Rock and Ruin

by Saranna Dewylde

  A real apology.

  Huh. Guess I’d found one answer.

  I sure as shit wasn’t telling Nabila she’d been right to talk about Oscar that way… But I guess I knew why she’d said those things—it was the truth she knew in the demon world—and I hadn’t needed to be such a dick about it. Fighting each other wasn’t going to help us change anything for the better.

  The Milton came into view and I stopped, staring at its faded, depressing exterior for a long moment.

  Did I want to change this world?

  Hell yeah, I did.

  I guess that meant I had some apologies to make.

  “Thanks for the walk, Lucas. And the chat.” I met his eyes. “I think I needed that.”

  Stretching up on my tiptoes, I kissed his cheek. It should have been a platonic move, but it wasn’t, and I felt the shock of that contact reverberated all the way to my feet. His cheek was warm and he smelled like something I couldn’t quite name. Something I wanted more of. I wanted to bury my face in his neck and push my fingers through his hair and… Lips and body tingling, I stepped back quickly.

  “I’ll, uh, see you around,” I said, hoping my heated cheeks didn’t betray the nature of my thoughts.

  Then I fled down the street and hurried through The Milton’s gate.

  I didn’t dare look back, but I knew this wasn’t the last I’d seen of Lucas. Not by a long shot. Part of me wanted to see him again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Definitely with less clothing.

  The rest of me, well, it wasn’t much smarter. It wanted to see him again, too, but had the good sense to know he was dangerous.

  All I could do was hope that the next time we met, we were still on the same side.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I’d blinked and Sunday morning had somehow become Sunday afternoon.

  My weekend was nearly over, and I hadn’t a) apologized or b) finished all my homework. Creative Finance and Discrete Math were killing me. I was sure when we got to Methods of Torture: An Acolyte’s Guide, Discrete Math would be on page one.

  Though who was I kidding? That homework was never going to be done.

  And there wasn’t any requirement that apologies had to be made the next day. And Nabila and Oscar had seemed really busy, running around doing stuff for Myrtle. It was better to give them space, try and chat when things were calmer.

  Right? Right.

  Just because it was procrastination didn’t mean it was wrong.

  Besides, it meant I’d have time to deal with the other thing I’d been avoiding: My father.

  The note I’d found in the morning said he’d be home this evening.

  “Jim? I’m back and I’m making us spaghetti!” I called down the dreary hallway with false cheer. There was no answer, but the pair of shoes placed neatly beside the door implied he was indeed home.

  Good.

  My father and I needed to have a long talk, I thought, even as I took my time hanging up my coat and putting away my shoes.

  Making my way down the hallway, a bag of groceries gripped tight in each hand, nerves grew elephants in my chest with each step I took. The apartment was quiet, yet it wasn’t a peaceful quiet. Rather, it was the soundless misery found in hospital wards and funeral homes.

  Just how badly was Jim doing?

  I’d barely seen him for a week, and all of a sudden, I was afraid to see what a week of working for demons had done to him.

  Swallowing hard, I tiptoed the final steps to peer reluctantly into our main room.

  Feet stuck off the end of the couch.

  Thin blue socks covered most of his feet, though a big toe had snuck through a hole on one and the heel was attempting to do the same on the other. A coat was thrown haphazardly across his body, an arm was draped across his face.

  I stared at the figure passed out on the tired brown couch for a long moment.

  He was so still.

  So pale and still that my heart stuttered.

  Reaching out, I poked the center of a foot with my index finger—it barely twitched. But the foot was alive and so was its owner. I let out a relieved breath and I shoved back the angry tirade that had been brewing since yesterday.

  As mad as I was at Jim for dragging me into this mess, I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him.

  He was the only family I had left.

  Hefting thin plastic bags full of vegetables, meat and tinned tomatoes onto the counter, I started preparing dinner. Cooking wasn’t a silent sport, but I did my best to lift the pots out and place them gently atop the stove. If I failed every once in a while, it didn’t seem to matter, Jim did nothing more than mutter and roll over.

