by Cole McCade
“I said no!”
She raked her nails across his face, digging in, leaving deep red scrapes that bloomed angrily against unshaven patches of peach fuzz. The too-slick grease of his skin slimed under her nails. He barked out a shrill cry and stumbled back, clutching his cheek. His eyes blanked, then hardened; his upper lip curled above a wall of too-long teeth. He raised a clenched and meaty fist.
“You fucking—”
A soft shhhk cut him off. He stiffened. Leigh’s head snapped toward the door. She hadn’t even heard it open, but Hart stood just outside, leaning casually against the wall, that shhhk rising as he snapped his thumb over a lighter and ignited it. Gold flickers reflected in harsh angles from his face. He cupped a protective hand around the lighter and held it to the gold-banded black cigarette clasped between his lips, every movement slow, methodical, precise, calculated. Calm, and yet in each idle gesture dwelled a promise of caged violence, straining at its thinning leash.
The cigarette caught, glowed red. Hart took a lazy drag, sliding the lighter back into his pocket, then lifted his head. Cold gray eyes locked on Mr. Salesman, who stared back at him with a sort of impotent frustration, his fist still upraised. But with every moment that he held Hart’s steady, unblinking gaze, his hand lowered by fractions, until it fell limp and useless against his side. He raked Hart with a measuring look, surly but cowed as a jackal chased from its kill by a lion.
“Whatever.” He spat, then flicked a contemptuous glance over Leigh. “Fuck you, you fucking cocktease. You ain’t the hot shit you think you are.”
He stumbled away, reeling toward a blue Dodge Neon that was exactly the car she’d expected him to drive. Leigh slumped against the wall, sucking in rapid shallow breaths that shuddered in her chest. She closed her eyes. Fuck. Fuck. She must be completely out of it to have misjudged those bland blue eyes so much, not even thinking he could turn that ugly that fast with just a little too much gin. She was normally more careful. She didn’t like to feel afraid.
She didn’t like to feel anything she couldn’t control.
She fumbled in her pocket for her Djarum Blacks, shook one from the pack, and fitted it to her lips. Her lighter came to a shaking hand, but she couldn’t get it to spark, her fingers slipping off the striker of the engraved platinum-plated Zippo that was the only thing of Jacob’s she’d ever kept.
The baleful red eye of a glowing cherry thrust in front of her. Hart held his cigarette between two fingers, offering her the end. The smoke rising off the tip had a strange scent, sweet and rich as cocoa, mixing with the spicy musk from her unlit clove. Trembling, she leaned in and held her cigarette to his, then slumped back against the wall and took a deep drag of thickly sweet-sharp smoke that flowed down her throat and into her lungs like ether, spreading calm into her blood and bones until she no longer felt like breaking.
He settled against the wall at her side, jeans scraping soft against the brick, the warmth of his bare arm just inches away. She didn’t want to be grateful to him. Didn’t want to find his heat calming, comforting. But as long as he wasn’t looking at her with those cutting, expectant eyes, she could stand to have him near.
And she didn’t want to be alone right now.
They stood together in silence, coils of smoke twining until they made patterns on the air like incense. Leigh tilted her head back against the wall and watched the smoke rise into the sky, and pretended she was a brahmin searching for the Bodhisattvas in the stars over Crow City.
Her clove had burned down to a stub before he spoke, his low voice just a part of the city noise, reminding her of the chill fall of rain on night-dark streets. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” She shrugged. Lying was always easier when she shrugged.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No.” Leigh dropped her butt and ground it to bits with her bootheel. “No, I’m fine.”
She watched him from the corner of her eye. He had a certain stillness about him that belonged to a wild forest at night, even the trees holding their breaths until the mighty predator passed, hoping the beast wasn’t hungry tonight. His jaw worked, sharp as a saber beneath the severe lines of a close, tight beard. He flicked his cigarette to the sidewalk and pushed away from the wall, shoulders rolling loose and lazy under his tight T-shirt.
