Verona Blood

  “Well, I might be forgetting you,” she snaps. “I need a fucking Uber.” She stands up, twisting her knotted blonde hair in her fingers. “You fucking idiot, is this cum in my hair? These extensions cost me three thousand dollars!”

  Her comedown has arrived. Rosaline gets nasty when she’s strung out. Also, if she’s really paying that much for her hair, she’s being ripped off something wicked.

  “Oops,” I deadpan, spreading my palms. “In my defense, your hair is impossible to escape, Rosie. It’s literally everywhere.” I pick a strand off my pants and hold it up to prove my point.

  “Don’t call me Rosie, you fucking perv. Rosie is a child’s name.”

  “Well, you’re kind of acting like a child,” I reply. “Does that count?”

  She huffs.

  I raise my eyebrows, letting out a laugh. My throat is dry from all the drugs, and I end up sounding like an old man, coughing and wheezing at the end.

  “Holy shit, I need some water.”

  “They have running water in real houses,” Rosaline says, taking a little plastic container out of her purse and placing it on the mirrored coffee table. I side-eye her as she pulls out a tiny baggie of brown powder, a spoon, and a neatly wrapped syringe.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I ask her, snatching the baggie from her hand. Her eyes go wide; she thinks I’m stealing her shit.

  “You can have it back when you leave,” I promise. “You like cheesy crust on your pizza?”

  “Don’t take my shit and offer me pizza,” she seethes. “Give me that.” Her skinny arm shoots out, her hand trying to rip the baggie of brown powder from my hand, but I’m stronger.

  “No heroin in my house. Ever,” I say, shoving the bag in my jeans pocket. “You can have this back when you leave. Unless you’re leaving now?” Please leave now, you crazy bitch.

  She hesitates. “I want to stay with you. But I’m not eating pizza. Carbs make me bloat.”

  I look at her tiny frame dubiously. “We haven’t eaten in three days,” I say to her.

  She smiles deviously. “You can eat me again,” she says, pointing at her red lace panties.

  “Rosaline,” I say slowly, enunciating every syllable. “No more sex. No more drugs! I’m. Ordering. Pizza. What do you want?”

  “One more bump,” she says, smiling sweetly at me. She’s a pretty girl, but I wish she wouldn’t smile. Her teeth are pointed like a cat’s, and when she grins, she looks like a damn bloodthirsty vampire, angling for my jugular. “And order me a green salad.”

  I shake my head, pulling my cellphone out and dialing. I order the pizza, complete with cheesy crust, and a fucking green salad on the side. My stomach growls angrily as I end the call, just in time to see a river of red liquid erupt from Rosaline’s face.

  “What the fuck!?” I yell. She’s got a blank expression on her face, blood pouring from her nostrils, and ladies and gentlemen, this is what happens when you have one more bump after three days of snorting and fucking. Your nostrils decide to give up the fight, and bleed like fucking fire hydrants full of red paint.

  “My sofa,” I say. She’s oblivious. “Rosaline. Get off my fucking sofa!” I stare down at her in dismay, watching as she stains the only decent thing that I own outside of this property, this rambling decrepit mess that the fuckers next door keep trying to have declared uninhabitable. Not my sofa. Anything but my sofa.

  “I need the bathroom,” Rosaline says. Still not moving. Desperate, I go around behind her and hook my arms under her shoulders, basically dragging her to the bathroom. We leave a red trail down the hallway, making me wince. It looks like somebody just got murdered here.

  I carry her into the downstairs bathroom and help her into the tub, turning the taps on full. Rosaline screams when freezing cold water hits her thighs, trying to scramble out of the bath. I keep one hand firmly planted on her shoulder, to stop her from thrashing around like a wet cat, as I locate the plug and shove it into the hole in the bottom of the tub.

  “Running water,” I say, shaking my head in mock surprise. “Who’d have thought?”

  “No hot water,” she whimpers, her lips a little blue around the edges.

  “Mmm, it’s practically barbaric,” I muse. “You poor thing. Don’t you dare die, you hear me?”

  She smiles, trying to cup my chin with her blood-stained hand. “Aww, you’re so sweet.”

