Vicious Memories

Chapter 81 - Eva

54 Months Ago

Eva looked at it all with loathing.

Her tiny underground room felt closed off from reality, too perfectly organized to exist in the new world she lived in. One corner held her double bed, neatly made already with its inviting cream-colored sheets and gray pillows. The walls were clean and unadorned except for a huge calendar with meticulously written notes detailing the events of the coming days. Her bureau held her folded clothes in its drawers, a row of pictures and a jewelry box lined up perfectly on its dusted surface. Two extra pairs of shoes stood watch on the floor next to the door. Brightly colored notebooks winked mockingly at her from the desk. Everything was exactly where it should be.

When the dam broke, she screamed.

"No!" Eva jumped at the bed, ripping the duvet back. "No, no, no!"

The sheets came up easily and fluttered to the floor, the calendar tore free from the wall, the pictures fell and shattered on the ground, shards of glass flying in every direction. Eva pulled the drawers out of her bureau and threw her clothes into the corners. For a few minutes her room was nothing more than a tornado of rage and grief, a storm of emotion that only momentarily pushed away the memories of the phone call she'd just ended.

When she was done she screamed again and fell to her knees on a pile of discarded clothes.

"Why?" she asked herself.

A single phone call, and now her best friend in the world was gone. After everything they'd been through, how could this happen to her? And why did it have to happen this way?

She tried to distract herself by remembering her friend for who she had been. Kind, fun-loving, loyal, quick to laugh. And, most important of all, there when Eva had gone through the worst time in her life.

Once her rage was gone, all Eva had left was regret over her outburst.

"A senseless act of violence," the voice over the phone had said. "We're very sorry for your loss. The family asked us to call you and let you know. To invite you to come and..."

Unable to ignore it anymore, Eva thought about her best friend's death. The man on the phone had called it senseless, but it wasn't, was it? That was just what people told themselves to try to understand the magnitude of their loss, as if no explanation was strong enough to match up with the power of the person in life. But a purposeful killing wasn't senseless. An escaped convict happening on her friend while she walked home alone wasn't random. Him choosing to rape and kill her wasn't arbitrary. He had decided to do it. And now she was gone.

And what does it mean, Eva thought, about my own narcissism that even in my friend's death I can't stop thinking about myself? Because the connection couldn't be denied.

Now Eva's campaign to redeem wrongfully convicted felons and death row inmates - to give them an escape when all other avenues were closed to them - seemed like the worst kind of blasphemy. It was disgusting.

For the first time in years, Eva had to consider whether she had been wrong this whole time.

She had never gotten closure for her mother's death - had never gotten the chance to try her case again in court. And now she would never get closure for her best friend's death, either.

"Will you be coming?" the voice on the phone had asked.

"I... I don't know. I'm away for work, in the middle of a... it would be difficult to travel back now."

"And what should I tell the family?"

"Tell them— actually, give me a few hours, will you? I'll... I'll have to see what I can..."

Sometimes transformations were subtle, a slow descent into madness or a gradual evolution into something better. Sometimes they were sudden, spurred on by tragic change. These latter events were rare, and they were only possible when the groundwork was already laid, when the dominoes were lined up meticulously, the path kept free of obstructions, carefully planned, artfully constructed.

In those situations all it took was a tiny little push, and then, poof, the pattern emerged. The floor you had been standing on previously was unrecognizable, a monstrous image you wouldn't have believed was there all along.

Slowly, because there was nothing else to do, Eva began putting her room back together. Items went in different places, shirts in different drawers, everything slightly disconnected from the way it had been before, but no less neat and orderly because of it.

Closure, she thought. That's what I need.

Another voice, an angrier voice, her voice, murmured its agreement. And revenge, it added.

Perhaps her past had been leading her down the wrong path this whole time, holding her back from using her work the way it should be used.

Initially she had worked with The Doctor to control the fate of individuals with no other options - a way to make sure the innocent weren't killed. But was that right, or had she been biased because of what had happened to her mother? Perhaps losing one innocent so that those who are guilty get what they deserve was a small price to pay. Balance, in all things.

Balance and control. As she straightened the final cracked picture frame on her bureau, Eva refused to accept that what had happened to the two people closest to her was outside of her control. If she had the ability - the power - to erase terrible people from existence, couldn't she have stopped all of this from happening?

Her hands formed hateful fists at her sides as she thought about the man who had killed her friend. Why had she been focusing on the people who hadn't deserved their sentences when there were so many who did?

It twas time to make the decision she'd wanted to make this entire time. She snatched her cellphone off the desk and made two quick calls, delivering the same message.

"Meet me in the command center in five minutes. Don't be late."