After All Read online

  AFTER ALL

  A Novel

  Karina Halle

  Metal Blonde Books

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  WILD CARD

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Karina Halle

  Copyright © 2017 by Karina Halle

  All rights reserved.

  First edition July 2017.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover design by Hang Le Designs

  Edited/Proofed by Roxane LeBlanc

  Feel it.

  The things that you don’t want to feel.

  Feel it. And be free.

  -Nayyirah Waheed

  * * *

  You’ll never find peace of mind

  Until you listen to your heart.

  - George Michael

  Prologue

  Emmett

  Past

  Emmett Hill had just turned ten years old a week before everything changed.

  He wasn’t a happy kid by any means. But the life that he had was the only life that he knew. And even though he often dreamed of the better life he’d glimpse on the right side of town, it seemed like a fairy tale to him. Something he knew would never happen, something to tuck away in his dreams. Life outside the dirty, mean streets of east Vancouver was all a movie, a film, a play on a stage. He was stuck behind the scenes.

  But, like most kids, he was resilient. And being stuck was a way of life. Every day was exactly the same, which made all the hardships that much easier to take.

  He’d wake up in the mornings in the tiny one-bedroom apartment he shared with his mother and she’d bring him breakfast in bed, delivered with thin and shaky hands. Usually it was just sugary cereal with water instead of milk, but sugary cereal was like having candy in the morning so he didn’t care.

  Then he’d get ready for school. His closet was full of clothes that were either too big or too small, clothes that had the names of other kids written into the collar, but at least he had variety. His school kept an eye on him and were always the first to give him, and other kids in slightly-too-big shoes, clothing that was donated. His mother was always looking for clean clothes for him too, when she wasn’t trying to get her medicine.

  His mother would usually walk him the ten blocks over to his school, though sometimes it was his mother’s friend, Jimmy, and Emmett always likened that walk to being in a teleporter or a bridge through time. He read books all the time and one of his favorites was A Wrinkle in Time and sometimes he thought the way to school passed through a tesseract. They would leave the depravity of Hastings and Main and the other streets where lawlessness ruled and hope was squashed, and travel through Chinatown, where the vendors were always up bright and early, putting their colorful displays out, the air filled with the smell of hot meat and spices. Then Chinatown would give way to small row houses where Emmett assumed rich people lived, people who could afford an actual house and had tiny slices of a yard, the grass usually waist-high, rusted toys out front.

  Of course, these weren’t rich people houses at all but anything other than Emmett’s apartment (where there were always a few people sleeping in the hall outside his door, some who used the stairwell as a toilet), seemed like it belonged to royalty.

  Once at school, his mom would go off to her job as a waitress at a local diner, and he would disappear into the building to learn and play with his friends. Putting on plays during recess–where he was always the hero–was one of his favorite things to do. At some point during the day, usually just after lunch where he scarfed down his usual granola bar, one of the teachers would pull him aside. They’d ask him how he was today, how his mother was, if there had been any problems. Then they’d give him a piece of fruit, sometimes a sandwich (once, his teacher Mrs. Marsden, brought him a Happy Meal from McDonalds down the street–he never forgot that day).

  He never really knew why the teachers doted on him but they’d often call him handsome and smart and tell him he had a bright future, so he thought maybe he was just special. He liked feeling special.

  Then school would end and he’d always be a bit sad. Everything was so bright and cheery and fun and even learning the crappy subjects like math didn’t seem so bad.

  But his mother, or Jimmy, would be around the corner waiting. Neither of them liked to go right up to the school to get him and when he asked why he got two different answers. Jimmy said “it would look bad, they don’t know I’m your friend,” and his mother said, “there are too many people.” She said this as if she didn’t like crowds when their whole life was so darn crowded with people always in their apartment, on the street, everywhere.

  But they were their kind of people.

  The junkies. The addicts. The thieves. The homeless, the hopeless.

  Those were the people who surrounded them every day.

  And Emmett wasn’t an idiot. Even though he grew up in that crappy apartment and saw the same scenes day in and day out, he eventually realized that the medicine his mother took, that everyone else took, was heroin and other drugs.

  But even so, even as his mother stopped going to her job, even as she was flopped out on the couch more and more, even as the people who came over got dirtier, scarier, he figured everything in his life would be okay in the end.

  Until it wasn’t.

  One day his mother didn’t show up after school. He walked around the corner to the same old grey mailbox that she’d wait for him at, but she wasn’t there. Jimmy wasn’t either.

  Since he was now ten years old, he figured he’d wait for a bit and then walk home, alone. Ever since his birthday when he hit the double digits, he felt a little bit older, a little bit wiser. After an hour, he adjusted the straps on his well-worn backpack, the heavy science textbook weighing it down, and took off for home.

