Holding her protectively against me, I guided her to Trek, who stood near a line of candles, his glossy hair down and flowing over his shoulders. He kissed Melissa, enfolding her into his arms, and let her relax against him. I wondered if he had seen her fear—and if he had, why hadn’t he come to rescue her?
“Perfect,” Trek declared, eyeing me appraisingly. Then to Melissa he said, “Take Blaise back to the 3Ts and show them what you’ve done.”
Her confidence restored, Melissa led me to the kitchen, where the smoke was thicker and burned my lungs. The homegirls were dancing with guys, their knees interlocked, while they kissed and pumped and laughed.
“What do you think of Blaise?” Melissa asked loudly. “Come check her out.”
The homegirls broke away from their boyfriends and squeezed around me. My ears buzzed with words I had never expected to hear describing me.
I glanced at Melissa, who looked happy about all the praise I was receiving. She clung to me as if I were her life preserver, keeping her afloat. “I feel like every compliment you’re receiving is really a compliment for me, since I’m the one who transformed you,” Melissa whispered against my ear. “Maybe I’m good for something.”
“You’ll be our secret weapon, Blaise.” Tara laughed. “You’ll leave them defenseless and we’ll leave them dead.”
I stood stock-still as an ugly sensation slid through me, a mix of guilt and shame that left me queasy. I broke away from Melissa and, in the living room, wiggled my way through the homeboys who wanted to dance, their muscled bodies pressing against me.
On the porch, I kicked off my shoes, leaped onto the lawn, and raced into the cool night as a sob exploded from deep within me. I ran in the opposite direction of my home. I didn’t want to go where Melissa and the others could find me. I needed the moon and the stars, and the possibility of a different life. I sprinted along the edge of the Borderlands, the silty ground squishing between my toes, and continued until I was exhausted.
I stopped in a patch of grass, my legs weak and trembling, and wiped the tears and sweat from my face. My hands came back streaked with makeup and one false eyelash, which looked like a dead caterpillar. I stared at it, feeling sorry for myself, and then with a sudden jolt, I scanned the shadows. I was no longer alone.
Though I saw no one, my gut told me I was being watched. I stared up at the windows of the abandoned row houses, searching for a face, until a soft rustle caught my attention. It could have been no more than windblown leaves and trash scratching down the gutter, but the noise set me on edge.
I became aware again of how little I was wearing and risked a look over my shoulder, my fatigued muscles tensing, ready to run, but there was only the sway of tree shadows, a speckled pattern of light and dark, spinning across the sidewalk.
Down the block, from behind an iron fence, came the scuff of heavy footsteps. I eased back into gauzy spider webs and waited, hidden beside a tree. The person kept coming, slow and confident, crunching over broken glass. The shards crackled and skittered, the noise taunting me, letting me know the person walking toward me felt no need for caution; I was easy prey and too close to the Borderlands for anyone to hear my screams.
My natural instinct was to run, but I didn’t know who was there. Homeless dopers worked in packs. The footsteps might be an attempt to flush me out and force me to run into the waiting arms of others, who would grab me and carry me into an open basement.
Better to stay hidden and, if found, fight only one. I crouched down, my fingers searching over the spongy ground through moldered leaves, until I grasped a stick strong enough to gouge an eye.
The footsteps sounded less than a few yards away. I stood and waited, careful with my breathing, and then not breathing when the person paused. I lifted the stick, the muscles in my arms aching with the need to attack.
“Blaise?” From the other side of the tree, Trek strolled into view and stopped in front of me, his smile sly, the night breeze lifting his hair in a sensual caress.
I released my breath, my fear turning to rage. I wanted to jab the stick into the side of his perfect face, even though I sensed that he had only been testing me.
His hand slid down my arm, pried the stick from my hand, and tossed it into the street. “You’ve got the beauty and guts to take down anyone,” he said. “Tomorrow you’re going to lure Nando.”