“Come on. I’ll take you home.”
She stared after him. What was this? He’d come one contemptuous step short of spitting on her before, but now he wanted to play knight in shining armor?
Probably just like Gary. Thinks I’m just another damaged little girl waiting to be rescued.
She stuffed her hands back into her pockets and stayed right where she was. “I don’t have a home.”
He paused. Over his shoulder, one steel eye cut through the fall of his hair to find her. “Where do you stay?” When she said nothing, he looked away again. That cultured voice quieted, measured and thoughtful. “I see.” His fingers curled and uncurled at his sides, a gunslinger itching for his holsters, before he tossed his head toward the Firebird with a grim, “Come on.”
She bristled at the implicit command. There was that anger again, frightening and hot, a molten burn of embers crackling under her skin; she shoved it down and reminded herself to breathe. She didn’t have many other options tonight. Go back in there and let Gary fuss over her when he realized something had gone wrong, treating her like a little girl who’d done something bad. Find someone else, when right now the idea of anyone touching her made her feel slimy inside. Or find somewhere to bed down alone, with nothing standing between her and the shiver-shakes that would come in the deep of night, when every rustle in the walls and clank through the streets sounded like a voice snarling girls like you don’t care who looks.
Hart probably wanted something, too. A little sugar. That’s what rescuing knights always wanted. She thought it was Sylvia Plath who’d said something about girls not being machines that you put kindness coins in until sex fell out, but God, if it meant sleeping somewhere safe where it was her choice, a devil she knew instead of a trembling and frightening unknown…she’d play Hart’s little game, let him feel like the good guy, and wipe him off her skin in the morning along with Mr. Junior Salesman.
Then maybe he’d make sense, and she could forget all about him.
CHAPTER FOUR
HART TOOK THE HIGHWAY RUNNING parallel to the black snake of the Corvus River. The Firebird growled like a tiger, loud enough to make conversation impossible, snarling and chewing up lengths of asphalt. Leigh was grateful. If they talked, she might ask why. Why he’d intervened. Why he’d offered her a ride. Why he was taking her wherever he was taking her. Probably his apartment, house, whatever; she wasn’t sure which it would be. All those little details she could read—just from how a man carried himself and what he drank and what he wore—were nothing but a quiet blank, with Hart. For all she knew he intended to dump her body in the river at the end of the night, and she still wasn’t sure why she’d gotten in his car when he made trembling unease settle in a hot thick mass in the pit of her stomach. So she was more than glad they couldn’t talk.
Because if they talked, she might have to answer the question glinting hard in his eyes every time he glanced over to shift gears.
The interior of the Firebird offered little. A half-crumpled pack of Black Devils in the cup holder. A racing jacket hanging from the hook in the back, swaying over the window every time they hit a pothole. A rosary, dangling from the rear view mirror and counting out a pendulum’s time. The complete lack of any other personal touches, the pristine sterility of the car’s interior, said more than the few objects scattered around. She lingered on the rosary and wondered if Hart was a praying man.
But when she glanced up and caught him watching her in the mirror, just a cutout of silver-slash eyes, she shivered and curled her fingers in the seatbelt strap and wondered if she should do a little praying herself.
He drove her through the Rooks, skirting the edges of new developments
and avoiding the glinting orange cones of ongoing construction, down narrow side streets into the Upper Nests. Barely a shanty town, a tin-can tent city sprung up along the river, an addendum to Crow City that people pretended didn’t exist. Scarecrow shapes hunched over barrel fires, flicker-light and shadow turning their faces into leering Halloween masks. If there was anywhere to murder a girl and dump her body, it would be here.
Leigh closed her eyes and breathed in deep and slow. Calm down. Just…calm down. She couldn’t be that far off twice in one night, even if Mr. Junior Salesman had rattled her enough that right now she didn’t trust herself to choose between coffee and a steaming cup of raw sewage. Hart would have to stop the car at some point. Maybe she’d just…run.
