Refrain

by Lana Sky

  When I approach the counter, all of those old concerns I’ve pushed to the back of my mind rise again. I’m running low on equipment. I need new thread. New narcs…

  “Hey!” Domi flashes me a smile when I slip past her and snag a black case from underneath the sink.

  Someone, probably Francisco, wrote FIRST AID KIT, DON’T FUCKING TOUCH on the plastic surface, and I have to snort at the irony as I return to the back.

  Francisco’s already waiting for me near the basement. When he opens the door, moaning mixed with laughter wafts out. I can tell just from the stench alone that Arno’s done a fucking number on this guy already.

  “You ready?” Francisco asks as his gaze flickers over his shoulder to make sure we’re alone.

  I just shrug and fish a cigarette from my pocket. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  It takes ten minutes. That’s the funny thing about the human psyche. Some people break in seconds. Some take hours. The length of time reflects nothing on the strength of the person though. It just shows how much shit they’ve already suffered through. Endurance is like scar tissue. It builds up over time, uglier and cruder than normal skin. A knife can easily tear through most flesh, but when it’s scarred, you might have to saw a little.

  As expected, the sawing can get messy. There’s blood everywhere, speckling the floor and the table like sloppy graffiti. I fucking taste it whenever I lay off the cig hanging from the corner of my mouth. So I drag again, flicking ash onto my knee. The shit burns, but my hands are too busy to swipe the embers away. The left one adjusts the knife in its grip while the right pins a trembling wrist against the table.

  “Last time,” I say. There’s no point in putting any ice into my tone. I just sigh when the bastard sitting across from me doesn’t answer.

  He’s gritting his teeth together so hard that a vein’s pulsing in his forehead, but the pathetic sounds he makes slip out. He won’t take his eyes off his hand. What remains of it. Shock will set in fast if he doesn’t talk soon.

  I tell him as much. “I’d say you got about an hour before you really start feeling the blood loss.”

  The bastard whimpers, turning his head away.

  “Fuck this shit.” Francisco’s at my shoulder. He’s impatient. The longer this takes, the more likely it is that Arno might stumble down here and crash our little party. “Do what it takes to speed this up,” he grunts in my ear.

  The magic words. One more drag on my cig gives me enough of a hit to drown out the scent of salt. As the butt glows red, I lift the knife. The tip gleams, even beneath a smear of ruby liquid. I lower the edge close to my handiwork. The guy has one-third of his pinkie finger left, clinging by a sliver of sinew and a chunk of bone. It’s not the most elegant of jobs, but it gets the point across. As long as the fucker talks, he’ll keep the finger. If not…

  “Wait! Wait, wait!”

  So the asshole speaks. Whatever he has to say, I don’t want to fucking hear it. Instead, I push back from the table, letting Francisco take my seat. He takes the knife without a word; we’ve played this game before.

  “I’ll take it from here,” Francisco says.

  Two other men lurk in the corners, ready to jump in if shit goes off. Stitching the guy up can wait until later.

  It takes a shot of whiskey, and a few good drags on a fresh cig before I can push the images out of my head—far enough away, at least. The icy air helps when I shove the door to the bar open and step outside.

  My fingers are cramping, but clenching them into fists doesn’t help. Neither does slamming them against the rusted dumpster outside Mulligans. I have to drag my bruising knuckles against the first brick wall, the skin ripping off from the friction. The faster I walk, the deeper the pain. The reddish streaks I leave behind are a new form of graffiti. They tell the story of a pathetic punk too stupid and weak to skip town. So what does he do?

  He sells his fucking soul.

  “Fuck!” I shout, startling a woman gazing from an apartment building across the street. Evading her curious stare, I cut through an alley. Then another. Another.

  The asshole on my tail is pretty good. They keep up no matter how many detours I take. Their loss though. I’ve got a full syringe in my pocket. I’ve got no fucks left to give, and they’re not even trying to hide. I hear their footsteps. Their breathing echoes off the walls, ragged and unsteady.

  By the time I reach the stoop of my place, I’m already reaching for the knife in the mailbox, and I wait while the punk sneaks right up to my front door.

