by Lexie Ray
Finally she entered and surveyed the inhabitants as her eyes adjusted to the flickering firelight that bounced off faces and abandoned equipment alike. She didn’t recognize anyone.
A thug approached her with a swaggering step. He was either young or little for his age. He probably pegged her for just another white girl looking to score coke, or pills, or meth. Or maybe Hunter would get lucky.
“You wanna party, Ma?” He asked with a little melodic flavor in his tone, classic amongst Latinos.
“Not exactly,” she replied nearly in a whisper that was alluring, seductive with an edge of darkness.
The thug pressed his thick lips into a hard line, squinting his eyes and cocking his head slightly. “Keep talkin’, but don’t be wasting my time, Mami.”
Hunter scanned the warehouse cautiously. They were beyond earshot of anyone, but she wanted to be sure there were no prying eyes. When her gaze fell back to the thug, she was glaring with narrowed eyes.
“I’m looking for heat with plenty of rounds. I have cash,” Hunter said lowly in a tone like velvet. “I don’t have all night.”
The thug swallowed what saliva had pooled in his mouth at the first indication of cash. The kid was no idiot, and now he knew she had money. If he was smart, he’d figure around three hundred and if he was nuts he’d picture six. Either way, Hunter knew she was now at a disadvantage. He would surely invite her deeper into the bowels of the Gowanus, either to connect her with the gun she so vitally needed or to rob her. And it would be impossible to know which until she was alone with him. If this thug were desperate, he’d corner and rob her. Hunter had to guard against that.
“I can get that for you, but not here,” he said with salesman like intonation revealing a hint of worry. He didn’t want to lose her business.
“I don’t have time to fuck around,” she said, suspecting he didn’t know he could score for sure.
As her words hung between them, the thug produced a cell from his hoodie. Hunter didn’t even see him hit the screen. He was already talking into it.
“Yo,’ where you at?” He spoke with no nonsense, plowing through logistics and speaking in code. “I got a bitch, got cash for heat, she got one foot out the door. You still holding? We need to do this.” The thug looked her dead in the eye. Hunter could hear the fast talker on the other end, but only as sounds and symbols, no content. “How much you got?”
“Five,” she said quietly.
The thug’s mouth twisted into a luscious smile. He didn’t even try to hold back.
“That’s right,” Hunter went on. “So no fucking around, no run around. This shit should go down smooth and easy and be over before I know it.”
“I got you, Ma. You’re taken care of.” The thug turned his back to wrap up the call relaying their location to his contact, then returned his cell to his hoodie. “No time at all, Mami. They’re coming through, around the block. We got five minutes, tops. Let’s go on out.”
The thug walked towards the steel door as firelight lapped his back and cast ten foot shadows on the wall. Hunter followed, anxious to be back in her apartment already, stroking her lazy cat and maybe feeling a moment of peace.
Outside, a streetlamp overhead buzzed horribly. The thug must have been familiar with it because he walked, stepping with swagger, to the corner. There he lit a cigarette. Eventually Hunter joined him, heels clicking as she made her way up the sidewalk.
“You got some asshole bothering you?” He asked, punctuating the question with a burst of smoke.
“You could say that,” she responded, unable to meet his gaze.
“Don’t hesitate,” he said.
Now she couldn’t look away. He had her full attention.
“You see the motherfucker, shoot. Don’t hesitate. You hesitate, he gonna kill you, probably with your own piece. I seen that shit a million times.”
It hadn’t been until this very moment that Hunter thoroughly considered the practicality and morality of killing someone. Could she do it again? Could she take a life, steal it away from someone? A wave of darkness washed over her at the thought, gripping her tightly in horrific memories.
She had always wanted simply to be left alone and no longer be hurt. Hunter shook the thoughts from her head.
She was fully prepared to assert herself if it meant holding a gun in her hand to command power, to threaten, to get them to back off. But now as she was listening to this skinny Latino kid in the heart of the Gowanus ghetto, she realized she was going to have to kill these people, kill everyone, all the way back to the farmhouse.
