Blood Bound

by Sasha Leone

  A wave of relief washes over my frozen shores when I find that it’s locked. The flexi-glass window shakes and rattles against my effort, but the door doesn’t otherwise budge. I quickly scan the shabby joint and spot two empty plates on the diner counter—but there’s nothing else to suggest inhabitation. I decide that the place is closed and empty. Someone obviously just forgot to turn the lights off. I turn back towards Baker street and watch as Finn makes a U-turn to come meet me. My phone starts buzzing in my pocket. I reach for it, but before I can make another move, I see something move out of the corner of my eye.

  I let my phone go and whip around, just in time to catch the dark gaze of a waitress poking her head out of the diner’s kitchen door.

  I freeze.

  It’s no use. She sees me. Her big brown eyes are trained on me like a bloodhound. Something stirs in my chest. My natural reaction is to sneer—but the woman doesn’t look away. In fact, she sneers back.

  Slowly, I reach for the Glock tucked away behind my back. That stirring in my chest only gets angrier as I feel the cold steel against my fingers. I don’t want to hurt this woman, but I’m going to have to make sure she knows to keep her mouth shut. If I’m right, and Santino’s coming this way, she’s about to hear a firefight, and the last thing I need is for her to call 911.

  I keep my eyes fixed on the waitress. Her big brown eyes glimmer in the orange glow of the diner lights. My phone buzzes in my pocket. I need to look away, but I just can’t. There’s something in her eyes that’s got me hooked—like she’s thrown an invisible harpoon into my chest. I grind my teeth, frustrated by my uncontrolled hesitation. I feel stuck... but why?

  ... Is it because she’s gorgeous?

  My gaze wanders over her dark caramel skin, which glistens almost as brightly as her deep brown eyes do. A cute Nubian nose scrunches over big, full lips. Her stare fills me with a painful warmth. I finally recognize the stirring in my chest—it’s my heart, it’s starting to thaw.

  Suddenly, the blaring sound of Finn’s siren cuts through the night. The woman jumps in surprise, looking away for just long enough to break me from her spell.

  I forcefully shake my head and quickly turn towards the action—not quickly enough, though.

  A sharp pain explodes against my shoulder. I’m pushed backwards. I recognize the sound of a bullet ricocheting off the cement behind me. Another one whizzes past my ear. I try to reach for my gun with my left arm, but it’s gone numb. Gunshots reign down like thunder over the street. I use my right hand to grab my Glock. In the light of Finn’s siren, I can see two silhouettes. One is familiar: Finn is down on one knee, firing at another less familiar shape. I don’t need to recognize the outline to know who it is. Santino Costa is here. I start shooting. The diner window behind me shatters. The girl...

  It takes all of my strength just to pull myself up so that I can fall in through the newly open window pane behind me. I hit the cold tiles inside with a huff and my gun falls from my hand. I try to get up, but my whole body feels like it’s being crushed under a thousand leagues of water. I struggle, but it’s no use. All I can do is listen as the sound of gunshots fade and my world goes black.

  4

  Nia

  The bloody stranger awakes in a huff.

  He wasn’t out for long, maybe 30 seconds, but the way he jumps up onto his feet after his eyes open makes it look like he just woke up from one long, scary-ass nightmare.

  I let my hand fall from his hefty, chiseled arm and take a step back of my own. He looks like a steaming giant as he tugs at the fallen arm of his black leather jacket and coldly scans the shards of glass that litter the diner floor, until he spots what I was too cowardly to touch: his gun. He bends down and picks it up with a low, guttural grunt. Dark blood drips from the steel weapon.

  I’m terrified, but also strangely concerned. There was something in the way he looked at me just before the shooting started that made me unable to look away. Then, when he dropped in through the shattered window, I instinctually went to him. Call it my nurses’ intuition... or don’t—maybe if I had actually finished my training, I’d have known to go grab the first-aid kit first.

  I don’t have time to kick myself for the mistake. Before I can ask the stranger if he’s alright, he’s already stumbling out of the shattered storefront window and disappearing down the street.