  He knew his way and wouldn’t get lost. In fact, as he walked, no one even looked at him twice. That was the thing about the area. As dirty and scary as it was, the people there weren’t known to kidnap or assault people. They just wanted money for drugs. And being that Emmett was just a kid, with obviously no money on him, no one paid him any attention.

  By the time he was getting close to the apartment, Emmett started to feel more like a man than ever. Not only did he walk home alone, through the tesseract, but people ignored him. He didn’t even feel like a child anymore. He felt invincible.

  It was because of this that he stopped being worried about why his mother didn’t show up. He ran up the stairs two-by-two to the top floor of the apartment building and burst in through his door, wanting to tell his mother all about his walk.

  But she wasn’t there.

  He tried to think if maybe she had gone back to work–that would be nice, it had been a while since he had a good, hot meal–and then went over to Jimmy’s door down the hall to see if he knew where she was.

  He knocked and knocked and finally a guy who was napping on the floor by the stairs looked up at him and said, “He’s not home. Do you have a
dollar, son?”

  Emmett shook his head. “If I had a dollar, I’d be getting a pop right now. Have you seen my mother?”

  The man squinted at him for a moment and then said, “Yeah. Emily, right? Last I saw she was outside the butcher.”

  That didn’t sound too bad. There was a meat store a block up that provided cheap meals if you had the extra change. Sometimes his mother was up there getting them food. Maybe he would have a nice meal tonight. He hadn’t gotten anything special for his tenth birthday.

  So Emmett put that thought into his head, pushing his worries aside, and went back into his home. He sat on the couch and watched the clock and waited.

  Hours passed.

  Night settled in.

  And still his mother didn’t come home.

  He searched the cupboards for something to eat and found a packet of stale crackers that he wolfed down. Then he decided to go and look for her.

  Everything is scarier in the dark. In the day time you can see the horrors around you but at night, they were shadowed, half-hidden, which made them even more monstrous. Emmett felt like he was being very brave by doing this, the time when things got a little wilder, a little more out of hand. But he remembered that people had ignored him earlier and he knew that he couldn’t just wait for his mother forever. What if something had happened to her?

  And for once, the reality of “what if” was hitting home. As he ran around the streets, asking for his mom, looking for her, dealing with people who scared him half to death, he started thinking about death. The worst-case scenario. His mother was using more and more, looking sicker and sicker every day.

  What if, what if, what if?

  It wasn’t until he forced himself into the back alleys that he knew he was close to death.

  He could smell it back here, feel the dark, oppressive vibe.

  The brick walls were covered in graffiti, the ground littered with shit, vomit, plastic baggies, discarded needles.

  There were people back here too, but not many of them were moving.

  Most were slumped here and there, the needles in their arms shining under the dim lights.

  He peered at each one of them.

  They were alive, but barely. Lost in the dreams of the drug.

  And he kept going.

  Because now he knew, he knew in his young, small heart that his mother would be one of them.

  He walked the alleys for what seemed like forever. It wasn’t until he was in the one right behind his apartment that he saw a familiar pair of dirty tennis shoes poking out from behind a dumpster.

  His breath caught in his lungs. Bile filled his mouth.

  The feeling of pure, undiluted dread was incapacitating, a living, breathing thing that pushed down on him until he felt he was drowning.

  His mother’s legs weren’t moving at all.

  In the cold light, they almost looked blue.

  He didn’t know how long he stood there for, frozen in fear, his heart crumbling inside him. For all her flaws, she was his mother and the only person in the world he truly loved. He didn’t want to see her like this. He wanted everything to go back to the way it was earlier. If he could go back through the tesseract, back to when his mother wasn’t lying in the alley, before his life changed forever, he would.

  Be brave, Emmett told himself. You’re a big boy now.

  And he was. He straightened up his shoulders.

  Took in a deep breath.

  And peered around the dumpster.

  That night everyone heard the cries of that boy.

  They seemed to bounce off the alley walls forever, drowning out the sirens and the chaos of the streets.

  A horrible wailing that could have woken the dead.

  Only it didn’t wake his mother.

  Chapter 1

  Emmett

  28 years later

  “You know if you touch me, he’ll kill you.”

  Her words hang in the air. A little too long for my liking but I react as I’d planned.

  “How do you know you won’t like it if I touch you?” I ask her, bringing the appropriate amount of sneer to my voice. I take a menacing step toward her back, her side profile lit just right, until I’m standing behind her. “It will be our secret.”

  I wait a few beats, counting in my head, then lower my voice as I lift her hair off her shoulder. She smells like hairspray and my hand practically sticks to the strands. “I know you’ve been wanting a walk on the wild side for a long time. Now is your chance. Give in to me.”

  At that she stiffens and it’s almost realistic. Is she really this repulsed by me in real life? She definitely wasn’t a few weeks ago when I was screwing her in her trailer.

