City of Ghosts

by Stacia Kane

  “Because it’s the truth, and I want to tell you the truth, okay? I didn’t lie to you on the bridge that night, I was going to end it with Lex, I wanted to be—”

  “Fuck this.” He snatched up the flashlight, stormed away from her. “Fuck this, fuck you. You—”

  “Go ahead, run away from me. Pussy.”

  “What?” Oh, shit. If she’d thought he was angry before …

  She wasn’t backing down, though. No way. She was sick of this game, sick of paying the price; weariness weighed on her, dragged her down behind the ever-strengthening rush of the room’s energy and her own anger and the slick, aching tickle of desire that had started the second his eyes found her bare legs. “You heard me, you fucking pussy. What’s the matter, Terrible? You afraid of me, afraid of some girl? Afraid to stand there and listen? What do you think I’m going to say, why can’t you just listen to me?”

  “Wastin my fuckin time, is—”

  “No! That’s bullshit and you know it. Come on. Listen to me—look at me, you’re not even looking at me, why? Why are you afraid to—”

  “Shut the fuck up, Chess.”

  “Make me.” The damp wall behind her was cool under her palms; she pressed them against it, braced herself. Her entire body shook. She was about to do something that would either get her what she wanted or get her killed, and at that particular moment she wasn’t sure she cared which. She couldn’t do this anymore, was all she knew. She missed him, and she wanted him, and she was so fucking guilty and she hated herself for hurting him, and she couldn’t let this sit between them anymore. One way or another it was ending. She needed him to end it. Needed him to do something, anything, to end it.

  He blinked. “What?”

  “You heard me. Make me. Come on. Make me shut up.”

  He gave his head a shake, started to walk away. Farther into the big dark room; she couldn’t see the walls very well, but water glistened in a crooked stream down one of them. And still magic whispered against her skin, probed her with delicate fingers. Tried to get in.

  She pushed off the wall; the cold uneven cement scraped her bare feet as she headed toward him. “What got you so mad, anyway? That I was fucking Lex? Or that I wasn’t fucking you?”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Make me!” She splashed through the narrow, shallow stream zigzagging down the center of the floor; the water was icy but she barely noticed it. He was only a few feet away. “Make me, Terrible. Come on. You want to hit me? You want to make me pay for what I did? Why don’t you, then? Make me pay, come on.”

  No reply.

  “Come on!” She pushed him. Hard, putting all her strength behind it, suddenly furious. Not just determined, not just angry, but furious. Who the fuck was he to judge her? To ignore her? To tell her he cared about her, wanted her, and then to turn on her because of one mistake? She was only human, only herself. She’d never had anyone to advise her, to pat her back and hold her hand through life. She’d had to make her own mistakes.

  And she’d made them. And lying to him was one of them.

  But he’d lied too. He’d lied, because he’d told her—not in those words, but he’d told her—that he’d seen something special in her. He’d made her believe, for that one moment, those two short days between the time he’d made his little speech and that horrible night in the graveyard, that there was something special in her. Something good.

  And there wasn’t. And she’d hurt him, and she hated herself so much, so much for that, for making that mistake, for doing that to him, so much she couldn’t stand it another second, and he could make it stop. He could forgive her or he could punish her; somehow in the twisted magic-thick confusion of her mind he became the only one who could. He became the one who could punish her for everything, every pill and drink and powder and every lousy thing she’d ever done, Brain and Randy and the dead hookers she hadn’t saved and all of it—

  So she pushed him, with every bit of strength she had, and was rewarded when he took an involuntary step forward.

  “Fuckin stop it.” It was more than a warning, it was a growl from the depths of his throat; the sound of a wolf about to defend itself.

