“Whatever she wants. She’s got it all planned, I’m sure.”
“Did I mention that you and Kim are an adorable couple?”
He scoffs. “Adorable? Damn, you women are determined to mess with my manhood, aren’t you?”
I smile. “We try.”
♦ ♦ ♦
I get home around eleven fifteen, exhausted. The house is dark. My parents are always in bed by ten thirty. Pouring myself a bowl of cereal, I go up to my room and put some tunes on low. It always takes me a while to unwind before I can sleep.
I take out my camera phone, flip back to the only picture I have of him. Zin never poses for pictures, says he isn’t photogenic—a weird thing to say for a guy who doesn’t fuss over his looks. Unfortunately, this picture, which I snapped at the bar without him knowing it, is distorted. His face is pale and ghostly, like an amateur photo editor superimposed him in after the picture was taken. And there is a glaring spot of light behind him, as if somebody else snapped a picture with a flash at the same time.
The irony is not lost on me: Zin won’t let himself be captured in a picture, or in real life.
UNMERCIFUL
DISASTER
I longed all week for the frenetic pulse of Evermore, and now it’s here.
Viola and I catch up on the week. She’s having boyfriend issues (note to self: Tell Chen to tell Rambo she’s taken). Her current guy is upset because her ex still calls. Thing is, she’s friends with her ex and doesn’t want to cut him off. I sympathize with her, but the situation seems glamorous to me. I wonder what it would be like to have two guys vying for my attention.
Business trickles in slowly, and we’re off to serve customers. Carlo doesn’t like us to stand around too long, even if it’s quiet. I can often feel his eyes.
I approach the bar to fill my first drink order. Zin’s looking good in a way that makes me gnash my teeth, but I manage a friendly smile.
“Think there’ll be a battle tonight?” I ask.
“You never know. I bet Spinman’s afraid to come back. He knows they just got lucky last time.”
After decorating the edges of the drinks with fruit slices, he loads my tray, and I serve them up to a new group of people on the velvet couches—a loud, seedy bunch that smells like weed and BO.
I stop dead.
It’s the ghost.
A girl in his group is talking to me. “Gimme that Omega Cocktail thing. Did you get that?”
I didn’t get that. He’s going to spot me any second now.
The ghost looks up, double-takes. Then he looks away and keeps talking to his friends, like he doesn’t know me.
“How are you, Josh?” I ask.
The group is buzzing.
“You know that girl, Cactus?” someone says.
He shakes his head. Then he gets up and heads for the bathroom like it’s nothing, like I am the ghost.
I grab the back of his shirt.
“The fuck’s your problem?” He pulls his T-shirt from my clenched fist.
“What are you doing here?”
“I should ask you that.” He looks me up and down with cold blue eyes. “Playing grown-up, huh?”
“It’s . . . good to see you.”
But it isn’t good to see him. It’s terrifying. He looks like death. His skin is mottled with red bumps, his goatee is ratty, and his eyes look huge in his sunken face.
His lips curl. He’s laughing.
He sticks his face in front of mine, giving me an eyeful. “You like seeing me, huh? That’s not what you said last time.”
“You don’t have to live this way, Josh. We’ll get you help.”
“Yeah? If you want to help me, loan me fifty bucks.”
“I can’t . . . sorry.”
He snorts. “See? You don’t want to help me. You want me to follow your rules, live my life your way. Just like Mom and Dad.”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve talking about Mom and Dad. They do everything they can for you.”
“They kicked me out.”
“You were using in their house! What did you expect?”
“You don’t get it. You never did. Why don’t you do your job and grab me a beer?”
I have to walk away. If I don’t, I’m going to lose it. I turn, but he grabs my arm and yanks me back. I lose hold of my tray, martini glasses shattering on the floor.
Shouting and motion around me.
Carlo has him in a headlock. Josh is freaking out, shouting, writhing. Carlo sucker punches him and Josh drops to his knees, gasping.
The doormen drag him away. Josh’s friends are shouting curses—they take them, too.