A Cadillac crawled down the street, headlights blaring. It was dull, rusted, and beat up, Hunter noticed, as it rolled to a stop in front of the thug. Hardcore rap emanated from within. The thug leaned on the open window, talking across the passenger to the driver. There were guys in the back as well. When the thug straightened up, tossing his cigarette butt against the side of the sugar factory, everyone but the driver got out of the car.
“Get in the front,” said the thug as he opened the back door and climbed in himself.
Her anxiety was sky high at this point, and her heart beat so loudly she could hear it in her ears. The passenger’s side door had been left wide open by the last guy, so Hunter lowered herself carefully into the car, being sure to avoid eye contact with the enormous black man who was sitting behind the wheel. The door shut with a slam under the weight of her nervous arm. Hunter clenched her purse with a death grip. She was terrified this transaction wouldn’t through and that she would be robbed or beaten or raped.
Suddenly she noticed, looking outside, that the guys were standing around the car, walling off the activity within. It made Hunter’s heart race, no witnesses. She tried to remind herself this was for her protection as well as theirs.
“This piece is hot, bitch, you know what that means?” Asked the man behind the wheel, as he looked at her sideways, eyeing her like a piece of meat. “Whatever you spray, cops will trace and know exactly what piece it came from. And if they trace it back to you that means every cop this gun killed is on your head, because you holding it, see? In that event, what you gonna say?”
“I’d never mention you or your friends,” said Hunter meeting his gaze.
“You’re smart for a white girl,” he said before leaning forward, pinching the glove compartment open, and revealing the piece.
It was darkly black with a muted finish. It looked heavy, like it would be difficult to control, aim, fire. Yet it excited her. She felt as though a great weight had been lifted from her chest. She was finally able to breathe. She drew in air. It filled her lungs, rejuvenating her at long last.
Quickly she unzipped her purse and grabbed a wad of cash, five hundred exactly, the daily maximum the ATM had allowed.
“Count it, Tiny,” the black man said.
The thug reached up and took the cash as instructed.
Hunter couldn’t take her eyes off the gun. She grabbed it. Holding it in her hand, she remembered. Bits came flashing back. The sharp metal tang of a barrel in her mouth, the sounds of her own blood curdling wails, cowering as a hard barrel pressed viciously into the back of her head. That was the side of the gun Hunter had been on. Never like this, in her hand, offering the possibility to protect her. This was very different, and she liked it.
It felt cold in her hand, providing sweet relief from the sweltering humidity. It was as heavy as it looked. She angled it, viewing the left side then the right, as the thug in the back seat murmured numbers through his inhales and exhales more and more loudly until he reached, “five hundred”.
“Let me show you something,” said the black man as he took the piece and demonstrated for Hunter with great care how to flip the safety on and off, then followed up by showing her how to extract the clip and check to see if there’s a bullet in the chamber.
When he passed it back to her, he smiled. He seemed warm, concerned almost.
But there was nothing left to say or do. Hunter popped her door open once the piece
was safely tucked into her purse, and climbed out of the Cadillac.
“Thanks, man,” she said over her shoulder.
Walking down the sidewalk, Hunter faced the realities that lay ahead. It was as though finally having a weapon in her possession, a way to fight back, enabled her to comprehend the magnitude of the danger that lay waiting.
Someone had been in her apartment. They had found a way in through the deadbolt or the locked window. They could have waited for her or trashed her apartment. They could have done anything. They chose to scare her instead. That was what they had wanted. To remind her she had freedom only because they were allowing it. They could come back at any time to take her, or to torment her. Something she knew they took far more pleasure in. That song had been intended to torture and mock her, to degrade her, to humiliate her into becoming as small as she had once been. It was the song that had played every time he held her down, face crushed against a mattress nearly cutting off her air supply, brutally assaulting her.