  I pull my face out of her reach. “Your blood is literally all over my house. If you die, it’ll be like CSI: Verona Heights in here. And guess who they’ll be arresting?”

  The water is covering her legs now, and Rosaline seems to be adjusting to the temperature. I’ve even added a little hot water to take off the edge. I’m not completely heartless.

  “Stay in there until the bleeding stops,” I instruct her, heading for the door. I let out a groan when I see the crime scene left in her wake, sinking down onto the un-bloodied end of my couch as I survey the destruction around me. Empty wine and whiskey bottles in the corner. My mirrored coffee table, still laden with fat caterpillars of speed, waiting to be snorted up. Bright red drops of blood amongst the white powder, blood and smack, looking disturbingly similar to pizza flour and pasta sauce. Gross. This mess was so not worth it.

  I sit there for a few minutes, lighting a cigarette. I watch through the large bay windows as a limousine snakes up the long driveway next door. I wonder if it's her. Probably. It’s her birthday today, and there’ll be a party or some other fancy shit going on. The thought of a bunch of rich assholes standing on the balconies and in the rose garden next door and eyeing off my fire-damaged piece of shit makes anger burn in my belly. I should crash the party. I should drown Rosaline in their fucking pool while everyone watches. I’d drown her in mine, but the pool in my backyard is a swamp now, reserved only for mosquitoes to breed and hatch their babies. I’m daydreaming about sneaking into the party next door later tonight when Rosaline suddenly appears beside me, like a silent ninja, her face still streaked with blood. I put my hand on the Glock that sits on the side table beside me, my fingers wrapped around the butt of the gun before I realize it’s her, and not an intruder.

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” I say, my heart rate spiking like I’ve just been hit with a dose of adrenalin — or snorted a line, I guess.

  “I have to get out of here,” Rosaline mumbles, snatching up her handbag and making a beeline for the bathroom again. I frown, puzzled by her sudden change of heart. My suspicion grows as she closes the bathroom door again, and I hear muted rummaging.

  Fucking bitch. I know exactly what she’s doing.

  I drag my phone out of my jeans pocket, shoot off a text.

  Bitch is in my bathroom trying to steal my stash.

  Three little bubbles pop up under my message right away.

  I’m in your driveway. Want me to bring the crew?

  Can I eat this pizza, then?

  One ear still on Rosaline in the bathroom, I reply.

  No. Let’s keep this between us. Bring the pizza. I’m starved.

  Rosaline exits the bathroom, stepping around her own trail of nose-blood with bare feet. She looks like a dead corpse walking.

  “Rosie,” I say sweetly, kicking back on my couch. “I thought you wanted to stay?”

  She smiles. “I need to get home, freshen up. Call you later?”

  I don’t even need to look in my bathroom to know that she found my stash and stole it. You know why? Because Rosaline would never, ever leave her heroin in my jeans pocket, forgotten, let alone a small mountain of white powder on my coffee table. She’s the kind of girl who would scoop it up and store it in her cheeks to get it past the front door.

  Speaking of.

  There’s a knock at the front door.

  “Pizza delivery!” the voice at the door calls.

  “Can you let the pizza guy in on the way out?”

  Rosaline grins, her pupils the size of dinner plates. “Sure thing, babe,” she coos, tucking her suspiciously full handba
g under her arm and making a beeline for the front door.

  She opens the door, her free hand out to grab the pizza, when she freezes. “Merc?” she says, her hand stopped in mid-air. I’m on my feet at the same time, moving across the large, open space to the open door.

  “Pizza!” my best friend says jovially, throwing two boxes of cheesy crust pizza on the floor beside Rosaline. “You want to pay with cash, or with the shit you just stole?”

  Rosaline tries to scurry around Merc, with no success. Merc crosses his arms over his broad chest, smiling, revealing two rows of perfect white teeth that look even brighter against his Hispanic coloring. Rosaline turns suddenly, probably headed for an alternative exit, but instead barreling right into my open arms. I get her in a bear hug, pinning her arms at her sides as Merc snatches her purse from her hand. He pulls out a metal cigarette box, a skull stamped on the front, and snaps it open to reveal rows of bright red heart-shaped pills.