  All I can manage to do in response is stand in the harsh breeze that’s now invaded Chelly’s diner. A police siren is flashing in the distance, but I can’t hear any noise. The world is cold and silent and it takes me a moment to realize that I’m shivering uncontrollably.

  “... Nia!? Nia!” a familiar voice finally breaks through the stillness. I feel a long arm wrap around my shoulder. “Nia! What happened!? My god! Is that blood!? Are you alright!?” Carlos goes limp as he truly takes in the scene that surrounds us. It took less than a minute for my life to devolve into complete chaos. A new personal record.

  The police lights from out on the street dissipate into the darkness as Carlos scans my eyes and gets on his cell phone. “Nia, what happened here!?” he asks, before someone answers his call. “Hello, 911? I’d like to report a shooting!”

  Those words snap me back into my body. Holy shit—I was just in the middle of a shootout. My skin tingles with painful pinpricks as I blink into focus. “Carlos...” I call out. He immediately drops the phone from his ear.

  “Baby, are you alright? Are you hurt? Who’s blood is this?” My head is swimming as I try to figure out the answers to his questions. Am I alright? I look down at my hands and see a splash of dark blood trailing up my arm. I search for a wound, but I can’t seem to find or feel any. I may not be hurt, but I’m sure as hell not alright. “I don’t think that’s my blood,” I whisper faintly.

  Carlos gives the address of the diner to the dispatcher on the phone and then wraps his arms completely around me. I sink into his grip and my numbness slowly starts to thaw. Big, globby tears well up in my eyes, and then the floodgates open. Despite how badly my life’s been going lately, I haven’t really cried in far too long. Tonight, I fix that.

  Carlos leads me to a corner booth as I bawl my eyes out. I almost just died. Even for someone who’s spent most of their life on the wrong side of the tracks, no one ever really thinks they’ll be the victim of something like this. A bullet shattered Chelly’s front window, the very same window I stood mere feet behind. How close was I to being wiped from the face of this earth?

  I’m shaking like a skinny little tree branch in a hurricane by the time the paramedics show up. The cops aren’t far behind. After I’m given a hot cup of cocoa and a warm blanket, I give my statement to a uniformed officer and a detective in a long brown trench coat. I can barely look up at them, but I recount everything I can remember, including my best recollection of the only person I saw: the man who stole my gaze before the shootout started. I try to be as detailed as possible, but the truth is, I can’t remember shit right now. It’s like the last hour of my life has been a nightmare that I’m just waking up from—all the details are still so hazy. I do remember that I saw the lights of a police siren when everything was going down. That draws a few curious eyebrow raises from my interviewers. They don’t harp on me too much, though, and I’m thankful for their thoughtfulness. A paramedic offers to drive me to the hospital—they say nothing appears to be physically wrong with me, but it wouldn’t hurt to make sure. I disagree. It’d hurt my wallet. I can’t afford a hospital visit. If I’m not physically hurt, then I’m going home.

  The paramedics are kind enough to give me a lift back to my dingy apartment, and when they finally leave me—after a final wellness check-up—I collapse onto my couch, still in my server’s uniform, and weep the rest of my tears into the raggedy cushions until I pass out from exhaustion.

  I wake up from a deep sleep, sore all over and just as tired as ever. My whole-body aches, but I can’t rest. The alarm on my phone is buzzing off the hook. I go to turn it off and realize that it�
�s not my alarm that’s making my phone vibrate, it’s a call. It’s already 3pm in the afternoon—five hours after my shift was supposed to start. I recognize the number on my screen as my boss’s. Mrs. Cheng is calling. I have no desire to pick up. If she’s going to be mad at me for not showing up the day after I was in the middle of a shootout, then screw her, and if she wants to know what the hell happened to her restaurant, well, then she can call Carlos—I’m in no mood or state of mind.

  I’m not sure I could even tell her what happened anyway. The whole event is still like a dark blanket pulled over my memory. All that stands out now is the big, glowing white dude who crashed through my window after setting my heart on fire.