The onslaught of thoughts that entered her mind led Hunter down the darkest alleys of her memory and it wasn’t until she reached her apartment stoop that the images and stomach churning emotions ebbed away, fading into the noises of the street.
Hunter began to ascend the stairs. As she climbed higher and higher, heels clicking against the tiles with each sluggish step, she wondered what her life would be like if she had been raised in a real family. Who would she be coming home to at 2:00 a.m. on a Saturday night if she were someone who had been raised, for example, in the suburbs by loving parents who instilled values and provided a moral compass? Would she live in this shitty walk-up? Would she work part time in a failing coffee shop for minimum wage and bullshit tips? Would she be able to let a date touch her without being triggered, without turning into a reactionary, fearful hysteric like she currently did whenever she was alone with a man? The answer to all that would be “no,” but by the fifth flight Hunter, didn’t necessarily care so much. She was the way she was, and she had learned to live with it. The only thing she truly wished she were capable of was love. She wished there was a way to shed all of her instincts with men. If she could do that, then she would seem normal, well adjusted, deserving of love. She wouldn’t attract abusers or react to nice guys as though they were out to harm her. She wished she had a barometer to tell the difference. Ultimately, she wished that she would make sense to someone and that someone would make sense to her. Did she even have a prayer of that? Or was her heart so damaged that the darkness seeping out of it would always repel, repulse, and drive away the ones she wished would come closer?
When she reached the landing, Hunter felt suddenly dizzy, enraptured, as though some force was taking hold, claiming her. For a split second, she thought she was becoming triggered. Was she panicking, losing her grip? She braced the wall and paused, focusing on breathing deeply and fighting against the urge to let her eyes go dark and fade away entirely. But after a moment, she realized that wasn’t the case. She wasn’t triggered. Rather, she was overcome with a heightened state of awareness. It was overwhelming but not unpleasant. It was as though she was pure instinct, not the debilitating kind that paralyzed her mind and body. She was in a state of acute perception. Knowing filled her, certainty, and it felt uncanny. She was having a premonition. Suddenly Hunter knew without a shadow of a doubt that she would encounter her neighbor. And she knew he was thinking it as well.
The feeling stayed with her as she inserted her key into the deadbolt lock. The trash shoot smacked loudly and Hunter’s heart skipped a beat almost at the exact same time. She knew he was there even before she turned.
His gaze met hers, eyes black and brooding. His eyes conveyed so much anguish, pain, loneliness, as though they were a mirror to her own heart. The energy building between them was electric. They were communicating beyond words. She sensed he wanted her. Deeper down she sensed he already had her.
He began to approach her, walking slowly down the hall out of one shadow and into the next. He moved with grace, yet there was a predatory nature in his step, fluid and sexy, wild and dangerous. Hunter’s heart began to pound out of her chest when it appeared he might come so close as to press himself against her. He didn’t. He stopped just shy of her door, staring intently at her but remaining silent. Weren’t his eyes blue before? Why were they now dark and smoldering?
His lips parted as if to speak. Words didn’t come. He was looking at her, from her eyes, down to her nose, her lips, to her chin, and up again. He was the absolute essence of sexuality, and Hunter couldn’t help but melt, soften, weaken under his gaze.
“I’m Ash,” he said in that deep, smooth tone that soothed her through to the bone.
What was happening to her? She felt like she was under a spell, and yet she knew she was in full control of her faculties. She had never experienced this kind of connection if that’s what this was. It felt grander than a connection, however. It felt as though they were unified on some level she had never known existed, as though he was completely familiar to her even though they had never met before.
If he was special at all, if he was someone worth getting to know in the future, then Hunter had to keep him away from her at all costs. She gripped her purse, holding the stone cold gun beneath the fabric.
Then, trying with every fiber of her being to keep her voice steady, she whispered, “Stay away from me.”
She pushed hard on her steel door, swinging it open until she was able to slip inside. She closed the door firmly and locked the deadbolt, letting out a long sigh of regret. She had sounded nuts, but it was for his own protection, not that he’d ever know that.