She’d always been better off on her own anyway.
“It’s all right to be upset.”
Her breaths skipped. She opened her eyes and caught him watching her sidelong. Her tongue darted out to wet dry lips. “What?”
“A man just tried to force himself on you. You don’t have to pretend you’re not upset.”
His gaze dipped to her hands, which still clutched tight against the seatbelt. Only then did she realize her knuckles had gone white, her fingers tingling and numb, shaking as they dug into the nylon until it bit into her palms. She let out the breath she’d been holding, jerked her hands away, and smoothed her palms against her thighs.
“I’m fine. Just fine.”
He said nothing, but a lingering look said he didn’t believe her. He didn’t have to believe her. She didn’t care. And his inscrutable, neutral silence was preferable to the alternative: pity, or the sort of syrupy, cloying compassion that made her feel small and dirty and ashamed. She’d seen it before and it just made her feel like damaged goods, handle with care, instead of like someone who could pick up her life and survive.
The Firebird cruised off the main road and onto a sloping side street leading down to the docks. Boats herded up against each other, bumping their weathered hulls together. Hart eased the car into a slot in the small parking lot fronting the pier, then cut the engine and got out with barely a glance for Leigh. The door slammed behind him hard enough to rock the Firebird on its tires. She watched the cutout shapes of him moving past the windows as he circled the rear of the car. Now was her chance. Push the door open. Run.
Why wasn’t she running?
Her chance disappeared when he pulled the passenger-side door open, letting in the briny sharp scent of the river…and waited. He was holding the door for her? The last person to do that had been Jacob. Jacob with his perfect manners and perfect hair and perfect country-club sweater vests, treating her like a lady but never like a person.
She slid out of the car, careful not to brush against him. His heat took up too much space, too close; she skittered away, pulling her hoodie tighter around herself. He leaned into the Firebird, snagged his jacket from the back seat, then slammed the door and turned to walk down to the docks with that same arrogant toss of his head.
“Come on,” he repeated.
Leigh lingered at the car. Everything in her screamed for her to run. The buses didn’t route to the Upper Nests at this time of night, but if she ran she could make it to the Rooks in less than half an hour. She was small but fast, and could disappear into a side street before he even saw which way she’d gone. There was something wrong with this man, something more than just a drunk fucking pervert who missed the memo that no meant no, and if she had any sense she’d trust her intuition and leave.
So why did she feel this pull, quivering in the pit of her stomach, as if he’d tied a string to her and tugged?
She told herself it was curiosity that sent her straggling after him, small in the shadow of his bulk. Curiosity and nothing else. And if curiosity killed the cat, well, she wasn’t a damned cat.
She was a lioness.
His footfalls fell eerily silent as he stepped off the concrete and onto the long wooden dock, its piers stretching their tongues into the dark; her boots clomped heavier, echoing hollow in the space below the planks, bouncing off the black slow gleam of the river waves. She kept her gaze fixed on his back, on that loping tension to his stride—and a subtle hitch, on the left. Almost unnoticeable, but enough to say he favored that leg, even if he was doing everything to hide it.
Hart turned off at one of the piers, next to a small, neatly-kept houseboat, its hull painted a deep slate gray with white accents, the name Hiincebiit splashed on the side in blue outlined with black. He gripped the rail of the boat and vaulted neatly onto the deck, barely rocking the boat, then offered Leigh one broad, coarse hand.
She eyed that hand, then eyed the boat. The cabin took up most of the above-deck space, with an overhanging porch that sheltered a hammock, swinging over a guitar case that had been left propped against the wall. Curtains hung in the windows, blocking off all view save for the wide pane of glass looking in on a small separated wheelhouse. Nondescript. Odd. And not what she would have expected, from him.
“You live on a houseboat?” she asked.
“Answering that would be stating the obvious.”
An involuntary smile cracked her lips. “Funny, Hart.”