  I’d handled all the cooking for the past year, and I liked to think I was pretty good.

  At first, Mom had been determined to keep making our meals, and the first year that had been fine as long as I helped. Then I’d come home from school and caught her clutching a paper bag while trying to chop onions. After some choice words and a well-placed pizza order, we’d decided the cooking would stop until she’d gotten better.

  Since we couldn’t afford pizza every night, I’d had to get better in a hurry.

  I’d become a pretty decent chef. Healthy meals helped promote healing; they just couldn’t do it all.

  Shaking off the past, I checked the bolognese sauce simmering on the stove—at least thirty minutes until it was ready to go.

  Jim still hadn’t budged. And even with the inviting aroma of dinner hovering in the air, the apartment felt too cramped. Too silent. A yawning invitation to memories I wanted nothing more to do with today.

  Awkward apologies were a heck of a lot better than sitting with the past.

  Grabbing a hoodie that sported a cartoon Snow White with vampire fangs and my guitar, I crept out of the apartment.

  Deciding to start with the easier of the two, I headed for Oscar’s apartment on the third floor. It had been a couple hours since I’d heard Myrtle bellowing for him; maybe he had time for a quick chat. At least I could say sorry for talking over him yesterday—that was seriously not cool.

  Reaching door number thirty-one, I knocked lightly against the weathered surface, sending peeling flakes of blue paint drifting towards the ground.

  Unidentifiable noises sounded inside. There was scuffing and scraping on the other side.

  The door opened a crack. “What?”

  I tilted my head so I could better study the person inside. A pair of pale blue eyes regarded me warily from the shadows beyond. They looked as old and as tired as the paint covering the door.

  “Uh, hi,” I said, trying to smile. “Can I talk to Oscar?”

  “No.”

  I blinked. The whole apartment looked dark, which was weird, because obviously, people were home. “Um, are you sure? I saw him earlier and he said he’d be home all night and—”

  A series of thumps echoed from down the hall.

  The figure blocking the door shifted to look down the hall as voices carried past. As light from the open doorway caught their face, I saw a woman, as tall and thin of stature as Oscar.

  “No, Mom,” said someone I was certain was Oscar. “You’ve got to lie down. You promised you’d rest.”

  “I just need to go out for a bit. Just a little, baby.”

  “Emma, you stay put,” the woman holding the door declared. Her hand gripped the doorframe, nails flexing against the wall—whether with anger or frustration I wasn’t sure. “You hold her, boy.”

  “I’ll lie down later,” Oscar’s mother whined. “Three more weeks isn’t reasonable, Nan. But Oscar’ll talk to Myrtle, won’t you, baby? You’ll tell her I just need a little pull and I’ll be all ready for the Principal.” The stark desperation in the woman’s voice made my insides twist.

  I gulped.

  My gaze collided with the woman’s tired blue eyes. In that moment, I knew it was grief that had her gripping the doorframe for dear life. “I’m sorry, I—” />
  “Oscar’s busy. Go away.” She slammed the door in my face. A tiny shower of paint rained around me. Voices echoed inside, but I backed away, unwilling to intrude any farther than I already had.

  Something was seriously wrong with Oscar’s mom.

  I walked slowly down the stairs, past my floor and into the center of the courtyard, teeth worrying my bottom lip. His mom sounded like an addict, the way she’d talked about needing just one more pull…

  Oh, God.

  I stopped and pressed a hand to my middle.

  Oscar was a Feeder. That meant his mother and his whole family were Feeders. I’d thought Nabila was just messing with me when she’d said some people wanted demons to suck out their life force—about being addicted to it. But she hadn’t been lying—about that or anything else.

  My friend’s mother was being used as food, and it sounded like it was the only thing that mattered to her.

  Stomach roiling, I leaned against a dead palm tree still sitting in its planter.

  What I’d just heard—what I thought I knew—tore at my insides.

  All the awful things I’d said to Jim, all the shit he’d put me through, and I still knew he’d never do that to me. And the cancer might have won, but I knew my mom had fought for me with everything she had.