Carlo’s arm is around me, holding me up.
“Are you okay? Do you want to tell me what happened?”
I can’t. I can’t speak. I can’t stop crying.
Carlo takes me into the office, sits me down on the couch. He hands me a tissue. I pat my eyes, but the sobs won’t stop. I can’t believe this is happening. I’m going to be fired, I know it. He doesn’t want a basket case on his staff.
Josh. The ghost. He’ll never come back to us now. Never. He hates me.
Eventually I look up and realize that Carlo is still there, patient as ever.
“I know I’m fired.”
His black eyes are soft. “You’re not fired, Raven.”
It’s a term of endearment, and it makes me smile a little. “Thank you.”
“Did you know him?”
Here it is. A chance to tell the humiliating truth.
“He’s my brother.”
He nods, wanting me to go on.
“I haven’t seen him in months. He only ever calls my house to ask my parents for money. He’s on meth and won’t let anyone help him.”
“I’m sorry.” His eyes are steady.
Mine blur with fresh tears. “What happened—it’s my fault. I keep thinking maybe there’s some way to get through to him. But everything we’ve tried just makes him angrier.”
“It sounds like you lost your brother a while ago. That guy out there, he wasn’t your brother. He was a junkie. He’s not the same person you knew. His soul is broken.”
“But I still love him.”
“You love the memory of him, Raven.” He pulls me to his side. He doesn’t even care if my tears mess up his suit.
♦ ♦ ♦
After leaving me for a minute to check that everything is okay at the front, Carlo comes back to the office. We talk. An hour or two goes by, I don’t know how long. I tell him things that nobody knows but Zin and my parents. I tell him about the hell when Josh was around, and the hell since he left.
At one point I see Zin hovering in the doorway. Carlo sends him away. Good. I don’t want Zin right now. I don’t want to need him anymore.
Eventually Carlo checks his watch. “I’d better get to the front. We’re closing.”
I can’t believe it; we’ve been talking the entire night.
He offers his arm, helping me up. “Let me put you in a cab.”
“But I can help clean—”
“Not tonight.”
I walk out of the office with him, and I feel the staff watching me as we leave the bar. There’s a cab out front, there are always a few, and Carlo opens the door for me and stuffs some bills into my hand. “Good night, Raven.” Leaning forward, his chilled lips touch my forehead, and I sink back into the seat.
♦ ♦ ♦
I am watching the ghost through a two-way mirror. He is wearing torn jeans and a T-shirt, scrunched where I grabbed it. His brown hair is mussed, like it hasn’t been brushed or washed in days. He is sitting amid a group of people. It’s his turn to speak.
“My name is Josh and I am an addict. I’m addicted to caffeine. To fast food. To my ex-girlfriend, who is kind of a slut. To playing with Ouija boards. To adult chat rooms. To Grand Theft Auto. To surfing the Internet for pictures of Scarlett Johansson, who is totally hot. To staying out all night. And maybe, just a little, to meth.”
&nbs
p; Everybody’s looking at him, nodding sympathetically.
He turns to the mirror, looking straight through it. At me.
“Is that what you want to hear, Nic?” He grins.
The scene changes.
I’m at the morgue. I know it’s a morgue because it’s just like the one on CSI. Cold, bare, blue. He’s lying on a table, a sheet up to his neck.
There’s a figure in a black robe beside him.
“No!”
I hug my pillow, sadness clogging my throat. He’s not dead, I remind myself.
Not yet, anyway.
FAINT
FOOTFALLS
Saturday night Slide comes up to me and shouts in my ear, “Look who showed up!”
I turn to see the Roccafella Poppers warming up on the dance floor.
My pulse speeds up. It means a battle.
Good. I’m in the mood for one.
The Roccafella Poppers—named after the Rockefeller Breakers, some of the best breakdancers of the eighties—are a group out of Queens. Their leader, twenty-eight-year-old Kazaam, is a veteran of the scene. Battling with them is a rare treat. I wonder how Zin lured them into showing up.