  “You got a problem?” I turn, keeping the weapon hidden beneath my sleeve.

  They’re standing just beyond the bottom step, their face hidden beneath the hood of a jacket. A familiar jacket. Then the hood falls back, and a mane of dark hair catches the light.

  “Are you all right?”

  The sound of her voice knocks me back against the door as everything I’ve been blocking out until this point comes rushing back. I want to wash the blood off my hands. I need to shower, scrub away the stink of death and pain. I finished my last cigarette somewhere during the walk here, but my hand is already pawing through my pockets in search of another. I feel more like Arno than ever—I need to drown in a vice. Anything but her.

  “Fine,” I grit out. Then I turn to the door, get it open, and shove my way inside without bothering to invite her in. It’s rude. It’s the only way I know how to save myself. “Goodnight—”

  She easily muscles me aside, grabbing my chin with her free hand and angling my face toward her. A curse slips between her lips as she traces a corner of my mouth with the pad of her thumb. The slight touch stings, and something warm dribbles down my chin. Oh, that’s right. The fucker did manage to land a good hit before Francisco pinned him down.

  I shake my head, batting her hand away. “It’s nothing—”

  “You’re bleeding.” It’s everything, she might as well have said.

  She scans my face, hunting for any more injuries. The caring-nursemaid act isn’t natural for her. I see the way her hand starts for the edge of my jacket before she presses it to her side at the last minute.

  “It’s deep. You’re going to scar—”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Nothing,” she repeats. She has that look in her eye. The same one Dante used to get back in the day, when he would tell me to go to bed, and I claimed I wasn’t tired. “Sit down.” She jerks her chin over to the couch and then marches toward it, leaving me to follow.

  I’m a dog on the leash of her scent. She smells clean, if that even makes sense. Clean the way an old, worn, stained T-shirt does once it’s been run through the wash a few times. It’s broken in and ragged, but any trace of its struggle has been thoroughly scrubbed from the cotton.

  I wonder what she’s tried to scrub from her brain. Her hair is wet—a fact that doesn’t make sense until I notice the thunder rumbling through the walls. I’m wet too, dripping water all over the damn floor.

  She grabs a towel from the counter and tosses it in my direction. Then she sets out on a determined scavenger hunt through my kitchen. Without waiting for permission, she snatches up a length of paper towel and some ice from the freezer. Another dishrag. A glass of water, too.

  She approaches me, juggling her tools in her arms, and I cross over to the couch.

  It feels good to sit down. I’ve forgotten how long I’ve been on my feet. They ache like just about everything else on my body. I’ve probably worn my sneakers out within this week alone.

  “Sit still.” She issues the command while she comes closer.

  I expect her to stand in front of me, just beyond my reach, but no… She sinks down, right between my spread legs. I can’t smother the impulse that has me attempting to bring my knees together, but I just wind up trapping her between them.

  She inhales sharply at the resistance, but she doesn’t pull away. If anything, she stiffens her shoulders and reaches up to grasp my chin again, each finger searing hotter than a branding iron
. She makes her mark on me without even trying, every bit as brutal as the damn Cartel.

  “You really should be more careful with your face,” she scolds while manipulating the damp paper towel in her free hand. She’s not gentle when she dabs at my mouth.

  I suspect that it’s by design—punishment disguised as treatment.

  “I’m fine.” I try to pull my head back, but her fingers tighten their grip.

  “You’re bleeding.” She withdraws the paper towel and holds it up as evidence.

  Splotches of dark red speckle the surface. The cut must be worse than I thought. When I don’t deny it, her mouth flattens into a smug line, and she returns to her work. I guess this is karma; it’s my turn to play the role of patient.

  “I suppose you need a story to take your mind off it,” she adds so casually that one might expect something along the lines of Cinderella or Little Red Riding Hood. But, no, happy and sweet is not her style. “So, what will it be?” she wonders without looking up. “A story about a duck or…something else?”

  The question reminds me of one of Arno’s games of Russian roulette. It’s not clear which option holds the bullet.

  “Performer’s choice,” I tell her in the end.