  How did Oscar handle it?

  I pushed away from the planter and crossed the final distance to where an upside-down flower pot sat beside the empty courtyard pool.

  Hands shaking, I used the pot as a seat and clicked open my guitar case, desperate for music to sweep me away. To be somewhere else for a few precious seconds. Somewhere beyond this barred prison. North. Where the air was fresh with the scent of autumn leaves. Somewhere I’d been happy.

  Yet the song that crept from my lips spoke to the ache in my chest.

  It was for my friend. And for me.

  In different ways, we’d both lost our mothers. I wanted to soothe his pain, tell him I understood and show him that he wasn’t alone.

  My fingers took on a life of their own as they traveled the guitar strings.

  The words came, some strong, others stilted and choking over the emotion in their way. For a moment, I was sitting at her graveside in the green, damp hills of Oregon. Light glinted from the wings of the weather-worn angel statue, raindrops running down its face like tears.

  A voice joined mine.

  Jerked away from the rainy Portland scape, I found Nabila standing next to me.

  Without missing a beat, she lifted her eyebrows in silent question, apology and understanding somehow rolled together in the simple gesture.

  I nodded, welcoming her into my song.

  Relief lit her gaze.

  Then her hand touched my shoulder and something happened.

  Somehow the words to the song I’d written twined around us, words I knew she’d never seen them before. Yet she knew them, sang them as they’d meant to be sung. Our voices raised in perfect harmony.

  The melody moved us, swayed us.

  It seemed like we were planted deep in the earth, that we were flying, floating and drowning in the verse together.

  I reached up and Nabila linked her hands with mine, eyes glowing from the power of our song.

  Shivers, the good kind this time, shuddered through me as the notes flew fast and furious, the power of our voices raising to a mighty crescendo that shook us both to our very cores.

  It was a hundred times better than the jolt I’d gotten from kissing Nash.

  This was power.

  This was Oya’s Blade.

  In this moment, sitting beside a cracked pool, in a broken courtyard, I felt like a goddess. An elemental creature of fire and air, ready to do battle, to become a blade that sliced the demons from the earth and—

  “No more disturbing the residents.” A grating voice sliced into our song.

  Jolted out of the music, it took me a moment to realize Myrtle had materialized from the gloom across the pool. Her fleshy lips pulled into a mocking smile, her small black eyes studying us as a blackbird might something shiny left on the roadside.

  With a muttered curse, Nabila pulled her hand from mine

  “What do you want, Keeper?” I cursed the waiver in my voice.

  “No noise outside at night. It’s against the rules.” Her gaze hadn’t shifted from my face. That think, blue-tinged tongue licked her lips.

  What was she staring at? Lifting a hand, I realized tears had snuck down my cheeks while I sang. I scrubbed furiously at them with the back of my hand, hating they’d betrayed me to Myrtle.

  “I’d hate to give you another citation,” she said with obvious glee. “Your father has so much to work off already.”

  Packing up my guitar, I stood and glared at her. “You’re still in more trouble than me—or my dad. Churchfield was so not impressed that you didn’t brief me.”

  “That’s already run its course, little girl.” Myrtle snorted, but I caught a tiny flinch at the mention of Churchfield.

  Good. The Bulldog was afraid of something after all.

  I glared at her. “Churchfield told me something else, too. She said that Keepers can’t tell residents not to do their homework.”

  I took great satisfaction in watching her flinch again at the mention of Churchfield.

  A nasty smile tugged at my lips.

  I wanted to push her. Wanted to make her pay for seeing me cry.

  “What? Were you planning to tell on me to her? Might want to rethink that—because I’m taking Cultural Arts, so music is my homework.” I didn’t dare look back at Nabila. Crossing my fingers, I silently prayed my bravado covered her. “Churchfield finds out you’re messing with our schoolwork, you’ll be facing her bad books. Besides, this pit could use a tiny glimpse of artistry.”

  As I finished, the Bulldog bent over.

