The thread led right to Montessa. Tied firmly around her bloodied wrist. And neither of them would ever let it go.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Her nightmares started that night. She washed off as best as she could, but could feel Emmanuel’s blood seeping into the cracks of her hands. It was as if her skin was no longer waterproof, and the blood soaked through into her body, desecrating her organs.
His ham hands hit her hard in the eye socket, and she screamed.
“Shh, baby. I’m here.”
Lu had his arms wrapped around her, but it still wasn’t close enough.
“I’m cold,” she said, and he warmed the air around them. Warmed the little built-in bed. Warmed her heart when he pressed his lips against her neck.
“Go back to sleep.”
She dreamed of Emmanuel’s freakishly large hands clutching at his throat while his blood spurted. The cut wasn’t clean. The cut wasn’t sure. She felt the larynx grind under the blade of the First Kill knife. Sickly. Gristle. The high-pitched shrieking, squealing, screaming that was Emmanuel. He had been human before that, but after her botched murder, he had become a stuck farm animal. A screeching pig. So much meat.
“You’re crying out in your sleep, baby.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I know how it is at first.”
“Does it ever get better?”
He kissed her sweaty hair.
“Eventually.”
She turned in his arms, buried her nose in that perfect spot in his neck.
“I love you, Lu.”
“I love you, too.”
“They’re going to find us, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
She thought for a while, running her fingers through Lu’s soft, dark hair.
“Even faster now that I messed that one up, huh?”
He traced his name on her shoulder with his finger. She was so fine. China fine. Delicate bones that shattered so easily under a man’s fist. He knew they had. He also knew it would never happen again, that she had a predacious man with a knife standing between her and the rest of the world. They’d go down, but they’d go down snarling. Rabid and clawing. With the fires roaring and the winds coming down on them.
“They’re coming for me, anyway. I told you I wasn’t careful lately.”
“Why is that, Lu?”
He sighed, and it was loud in the tractor.
“This place seems perfect for two, doesn’t it? It seemed small with just me, but now that you’re here, it’s just right.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“Why don’t you look in my head and tell me?”
She kissed his chin, then snuggled back into the crook of his neck.
“Tell me a story?”
He was silent. Then he started to tell her a story, one of his favorites, about a little boy who cried and cried until the gods took his eyes away as punishment. It sounded better, more right, in Chinese, so that’s how he told her. The boy wrapped a scarf around his head and went out into the world to search for his eyes.
“And did he ever find them?”
“What, you speak Chinese now?”
“I’m watching the story unfold in your head. Or perhaps it’s your heart. Either way, it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.”
“Then be patient. Hold on tight to your red thread and listen to the rest of my story.”
There was laughter that night, and love amidst the terror. Outside, the police took statements from witnesses who saw a small, dark-haired woman talking to the pervy guy upstairs, and then there was screaming, and a man with a baseball cap ran into the apartment. They lifted what they could from the charred apartment. They followed bloody footprints until they couldn’t follow them anymore. The wolves were closing in.
But inside the cab, it was a different story. Something beautiful. A place of peace and happiness and joy. Two people determined to enjoy each other and love until they both burned to cinders. It was a place of Chinese fairy tales and bloody hands, because no matter how hard you scrubbed the skin, you couldn’t wash it out of the soul.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
They drove until it was time to fuel the truck.
“I’ll gas. How about you run in and grab some snacks?”
“Sure thing, Lu.”
She kissed him and hopped out. Touched the ground with the flat of her hands. Stretched.
“I feel like I’m turning to stone, baby,” she said.
Lu rolled his shoulders, popped his neck.
“I know the feeling. Maybe we can get into town early, go for a walk or something tonight.”
“Or a hunt?”
Her eyes, they glittered. Glittered with a new kind of light.
It was breathtaking.
“That, too,” he answered, and his heart felt that now-familiar piercing sensation. He knew it was love.
She ran into the gas station. Cast a longing glimpse at the sodas and candy bars, but headed straight for the ladies’ room instead.
She finished up, washed her hands, and splashed cold water on her face. She studied herself in the mirror. No makeup. No stripper Ruby body glitter. No bruises or burns or bandages.
Her face was a different sort of lovely. Eyes too large, perhaps, but they were happy and excited and full of stars and hearts and scythes. Morning glories and ribcages shone in her eyes.
She smiled and her reflection smiled back.
“I’m happy, I think,” her reflection told her.
“I’m glad. I think I am, too.”
She stepped out of the bathroom and ran into a tall man with bad tattoos.
“I’m sorry,” she said and tried to step past him.
“Not a problem,” he said and stepped in front of her again.
She glared at him.
“Listen. Out of my way.”
He grinned back, and it made her stomach drop.
“And why would I want to do that?”
She looked around. For what, she wasn’t sure. Another way out. A fairy godmother. To see if anybody else saw this man, or if she was the only one.
“I’ve been looking for you, Montessa.”
Her name. Her gaze shot up and locked on his, firmly. Too firmly. She tried to back away and pressed her back against the hallway.
“How do you know who I am?”
He was enjoying it, she could see. He was riding her fear like one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, thrilling to her unease. She tried to tamp the fear down. Tried to keep it under control.