  My pills.

  Rosaline starts to panic. “I can explain,” she says, trying to pull away from me. I respond by tightening my hold on her, picking her up off her feet and heading back to the bathroom.

  Ten minutes later, I’m chewing on cheesy crust pepperoni pizza, and Rosaline is tied to one of my kitchen chairs, sitting in the middle of my living room, furious as she tries to yell at me past the piece of tape over her mouth.

  It’s not the first time I’ve tied a half-naked girl to a chair and threatened her life, and I very much doubt it’ll be the last. Chicks, man. Sometimes the only way to get them to tell the truth is to show them the sharp end of a knife, make them cry a little. Merc finishes his slice before me, dusting his hands on his jeans as he retrieves a switchblade from his pocket and opens it with a metallic snick sound.

  “Hey Rosie, you ready to talk?” Merc asks.

  I hold up a slice of pizza. “You tell me who you’re stealing for, I’ll even share my pizza with you.”

  If this were an episode of Supernatural, her eyes would be solid black right now, little demon she is. Fortunately, this is reality, and Rosaline isn’t a demon — just a very fucking shady girl, one I should have known would bring me a whole bunch of trouble that I don’t need.

  Merc unceremoniously rips the tape from her mouth, and probably takes half of the skin on her face along with it. Her eyes pop a little from the pain, as she gasps in a breath. “Motherfucker,” she spits, pulling at her bindings. “I’m going to make sure you both get what’s coming to you for this.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Rosaline, you tried to steal my entire stash of pills. Pills that are very special to me. The least you can do is tell me who you’re stealing it for.”

  Her eyes constantly shift between Merc and I, probably trying to figure out which one of us she can sweet talk the fastest. She hones in on Merc, licking her lips as she parts her thighs, her very short skirt riding up as she flashes her panty-less crotch before she crosses her legs. Merc sits on the sofa beside me, leaning forward, a frown etched into his forehead as he points to Rosaline with the switchblade.

  "Did you just try to Basic Instinct me, Rosaline?” Merc asks. “Seriously? Put it away. Tell me who sent you to steal Rome’s pills.”

  Rosaline starts hurling abuse at both of us, unintelligible nonsense peppered with curse words and high-pitched screaming. Merc rolls his eyes, slapping the tape back on her mouth.

  We both stand over her.

  “What do we do now?” Merc asks.

  I shrug. “Torture her until she tells us who she’s working for.”

  Chapter Four

  AVERY

  An hour to go.

  I am a master of denial, but we're getting right down to the wire now. I'm standing on a little raised podium in the presidential suite of the Palatial Hotel, just another of my family's business holdings that are scattered across California, but I like this place. It's rooted in my memory almost as much as my family home, maybe even more. This is the place my mother loved to bring us to get us out of the house. She always loved being in the bustle of a busy city, not cooped up at home, where good wives are supposed to stay. My parents were married in a Catholic church, but they had their reception here. Every significant event that wasn't held at home has happened in this place, and now it's my turn, so why do I feel like I'm about to die?

  Maybe because I am.

  Not literally, of course. I very much doubt anybody's going to kill me. I am the golden goose of the family, after all. Have to take care of me so I keep laying those golden eggs. Ironic, isn't it, after what I learned this afternoon?

  My dress is stunning, and that almost makes it worse. It's so beautiful, but my mother will never see it, or my sister. The people who will see it are strangers, and men who think they can control every little facet of my life. I can't stop thinking about Will, about the way he left. He's the kind of boy who likes to make a scene, and I wonder if that's what he has planned for tonight.

  I hear my father's footsteps in the hallway before I see him, but I know it's him. When you're rich like us, there is a certain way that you hold yourself, a way that you walk. I would know my father's footsteps anywhere. Maybe it's because we're the only two who've been roaming around our empty mansion for the last nine years, ever since Adeline died. Nathan and his parents were around a lot of the time, but they'd always go home eventually, and it was just me and Daddy again, quiet like mice, the house echoing with our movements like it knew it was too big for just two people.