“Gabriel.” Pale eyes watched intently her above that outstretched hand. “My name is Gabriel.”
Gabriel. Like the archangel, fallen to earth. Leigh swallowed thickly and looked down. A name. And she never forgot names. Names gave people weight, life, substance.
Meaning, when she wanted everything to be meaningless.
“I didn’t want to know that,” she murmured.
“That doesn’t surprise me.” His fingers brushed her arm, coaxing her to look up. He leaned over the railing and once more offered his hand, fingers curled and enticing. “Come on.”
She searched his eyes, something tight and heavy in her chest…and cursed herself as she slid her hand into his, chilled fingers greedily soaking in his heat until it melted in her bloodstream.
With languid calm, he pulled her onto the boat, lifting her off the ground so quickly she felt like she was flying. By the time she exhaled her gasp, he’d settled her on the swaying deck. She stared up at him with her pulse ticking hard in her throat and in that spot behind her jaw that made her ears roar and ring as if she was rocking on a violent, lashing sea.
He looked down at her in silence, fingers tightening subtly around hers—but it felt like a shackle closing around her wrist. She choked down a breath of dank-tasting, cool air and jerked back, scrubbing her hand on her skirt.
“Why did you bring me here?”
“Gary told me about you.” Another of those looks—she was getting sick of those fucking looks—and he brushed past her, pulling his keys from his pocket. “It’s just a couch, but you don’t have to do anything for it.”
Her blood froze to ice. Gary told me about you. Embarrassment climbed hot fingers up her face to the very tips of her ears; humiliated fury kicked her in the gut. So now Gary was passing her around to people like some kind of charity case? How was that any better than passing her around as a whore?
“I don’t want your pity,” she bit off.
Gabriel fitted his key in the lock and swung the door open. “I don’t want you on the street with men like that.”
“Why do you care? You don’t get to decide for me. It’s not your choice. I go home with men like that every night.”
His jaw set. His shoulders rolled, controlled and slow, as if gearing up for a fight. He tilted his head back; the thin cords of worn leather knotted around his neck strained against the tight pull of tanned muscle.
Then he caught her arm in an iron grip, and pulled her toward the door.
“Inside.”
Leigh snarled, jerking back, digging her fingers between his knuckles. “Let me go!”
“Why did you say no?” He whirled on her, narrowed eyes locked on her fiercely. Yet still that calm voice never wavered, passionless, dry, until she wanted to hit him just to get a reaction. “You said you go ho
me with men like that every night. You said you choose to. I know your type. I know why you do it. So why did you say no this time?”
“Because I did. Why is no one’s business but my own.” Because she fucking respected herself enough not to go home with a man who’d tried to pressure her—and respected herself enough not explain herself to this asshole. She ground her teeth, fighting a rising tide of anger that made her feel as if she could summon fire, raze and destroy, a goddess wild and mad and unleashing her wrath. “And you don’t know my type at all.”
“Perhaps not. I suppose we’ll find out.”
He pulled her, hissing and twisting, into the wheelhouse, his grip just tight enough to keep her captured without hurting her. That just pissed her off even more. He handled her as if she was a delicate, fragile thing, ready to break. She didn’t break. She never broke. Not anymore, and never again. Not for him. Not for anyone.
He shouldered through a door at the rear of the wheelhouse, and pulled her into the main cabin. When he flicked the light on, she glimpsed a neat, warm single-room space, an impression of cozy lived-in clutter utterly at odds with his gunmetal starkness. Then she could see only him as he tossed her down on a long, low couch, the soft suede of stroking the backs of her thighs, crocheted quilts scratching her nape and catching on her hoodie, every sensation suddenly too real, too sharp. His jacket flumped down next to her in a heap. She curled her fingers against the scrape of her fishnets, breathed in tiny gulps, stared up at his darkened silhouette—and wondered just how much he was going to hurt her.
“Well?” She lifted her chin. “Get it over with. That’s what you brought me here for, isn’t it?”