After getting the okay from Carlo, I hurry to the back to change, then join the guys on the dance floor. Their faces are serious. We’re determined as hell to win this thing.
It’s Slide who starts the battle, doing some aggressive popping in Kazaam’s face. He ends it by flicking his finger at the popper’s chest. An eager crowd forms around us.
Kazaam comes back with some toprocking, then lifts his legs into a bunch of L-kicks before dropping into a coffee grinder.
His choreography is impeccable, and the crowd cheers. It’s up to Chen to counter him. He starts off in a headstand, rising into a handstand. Then, in a hot move, he flips out of the handstand and lands in splits.
The crowd roars. Chen jumps to his feet, curling his finger to bring on the rebuttal.
Dusk and Roccafella’s newest member, G. Night, march into the middle of the floor with perfect synchronicity, busting out robotics. Then they go to the ground and do windmills—G. Night with a little less speed than the veteran, Dusk.
Zin and Chen are up next, putting the Poppers to shame with synchronized headspins. They’ve been working on this for weeks, and it’s paying off big-time.
I hit the floor to do a worm, wriggling around like a spineless jellyfish. Zin drops into another worm, followed by Rambo. Zin counts “Three, two, one!” and we push ourselves to our feet and freeze in different poses. On the third count, we do some robotics. Then we freeze again.
The crowd wilds out. The Poppers come out with a few more moves, but the momentum is ours. We’ve won.
We pound palms with the Roccafella Poppers. They’re good sports about it. It’s not a real-life beef like with the Spinheads.
A crowd of groupies surrounds us, congratulating the guys, batting their eyelashes. Nobody says a word to me, of course. The girls just sneer at me as they try to figure out if I’m with one of the guys. I keep my distance to show them I’m not.
Zin and I don’t have the luxury of staying on the floor long. I’m still grooving as I change, throw on another layer of deodorant, and go back to work.
When I’m waiting at the bar for Zin to fix drinks, Carlo materializes beside me.
“Nice work, Raven.”
I notice the five o’clock shadow, the manly musk of his cologne, and the liquid black of his eyes. Have I noticed those things before?
“Thanks, Carlo.”
Zin piles drinks onto my tray. I feel his eyes burning into me, like he’s reading my thoughts, like he’s warning me not to go there with Carlo.
I don’t see why it would be any of his business. I smile at Carlo and walk away.
♦ ♦ ♦
We.
Kicked.
Ass.
Satisfaction keeps me warm as I walk in the frigid cold after my shift. I needed to win tonight. I don’t know why. It doesn’t erase what happened last night with Josh. It doesn’t lessen the ache for Zin.
But for those moments, the Toprocks tore up the floor. And it felt damned good.
The streets are quiet. It’s just a five-minute walk to the subway, and I’ve walked this route often enough. The dejected faces huddling in doorways are familiar and benign. Still, I wish I had Zin with me. He made the cold less biting, the dark less scary.
I hear soft footsteps in the snow behind me. Throwing a glance over my shoulder, I see it’s a scraggly guy. I pick up the pace. By the sound of it, he’s doing the same.
Downright nervous now, I break into a jog. A scan of the area tells me I’m all alone. I reach into my pocket and take out my cell phone.
“ ’Scuse me, miss?” calls a voice behind me.
I turn around. He has come up close enough that I can smell him. His eyes are shifty and bloodshot.
Calm down. He’s no different from Josh. He probably wants money.
“Could you give me a buck for a hot chocolate, please?”
I’m not in the habit of giving money to junkies, but I will this time, since I’m in a vulnerable position and I don’t want to piss him off. Closing my hand around some change, I reach out to give it to him.
He steps closer, his hand outstretched. His other hand, I notice, is buried in the pocket of his coat.
My instincts scream that I’m in trouble.
I jump back, turn to run. But he launches himself at me, knocking me over. I hit the ground, my forehead smacking the sidewalk beneath the snow. I’m stunned for a couple of seconds, then adrenaline takes over. I struggle like a wildcat as he tries to pin me. All I can think is, I’m not gonna let you rape me, you junkie scum!