  “Cut!” Jackson yells, his voice booming across the set. “Sorry, Emmett, the line is walk on the dark side, not wild side.”

  I roll my eyes, stepping away from Madison and look over my shoulder at him as he stands next to the playback screens, tired and frustrated. It’s eleven p.m. on Friday night and we’re into overtime once again. Everyone wants to go home, myself included, especially since I’ve got to be up bright and early for my friend Will’s wedding. I feel bad enough as it is, having to miss the rehearsal dinner tonight.

  “I know my line,” I tell the director of the week, trying not to sound snippy. “But walk on the dark side is a little too Darth Vader for me.”

  “I know. But look who our audience is,” Jackson says. “This is the CW network here. People get who Darth Vader is and they need to associate him with you. You’re the villain here, you’re the one that everyone wants to watch.”

  “At the moment,” Madison mutters under her breath. I give her a sharp look and she can’t even be bothered to put on her fake smile in return.

  “Of course, they’re here to see Madison, too,” Jackson offers. “But don’t hold back here, Emmett. You’re Cole Black. Doctor Death. People expect the puns, they expect you to be over-the-top. You know this by now.”

  I sigh. Serves me right for trying to do this properly. Seems all those years in London’s West End theatres don’t count for shit when you’re playing the bad guy on a superhero show for teens.

  I’m definitely not complaining though. I haven’t been on the rise for a good ten years. Hell, until six months ago, I was written up as a has been in the Canadian media. I mean, you know your career is going downhill when fucking Canada starts taking shots at you.

  But ever since I landed the role of Doctor Death in the world’s most ridiculous superhero show, Boomerang, my life has completely turned around.

  For the better, of course.

  At least, I’m fairly sure.

  You know when you’ve dreamed about something for so long, craved it so fiercely, that when you finally get it, you’re not sure what to do with it, or even how to feel?

  That’s what I’m going through.

  Some people might even say I’m not handling it all too well.

  I try not to listen to them–the media especially.

  The only problem is Autumn, my new publicist, is starting to say the same thing too.

  But aside from sleeping with Madison and having it out with one of the script supervisors, I’m trying to be a fucking angel on set. It’s just that everywhere else, trouble seems to follow me.

  With that in mind I take in a deep breath, swallow my pride and give Jackson a winning smile.

  “All right, let’s do it again,” I tell him. “I’ll follow the script. Promise.”

  Madison scoffs beside me. She knows as well as I do that following script hasn’t been my strong suit. That’s a metaphor that can go a million different ways.

  Luckily I pull through, summoning as much cheesiness as I can manage to bring Cole Black to the edge of caricature and in another hour it’s time to call it quits.

  I say goodbye to the crew and leave the North Vancouver studio in my Audi, a recent purchase. Though I’d saved up a pretty big nest egg while working for most of my twenties, which resulted in my wa
terfront home, I’d also been especially frugal with my money.

  But with the role on Boomerang has come the big bucks and more opportunities, especially in advertising. It wasn’t long ago that doing ads as an actor was frowned upon, unless you were doing them overseas for things like Japanese whisky. Now Matthew McConaughey and his damn drawl and Lincoln car has made it acceptable. Danny DeVito and George Clooney smiling about Nescafe then pushed it into the encouraged department.

  So a popular show plus a few ads here and there and I’m finally making money I’m not afraid to spend. Hey, I’ve been the ‘it kid’ and then I’ve faded into obscurity. At thirty-eight, I know more than anyone how quickly everything fades and I’m not just talking this business. It’s life, in general. Over in the blink of an eye.

  I’m not sure why my thoughts have taken a turn for the negative but I feel myself being pulled into the liquor store hoping to pick up something for tomorrow morning when Will and Ted come over before the ceremony. It’s an excuse, really, since I have a fully stocked bar but I’ve got it set in my mind. Naturally, being that it’s late and everything in this damn city closes early, it’s closed.

  I probably should keep going, get in my car and head over the Second Narrows Bridge towards home. Grab a bottle of rye from the bar cart, put my feet up and relax. Pass out in front of the TV. That sort of thing.

  But there’s a fire building through my veins. I don’t get back in the car, instead I walk across the parking lot, past the grocery store and shops that are all closed for the night, right to El Rodeo.

  Don’t ask me why it’s called El Rodeo. It doesn’t serve Tex-Mex or any food, nor does it have a western décor. If anything it looks like a nautical joint. But it is a bar and one usually frequented by actors and crew who work at the studios.

  Being Friday night, there’s a few people inside, some that I vaguely recognize, but I keep to myself and take a seat at the bar. I try not to do a lot of drinking at this place since there are usually some autograph hounds, gossip bloggers and paparazzi around, plus the drinking and driving laws in British Columbia are very strict and the last thing I need is to be tossed in jail.