  Her skin flushed and a strange huffing sound began barking from her lips. She looked like she was choking—probably with rage over being beaten at her own game by me, a Vegas newbie.

  Hands on my hips, I smirked at her.

  Thanks, Cat, I owe you another one. This picking my battles shit was shaping up pretty good.

  Only, Myrtle didn’t stop. Her face was beet red now—almost purple.

  I put my guitar down and hovered; uncertain whether I wanted to attempt the Heimlich maneuver or dance for joy. I glanced briefly at Nabila, who gestured for the stairs. Clearly, she thought we should leave things alone. My mother’s teachings gave my conscience a solid jab.

  Shit. I couldn’t just let Myrtle die, no matter how much she deserved it.

  I started toward her. Slowly.

  A few feet away from her, I hesitated. Shouldn’t choking people get quieter, not louder? Yet Myrtle’s huffing had increased in volume, coming in stronger and stronger bursts.

  “You’re not choking,” I said. “So what the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Nothing.” She lifted her head, squinty eyes pinning me.

  Holy shit. She was laughing at me.

  My eyes narrowed into tiny slits. Hands balled into fists. “Like hell you—”

  Nabila put her hand on my arm, grounding me. Reminding me to breathe.

  “You think you can threaten me, little shit? You’ve got nothing.” Her face might have been overflowing with twisted mirth, but her voice was a study in malice. “I’m the boss here. You’ll play by my rules or you’ll pay. And your dear daddy’ll pay more.”

  She took a menacing step towards me and lifted a meaty hand into a fist the size of my head.

  Despite my best intentions, I jerked back.

  Nabila tugged me backward, until the pool once again sat between us and Myrtle.

  “You’ll go straight to school and you’ll come straight here afterward,” Myrtle snarled. “No clubs. No activities. Understand?”

  Anger and fear twisted around each other in my chest.

  I sucked in a short, harsh breath. I couldn’t let her control me—not like this. Couldn’t let her win.<
br />
  “I’m sorry, Keeper Myrtle, but I’ve already taken a part-time job.” The words shot from my mouth, unbidden, appearing out of nowhere on my tongue. “After school. Cleaning tables and stuff at a restaurant.”

  What was I doing? I’d just told Nabila the trick to winning was truth, and here I was straight-up lying to Myrtle.

  “And.” I lifted my chin. “Nabila, Oscar and I started a band. We have permission.”

  My brain scanned through all of the possibilities—none of them ideal. It looked like I was going to have to play Sunglasses’ game his way, at least for the moment. I had the feeling he’d vouch for my permission, but I’d owe him.

  I’d deal with that later. Right now, I had to deal with Myrtle.

  “Bullshit.” She spat and a glob of purplish spittle landed in the middle of the pool basin.

  “No shit.” My hands tightened into fists.

  If I didn’t pull this off, I’d just given her another weapon to use against Jim.

  Mentally crossing my fingers, I silently prayed I wasn’t handing Myrtle a giant club to use against me, and that I wasn’t about to toast a friendship with Cat. “I met the proprietor of Ground Zero. She likes me and said I’m welcome there after school—whatever afternoon hours I like.”

  So much for waiting to go back until I’d gotten my answers.

  Oh, well. Best laid plans and all that. Cat had invited me to drop by in the afternoons, after I’d gotten settled. Maybe this was as settled as things got at the Milton. Hopefully, she wouldn’t mind paying me a few dollars a day to help her clean up?

  I raised my eyebrows and smiled at the Bulldog. “It’s a reputable demon place.”

  Myrtle’s shoulders hunched and for a moment, I thought she was preparing to charge me, head on like an angry bear.

  Then a cold smile once more pulled the thick slabs of flesh apart and upwards into a jack-o’-lantern face. “Thought you didn’t want to have anything to do with demons or sell your body? Hah!” The laugh was a singular explosion of hate. “You do that, girl. Be here by nine or I sic the hounds on you.”

  Hounds? I laced my trembling hands behind my back and pushed my chin up.

  “Fine.” I refused to acknowledge that she could scare me. “I’ll be on time.”