My elbow takes him in his ribs, winding him enough for me to roll onto my side. He comes back with a flash of metal aimed at my chest. It punctures my parka but skids off. Holy shit, he’s got a knife. He’s trying to kill me.
I barely have time to scrunch into the fetal position and put my arms in front of my head when the next stab comes. A hot, searing pain goes through my arm.
For a moment it’s like time stops. I think of my parents, and how unfair it is that someone’s trying to murder me when they’ve been through so much already.
With both hands I grab his wrist and use every bit of strength I have to throw his next stab off course. He pulls back, yanking out of my grip. And then, through the barrier of my arms, I see him lifted up in the air and thrown. A thud. Zin is standing over me, his eyes glowing amber. I blink. I might be shaking with adrenaline, I might be gushing blood, but his eyes . . . they don’t look human.
“Nic.” He’s on his knees, putting pressure on my arm. There’s a puddle of blood in the snow. My blood.
“Where’d he go?”
In answer, Zin glances over his shoulder. The guy is lying twenty feet away. It looks like he slammed into a wall and now he’s crumpled in a heap at the bottom. He’s not moving. I don’t understand. There’s no way Zin, or anyone, could have thrown him that far.
Zin picks up my cell and hands it to me. “Call an ambulance. I have to go. You can’t tell anyone I helped you or that I was here.”
“Don’t leave me!” The adrenaline is starting to desert me, and I’m worried that I’m going to pass out. “What if he gets up and comes after me?”
“He won’t. He’s out cold.”
“But—”
“Look, you can’t tell anyone I was here. If you do, I’m in big trouble.”
“But you helped me!”
“I can still be charged.”
I stare into his eyes. The irises are pulsating like a heartbeat.
“Zin, your eyes . . . something’s wrong with them.”
“Nothing’s wrong.” He looks away, dialing 911 on my phone. “Talk. Tell them you pushed him against the side of the building. Do not look at him, okay? You’ll just scare yourself. He can’t hurt you now.”
“Okay.”
The emergency dispatcher answ
ers.
“I need an ambulance. I’ve—I’ve been stabbed. Corner of Canal Street and—”
Zin’s leaving me. I see him get up, walk in the direction of the druggie. He places a hand on the guy’s head, and a bolt of light shoots up through his arm, spreading through his body, dissolving. My jaw drops. Zin tilts his head back, takes a deep breath, then stalks off.
“Ma’am, are you there?”
The dispatcher is talking. I’m speechless.
FIERY EYES
I got lucky. That’s how the doctor puts it. That’s how the nurses put it. My arm got slashed, but all I need is ten stitches.
“It’ll be a scar with a story,” the doctor says. I don’t respond. My mind is an hour ago.
My parents are there. I assure them I’m okay, it was no big deal.
The cops think there’s more to the story.
“I pushed him into the building.”
“You must be extremely strong, miss. His skull was smashed in.”
I’m holding my hurting arm, trying to look innocent—which, I suppose, I am. “Well, I’m no wimp, especially when someone’s attacking me.”
“There’s a dent in the brick where his head hit.”
“The momentum came from both of us.”
“Are you sure you’ve had no contact with this person before?”
“I’m sure. I’ve never seen him in the area.”
“So you spend a lot of time in that neighborhood?”
“Not really. I just go to and from work.”
“Did you have a friend with you? Maybe someone who might’ve known this guy?”
“No. I was alone.”
The cops are nodding. They want to believe me. This case can be open-and-shut for them.
“You’re working underage at a club. Do your parents know about that?”
“They don’t like it, but they pick their battles, you know?”
They’re nodding again. “You shouldn’t be on the streets at that time of night.”
“I know. It was a stupid mistake.”
“You’re very lucky it turned out the way it did.”
Yes, I feel like I’ve won the lottery.
♦ ♦ ♦
I am lying against my pillows, staring at my fuzzy TV. I had a sweet TV in my room once, in the days of prosperity. Then Josh stole it and sold it.