I started to laugh. He had to be joking. Everyone feared Nando, a hard-core Lobo.
When Trek didn’t smile, my stomach clenched.
“When?” I whispered uneasily.
“Right after school.”
Nando was legendary. Vicious. Violent. Cruel. He would never succumb to me. I was a dead girl.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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17
I sat in Trek’s Mercedes, my hands clamped around the bottle of water he had given me. The plastic crackled when I took a sip. Even after three swallows, the metallic taste clung to my mouth.
“If you’re tasting fear, water isn’t going to get rid of it,” Trek said as he steered the car past a storefront medical clinic that specialized in back pain.
“I wouldn’t be nervous if you’d let me take my purse,” I argued. “Nando has seen me around school. If he recognizes me, I’ll need the hammer.”
“He won’t recognize you,” Trek assured me. “I can guarantee it.”
I glanced at my reflection in the side view mirror. I barely recognized myself in the feathery lashes and glossy lipstick. Melissa had volunteered to do my makeup again, her eagerness surprising me. She had brought over new spiky shoes and another blue dress, this one even shorter than the one I’d worn last night.
“Nando’s hiding out in the corner building, first floor, last apartment,” Trek said, pulling me back to the present. “He’ll have set up some kind of alarm or trap, so be careful once you get inside.”
The building looked deserted. The iron bars on the windows had rusted and bled over the bricks that years of automobile exhaust had encrusted with soot. Even the weeds sprouting from the cracks in the foundation had black grime on their leaves.
“The front door has a security lock,” Trek continued. “You’ll have to sneak in.”
He caught me staring at his fighting shoes, Bulldog black Grinders with steel toes, the soles like tire tread. “I’m wearing the shoes so I can protect you,” he said.
“You’re not expecting this to be easy,” I said.
“I wouldn’t need you if it was going to be easy.” Trek parked near the elementary school then, facing me, took the bottle of water and set it in the cup holder. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I’ll kill Nando if he touches you.”
If he touches me? My heart thudded, warning me this was going to be worse than the disaster I was imagining. “Let me take my purse. I can handle anything with my hammer.”
“The first thing Nando would do is check inside your purse, and if he sees a hammer, he’ll know you’re not a schoolgirl with a crush.” Trek unsnapped my seatbelt. “Here they come.”
Children dressed in beige and navy blue uniforms rushed from the school, papers rustling in their hands, their yells and shrieks rising as they jumped and batted at the pink magnolia petals falling around them.
I opened the car door, climbed out, and strolled toward the corner, four inches taller in the stiletto heels, my silky skirt clinging to my thighs, while the children jostled around me.
I waited in front of the building until three boys and two girls raced up the crumbling concrete steps. The oldest boy, eleven years old maybe, unlocked the door and, when I started inside, he gave me a smile filled with trust before he darted up the stairs after the other children, who were calling out the rules for their game of jailbreak hide-and-seek.
Using grocery flyers that were scattered over the entrance floor, I wedged the door open so Trek could get inside, then paused. T
he banister had broken free from the stairs and dangled from the top post, creaking softly over the entrance to the first floor hallway, the sticks missing from the swinging handrail, stolen for use as weapons or baseball bats or, perhaps, to create that impression. A trap? If I pushed the loose railing aside, it might collapse and fall on top of me, the noise warning Nando, telling him he had a visitor.
I eased around the drooping banister then, letting my eyes adjust to the dark, continued down the corridor, where water dripped on the lumpy carpet. The pungent smell of mildew mixed with the sour odor from rat nests hidden in the walls, but a third scent brought a smile to my face. From under the door of the end apartment, thin smoke hazed into the air. Nando was going to be mellow, maybe high, his reaction slowed. This was going to be easy after all.
I knocked and, before I could even take a pose, the door crashed open and banged against the wall, the boom shuddering through me. White light exploded in my eyes, then streaked behind me.
