Dawn of Eve, MJ Howson [lightweight ebook reader TXT] 📗

up to the penthouse. Dawn struggled to figure out where Eve could have landed. The doors opened. She stepped inside and immediately pressed the button for the pool deck.

On the way down, Dawn grappled to regain her composure. She was still in shock at what Jacob had done. She told herself that maybe Eve had survived. Maybe she’d caught one of the Spire’s curved concrete support beams and rode it to a safe area. The pool deck jutted out from the side of the building. Beyond that, the glass awning above the sidewalk could have caught her. At worse, Eve may have blown onto the High Line and settled in a lush bed of grass. Eve didn’t weigh that much. Maybe, just maybe, she survived.

The doors opened. Dawn ran down the hallway that led to the back of the building with the gym, spa, and pool. Her heart raced as she flung the door open and stepped outside. The wind at ground level was almost nonexistent, but the polished terrazzo tile surrounding the pool felt ice cold on her bare feet. She quickly ran from chair to chair, checking on and under each one. Dawn even inspected the landscaped pots and beds scattered throughout the area. When she thought all was lost, she crept over to the pool, dropped to her knees, and looked inside. Eve wasn’t there. Dawn stood up and wiped tears from her cheeks. She said, “Where could you have gone?”

A seven-foot-tall curved concrete and steel wall ran along the perimeter of the patio. Dawn dragged a patio table to the back wall and climbed to the top. A cantilevered glass and steel awning separated the Spire from the High Line. She pulled herself to the top of the wall and searched but couldn’t see Eve. Her eyes focused on the nearby High Line.

Dawn threw herself over the wall, desperately grasping the top edge. She dangled from the side and then let go, landing on the awning. The canopy’s six-foot-square glass panels were supported by steel beams. Dawn pressed a single bare foot against the nearest panel to test its strength. The glass appeared thick, but Dawn didn’t want to take a chance due to the thirty-foot drop to the sidewalk below.

The steel support beams were brutally cold against Dawn’s feet. The fifteen-foot distance to the edge of the High Line felt like eighty feet as she cautiously made her way across the awning. She paused halfway and looked down at the sidewalk far below. The world around her seemed to spin, and the distance that remained felt insurmountable. Dawn closed her eyes and used the cold steel beneath her feet to guide her the rest of the way. The wind whipped around her, doing its best to knock her down. When her toe slide against the raised edge of the outer beam, she paused and opened her eyes. A two-foot gap separated the canopy from the High Line, with a metal and wire fence running along the elevated walkway.

“Eve!” Dawn cried out. “Where are you?”

At this hour, the elevated walkway was devoid of people. The original train tracks were exposed in this section of the High Line, sitting between the fence and the polished concrete planks that made up the pathway. A piece of red velvet, dotted with rhinestones, on the other side of the fence caught Dawn’s attention. Dawn’s eyes widened with joy. There was Eve, leaning against one of the old iron rails.

Dawn looked at the gap separating the awning from the fence. Much like her terrifying walk from the wall, the distance felt impossible to cross. She kept her eyes fixated on Eve, took a deep breath, and flung herself over the gap, grabbing hold of the railing. When she landed, Dawn used her toes to cling to the edge of the High Line. She gasped, pulled herself upright, and flung herself over the fence, landing on a bed of grasses. Bits of mulch wedged between her toes as she fell to her knees and crawled to the tracks.

Eve was face down against the rail, her ragged velvet dress ruffling in the breeze. Dawn’s hands trembled as she gently tried to turn Eve over. As she did, Dawn could feel the shattered pieces of the doll inside the dress.

“No,” Dawn cried.

She finished spinning Eve over and sat back on the ground, staring at the doll. The left side of Eve’s face was gone. All that remained of her other side was enough to show one eye, locked open. Her porcelain hands were missing, and her sleeves limp. Dawn lifted Eve up, only to have the pieces of her broken body fall from the torn dress.

Dawn collected the remains and placed them on her lap, using Eve’s dress to hold them. She began to sob. Her sobs soon turned into wails. She couldn’t stop crying. Her body shook uncontrollably as she desperately held what was left of Eve.

“Jacob murdered you,” Dawn said. She kissed the small part of Eve’s head that was still intact and ran her fingers through the doll’s mangled copper hair. Dawn glanced up at the Spire rising beside the High Line. She struggled to see her penthouse from this angle. Dawn could only imagine the terror Eve must have felt as she plunged to her death. She kissed Eve again and said, “I’m so sorry.”

Dawn slowly stood up, taking care not to drop any pieces of Eve. She looked through the fence at the glass awning and the wall surrounding the pool deck and realized there was no way for her to climb the wall from this side. The thought of jumping the fence and gap with Eve’s remnants terrified her.

The 23rd Street exit felt like it was a mile away, but it was the only way she could safely get back home. Dawn cried the entire time as she gently rocked Eve’s remains in her arms. She descended the stairs to 23rd Street and then followed it to 10th