  She ignored it. Pushed him again. “Why don’t you make me? I lied to you, right? I fucked somebody else, right? A lot! I fucked him a lot, Terrible, all over the place, all different positions.” Another push. “Doesn’t that piss you off? Why don’t you fucking do something about it? Why are you so scared to—”

  “Shut the fuck up, I ain’t—”

  “I hurt you, right? So why don’t you hurt me? You want to hurt me, Terrible? Hurt me back?” Another shove, harder. She was getting into it, getting lost in it; energy raced up her body, rage and pain and lust, swirling around her, making her vision blur, and she couldn’t get rid of it. Couldn’t make it go away. Couldn’t stop even if she wanted to. Her voice echoed in her ears, echoed against the walls around them; she heard the edge of panic in it, felt tears slide down her cheeks.

  “Come on, Terrible! Hurt me. Hit me. You want to? Make me pay. Please, Terrible, just—just—”

  One more shove, her entire body behind it. He spun around, his face almost unrecognizable; one arm raised, ready to strike.

  “Fuckin warning you—”

  “Don’t fucking warn me, hit me! Hit me, you pussy! You fucking—you asshole, you fucking—”

  Her swing was clumsy, her vision too blurred for accuracy. It hit him, though, caught him—somewhere, the jaw she thought—with a resounding crack that sent pain streaking up her arm. Glorious pain, her entire body was tight with the anticipation of more, she needed it and she needed him to give it to her.

  “Fuck!” His hand started to move up to his cheek, but she couldn’t back off. Couldn’t stop hitting him, shoving him. Power thundered through her blood, through her body; incoherent thoughts tumbled through her brain like kaleidoscope images.

  “Hit me! Hit me back, why won’t you punish me? Please, please you fucking shithead bastard just do it, hit me, please …”

  She swung again, connected again, his upper arm she thought. Good, but not enough, not enough, he wasn’t hitting her, what was wrong with him why wasn’t he hitting her, couldn’t he see how bad she needed it, why wouldn’t he punish her just fucking make her—

  She fell backward without realizing it, her brain stupidly refusing to see him in front of her, to understand what was happening. She could barely see, couldn’t hear anything but the blood rushing in her ears.

  But she could feel.

  Feel his lips on hers, giving her the punishment she’d craved, hard and bruising and demanding. Felt his body above hers, felt his arm beneath her check their fall then snake up so his fingers could twist in her hair and crank her head back.

  Her already racing heart leapt so hard she thought for sure he could feel it. His free hand shoved itself under her shirt, yanked her bra cup out of the way, found her nipple; she cried out into the darkness, into him.

  “Fuck you, Chess,” he mumbled into her throat, and she didn’t know if he was cursing her or making a promise and she didn’t think it mattered either way. “Fuck you.”

  Her right leg was free; she wrapped it around his waist, pulled him closer to her. Her back scraped against the damp cement and she didn’t care. All she cared about, all she wanted, was to feel his bare skin against hers; all she cared about was that he wouldn’t stop, that he wouldn’t come to his senses and leave her there alone on the cold ground.

  Her fingers shook as she fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, moving as quickly as she could despite the distraction of his mouth on hers again. His tongue danced against hers, his fingers curled around the back of her neck. Every bit of fury, of energy, of fear and pain and misery and hatred she’d felt a second ago remained, channeled into something else, into need so desperate and consuming she thought it might kill her and she couldn’t bring herself to care one bit.

  She gave up on the buttons, reached under the shirt instead, under th
e T-shirt he wore beneath it, finding warm skin and hard muscles. His heart pounded beneath her palms; she slid them across his chest and felt the thick hair and the odd scar on the left side. The scar she’d made.

  “Chess,” he said again, a gasp into her mouth as his lips devoured hers. “So … so fuckin bad, want you so fuckin bad … shit so fucking bad …” Cool air hit her stomach, her chest; he’d bunched her shirt up out of the way. His teeth scraped the skin of her throat, over her collarbones, down farther until he caught her nipple in his mouth and pulled it hard. Heat exploded through her body; his hot, wet tongue teasing her, his teeth almost, but not quite, digging into her skin.

