“You don’t drink much, do you?” He props his shoulder up beside me and looks me over.
I hear myself laughing again. It echoes in my ears.
A shiver runs through my body all of a sudden, and I wrap my hands around my bare arms. When did it get so cold in here?
Something in the back of my brain pokes at me to wake up and pay closer attention, but I can’t focus on it long enough to figure out why.
The guy lifts a hand and brushes the back of his finger against my shoulder. “You want to get out of here?” He bites his bottom lip and grins at me, the bared teeth wolfish in the low light.
“Um…”
A shadow stretches along the opposite wall, and my heart jerks to a stop.
Seconds later, Emmerick catches up to it.
The guy on the wall beside me suddenly straightens, and the two men stare at each other, silent and motionless.
“Where did you come from?” I ignore the threads of tension stretched out between them and stare down the hall. There are two more doors, one marked STAFF and the other marked EXIT. Don’t exit doors only open from the inside? “Do you work here?”
Emmerick breaks eye contact, and the other guy strolls away, glancing back once over his shoulder before slipping out through the front door.
“I don’t work here, work here,” Emmerick says. “I was just fixing some shelving in the back office.”
“Oh.”
Emmerick’s gaze wanders to the front door. “Do you know him?”
“No.”
He turns to me and smiles. “That’s a new look for you,” he says, his voice pivoting to warm and amicable. “You look nice. What’s the occasion?”
The whiplash change in attitude hurts my brain. I drop my arms to my sides, no longer feeling chilled. “Well, Tessandra lifted my curfew.”
Confusion plays across his eyes. “Curfew? Aren’t you like…”
“Too old for that?” I finish for him.
He smiles. “I mean. Why?”
“She didn’t tell you?”
“That you had a curfew?”
“She didn’t tell you anything?”
He’s quiet for a moment, like he’s trying to figure out how to phrase what he wants to say. “She told me you were trying to get some things together.”
Sharp, almost barking laughter escapes from my throat. “I was locked up for five years.”
His brows shoot up his forehead. “What? Locked up? Like in prison? For what?”
I sigh and drop my head back to the wall. It’s heavy under the weight of alcohol and memories so strong they feel like they happened last night instead of eight years ago.
“It was a juvenile psychiatric facility.”
He says nothing, frozen in shock.
“I spent two years in the criminal ward. Then when they cleared me, I was transferred to a room with padded walls because they thought I would try to kill myself.”
“Did you? Try, I mean?”
“I tried.” As if it anyone’s business. I roll to my shoulder and stare up at him, at his solemn, pensive face. “What kind of sense does it make to take my rights away just because I didn’t want to live anymore?”
“Do you still want to die?”
I shrug. “I really just want to be by myself. I’m so tired of people telling me what to do.”
He leans against the wall with me. “You said it took them two years to clear you? Clear you from what?”
The image of my father lying in a bed of broken glass paints itself across my field of vision. So much blood everywhere…
“I’m sorry,” Emmerick says, his eyes dancing back and forth between mine.
“No. It’s fine. My parents and sister…they’re dead.”
He draws in a sharp breath. “Shit. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Really. It’s fine. I probably needed to say it out loud to someone who isn’t trying to psychoanalyze me.”
A couple of girls in short, sparkly dresses stumble into the hallway, holding onto each other and laughing without a care in the world.
“Five years though…” Emmerick shakes his head. “Why so long?”
“Oh that’s my fault.” My voice still sounds like it’s in a tunnel. It echoes strangely around me, like I’m inside and above myself at once. “They tried to let me out when the case was closed. But I freaked out and overdosed on some pills, so they moved me to the padded room until they had to let me out because I turned eighteen.”
Emmerick shakes his head again. He opens his mouth to speak a couple of times, but nothing comes out.
“I know,” I say. “They were going to send me to another institution, but Tessandra wouldn’t let them. So they released me into her custody instead. If she signs off on my mental competency though, I get to be a real adult come January. It was nice of her to give Kalin and me the upstairs, so I would have some sense of independence, but I know I really don’t. I still feel like I’m in a straitjacket.”
“Tatum…”
“You really don’t have to say anything. I don’t even know why I’m burdening you with this crap.”
“It’s not a burden.” He wraps a warm hand around my shoulder. “I just wish I could help. Or…help.”
“I don’t need help.” My eyes shift away from his face and stare into the empty shadows behind him. “Not the kind of help I get.”
Silence falls between us. He squeezes my shoulder. Then his hand drifts away, and we just stand there beside each other, not saying a word.
Kalin rushes into the hallway and pulls me away from the wall. “There you are! Get out here! They’re playing the best song.” She spots Emmerick and drops my arms. “Oh.” She giggles. “Am I interrupting something? Hmm?” She stares at me hard, grinning from ear to ear.
Emmerick pushes himself off the wall. “Actually, I need to get going.” He gives me a nod and heads for the main room. “Don’t let her talk to anymore strangers, all right?” His tone is light, but his eyes are serious.
Kalin watches him leave, her eyes shining with questions and excitement. “I knew he was into you.” She pokes me hard in the ribs.
I wince. “I told him what happened.”
It takes Kalin a few beats to get what I’m talking about. “Oh my god, sweetie.” Her smile drops from her face. “I thought you didn’t remember.”
“I remembered this afternoon.” My voice is flat and distant, sounding like someone else, like I’m living someone else’s life.
Kalin pulls me into a hard, tight hug and presses her chin into my shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I knew there was something wrong when I got home.”
“I’m fine.”
She pulls back, and tears shine in her eyes. “Shut up, you’re not fine.” She sets me back against the wall. “Do you want me to take you home?”
“No. I just want to stand here for a few more minutes if that’s okay.”
Her head bobs up and down, and she wipes at her eyes. “Yeah, of course. I’ll come back and check on you in a little bit. Bring you another drink?”
I nod.
She rubs my arms and bites down on her lip. “Yeah. Not that you need more; you look like you’re about to pass out. Maybe I’ll just bring you coffee?”
“Whatever.”
“Okay. I’ll give you a minute. I’ll be right back.” She goes back out into the bar, leaving me with a loud rushing in my ears and a dull ache in the back of my head.
My muscles are already starting to feel sore. I’m going to feel like shit in the morning.
I lean into the wall, close my eyes, and let my mind wander through a black, rolling sea. I don’t know how long I stand here, if it’s one minute or several, but my eyes flutter open when heavy cologne, masking something cold and pungent, filters into my senses.
Shepard Ross blocks the entrance into the main part of the club. His intense gaze travels down to my shoes and back up to my face.
“Hi,” he says, almost apologetically. “I saw you com
e back here, but I didn’t see you come back out.”
“I’m just tired.” I straighten up against the wall.
“Well, since you’re here...” He stuffs his hands into his pockets and slides onto the wall across from me. “Are you busy?”
“Not at the moment.” I tilt my head to peek out onto the shiny, neon-lit dance floor in the center of the bar. I immediately wish I hadn’t, for the floor tilts with me. Shepard starts forward to help me, but I hold a hand out to keep him back as I steady myself. “What do you want?”
I suppose I’d rather talk to him here than in the underground, but I’m not at all thrilled to be in such proximity to him. At least Kalin should be back soon. I hope. I squint through the arched entrance to the club, but I can’t find Milly and Cari in the drunken crowd. I hope Kalin doesn’t say anything to them. They don’t know. I don’t want anyone else to know. I wish Emmerick didn’t know. I’m blaming the alcohol.
“We never get the chance to talk,” he says, his voice and whole demeanor bordering on shy. “You’re always so busy.”
I press my back into the wall and meet his eyes across the dark hall. “Well…” He’s acting weird, even for him. I have to resist the urge to cover my nose though. Whatever that smell is under his cologne, it’s not mixing well with the alcohol sloshing around in my stomach.
He clears his throat. “I’ve taken notice of your unique skill set, and I’ve been wanting to talk to you about a business opportunity that would be quite lucrative for you and more fully utilize your talents.”
I blink at him.
His lips twitch into a brief smile.
“What kind of business?” I ask, not because I really want to know, but because I want to hurry him along.
“What I do in the underground is a…front of sorts.” He lowers his eyes to his shiny shoes. “I’ve been sent down there to scope out the place. My main job is in wish fulfillment.”
It’s times like this that I wish I wore a watch.
“We could really use someone like you to help us vet our customers,” he continues, “and also to, um, help track them down if they don’t pay.”
Someone like me? It’s common knowledge in the underground that I work as a psychic, but dozens of psychics roam the black market. “I need an example.” More people spill into the hallway, heading for the restrooms, but Kalin isn’t among them.
“So, say, someone wants a promotion at work.” He raises his lightless eyes back to my face. “We help them get a promotion, and in return, they provide a service to us. For example, maybe we ask them to run some errands or make some repairs around the home office. They pay with their time.”
That doesn’t sound so bad. But even in my inebriated state, it sounds almost too benign to be true. I don’t believe for a second that someone who roaches around in garbage, front or not, is in the business of doing something nice for other people—not without a steeper price to pay than that.
“What happens if people don’t pay?”
“They always pay.”
I wrap my hands around my arms again. I swear cold is radiating off this guy in waves. “Well, it doesn’t sound like I can do very much for you, so—”
“It would be a very easy job for you, I’m sure,” he says in a rush. “I know you’re busy, but we’re very flexible. We’ll work with whatever kind of schedule you want.”
His intensity is starting to agitate me, and I don’t even have half the energy I need to deal with it.
“I’m not that busy,” I say, as firmly as I can, “I just don’t care.”
“It pays very well. Well enough for you to make it a full-time gig. Easy.”
Laughing girls spill out of the restroom and pass between us on their way back to the dance floor.
“I have other things to worry about, okay. Find someone else. I don’t want to.” There are plenty of other people he can ask, just about all of them more willing than me.
“You’re one of a kind. There is no one else. We’ve been searching everywhere. Why don’t you at least come to the office and talk to our boss and see what it’s all about before you turn me down.”
“No.” For the first time, I’m starting to have real regrets about sneaking back down into the underground. Yet, if this conversation is the worst thing to come out of it, I guess I should consider myself lucky.
Shepard flexes his fingers out by his sides and then curls his hands into fists. “I promise this is a good fit for you.”
“And I’m telling you that I’m not interested.” I push myself away from the wall. He blocks the way out of the hallway in an instant, moving like liquid, graceful and smooth.
A bad mixture of burnt-out tire, musky cologne, and something akin to coyote urine fills my nostrils.
I turn my face away from him and step back. “What are you doing?”
He sets his mouth in a stubborn line. “I’m sorry, Tatum, but I must insist that you accept.”
“It’s not that serious.”
His arm is stretched across the entrance to the bar. I reach out to try and push it down, and when I do, his other hand snakes tightly around my wrist.
I pull back against his grip. It’s as tight as iron. As tight as those cuffs they would lock around my wrists whenever I was dragged into court.
“What is the matter with you?” I kick at his shins, but my flat, soft shoes don’t cause even the slightest change in his expression.
“It is that serious, Tatum,” he says with a voice as cold as his skin, all traces of insecurity sucked down an invisible drain. “It’s very serious.”
A tall guy in skinny jeans comes out of the bathroom behind me. His head moves back and forth between us, and he gives Shepard a hard look.
Shepard drops his arms and lets me go.
“Are you okay?” the guy asks me.
“No.” I throw a glare at Shepard and wrap my fingers around my sore wrist.
The other guy steps back and waves me through the entryway, and I slide out into the hot, loud room without a backwards glance.
I nearly run into Kalin, who sidesteps just in time. She holds the two cups of coffee up out of the way and surveys my face.
“What happened?” Her eyes travel past me, and out of the corner of my eye, I see Shepard scurrying out of the bar. “What is he doing here? I’ve never seen him here before.”
“He wanted me to go work with him.”
She wrinkles her nose. “In the dumpster?”
I almost smile. “No. Somewhere else. It had shady written all over it.”
“Lovely.” She hands me a warm cup of coffee. “Sorry I took so long. The bartender had to get someone to make this in the lounge upstairs.”
“It’s fine.” I shake the goosebumps from my arms. “Can we go outside? I need some fresh air.”
“Sure. I’m not sure how fresh the air is out there though. Just let me grab Milly and Cari. We can all laugh our buzzes off in the parking lot somewhere. I have more stories to tell you from this afternoon.”
She mills through the bodies on the dance floor, most of them sweaty, and finds Milly and Cari. We go out into the nippy, moisture-heavy air, pile up on the hood of Kalin’s car, and pass the cups of coffee around as we talk about work.
The warm, bitter liquid settles against my bones and sharpens the rounded edges of my thoughts. I don’t know what Shepard’s on, but I hope I never find out.
My clients are going to have to come to me because I am never going down into the underground again.
Darkness stretches from the deep corners of the parking lot, and though I try to keep my eyes away from them, every time the wind blows a leaf across the cracked tar, my breath stills at the shadows they cast.
Chapter Eleven
The dizzying effects of the alcohol are still wearing off when we get back to the row house. The front porch light is on, and a dim glow warms the small basement window. Emmerick’s truck isn’t parked outside though. I can’t help but wonder what he’s doing. But a deep
ache rolls across my brain when I remember our conversation in the hallway.
That’s just great.
Kalin half pulls herself up the steps, climbing her hands over the railing like she’s climbing a rope and giggling all the while.
“I want to get married on an elephant,” she says. “Wearing a dress made of pure gold. With a circlet of gold. And shoes made of clear gold…”
“I can’t wait to see it,” I say.
We part ways at the top of the stairs, but a fuzzy lump in the corner by Kalin’s bedroom door causes me to pause. Her cat stares straight ahead into the darkness of my room—tail flared to three times its normal width and hair standing on end all over.
My breath stills, and blood pumps erratically in my ears.
The cat doesn’t move, blink—only stares, ears flat, emitting a low whine from the back of her throat.
Before I can stop it, the image of Evangeline’s kitten rolls across my eyes.
I take a step back to the top of the stairs. My heart skips behind my ribs. It’s not real. What you saw isn’t real…
Of all the years I sat in the darkness with that cat, I’ve never seen her act like this.
One of my worst nightmares is playing out right before my eyes.
My throat, already dry from alcohol, is made drier by fear.
I step towards my room, though I’m not sure why. Curiosity? Stupidity? Denial?
After a minute of slow steps, during which my nerves have begun to fry and fray, I reach my doorway.
My throat constricts painfully.
It smells strange in here, like stale water and lemon. Lemon that’s trying to cover up something else. My eyes adjust to the darkness, and I notice a long shadow stretched out beside the light switch.
Before I can scream, Shepard yanks me into the room and pins me against the wall. He presses my face against the wall with one large hand and clamps my wrists behind my back with the other.
Icy cold radiates off of his skin. A shiver races down my back and arms.
I think about the orange mist that drifted from my sister and Evangeline’s husband. I think about Kalin down the hall and Tessandra and Gretchen downstairs. I think about my mother, and right now, I wish neither of us had ever been born.
No Rest for the Wicked Page 10
