have been all along. That was what ultimately made her message Dez.
Hey, she typed. She thought of stating who it was but reminded herself that her profile was public and it may sound horribly desperate. How’s it going? She added, before pressing send. The cloud of guilt was lighter but, not entirely gone.
The rest was in God’s hands.
*
Lucifer noticed the change in Ella. She was still making her usual jokes at crime scenes and talking up a storm but, something was off. He noticed how frequently she checked her phone, with every notification she would rush to check it only to be disappointed. It wasn’t like her to keep secrets. He didn’t want to wring it out of her but, after the third time of seeing that crestfallen face in one day Lucifer lost his patience.
“Miss Lopez?”
She beamed up at him. “Hey, Lucifer. Um, I’m almost done with the test results for the case. I just need like another hour or so.”
“I’m not here for the test results. I’m here to talk to you,” he said grabbing a chair to sit in front of her. “You’ve been checking your phone a lot. Getting back onto the saddle? I could send some dashing gentlemen your way if you need a rebound,” Lucifer teased. “All vetted of course.”
Ella touched the pocket where her phone sat. “What? Oh. Yeah. No, no, dating for me right now. Or rebounds. I need to reevaluate that before even looking at Tinder… It’s something else.”
Lucifer stared expectantly. “Which is?”
Her phone went off again and Ella’s eyes dropped to her pocket. With a sigh she confessed, “Okay so, after the whole Pete thing I’ve been having some existential woes. Like ya know, a second chance, even though I didn’t actually die or anything. So I’ve been reaching out to my little cousin and she… well, she’s leaving me on seen.”
“You never mentioned any cousins before,” Lucifer remarked. “What’s so special about this one?”
Ella smiled, ruefully. “She – Dez, is the baby of the family. She’s technically younger than my little brother. We’re basically the only girls in the family. Dez is my Uncle Rogelio’s kid, his only kid. We were really close growing up but, as you know I wasn’t exactly being a good role model with the whole stealing cars and stuff. I also did some other not-cool stuff and we essentially lost touch. So I am trying to make amends.”
Lucifer looks even more confused. “Make amends for what?”
It was not in her cards to tell Lucifer of her terrible secret yet at the same time, it was Lucifer. With the deepest breath she took in her life she blurted out, “One night I said I would drive her to a party. It didn’t seem like a big deal a bunch of her friends from school were also going too but, typical me at that age, I was all caught up in this loser and I lost sight of her. And something happened. Something really bad happened.”
Lucifer heard a slight tremble in her voice. “Did something happen to her, Miss Lopez? Is that why you never mentioned her before?”
Ella bobbed her head steeling her resolve she already cried in Linda’s office. “Someone shot up the party. And where we lived back then, when you hear shots you run and you don’t stop. Of course I wanted to find her but, my boyfriend at the time said he saw her friends running and… I believed him. So I left with him.”
“And she wasn’t with her friends,” said Lucifer.
“She was shot, the only person who got shot. And I felt so guilty, like seeing her dad at the hospital for two days in the same clothes because he refused to leave her side. It was a miracle she survived but, it changed her. Dez talked less, barely ate and barely left her house… And it was my fault.”
When Lucifer first met Ella, she mentioned having a lot of darkness in her mind. He hardly found it a negative but, now he saw the pain that went along with it. The guilt. She was putting on a brave face but it apparent how much she wanted to cry. Lucifer rose from his seat and put his hands tenderly on her shoulders.
“Miss Lopez, was this incident one of the reasons you…” He gestured to her cross pendant.
“A big part of it, yeah. I saw one of the worst outcomes because my choices. I went to a really dark place before I turned it all around. And this thing with Pete, brought it all back.” She pulled out her phone. “So a few weeks ago I messaged her, nothing too weird and she hasn’t responded. Which again is fine, it’s been like more than ten years since we’ve spoken. But I started sending her funny memes, as an icebreaker,” she hurriedly explained.
“And I assume that isn’t working either.”
“No but, it’s fine. We’re trying to build trust,” she said with determination. “I mean, she lives in LA, so it feels like we’re supposed to meet. That maybe now is the right time to reconnect… If only she would answer.”
Lucifer nodded with a soft smile. “Well, she’d be a fool not to give you another chance.”
Ella smiled. “Thanks Lucifer.”
*
Another goddamn meme. Even her exes knew when to give up. Dez angrily threw back her shots in almost swallowing the glass. Almost thirteen years of peace and Ella pops up like some curse trying to drive her to ruin. Seeing her face summons a bad taste in her mouth that tequila, beer or vodka won’t rinse out. It delays her from checking her phone whenever she hears a notification ping. Why the hell was Ella even messaging her? She hadn’t called when she moved to San Antonio, graduated high school or college. Not to mention she was certain Ella’s father hadn’t died. There was no reason for Ella message her.
“You are bringing down the vibe,” Lauren, her roommate said applying the final section of her sheet face mask.
“Blame my cousin,” spat Dez. “Wanna pregame your date?” She waved her bottle of tequila.
“Uh, no thanks, I’m trying to minimize my pores Dezzy.” Lauren lounges in the couch in a mint satin robe and sips her mug of tea. “You could always text her back you know. Give her what she wants.”
“I don’t negotiate with terrorists Lauren. ‘Cause that’s what she is, a chigada terrorist! Twelve years of peace and all of a sudden she DMs me? Like hell I have anything to say to her.”
Lauren sighs struggling to keep her face neutral as not to wrinkle her mask. “Dezzy, I know you hate your cousin but, it’s been twelve years. Maybe she wants to make peace.”
“You would think so,” Dez said, “but she’s already repented and gone all super religious. Wears a cross and everything, works for the cops even. No, it’s something else. I feel it in my gut.” She pours another shot. “Like if it was that I might have humored her. Might.”
Lauren waves her hand for Dez’s phone. “Let me see her.” Dez hands her phone which Lauren unlocks automatically. “I know you said she ditched you after you got shot but these pictures don’t give me bitch vibes. And you know I can spot them. She gives me ball of sunshine with terrible taste in t-shirts. I swear I’ve seen these in the children section.”
Dez takes back her phone. “I never said she was a bitch. I said she was a pain in my ass. Big difference. Look, everyone loves Ella but, she is an absolute flake. And I told you about my dad’s side of the family. Everybody was up to something shady but acted all holier-than-thou, sent all my cousins to Catholic school as if that was supposed to make up for something. And because my dad wasn’t a good catholic and was in and out of jail they painted him as the bad seed, as if they all weren’t doing something on the low!”
Lauren made a sympathetic sound. “I know, I know. You told me the story. Your dad was into heavier shit and his family justified what they were doing but, what does that have to do with you and Ella? You said you two were close when you were kids.”
“Because I didn’t know better. She’s just like them,” said Dez bitterly. “Because when I needed her she left me just like they all did. Nobody wanted to be around me much less look at me without having this grating oh-bless-your-heart look. She went off and lived her life exactly how she wanted, how they all wanted while I had to move across the country.”
“Where you met your best friend,” said Lauren, clearing her throat, “in the best state in the country.”
Dez raised her glass splashing tequila on her leg. “Exactly! I met you and life has been good, and now she’s messing it up.” She threw back her shot wincing as it went down. “She’s going to wreak havoc on my life if I let her in Lauren. I know it.”
“You seriously can’t tell me you don’t miss your family. Not even a little? I know Detroit wasn’t all bad.”
“They didn’t miss me,” Dez said. “So it doesn’t matter. Ella can keep talking to herself in my inbox. Let her see how it feels waiting for someone who isn’t going to answer.”