  Daddy's footsteps are unmistakable, and they get heavier, closer. I look at myself in the long mirror, adjusting little bits of fabric here and there. The whole thing is attached to me by a series of pins.

  Even though the party starts in an hour, it has to fit exactly. There can be no loose threads, no empty spaces. This gown will sit against my skin because I'm being sewn into it right now. There's no zipper. At the end of the night, I'll unpick the seams, unwind myself from this mess of tulle and lace, and then I'll probably burn the dress.

  "You look beautiful, darling," my father says through gritted teeth. “Beautiful, and late. I was about to start driving the streets looking for you. Where the hell have you been?”

  I don't respond. I'm still too angry with him to even look him in the eye.

  "Avery," he presses.

  I grimace, seeing myself in the mirror as I make the expression. I don't look very nice when I do that.

  “Don’t give yourself a coronary, Augie,” I simper. “I was with Will. Remember Will?”

  My father narrows his eyes. “That’s the thing about guys like Will, honey. Nobody remembers them once they’re gone.”

  I huff out a breath. “You’re unbelievable.”

  Daddy rolls his eyes. “So I’ve been told.” He tilts his head, taking in my dress, my hair, like I’m some sort of product he’s about to unveil. “Did you tell Will about the engagement?”

  I blink, forcing myself to remain impassive. No tears. He doesn’t deserve them. “Yes. I told him.”

  My father seems pleased by this. “And?”

  I smile, the gesture poisonous, as I reach out to straighten my father’s tie. “And he got very angry. He said I was my daddy’s little whore. And then he fucked me. With no protection.”

  I pause for a beat.

  “Twice.”

  My father turns the brightest shade of pink imaginable, smacking my hand away from his tie as I fix my expression to resting bitch face, the smirk on my bright red lips the only thing to give away my mood.

  “Careful, Avery. Don’t push me.”

  I roll my eyes. “Or what? You’ll marry me off to a man of your choosing? Withhold my trust fund fund until the marriage is consummated? Or maybe you’ll steal my fucking eggs and make test tube babies with them without my knowledge.”

  Daddy scowls.

  “Oh, that’s right! You already did all that. You already destroyed any chance I had at ever having a real life. So give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just do what Adeline did, h
uh? Tell me. One reason.”

  Daddy’s jaw twitches.

  “Do you even love me, Daddy?” I ask, in a pathetically small voice. “You’ve barely said it to me, even when I was a little girl. Do you?”

  Daddy opens his mouth to reply, his expression stricken. But no words come out. He’ll be so angry. I shouldn’t have said that.

  But then my father does something I’ve never seen him do before. Augustus Capulet, a man I’ve seen kill with his bare hands, when he thought I wasn’t watching. Augustus Capulet, the man who showed not an ounce of emotion at any of the funerals of his wife and children. Augustus Capulet, the most powerful — and most feared — man in California, blinks heavily, a single tear sliding down his cheek.

  “More than the world,” he says, his voice breaking. “More than anything.”

  Something inside me withers and dies. My father loves me, and he’s still sentencing me to this cruel travesty? It would have been better if he’d just said no.

  “How can you do this to me if you love me?” I whisper.

  My father steps forward suddenly, his broad arms wrapping around me, pinning my arms to my sides. He rests his head on my shoulder, since I’m taller than him standing on this little podium, and he holds me to him so hard it hurts me. After a moment, I let my head fall heavy to the side, resting atop his head.

  “It’s not too late to stop this,” I whisper. “Dad.”

  Daddy pulls away from me, wiping his face hastily. He smiles sadly, cupping my face in both of his palms, his eyes burning into mine as I search his gaze for some kind of hope. It’s madness to believe he’ll put a stop to what’s about to happen, but I’m hardly sane anyway.

  “When you were a baby,” he says, his chin trembling, “I never knew what to do with you. Neither did your mother. We were spoilt rich kids who’d never held a baby before your sister was born. And she was so calm. She never cried. She slept when she was supposed to sleep, ate when she was supposed to eat, and smiled any time we pointed a camera at her. And then you came along, and we just assumed you would be like her.”