  My chest clenches at the memory of his steely blue eyes. Had he been sneering at me or smiling? I can’t remember. Everything had happened so suddenly.

  I let my phone ring as I pull myself off the couch and shuffle towards my kitchen for a glass of water. My head is pounding like an annoying techno beat, but at least my phone finally stops ringing.

  I sigh as I realize that I’m still in my work clothes. It hadn’t even crossed my mind to bring my stuff home last night.

  I shiver with exhaustion as I understand that it means I’m going to have to go back to Chelly’s sooner than later. I don’t have enough clothes to get by without every hand on deck.

  At least I’d had enough mind to stuff my phone into my apron after I’d fetched it from the backroom. I would have gotten changed too, if that man hadn’t rattled the front door. What was he looking for? Shelter? Could I have saved him?

  Had he even been a man?

  I try to remember. I take a sip of water. The stranger pulses in my mind’s eye more like a bright beacon of light than a person. The more I drink, though, the clearer he becomes, until the light fades and a snarling beast is revealed. I almost flinch at the vision.

  Who the hell was that guy?

  My phone starts to vibrate again. It shakes on my coffee table like a jumping bean. I go to it—not because I’m going to answer anyone’s call, but because I don’t have a computer, and I suddenly have a desperate desire to know who the hell brought all that chaos to my doorstep last night.

  There’s got to be an article up by now about the shooting. Sure, this city sees a gunfight just about every day, but I only know that because the news never shuts up about them. This is no Eden we live in, and no one in the media is of the mind to let anyone forget it. Doesn’t matter that I can’t do anything about it, I have to know that death is lurking just around every dirty corner—that was a stressful enough idea before I’d had any direct contact with the violence, but now that I have, I can’t imagine this new, deep fear I’m feeling will ever leave me.

  I let Mrs. Cheng’s call go to voicemail again before I start searching.

  Shooting. Chelly’s diner. Early morning. I type in the keywords, furiously fascinated with what I might find.

  Nothing.

  My heart sinks. Am I really so unimportant that not even the drama hungry news channels and papers of this city would bother to cover my trauma?

  I keep looking, but no matter what I plug into my cracked phone screen, nothing relevant comes up. It makes me shiver to think about just how many shootings might go unreported in this city. It must just be too early to write about yet, I convince myself, before finally putting down my phone.

  My stomach growls and I find myself back in the kitchen, face stuck in my fridge. This time it’s my stomach’s turn to drop. Nothing. There’s a half-empty bottle of mayo, a ramen carton with no noodles in it, and some old shriveled celery. Reality’s sledgehammer hovers over my head once again. The shooting almost seems romantic in comparison. At least that chaos was exciting, in a way. There’s nothing even darkly fun about starving.

  My phone buzzes alive again. Mrs. Cheng. I sigh with despair as I realize that the only food I’m getting today is if I go in for work. The threat of more monotony almost seems worse than the threat of more danger. At least there’s a quick out to the danger...

  I shake my head free of that dark thought. Shape up, girl. You don’t have time to die. No matter how dark things look, there’s always hope as long as you’re still breathing. My end will come someday, but until it does, I’m going to keep fighting it off with all my fury. Nia Jones doesn’t just give up, no matter how peaceful a little rest sounds.

  At least I don’t have to get changed, I think, looking down at my dirty server’s uniform. Miraculously, there’s only a few faint spots of blood on the actual garment. I guess most of it got on my skin instead. How lucky.

  The paramedics had washed me off with disinfecting wipes last night, but they didn’t get it all. If I had any hot water, I’d be looking forward to a hot shower right about now. Instead, I have to pump myself up enough to plunge into the icy cold waterfall that stutters out of my shitty nozzle.

  God, I hate being poor— there’s no break to it. Things just keep piling up on you until one day you disappear and it’s like you never even exist at all. Why can’t it just be like I don’t exist now? Ghosts don’t have bills. The nursing academy ain’t going to charge no spectre. I could live wherever I wanted if I could walk through walls.