“I know all about you.”
“Do you.”
She felt in her back pocket for the knife, the First Kill Knife, which she had started carrying on her. Started sleeping with it. For the comfort, for the representation, because it was Lu’s and now it was hers as well. A baby born of steel. Their own, precious murder child.
“Montessa Tovar. Five six, one hundred and fifteen pounds. Hair, brown. Eyes, witchy. You’re Renan’s whore.”
She swallowed.
“So Renan sent you.”
“Damn near sent everyone. They’re out looking for you in force. All eyes, all hands on deck.”
She fingered the knife in her pocket, pulled it nearly out.
“Well, you found me. Now let me go.”
He shrugged, ran a hand over his shaggy hair.
“Can’t do it, Monty. He’s paying big money for you. Big money with some extras. Can’t turn you loose.”
“Renan’s dead. He won’t be paying you anything.”
The man’s eyes narrowed.
“Dead? Yeah?”
“Yeah. I killed him myself.”
He laughed, and Montessa felt the blood burn through her body. Felt her mouth tighten, her eyes spark in a way that felt reptilian.
“Don’t laugh at me, boy.”
His laughter stopped, and he grabbed her wrist.
“Best watch yourself, whore. Or I might not take good care of you on the way home.”
“No.”
She grabbed the knife, plunged it into his thigh. He yelled and doubled over, grasping at the blade. She yanked it out and plunged it into the side of his neck.
The blood. It squirted, dribbled, gushed. There weren’t words. Her hands and clothes were covered, flashbacks of Emmanuel, and she felt dizzy. Turned and retched into the corner. Wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and started forward.
The man grabbed her ankle, and she went down hard, smacking her chin against the floor. She felt her teeth clack together, saw stars. Dropped the knife, which slid away from her.
“Let go!” she shrieked, and kicked him in the face. She felt his nose break under her heel, felt the grind of it, and his grip loosened.
The gas station attendant ran at them with a small-caliber shotgun.
“Nobody move!” he yelled. His hands shook so badly that Montessa could see the gun jittering and quivering.
“Please,” she said, and held her hands up. “Please let me stand up. Please let me get out of this b-b-blood.”
She was sobbing, crying real tears, sticky and horrible, and the attendant looked lost.
“He’s bleeding. I should call 911,” he said. He was talking himself into it. Talking himself through it.
Montessa nodded.
“Yes. Yes, do that. He attacked me. With that knife there. Please, let me get up.”
The dying man kicked one last time, and stopped moving.
“He’s dead,” the attendant said. The shotgun shivered again, landed on Montessa. “You killed him.”
“I didn’t mean to, I swear.”
“I need to keep you here until the police come.”
“Yes, call them. We’ll make a report.”
“Stay down!”
“Please don’t shoot me.”
“Stay down!” he shouted again.
The attendant crept closer, resting the barrel of the gun against the top of Montessa’s head. She lowered her face to the puddle of blood and wept.
“Please don’t,” she gasped. “Please don’t. I’m so scared.”
The attendant took a deep breath. Tried to steady himself. Thought about his family or his wife or what they taught him in Gas Station 101 or any number of things. Montessa couldn’t force herself to peek inside of his head, couldn’t do anything but smell the blood that had just drained out of one of Renan’s contacts. It was heady. Thick. She remembered the too-raw pieces of meat her daddy had tried to feed her when she was little, before Mama was dead. Before Mama became bloody bits of meat herself.
“He was gonna kill me,” she said and pulled herself into the fetal position. Curled on her side, leaving swirls of blood behind her. She sobbed into her red hands and the clerk slowly took the gun away.
“Thank you,” she said, and scrabbled to her knees. She wiped her tears with the back of her bloody hand.
“Stay here. I have to call the police,” the attendant said. His voice was shaking like the rest of him. Like a leaf. Like a small child. Like Montessa did the first time she clocked in at the strip club.
“Yes. Okay. Okay,” she said, and wiped her nose on her shirt.
The attendant turned away. Montessa picked up her knife, made it to her feet.
Lu walked in the door, saw the clerk with his shaking shotgun and his bloodied Montessa with tears running down her cheeks.
“What—” he asked but didn’t get farther before Montessa plunged her knife into the attendant’s back. The man screamed. The shotgun went off, taking out a sad display of sunglasses on the counter. Montessa used the knife again and again and again until the man quieted.
Lu stood there, a bag of chips in his hand.
“He was going to call the cops, Lu. I killed one of Renan’s men back there. Do you understand? I killed him.”
She stood there, feral. Her hair glorious, her eyes wild. A savage princess. The queen of beasts. She wiped the First Kill’s blade on her bloodied jeans, and Lu licked his lips.
Her eyes searched his, looking for condemnation, looking for sweetness. He dropped the chips and put his arms around her.
“You’re safe. That’s what matters.”
He kissed her, tasting blood and tears on her lips. He kissed her deeper, holding her to his body, and she molded into him like moss to a tree, like they were always meant to be together, which he believed, of course.
“Don’t ever leave me,” he whispered against the other man’s blood on her mouth.
“Never. You have me.”