  Her voice echoed again off the walls; no words this time. She didn’t think she knew any. Couldn’t think of any, save perhaps “please.” And then she realized that was what she’d said, that she was still saying it. Realized her right hand was tangled in his hair and her back had arched up off the cement and her left hand clutched at his shoulder so hard it hurt.

  “Please, please, Terrible, please …” She couldn’t stop; she dragged his head up, his mouth back to hers. Yanked his shirt up so she could feel his skin against her, so she could run her hands over it, then slid them farther down, over his ass, lifted her hips and pulled him even closer so his erection ground against her. His belt buckle gave with a sharp tug, his buttons with another one; he gasped against her lips when she pushed her hand into his open fly, gripped the heavy solid length of his cock through his boxers. It jerked against her palm and her insides went liquid.

  “Shit, Chessie … oh fuck …” He kissed her harder, his hips moving against her hand, until her ears were ringing and everything in the room disappeared. She didn’t even know where they were anymore. All she knew was that he was there, and for that moment he was hers, and she’d waited too long, wanted him for too long, and she couldn’t wait another minute. All that mattered were his hands all over her body, caressing her uninjured thigh, her stomach, her breasts, her face, like he was trying to touch her everywhere at once.

  Her panties disappeared with an audible protest she paid not the slightest attention to, especially not when they were almost immediately replaced by something much better. His hand found her smooth bare skin, hesitated; then pressed forward, exploring her, and she had a second to be almost embarrassed by how wet she was, by how badly she wanted him and how he knew it, until she pulled his boxers out of the way and found she wasn’t the only one.

  He was hard and hot, swollen and slick with his own desire; she closed her fingers around the thick shaft and twisted gently, played the heel of her hand over the blunt head. He gasped her name again as his hips pressed forward and their kiss, their long, shared kiss, became something even more; like she was breathing him in, like he was feeding her. She wanted to look down, to see him, but she couldn’t pull away from that kiss. Couldn’t bear to end it.

  She fumbled at the waistband of his jeans, trying to push them down but unable to ignore his two thick fingers working inside her and the way her inner muscles clamped down on them, unable to ignore that he’d found exactly the right spot with his thumb and was stroking it in exactly the right way.

  “Shit, yes … please don’t stop, Terrible, please don’t stop, fuck, please—”

  “Ain’t fuckin stopping,” he growled. And he didn’t, and she finally pulled her mouth away from his because she needed air, because all of her blood had left her head and was congregating farther south, and she clutched at him and her eyes squeezed shut and she exploded.

  He didn’t wait, didn’t give her a chance to come down before his fingers disappeared and he thrust into her, all of him at once stretching her, sending her back over the edge. Still he didn’t stop. His hips pounded against hers, punishing her. Giving her what she’d begged for, what she still wanted. She felt his teeth sink into her neck and screamed into the darkness, shoved her hands up under his shirt and dug what little fingernails she had into the soft skin there.

  He groaned and pushed her harder still, his body shaking. Forcing her to keep up his furious pace, forcing her to accept every bit of him. His thumb slipped back between her legs, teased her again, and this time she couldn’t find words to scream but screamed just the same.

  “Aye, Chessie … fuck, aye …” This was too much; his voice in her ears and his body inside hers and his anger and lust, the raging desire, the energy of the room around them increasing with every second. His rhythm changed, grew even more frantic; the slight twist of his hips disappeared and he swelled inside her.

  She grabbed his head, pulled his mouth down to hers, taking control as much as she could with her trembling hands. His breath came in short, rough gasps, his fingers called bruises from her skin, he was damp with sweat and so was she.

  He shuddered, shaking even harder than he had before. His muscles tightened under her hands. She held him closer, pulling him deeper into her, onto her, relishing his weight above her for one last second before his fingers convulsed, his entire body convulsed; she felt him throb inside her, heard her name on his lips as one long, low moan before he fell still.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  A Church employee does not get distracted. Does not lose sight of the goal. Does not waver in his or her objective, which is to defend the Church and to protect humanity, whatever the cost.