  She shrugs, but the grim expression that takes over her face is anything but casual. The words come slowly, but it’s obvious where they lead.

  “I…I was fifteen when I was sold to Piotr Petrov. I still remember that day so clearly. It was like a nightmare, too vibrant to seem real.”

  Damn it. The pain in her tone slices through me like a razor. I shake my head to cut her off. “You don’t have to tell me this—”

  “I want to.”

  No. She needs to. For whatever reason, the truth is burning a hole in her throat now. I never thought I’d get to hear the story of her past. I’m not sure if I want to. But stopping her would be worse. Pain is like that—it can sink into your veins like poison for years before seeping out. From your pores. From your throat. You can’t pick the way it gets expelled. You just suffer through the purge.

  “I was fifteen.” She dabs at my mouth again and then stares down at the bloodied bit of tissue. After a second, she sets it aside and picks up the ice cubes she wrapped in the dishtowel. I grit my teeth at the icy sensation and try to grab it myself, but she evades my grasp until I let her hold it there. “My father was a boss in a drug-running syndicate back in Russia. Heroin. Liquor. He was no saint, but even now…looking back, I can still feel just how much I loved him.” Her eyes flutter shut for a brief second and reopen ice cold. “One day, the syndicate fractured. Two leaders got into a power struggle. The others were left to take sides, and my father…he chose wrong.” She sucks in air. Lifts the ice pack. Frowns and sets it against my jaw again. “He sided against a man named Wilhem Petrov who, once he’d cemented his power, made sure that those who stood against him realized their mistake.”

  Her hand falls. She’s staring at the floor now, her hair framing her face like a halo of shadow. Pain paints her body in shades of gray. Her eyes seem darker. Her skin paler.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I want to.” This is more than a morbid game of show-and-tell for her. She shakes her head to clear it and reaches for the bloody rag again. “They came in the middle of the night,” she says. “They dragged us all from bed and into my father’s study. They made him watch as they slit his wife’s throat in front of their daughter. Then they blinded him with the end of a lit cigar and made him listen while they took turns…” She dabs at my mouth again. Faster. Harsher.

  I don’t react to the pain. I bite it back and watch her face. Her eyes are wide, haunting, and yellow.

  “While they…” It takes her three tries before she gives up saying exactly what. She’s up on her knees now, her hand still pressed to my face, those eyes distant.

  I bet she’s not even seeing me anymore. What she’s looking at, she doesn’t like.

  My hand is on her shoulder before I realize it. I can do that much—comfort her like this and not have it mean a damn thing. She doesn’t shrug me off at least. Maybe it helps.

  “When the last man took his turn…they finally put a bullet in my father’s brain. Then they took my sister. She was so little.” Her voice breaks on a harsh gasp. She has to inhale to find the words again. “A baby who’d barely started to talk. I used to call her little fox because of her hair. I never saw her again. I hoped they would kill me, but they had another use in mind. Piotr, Wilhem’s son, had a business in America smuggling girls to rich men for sex. They might as well make money off me before they killed me.”

  She swallows hard. Breathes deep. Tries again. “I wasn’t like Domi. Not in the end. I wasn’t brave. I wasn’t smart. I was a slave. I surrendered my identity. I became a pet. A plaything. A toy. Whatever role helped me to avoid a beating.”

  “But you got out.” I’m not prodding her. Just stating the facts.

  She nods, steering the direction of the story. “One day, Piotr went too far.” She grits her teeth, but it takes her only a few seconds to swallow the pain and keep talking. “They left me in an alley just outside the club. I would have died if a friend hadn’t found me.”

  “Ivan Ivanov?” It’s a leap of logic, but she nods, proving my hunch about why she took Domi to his territory the day we got her from the station.

  “Ivan. He took care of me. He helped me get an education. Find employment. Live.”

  But it’s not really living for her. I can see it in her face. I know that slack-jawed expression. How dead you can feel inside when you know you’re powerless. How addicting the power can be when you finally vanquish one of your demons.

  Even with Vlad dead, she’s still not living.