A sound, deafening, too loud too close too dead, dead, dead, and Lu grunted and fell to one knee.
The clerk lay on the floor, holding the shotgun in his hands. He closed his eyes and the gun fell from his fingers. He lay still.
“Lu!”
Montessa screamed and dropped to the ground beside her love.
“I’m okay,” he said and cursed. Looked at his shoulder. “We’ll have to dig the buckshot out.” He cursed again, in Chinese this time.
He was raging, trying to keep the fury in. Montessa’s eyes reflected the sparks coming off his skin.
“Don’t hold back, baby,” she said. “Let’s burn this place to the ground.”
She put her hand on his shoulder and closed her eyes. The wind started around them, blowing candy and engine oil and baby food off the shelves. The wind fanned Lu’s flames, and they roared higher and higher.
“Burn,” she whispered, and the building ignited. Deadly Hanukkah candles. The most exquisite of joys in the most horrible of circumstances.
“Burn,” she said again and used her hand to direct Lu’s flames toward the bodies on the ground. The clerk seared and sizzled. Flames danced in his open mouth, in his throat. She saw firestorms in his eye sockets.
“We have to go,” Lu said, and struggled to his feet. Montessa helped him.
“Now.” And he started to run. Montessa ran beside him.
Away from the gas station. Fire erupted at the pumps, their truck starting to ignite. Montessa realized the danger they were in and gasped.
“Yeah, I know. I couldn’t help it,” Lu answered, and they ran like they had never run before. They were used to being chased by the cops. By ex-lovers, or ex-fathers, but this wasn’t anything of the sort. This was a different sort of terror.
“Keep going, baby!” he yelled, and Montessa didn’t say anything, but focused on her steps, on her breathing, on getting as far away as she could before the entire thing, and the gas pumps…
The explosion was deafening. She was knocked to the ground, hard, her breath slammed out of her. She heard the sound of Lu’s beautiful bones hitting the pavement next to her, and then she heard nothing.
Nothing.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
She opened her eyes and moaned. Her body hurt. Felt broken. She turned and looked behind her. The gas station was in flames, the hottest of fireballs. Lu’s truck was burning as merrily as everything else.
“Oh, Lu. What did I do?”
She crawled to him, his body bloody and unmoving on the pavement. His shoulder was soaked with red, his shirt torn. He had cuts on his otherwise perfect face, and she ran her hands over his arms and legs.
He seemed whole. He seemed unbroken.
“Baby? Baby, wake up.”
His eyelids fluttered, and then he was on his knees, trying to stand up. Montessa put a hand on his arm.
“Stay still, darling.”
“We need to get out of here.”
“I’ll get us a car. Sit tight.”
She stood up and ran to the road nearby.
“Help!” She screamed, waving her hands above her head. “Help me, please!”
A small white Honda stopped. A man leaned over, rolled the window down.
“There’s a fire!” Montessa said, and pointed at the blazing gas station. “I just made it out, and my friend is hurt. Can you help us? Get him to the hospital?”
“Oh,” the ma
n said, and his jaw worked. He blinked behind his thick glasses.
“Please?”
The man righted himself.
“Yes. Of course. Climb in.”
“Oh, thank you!”
She went back to Lu, put his arm over her shoulder. The man ran over to help, and they walked Lu to the back of the car. Lu dragged his feet, leaning heavily on the man. Much heavier than necessary.
“Thank you,” Lu said weakly, and flopped into the back seat. His eyes met Montessa’s.
“Gladly,” the man said, and leaned in to help situate Lu. “What happened out there?”
“I don’t know. Everything just went up in flames,” Lu said, and yanked the man fully into the car. Montessa tossed him the knife, and Lu slit his throat cleanly.
“Sorry,” he whispered as the man clutched and squirmed and bled out, “but we need the car. Hope you understand.”
Montessa shoved the man’s kicking feet inside, shut the back door, and climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Anywhere in particular, my love?” she asked. She used the blinker, pulled onto the empty road. Driving carefully. The absurdity of it struck her, and she laughed.
“Anywhere you want, Montessa. We’re free. We can do anything.”
She drove, wearing her long gloves of blood, with Lu and the dead man resting in the backseat. Nobody looked. Nobody noticed. The sun went down and she followed it down the road. She turned on the dead man’s radio. Switched it from NPR to something with more pep. An old Styx song. “Renegade.”
She sang at the top of her lungs. Bathed in blood and music and love.
“This is happier than I’ve ever been, Lulu.”
“Me too, baby.”
Tonight was perfect. A perfect day. Tomorrow, she hoped, would be even better.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
They ditched the car and the body. Cleaned themselves up as best they could. Rented a squalid room at a motel that looked the other way concerning most things. Drugs. Gunshot wounds. Blood.
Montessa used tweezers to pull shot out of Lu’s shoulder. Sweat beaded on his forehead and upper lip like dew on a rose. She had never seen anything so lovely.
“I’m sorry, baby,” she said, and kissed him. Bit his lip. Cleaned and bandaged his shoulder with gauze and cheap bandages purchased from a gas station she didn’t burn to the ground.
Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A tale of Atomic Love Page 9
