The Girl They Forgot To Kill

The heavy rain had stopped, but the sky was still bruised. The office was cold, the way Alvin liked it. The door clicked shut. "Do you have a minute?" Ivy’s voice was too steady. Alvin didn’t look up from his laptop. On the wall behind him, there was a huge photo of him in a pilot’s jacket, standing in front of a plane with Hawson Air on the tail. "Is this about the flight release?" She didn’t respond. He gritted his teeth. "Answer me goddammit." You could see the rage in his eyes. "I need your signature." "Then leave it and get out. I’m busy." She still didn’t move. Her hands were gripping the strap of her bag. "What?" he snapped. "What do you want?" He finally glanced up. She was holding her bag with both hands this time, like she was bracing for impact. "What?" "I didn’t know how else to tell you." The AC hummed. Somewhere down the hall a printer started. "I’m pregnant." Alvin’s pen stopped mid-signature. He stared at the ink bleeding into the paper. "Okay." "Okay?." "Okay." he repeated, and continued whatever he was doing, clearly ignoring her. A tiny drop landed on the table. One of her tears. "Are you even listening to me?." Ivy screamed out, and without thinking twice. She snatched the pen from Alvin. "Have you gone mad?." Alvin glared and snapped his pen back from her. She shifted in her seat. Fear... fear of what Alvin would do to her after she crossed her boundaries. "You're still alive right now because i'm in a good mood, or else you'd have joined your dead parents." His voice was gruff, and his brows were drawn together in a frown. Ivy scoffed. She swept the strands of hair on her face to the back of her ear. "I missed my period last month, and i got a pregnancy test done and it confirmed that i'm pregnant. I'm carrying your child!." Ivy cried. Alvin looked past her, not at her. "With all the forms of birth control out there, there is no reason why someone should be pregnant if they didn't want to be. You got yourself pregnant so i'd marry you right?." He raised a brow. "Although you hate hearing this, i love you Alvin, and i want us to start a family together. Let's raise our child together." Ivy stated, calmly. Every muscle in Alvin's body tensed, his fists clenched into tight balls, ready to unleash their pent up fury. Nobody disrespects him that way, not even his mother. So why would a w***e think she's worthy enough to do so? "But that's absolute balderdash, poison Ivy or whatever your useless mother named you. I mean, did you think before spewing that garbage from that hole you call a mouth?!." Alvin roared, he was already running out of patience. Ivy got pissed and hit the table loudly."I'm not leaving this office until i get something meaningful from you. It's either you get married to me, or let me live with you, pick one." She announced. "Ohh, really?" Before she could blink, Alvin stood up from his chair and spun her around and held her neck from behind, his chest pressing her back as his fingers dug into her flesh. Rage.. pure rage could be seen in his eyes. He was ready to pour out all his anger on her, even if it meant committing murder. "Are you trying to murder me? Do you think you can get rid of me that easily!?." Ivy spewed and he folded his palm on her throat, tightening her breathing space. "You know what happens to people who behave like they're above me. So why did you do something stupid?." He spat, and she swallowed, but the saliva wouldn’t go down past her throat because of his chokehold. Ivy's eyes were already getting red and watery. She felt life seeping out of her, one shallow breath at a time. There was silence. Alvin calmed down not long after, and he took his hands off her throat. Ivy fell to the ground coughing and choking at the same time, saliva dripped from her mouth. While that went on, Alvin reached for his phone and made a call. In less than two minutes, a knock was heard. "Come in." Two security guards walked in. Alvin poured a glass of water and didn’t drink it. "Get her out of my building," he screamed. "Now." The guards dragged Ivy out, her shoes scraping the floors. Alvin stood in the silence afterwards, drinking his water. ~ ~ ~ *CANADA. 12:36 PM. Same day.* June sat on the cold floor of the room they still called "hers." There was no bed. Just a thin mat, a bucket in the corner, and a small padlock on the outside of the door. A bang came, then her stepmother’s voice, sharp through the wood. "June! quit acting like a ghost and listen to what i have to say to you." The lock clicked. The door opened. Her stepmother didn’t come in, she never did. She stood in the hallway with her arms crossed and her stepfather was behind her, smelling of beer and cigarette as usual. "You’re going to start work tomorrow," her stepmother smirked. "Cleaning. At Alvin Hawson's building downtown. The big building with the glass." June blinked. "Alvin Hawson?" "The billionaire. Don’t play dumb with me." Her stepmother stepped closer but didn’t cross the doorway. "He pays well. You’ll give us everything you earn, every dollar. Do you understand me?." June nodded. She always nodded. She was their only child, rheir only hope. Their only problem to lock away. "And June?." Her stepfather added, voice low. "You don’t talk to anyone. You don’t look anyone in the eye. You clean and you come home. You know what'll happen to you if you do the opposite of what i just said." The door shut. The lock clicked again. June pressed her forehead to her knees. She didn’t know who Alvin Hawson was. She didn’t know why she’d been locked up for ten years. She only knew that on Tuesday, for the first time in a decade, she was going to walk out of the prison called a "house". Even if it was to clean the floors of a man she’d never met. ~ ~ ~ The hangar was dead quiet at 11:47pm. Fluorescent lights hummed above the rows of private jets, but Alvin’s office was on the top floor. Glass walls, and nothing out of place. That’s why they gave it to her on night one. "Don’t touch anything," the supervisor had said. "Just mop and dust. Mr. Alvin doesn’t like people in his space." She nodded, but her eyes were already scanning the room. It wasn’t that she was a thief. She just... loved looking at stuffs. Expensive stuffs, things she’d never touched in her life. The office smelled like air freshener. On the desk laid a stack of files with red stamps, and a small velvet box left open. Inside it, lying on black cloth, was a necklace. Silver. A spider. It was beautiful. Her fingers hovered. "Just for a second," she whispered to herself. She picked it up, and it was heavier than expected. That’s when the door clicked. June froze. Alvin stood in the doorway. Black coat, damp hair like he’d just come from somewhere. His eyes went from the door, to her, then to the necklace in her hand. His face didn’t change. "Put it down." He said. Her throat went dry. "I.. i’m sorry sir. I’m the new cleaner, i was just..." "You were touching my things." Not yelling. Worse, he was quiet. She fumbled and dropped the necklace back in the box. Alvin stepped in and closed the door behind him. "Do you know what happens to people who go through my office?" "I wasn’t...i didn’t mean to touch it. It’s just, the spider..." Alvin glared. Panic shot through her chest. First day, she’d be fired, worse, arrested. She backed up without thinking, her mop hit the wall panel and it gave way with a soft click. A hidden door. She didn’t plan it, she just ran. Alvin didn’t follow at first, he watched her disappear into the dark with a slow frown. Then he followed. The secret room was all glass and water. An indoor pool. The lights were red and low, there was no other exit. June spun around, breathing hard. "Please. I’m not a thief. I swear.," Alvin stopped at the edge of the pool, hands in his pockets. "Then why were you running?." "I got scared, Sir." "You should be." She took another step back and her foot slipped. The water closed over her head before she could scream. She couldn’t swim. June thrashed, arms flailing, bubbles rising. She looked up through the water and saw him. Alvin stood at the edge, watching. No movement to help, no call for anyone. Just his cold eyes on her as she sank. The last thing she saw before everything went dark was him turning back to leave. He left her there.