  “I just want you to know. I need you to understand,” she says. “No matter what…no matter what. I’ve never lied about this. Helping Domi. Piotr. Vlad. None of it was a lie.”

  “I know.”

  She doesn’t want the validation. She just needed to hear it out loud—she did.

  “Your face looks better,” she says while rising to her feet. She gathers up the bloodied rags and carries them into the kitchen. Then she wipes the counter down—a task I suspect she does to keep her hands busy more than anything. She’s on her third pass when she finally addresses me directly over her shoulder. “You live here alone.”

  It isn’t a question, but I still answer her. “Yeah. It’s just me.”

  “Just you and no one else?” She deliberately skirts around the subject of Dante. “No roommate? No girlfriend?”

  “Nope.”

  “Oh.” She shuts the faucet off and returns the rag to the sink. “I should get going.”

  She’s halfway to the door when I call out. “Wait.”

  I’ve never thought of myself as too much of a selfish prick, but here I am. Maybe I just want to comfort her. Let her know I’m willing to listen, good old Espi. It’s all bullshit, though, when I can smell her from here. I can still taste her. Spicy, fiery red. Sharp, desperate green. My stiffening dick is a warning sign, but I would rather cut the damn thing off than have her leave while looking like that. Raw. Open. Wounded.

  I’d bind my fucking hands if she asked me to, anything to get rid of that pain. “You can crash here for a bit, if you want.”

  She feints for the door on the tips of her toes. She wants to leave. Greed holds her back. Just like that, she’s in front of me again, her gaze on the wall, her face half turned away. Her fingers seize mine though. Tugging. Pulling. I see it on her face. She doesn’t want this…whatever it is. She needs it the same way I need the nicotine to chase out the shit I can’t bear to think on.

  She wants a drug to clear her head.

  “Does this…help?” I don’t have to explain what I mean. I just trace the inside of her wrist with my thumb.

  The way she shudders could mean anything. Then she jerks her head once. Yes. She doesn’t resist when I tug lightly on her hand, drawing her a step closer. Another.


  She swallows hard, a small noise dying in her throat. That fucking sound. Whatever shred of control I’ve maintained until now breaks. She’s in my arms. On my lap, straddling me. I take hold of both of her wrists—she can’t touch me. She can only show, guiding me to her body slowly, hesitantly.

  My fingers find her hips, and I watch her face to see what she wants. Soft? Hard? Her jaw clenches—hard. It’s not enough. She raises my hands higher, her grip tight over my wrists. I cup her rib cage and follow the trail up…up.

  Fuck. I have to grit my teeth and grind my thighs together to cut off the reaction building beneath my skin. This is for her. My dick will have to deal with my hand. This is for her.

  I just let my head fall back and eye the ceiling while she writhes against my palms, her hips on my waist. I don’t grab until she makes me, digging her nails into my skin. Then I squeeze. I let her use me like a rag doll to distract from whatever the fuck she’s feeling inside. She makes me grope her. Tug. Rub.

  I know it’s not enough even before her ragged breathing shudders against my ear.

  “Please…”

  I can feel her lips moving. She has to lick them to find enough leverage to speak again, her mouth practically over my earlobe.

  “I need you to touch me. Please. Just for a minute. I…I need you to—” She breaks off when I tug my jacket from her shoulders.

  My fingers are stupid, impatient fucks. They don’t stop to savor. They just take. Every gasp. Every moan she has building in her lungs. I fucking paw at her through the gray cotton of her shirt. My thumb finds her nipple, teasing it into a sharp point, while the other hand cups her stomach, holding her steady. Physically, anyway. Her pulse is a rapid-fire staccato. I can practically hear the damn thing beating against her rib cage, spurring me on, drowning out any rational thought.

  I breathe her in and get drunk. High. Wasted.

  Her shirt’s off. She’s braless underneath, her tits bouncing with every writhing action her hips make. I’m going to come in my pants if she keeps this up. I don’t fucking care if I do. Watching her is better than my fucking hand. I’ll give her the humiliation on a fucking platter if it means I get to feel her. Smell her. Taste her. It’s pathetic. I’m pathetic.