“Where’s Trek?” Nando pointed a gun at me and tossed the searchlight aside. It clattered on the floor and sent shadows sliding over the walls.
Fear overwhelmed me, the onslaught so strong I couldn’t breathe. I gazed into Nando’s eyes, which were as green and clear and intense as those of the wolf tattooed on his neck. Nando wasn’t high, not even mellow. A dish filled with smoldering leaves sat next to the door, a subterfuge to make his attacker as careless as I had been.
“How’d Trek find me?” He latched his arm around me and forced me against his powerfully built body, the gun barrel jabbing my temple. “Who gave me up?”
“I wanted to meet you,” I yelled. “I—”
“Trek!” Nando shouted over my words. He pressed my face into his chest, his scent strong of aftershave, oranges, and cigarettes. “I got your bitch!”
If Trek stood in the shadows, he remained silent. The only sounds came from the dripping water and the whispering children, whose small steps scuffed down the stairs as they searched for a hiding place.
Nando jerked the gun away from my head and fired toward the entrance, the muzzle flash lighting the hallway. The recoil jolted his shoulder and knocked through me.
In the ringing silence that followed, images of dead children rose from my well of memories. I grabbed the gun barrel, my anger too fierce to allow caution, and caught Nando off guard. Because he held the gun with only one hand, I took it from him easily, then jumped back into safe firing range, the handle grip slick with his sweat.
“Kids were on the staircase.” The words scraped up my burning throat. “If your recklessness killed a kid, then I’m going to be reckless, too. And after you’re dead, I’ll drop the gun and walk away. No one will even care until your corpse becomes an insufferable stink.”
The blast must have deafened him as it had me and, though he couldn’t hear my threat, he could see the malice in my eyes. He appraised me, his sinuous arms twitching.
Slowly, my hearing returned. A little boy was crying. A girl, maybe his sister, tried to comfort him while the other children urged them both up the stairs, their need to hide no longer a game. But no one was dead. No one was shot.
My full attention turned to Nando, whose smug grin warned me that I only had seconds before he tried to jump me. Where was Trek? I had to assume that he hadn’t been able to get inside, or worse, had taken the bullet fired into the dark. Either way, I had to leave.
“I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time,” I lied. And taking a gamble, I clicked on the safety in front of the trigger guard and held the gun at my side.
Nando’s shoulders sagged, the motion slight, but enough to let me know he had believed me capable of firing.
“I finally got up the courage to knock on your door and for what? I should have stayed home and watched TV.” I strutted away with a sensual roll of my hips, my pace slow though my heart thwacked its beats in a painful rhythm, impatient for me to run.
Nando didn’t chase after me. My gun skills had left him with enough doubt to worry that I might be leading him to an ambush. At the same time, he didn’t want to lose me. I sensed his dilemma when he called, “Don’t go. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry you were going to kill me?” I pouted without looking back, but I liked the plea I had heard in his voice. Could this be working?
“Come back.”
“Forget it. I’m not interested now.” When I neared the end of the hallway, Trek slipped from the shadows, his steps as silent as air. He nodded, motioning me back to Nando, who was still coaxing me to return to him.
“Let’s talk,” Nando said. “I really am sorry.”
I spun around, my smile huge and forgiving. “You’re truly sorry?”
“Truly,” he breathed.
I strolled back to him and played shy. My clingy skirt crept up my thighs, but I knew what I was doing, giving him a show. I felt a heady rush that caused me to strut even more while I smoothed my hands down my sides. I wanted to torment him and make him long for me. For the first time I understood the power I possessed as I watched Nando relax against the doorjamb, his gaze careless, not looking for silhouettes slinking through the shadows but transfixed on me.
When I stood in front of him, he touched my lips, the taste of nicotine on his fingers. His hand trailed over my chin to my neck, my skin bristling where he touched me, the intimacy unbearable, though I didn’t let my smile falter.
“Go slower,” I whispered, gently pushing him away to make him a clear target for Trek, who crept up behind him. “I don’t even know your name,” I lied again.