Hunter finally turned and proceeded down the hall.
When she emerged from the sheltering doorway, out into the rest of her studio, a man was standing dead center in the middle of her room.
“Hello, Hunter. It’s time to come home.”
Chapter Two
It was hot in Ash’s apartment, humid. The air felt thick and stagnant in his lungs. It was punishing. The apartment hadn’t come with an air conditioning unit. He was hoping the city would cool so he wouldn’t have to buy one. It was nearly September. Didn’t New York cool down in the fall? He hadn’t lived here long enough to know. Time would tell.
He peeled his tee up and over his head, freeing his damp body from the clinging cotton in hopes of getting some relief, then approached a rickety wooden table that was in front of the window. On it was a blue ceramic dish filled with loose change. He casually removed his keys from his pants pocket and tossed them into the dish. They clanged against the quarters on impact. He gazed down at the key chain, a relic from his former life, and began to get lost in thought.
At the end of the key chain was a bullet. He remembered the day he had gotten it. It had been a gift, a reward for shooting a rabbit. The rabbit had been fluffy, butterscotch in color. It had floppy ears. Ash had been nine. He hadn’t wanted to kill the rabbit, but he didn’t have a choice.
The rabbit had been the first of many. They had turned him cold. He could kill anything now and not feel a thing.
A bead of sweat trickled down his spine. Ash caught it, wiping it away with his palm. The heat was unbearable. He hated sweating this much, unless it was the result of being with a woman.
He flipped a pack of cigarettes open after taking it from the counter, and extracted one between his teeth. It took five flicks of his lighter and a couple shakes to get the fluid to catch in a flame, but when it did, Ash lit his cigarette with one long suck to help it burn strong. He exhaled after a long moment, staring out his window. The smoke bounced against the glass windowpane and swirled back into his face.
He lifted the window open in hopes of getting a little air.
The sounds of the street below flooded through his apartment. Cars honking, bums shouting obscenities, the faint wails of an ambulance in the distance; all of it created an odd chorus, the sad song of the city, one of loneliness, secrets, and desperation. Ash thought he’d never get
used to it, but somewhere along the way he had. Maybe it had been a month in, maybe two when one night he opened the window and the noises from outside reminded him that he was home.
The air from outside wasn’t exactly breezing in, not that it mattered. He was pretty sure it wasn’t more than a degree cooler out there, if that. Not enough to make a real difference inside.
He flipped on a fan that was resting at an odd angle on the windowsill, then sat down in a dingy armchair.
Trails of smoke rose as if by some attraction towards the fan, then disappeared, scattering into nothingness in the fan’s stream. Ash watched the trails rise and disappear with each drag of his cigarette, as he thought about the girl, the neighbor with the light brown hair.
He had spotted her a little over a month ago when she had struggled to enter into the building. Ash had been walking towards the glass entrance from the lobby, and there she was, forcing her key in, her sharp gaze narrowing, brow furrowed. She hadn’t thanked him when he opened the door, letting her in. She hadn’t so much as raised her gaze to meet his. So many people in this city insisted on maintaining their privacy by avoiding eye contact, refusing to acknowledge others. It didn’t surprise him that the girl had done the same. She had seemed dark and secretive during those first few moments when they passed each other at the front door. And the few times he’d seen her since, she seemed no different, eyes lowered in a downward gaze, distracted in some kind of dark mood, saddened by something perhaps, tired and in need of seclusion. It hadn’t been until earlier today that she had made eye contact with Ash for the first time. It was as though she had opened a window, letting him see in, if only as a momentary peak.
There had been something about her eyes, something alluring and mysterious in the way she had looked at him that Ash couldn’t get out of his head. Those eyes, round and deeply brown, angling upwards at the outer edges, were unforgettable, but he couldn’t place why. There was something primitive in her gaze, fiercely animalistic and wild with a hint that she had already been wounded.
