Blood on the Canvas

Chapter 8: Two Sides of Tonight

Elizabeth showed up at Bianca's door at six, an hour before they were supposed to meet everyone else, still in her sweatpants instead of anything resembling going-out clothes.

"You're early," Bianca said, stepping back to let her in. "And underdressed."

"I need to tell you something first. Before tonight gets going. Before I lose my nerve." Elizabeth's hands were tucked into her sleeves, a habit from childhood that only ever showed up when she was genuinely nervous. "Can we sit somewhere?"

They sat on Bianca's bed, knees almost touching, and Elizabeth told her everything — the letter behind the drawer, the eleven-year-old debt, the phone call that had turned her father's face the color of ash, the promise of caution that had reshaped their entire week without Bianca ever knowing the real reason why.

Bianca listened without interrupting, her stomach twisting tighter with every new detail, until Elizabeth finally ran out of words and sat there, waiting, watching Bianca's face for a reaction she clearly dreaded.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" Bianca asked quietly.

"Because saying it out loud makes it real. And because I didn't want you to look at me like—" Elizabeth gestured vaguely at Bianca's face. "Like that. Like I'm something dangerous to be around."

"You're not dangerous, Liz. Your dad made a mistake before either of us were even born. That's not on you."

"Doesn't feel that way right now."

Bianca reached over and took her hand, the same way she had a thousand times over eleven years of friendship, through breakups and bad grades and every ordinary crisis that had ever passed between them. "We're still going tonight. Long route, texting your dad, all of it. And if anyone even looks at us wrong, Aaron can handle it. He's basically built like a fridge now."

That got a real laugh out of Elizabeth, small and grateful. "He'll be thrilled you said that."

"He knows it's true."

For a moment, sitting there with their hands still linked, the fear in the room loosened its grip just slightly, replaced by the familiar, steady comfort of being exactly where they'd always been with each other — together, facing whatever came next side by side, the way they'd faced everything else since they were nine years old.

"I'm glad you told me," Bianca said. "I'd rather know."

"Yeah," Elizabeth said softly. "Me too, honestly. Feels lighter already."

They spent the next half hour doing each other's makeup the way they had a hundred times before, Elizabeth insisting on a bold red lip Bianca kept protesting she'd never pull off, the mirror between them fogging slightly with laughter and the mundane chaos of getting ready — normal, easy, the exact ordinary evening ritual that felt, after everything they'd just talked through, like its own small act of defiance.

"You look amazing," Elizabeth said, stepping back to admire her work.

"You did all the work."

"I'm aware. Try to act a little more grateful."

Bianca rolled her eyes, smiling despite everything sitting heavy underneath the surface of the evening, and reached for her jacket, and for a moment allowed herself to simply be twenty years old on a Saturday night, getting ready to go out with her best friend, nothing more complicated than that.

---

Across town, Fernando stood in front of a cracked mirror in his apartment, checking the small earpiece Marcus had given him just hours earlier, making sure it sat invisibly beneath his hood.

"Test," he murmured.

"Reading you clear," Marcus's voice answered, tinny and distant in his ear. "Remember — you're not there to be a hero tonight. You're there to watch, remember faces, remember names if you hear them. Nothing else. You do anything that draws attention, and neither of us walks away from this clean."

"I know the plan, Marcus."

"Knowing it and surviving it are different things. Just — be careful tonight. That's all I'm asking."

The line went quiet. Fernando stood there a moment longer, staring at his own reflection, hardly recognizing the version of himself staring back — the careful, rebuilt person he'd spent three months becoming now folded back into an old skin he'd hoped never to wear again.

A knock at the door. Two sharp raps, then one — the signal he'd been told to expect.

He opened it to find a man he didn't recognize, young, hard-eyed, already impatient.

"You're Fernando?"

"Yeah."

"Boss wants you at the staging point by nine. Cobalt district, behind the old rail depot. Don't be late, and don't bring anything that isn't yours to bring." The man's eyes flicked briefly to the earpiece Fernando had thought was perfectly hidden, and something cold settled in Fernando's stomach.

"Something wrong?" Fernando asked, keeping his voice level with effort.

The man held his gaze a beat too long before shrugging, turning to leave. "Just checking you're not wired for trouble. Nine o'clock. Don't make us come looking for you."

He left without waiting for a response. Fernando shut the door slowly behind him, heart hammering, and reached up to touch the earpiece with shaking fingers, replaying the man's gaze over and over in his mind, trying to convince himself it had been nothing.

"Marcus," he said quietly. "I think they might already suspect something."

There was a long pause on the other end of the line — too long, longer than Fernando liked.

"Get to the staging point," Marcus said finally, his voice tighter than before. "And Fernando — if anything feels wrong tonight, anything at all, you get out. Don't wait for my signal. Just go."

Fernando stood alone in his apartment, the weight of the night ahead pressing down harder than it had all week, and understood, with a cold and certain dread, that whatever was waiting for him at that rail depot, it was no longer the simple, contained job he'd been promised.