“Come inside and I’ll tell you.” Nando smiled sweetly and, as he reached for my hand, Trek lunged from the dark and slammed a brick into his face.
Nando reeled into his apartment, spitting teeth, his eyes savage, wide open and searching for a weapon.
“Puta bitch!” he screamed, before the brick came down on his shoulder and he fell against the coffee table. A wooden bowl toppled, spilling oranges, which bounced over and around him. His fingers scrabbled across the linoleum, reaching in front of him, as he squirmed toward the TV, where a nine-millimeter pistol lay on the floor.
Trek dropped the brick, stepped back to me, took the gun from my hand and, switching off the safety, walked into the room, his heavy shoes kicking the oranges aside. He stomped on Nando’s wrist and aimed the gun at his head. “You’ve been avoiding me,” he said. “And we had a deal. We need to talk.”
I bolted down the hallway, not used to running in heels. My ankles wobbled and I stumbled. I kicked off the spiky shoes, left them, and ran barefoot, the wet carpet squishing between my toes.
Outside, I leaned against the Mercedes and stared despondently at the children still playing on the school grounds. I wondered if my mother had despised the men who had brought her gifts. Maybe she had taken drugs to escape the revulsion she’d felt when they’d touched her. For the first time, I felt sorry for her, not angry. Her easy life had had an ugly price.
The beep of the car unlocking surprised me. I never heard the gunshot. Had there been one? Trek stepped toward me with lazy ease, his dark eyes catching the light from the setting sun. Except for the blood on his hands, he looked like someone who might be on his way to work.
Magnolia petals dropped from the trees and hit the car hood as he used the tail of his shirt to wipe the blood and tears from my face, his gaze somber. He didn’t speak until we were driving past Tulley’s liquor store.
“Why did you run?” He sounded angry. “I wouldn’t have let Nando hurt you.”
“I thought you were going to shoot him.”
“You were going to shoot him,” Trek laughed, his sullen mood broken. “What’s the difference who fires?”
I shrugged.
“I only used the gun to make sure he listened to me,” Trek explained. “How did you disarm him, anyway?”
“He shot at the kids who were on the steps. I didn’t even think. I was just so mad, I grabbed the gun.”
Trek stopped the car in fron
t of my grandmother’s house. The roses, bending in the evening breeze, spilled petals over the grass.
“You’re incredible,” Trek said, leaning closer. “Beautiful and fierce.” His lips touched mine, soft and warm, and tasting of mint, and as his hands smoothed around my waist, I pulled away, my breath shallow, my mind disoriented from the clashing emotions of hate and anger and desire. My traitor body enjoyed the tenderness in his touch and wanted more.
“How can you?” I said. “Melissa—”
“—means nothing to me,” he cut in before I could finish.
“You let her do the rollins!” I grabbed my purse and opened the car door. “You told her . . . you made her believe you loved her. You’re everything to her and you did that?”
“Is it my fault if she loves me so much? I thought she’d forget about me by now,” he said.
I scrambled out of the car and looked back at him, hating him for deceiving Melissa. “That kiss won’t ever happen again.”
“Are you challenging me?” he asked as the last bit of sunlight faded into gray.
“I’m warning you.”
“I love girls who play hard to get, and you’re the hardest I’ve ever met. This game won’t end until you’re dead in love with me. I promise you that.”
I slammed the door and, as the car pulled away from the curb, I brought the hammer down and smashed the taillight, the red plastic cover shattered, the bulb inside burst. I gripped the steel handle and braced my bare feet in the grass, expecting Trek to stop the car and charge back at me.
He kept driving. His gleeful smile in the rearview mirror enraged me. I hurled the hammer and watched it fly, end over end, and thump off the back fender, barely making a dent.
As I walked down the street to retrieve the hammer, a tremor of premonition came over me that my future and Trek’s were on an inescapable collision course.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE