Broke and Famous

by Elizabeth Gannon

  Because wanting to screw her alleged step-brother was bad enough, especially considering all he’d stolen from her already. She didn’t want to think about what it would mean if that went deeper. What it would say about their relationship… and what it would say about her? That she could use him like that?

  Thraex was saying something to her, but she didn’t hear him. Didn’t want to hear him. She’d known him since he was a boy, she didn’t want to hear the things he would tell his lover, rather than the adversary he’d just fucked and humiliated.

  Another hot tear fell down her cheek.

  He kissed her forehead tenderly. More tenderly than anyone had ever kissed her in her entire life. It made her feel so safe and so loved…

  And Sasha had to get out of here.

  Now.

  She pushed him off of her, getting back to her feet and pausing her flight only long enough to pull her top up and put her shoes back on. She didn’t even bother with her underwear; she’d just buy another pair.

  Thraex called to her as she fled, shouting something about staying and talking about what had just happened…

  But that was the last thing she wanted to do.

  Sasha never wanted to be alone with that man again.

  He scared her.

  ****

  Thraex woke up to the sound of breaking glass.

  There was supposed to be a security system in the building, but as with everything the Westgates built, it didn’t always work the way you intended it to. Not that it was poorly designed, just that the security device might be sending its alarm to a telegraph in the Old West, or to a receiver in an alternate dimension, or to some confused alien’s alarm clock a billion light years away.

  They were dreamers.

  They were utterly unique.

  They were impractical.

  They were smarter than anyone he’d ever even read about.

  They didn’t like him.

  And he’d die to protect their home.

  He was on his feet in an instant, ready to fight whatever it was that was destroying the Westgate Foundation building.

  He burst out of his room and arrived in the hall, eyes scanning the dimly lit corridor. He’d spent the first decade of his life in total darkness, and it was second nature to him now. He was more comfortable there than in the light.

  He was no gentleman; he was a predator.

  Not seeing anything out of the ordinary, he crept forward silently down the stairs. He arrived at the end of the next hall, and opened the door to enter the main lobby area of the building.

  Below him, he could see a shadow moving.

  He jumped up over the decorative railing and fell to the first floor, landing without a sound.

  The shadow was standing in front of the Westgate’s elevator, pounding its fist on it.

  The electronic voice of the conveyance kept repeating “Access Denied” every time the figure jammed a finger into the button.

  Thraex all but sighed, recognizing that this intruder wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. He grabbed the back of the man’s head and slammed it into the ornately etched gold doors. “You need to be a Westgate for the invisible beam to recognize you, fella.” He pointed at the engraving of the Westgate symbol on the door, as the man hit the floor in front of it. “And if your damn fool head dented my door, you’re in for a looong night, I can promise you that, sure enough.”

  The man on the floor started groaning. “Help…” He called meekly, blood already staining his forehead from a cut.

  Thraex ignored that, busily inspecting the antique door for damage.

  “Get out here and help me!” The man called to someone else, voice wavering with drugs and panic.

  Thraex turned to look in the direction he had indicated, getting angrier. “Got yourself a friend, little fella?” He pointed at the man. “You stay right there, I’ll be back to collect ya momentarily, hear?” He paused for a beat. “You touch anythin’ else in this building, or get so much as a single drop of blood on my terrazzo tile, and I will make you plead for death, then I’ll plant your corpse under one of the ‘Malice Lily’ bushes in the atrium, understand?”

  The man immediately began trying to wipe away the blood from his forehead, now desperate to keep it from touching the floor.

  Satisfied that the man would be a respectful guest for the remainder of his stay in the historic building, Thraex stalked down the short hallway towards the reception desk, fists clenched. He rounded the corner, preparing to clobber somebody…

  “It’s stuck, I can’t get it.” Sasha was using a screwdriver to pry one of the thirteen inch bronze statues of The Eater of Joy from off of the wall above the desk. “You have no idea how much shit we can buy with this.” She thought allowed, too wasted to even turn around and realize that it wasn’t her junkie friend. “Just be quiet, okay? Because if that asshole hears us…”

  “Evenin’, Miss Sasha.” Thraex drawled, leaning against one of the columns. “Doin’ a bit of redecoratin’, is ya?”

  Sasha fell off the chair she was standing on and landed on the tile floor in a heap. She stared at him for a long moment, eyes wide in panic and embarrassment. Then she started laughing hysterically, talking nonsense to herself.

  “You on somethin’, chère?” He guessed.

  She continued laughing and mumbling to herself.

  Thraex took that as his answer and reached down to help her up. “Okay, let’s get you upstairs, Darlin’. Find you a bed, then a doctor who…”

  “No!” She jerked away, scampering off. “Don’t you fucking touch me, Thraex!” She shook her head. “You’re not taking me anywhere! You’ve already taken enough from me!”

  He watched her silently, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “But that?” She pointed at the statue, eyes wide and manic. “That is mine.” She nodded in drugged-out certainty, pointing at the statue. “I’m not going to let it stay here in this house, with you!” She pounded a fist against her chest. “I’ve got nothing! You took my father from me! I’ve got no job, no respect, no family! People look at me like I’m a damn sex criminal now! I can’t even get a new job, I’m part of the fucking Window Seat Tribe!” She angrily pointed at him. “You did that to me!” She reached up to grab at the statue again. “So this is coming with me! It’s all I need!” She lost her grip on the statue and fell down again, sliding backwards on the floor.

  Thraex’s anger intensified. He’d never been angry with Sasha before, not in his entire life, but he was angry now.

  She’d come into his room, made love to him, then fled into the night. Without a word. Dodged his every call and attempted visit. She’d disappeared off the damn map for months.

  He worshipped that woman, and this was the thanks he got? To be used and then discarded? Blamed for the actions of her chicken-shit coworkers not wanting to work with her because she’d kissed him years ago?

  Was the fact that her father had seduced his mother also his fault now too? Was he responsible for everything that went wrong in her life, just because he was such a damn fool that he cared about her?

  And her solution to that was to steal from her family’s home?

  Really!?!

  “You want this?” Thraex reached over and yanked the statue off the wall, tearing its supporting bolts out with it. “It’s yours, chère.” He tossed it to her so that it slid across the floor and bounced against her foot.

  She looked down at it, then up at him.

  Her beautiful eyes were bloodshot and there were dark circles under them. She looked thin and pale, her hair greasy and unkempt, not in its usual complicated and perfect ‘60s style.

  Sasha was in the dust. Sure enough.

  He crossed his arms over his chest again. “That all you wanted then, Miss Sasha?” He arched an eyebrow, trying to keep his anger and hurt in check.

  She bent to retrieve the object, retreating from him. “Yes…”

  He stalked after her. “Then I guess you and your crack
head friend were just leavin’.” The words were painful to say. Because he wanted to help her. But he’d tried that. She needed to want to help herself first. She needed to forgive herself for whatever it was she seemed to think she’d done.

  Besides, he was still damn good and mad at her.

  She didn’t want him? Fine. Then she could get out.

  She bumped into her friend, who had finally managed to get back to his feet. She turned around. “Michael?” She asked, as if in surprise.

  The man saw Thraex and took off running.

  “He seems real nice, Darlin’.” Thraex deadpanned. “Truly, what a prince.”

  She continued to backpedal away from him, frightened eyes locked with his, like a deer frozen in the headlights.

  Thraex reached out a hand to keep her from falling over one of the sofas in the lobby’s sitting area, but she pulled her hand away as if he was a dangerous animal about to attack.

  He started towards her, feeling like despite his anger and pain, he really should try again to help her. Do anything to keep her here, where at least she’d be safe. The world was tough on Westgates, and she was the one he wanted to protect the most.

  Instead, she held up her hand, stopping him in his tracks. “Don’t.” She ordered flatly, sounding lucid and completely serious. “Just… please don’t.” Her voice broke, and she turned and sprinted from the building. “I never want to see you again!”

  He watched her disappear in the revolving door, like a magic trick with the worst possible outcome. She was there… then when the door finished its turn… she was gone.

  And Thraex was left alone in the building.

  In a world without the only god he’d ever worshipped.

  Chapter 13

  “Whitmore Westgate. Died 1954. Killed by giant irradiated ants in New Mexico. Turns out, handguns don’t do much against an insect the size of a damn truck.”

  – Thraex, Damn Fool Ways Westgates Ended Up Graveyard Dead: Vol. 1

  Present Day

  Thraex stormed through the underground garage of the Westgate Foundation building, trying to calm down.

  He didn’t like the idea of Jaxx Brixton dropping by for a chat with Sasha.

  He wasn’t sure what the man was really up to, but it was clear that he wanted the building, he wanted Sasha, or he wanted both.

  Thraex was unwilling to let anyone run off with any of his Westgates again. Especially not Sasha.

  He’d made that mistake once before…

  And the fact that Brixton was only too happy to tell Sasha about Anderson Observatory just made Thraex sorry he hadn’t killed the man years ago.

  Jaxx Brixton was tempting fate with that kinda nonsense.

  Thraex didn’t like being pushed, especially not when Westgates were on the line.

  He’d leveraged his future on keeping them and he wasn’t about to let someone else gamble with them now.

  He burst through the stairway door and out into the garage space. The air here was hot and stale and smelled like gasoline and engine components.

  These days, the garage held only Thraex’s luxury sedan, Stanley Westgate’s old racer, and the remains of the Westgate’s “Rocket Sled X2A-17.” Sasha had taken apart the sled decades ago, because she needed the pieces to create her version of a DVR… right before someone else invented and patented the idea. The pieces she hadn’t used for that project sat in a jumbled pile, which took up several parking spaces.

  He found Nash working under the hood of Stanley Westgate’s old car. He’d been Sasha’s… great-uncle? Great-great uncle? Honestly, even Thraex got confused by this family tree sometimes. There used to be more Westgates than was logical, but they existed all the same. Till they didn’t.

  There was no mistaking the car though, it looked like if Flash Gordon and The Jetsons had designed a Duesenberg mixed with the GM-X Stiletto. It was an ostentatious and impractical looking concept vehicle, which seemed determined to tell everyone around that its owners had the fastest and most expensive spaceship-looking car on the block. …In 1938.

  Made out of a clear experimental plastic for the 1939 World’s Fair, it was designed to give visitors an unencumbered view of the insides of the car and let them see how everything worked. In practice though, the sleek transparent body also gave the vehicle a vaguely unsettling ghostly appearance. The newspapers at the time had called it “the Westgate’s Ghost Car,” but it was simply constructed of clear outer panels and all of the interior details were either white or polished chrome.

  Stanley Westgate had gone on to race the vehicle on the then emerging car track circuit, and it had won all 43 races he’d entered it in. He was quoted as saying: “The Devil himself could not catch this invisible automobile!” No one had been able to prove him wrong, and the trophies now sat in a cardboard box in a storeroom on one of the upper floors of the building.

  The car had been Stanley’s pride and joy. He’d dedicated thousands of hours over the years to making it the fastest thing on the road, taking it on tour to educate the public about the then “futuristic” automotive technology it exhibited. It delighted spectators with its raw speed, and every photo of Stanley in the Westgate family albums also showed the car.

  Sadly, the devil might have had difficulty catching the car, but he had sure enough caught Stanley Westgate in the end. The man was killed while trying to use magnets to power a flying car he was developing, and now his beloved “invisible” car had been slowly rusting away for decades, forgotten in the Westgates' underground garage.

  There was a lesson in there somewhere, but it was one Thraex wasn’t sure he wanted to learn, no matter how many times life tried to teach it to him.

  Nash had spent the last few months tinkering with the vehicle, seeing if she could get it running again. It was less a passion project and more an issue of there simply being fewer and fewer vehicles available. Professor Westgate had long ago been forced to sell off the Foundation’s fleet of gleaming cars and flying machines, and it was looking like Thraex would soon have to continue that tradition.

  The plan was to either fix the car up and sell it, or to scrap it outright and use the money to finance other projects. Thraex was very sentimental about Westgate relics, naturally, but it was getting to the point where sacrifices would have to be made. Mementos of dead Westgates couldn’t compete with the lives of living Westgates.

  Stanley Westgate would have understood.

  For all their pride, they were a selfless bunch when push came to shove.

  Thraex had already sold basically everything he himself personally owned to keep the Westgate’s afloat, so it wasn’t like he had any other choice. At the end of the day, the Westgate’s Ghost Car was a very expensive and impractical vehicle, which looked beautiful in old photos but which was completely obsolete in today’s world, and would probably never move under its own power again.

  “Nash,” he called as he stomped towards her, his footsteps echoing off the concrete in the now largely empty garage space, “I want to inform you that Jaxx Brixton is no longer welcome in this building, is that clear?”

  “’No Jaxx Brixton.’ Heard.” The woman answered immediately, acknowledging the order. Then her frown of confusion was visible through the long transparent hood of the car as she worked on the engine, a smudge of grease on her nose. “…Who?”

  “’Rascal.’” He bit out. “He ain’t welcome here.”

  “That’ll be an easy rule to live by, since I have no idea who that is anyway, sir, or why anyone would want him here in the first place.” She closed the hood. “Is there a particular reason why we’re excluding him, sir, or are we just picking random people to bar from entry?”

  “He…” He trailed off. “He’s trying to buy the building.”

  “Is it for sale?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “Of course not.”

  “Didn’t think so.” She used a towel to clean the grease from her hands. “I know you love this building, sir… but nothing good ha
s ever happened here.” She looked around the space. “I don’t believe in magic or curses. But this place is cursed. You can feel it. …This whole crazy family is cursed.”

  “They’re not ‘crazy,’ they’re ‘eccentrics.’” He corrected. “Poor people are crazy, rich people can be eccentric, it’s one of the perks which comes from wealth.”

  “Well, now they’re broke, so they can go back to being crazy again.” She leaned against the vehicle. “Listen, my family has known them since their great-grandfather shipwrecked on Sand Island and brought back my grandfather to act as his driver.” She swallowed, looking down at the workbench in front of her for a moment. “The story of the Westgates is the story of failure and ever-diminishing expectation.” She continued. “They were supposed to be something great, but it didn’t happen. They always self-destruct before they ever get there. And to be honest, I don’t think either of us can change that, no matter how hard you try to hold them up.”

  “The Westgates aren’t done.” He stated flatly, voice echoing through the dimly lit room. “Not if I have anythin’ to say about it.” He pointed at the floor. “As long as I’m still standin’, I will make sure they don’t fall, you understand me?” He nodded decisively. “And this building is one of the city’s most historic architectural wonders.” He added as an afterthought.

  Her mouth quirked at the corner, causing the tattoo on her chin to move. “I know, I read the Wikipedia page you wrote for it.”

  “How do you know that was me?” He defended. “Anyone could have added to that page.”

  She started messing around with her tools. “Because no one else ever uses the words ‘angelic goddess of wisdom’ to describe Sasha.”

  He pursed his lips in consideration of that. “Without admitting anything… that is a very apt description of the woman.”

  She didn’t seem convinced. “Uh-huh.”

  They both stood in silence for a moment.

  He slowly ran his hand along the ultra light and smooth bullet-proof plastic exterior of the old car. “How’s… how’s she look?” He didn’t know why he was suddenly sentimental about the old heap. It’d be gone soon either way. He… he just didn’t want to see something that was once so loved come to a bad end.