  The cold water that sputters out of my shower nozzle slaps me awake like a frigid bully. I swat at the stream and get jealous when my fists pass right through it. This water is living my ghost dream...

  It only takes a few more seconds under the cold water to snap out of my foolish ravings. Fuck being a ghost. Fuck being water. I’ve got to be hard, because that’s the only way I’m going to survive in this world.

  I shiver and wash off the dried blood that still stains my dark skin. This’d be a whole lot easier if I were white.

  I feel crazed again when, as I wash the last bits of the strangers blood off of me, I bite my lip. Even if the water is cold, the current suddenly seems to be running down my body in just the right way.

  That dude who fell through my window was hot, right?

  I close my eyes and go back to my memories of last night. The beast I envision slowly morphs against the black void in my mind until I can make out his steely blue eyes again. They’re cold, but there’s something in them that’s calling me closer—a fire that promises warmth just as much as it does pain. Slowly, a more human figure starts to form in place of the beastly features that I had been imagining on him. Veiny bulges turn to chiseled muscles; cracked skin turns to pale marble. Was his hair black or a dark shade of auburn? Well-trimmed facial hair grows around his sharp jawline, not too long and not too short; he’s just... perfect.

  My hand wanders down between my legs. I’ve been in the water long enough that I can bear its frigid temperature. I remember the warmth of his burly arm under my trembling hand.

  The steamy stranger becomes clearer and clearer as I keep my eyes wired shut and lean my head against the white plaster shower wall.

  The vision of him I’m seeing now is far more detailed than the one I had managed to muster up for the police last night—they could probably use a revised draft.

  Well, too bad. This vision is mine, I decide. I’m the one who had to suffer through what it took to get it, and I’m not about to give him up so easily.

  I bite my lip so hard that I can almost taste my own blood. My heart beats like a jungle drum. The warmth inside of me cancels out the freeze that runs over my skin.

  This stranger is mine, I repeat to myself, my fingers making due for the desire his absence creates—after all, I could use a little more excitement in my life.

  5

  Ronan

  He’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a father, but if he scolds me in front of the family one more time, I swear I’ll make his real kids orphans.

  I’m already seething mad enough at myself for the failure that was last night. I don’t need to be piled up on. Not now. I’m in bad enough shape as is. My left arm is barely hanging onto my body; I’ve spent most of my day in a vet’s clinic uptown getting stitched up
while caged dogs bark at me; I’ve got a booming headache, and I feel like I’ve been branded by a warm hand that I didn’t ask to have touch me. I’m liable to explode if I’m pushed even a little bit further.

  Luckily, Gianni Barone also seems to want to shift gears. The old patriarch of the Barone crime family runs his shrivelled hand through his thick white hair. That hair used to be jet black, but not even the great don can fight back father time. His jet-black eyes, though, haven’t changed a bit since they first laid eyes on me all those years ago. No matter how big I’ve grown, no matter how hard I’ve gotten, the endless darkness under his permanently-furrowed brows always stirs up a pond of dread somewhere deep inside of me. This man controls me, and we both know it.

  “Luca,” the old man gestures, pulling on the white cuff links of his finely pressed black suit. The Barone family’s oldest son steps forward. He looks just as mad as I feel. He fucked up too last night. He told the wrong Triad member about his intentions with Santino Costa, and word had gotten out to the greasy scoundrel before we could.

  Luca is dressed much like his old man. An all-black suit hugs his husky frame; underneath, a crisp white shirt frames a thick black tie. He pulls on his cufflinks just like his old man, too. His movements are more jittery, though. Luca is the oldest of Gianni Barone’s sons, and he’ll take over when his father passes. It’ll be the biggest mistake Gianni’s ever made. Luca is big and tough, but he doesn’t have the brains to run an operation like the one his father’s put together. The stress of trying to punch well above his intellectual weight has worn down the once handsome Italian stallion’s features to the point where he looks like a younger, sickly, overweight version of his old man.