  —The Example Is You, the guidebook for Church employees

  She didn’t know how long they stayed there, didn’t know how much time passed before cold fear crept into her heart. He hadn’t spoken. Hadn’t kissed her again. His body was slack above hers.

  Finally he rolled away. She’d thought before that it was warm in the little underground space. Now she realized it wasn’t at all, and shivered. Her jeans were still across the room by the hatch, along with her jacket. Her panties were a torn heap of pale blue cotton in the middle of the little stream.

  Great. So she got to walk bare-assed over to get her jeans? She had a spare pair of panties in her bag, but … Something in the quality of his silence told her he wasn’t going to make flirty little jokes as she retrieved them.

  She adjusted her bra cup, tugged down the hem of her top. Something landed beside her with a soft, muffled sound; Terrible’s bowling shirt.

  “Thanks.” It was short-sleeved, but wide enough that she could wrap it around her waist at least; hell, if she slipped it over her shoulders it would hit her knees, given how it reached the top of his thighs. Nice of him. But further proof of her fears. Nothing had changed. She’d riled him into it, practically forced him, and now … now nothing had changed.

  His lighter clicked; the warm glow of the high flame brightened the room for a second. He waved a cigarette at her and she took it.

  “Thanks,” she said again. Her lips didn’t want to work properly. They felt swollen and bruised, like she’d been smacked in the mouth.

  Well. This was uncomfortable. She had no idea what to say, and she guessed he didn’t either. She knew what she wanted to say, what she wanted to do. She wanted to close the three-foot gap between them and tuck herself under his arm. Wanted to invite him back to her place and climb into bed with him—the bed she’d never let anyone else into—and do that again, slowly. Properly—not that it hadn’t been just fine the way it was. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d—No. No, she never had. She’d never felt like that before.

  And she wanted to say it was worth it, but fuck, as the silence stretched between them like a crack in her heart growing longer and longer …

  He cleared his throat. “Sorry.”

  He might as well have stabbed her.

  “You didn’t do anything I didn’t want you to do,” she said wearily. She needed her bag, her pills were in there. Lex hadn’t brought her just the two Oozers the night before, he’d dropped a couple more in there, and she’d brought one along, thinking it might come in handy. She didn’t care about the case just then, about the fucking Lamaru or their fucking psychopomp games or Maguinness. Didn’t give a fuck
about any of it. She just wanted to go home, get high, and hide, and try to forget the whole thing. She didn’t think that last item, at least, would be possible.

  “Aye, well. Maybe I ain’t want—”

  “Yeah. You didn’t want to do that. I get it.” For a second she waited for him to disagree, to say that what he hadn’t wanted was to do that there, or that way, or whatever, but he didn’t. What a shock. She glanced at his shirt, tried to decide whether she wanted to use it or not; decided she didn’t. Let him look. Whatever.

  It hadn’t seemed like such a great distance when she’d gone after him, from the hatch they’d dropped through to the space where they’d—where they’d ended up. Now it seemed to be miles, to take hours, crossing the chilly floor with her feet bare and her trembling thighs sticky. The faint ache between them would have been incredibly pleasant if the one in her chest wasn’t so much worse.

  She could smell him everywhere on her.

  The panties were in a side pocket; she slipped them on, dug out all of her first-aid stuff, and set to work on her leg. Funny, she hadn’t felt the injury at all in those fevered minutes. Clearly she should have, because bits of dirt clung to the edges of the cut, visible even in the very dim light.

  She needed the flashlight. But asking him to bring it over … Yeah, not really what she wanted to do. So she got it herself, her legs jerky beneath her.

  Of course, there was also the problem of holding the damned thing. She tried to stick the end in her mouth but it was too big, too heavy. It didn’t work tucked under her arm either. Finally she set it on the floor, started to sit down—

  Metal clinked across the room; she glanced up and saw his back, heard his belt buckle clink again before he turned around, his gaze somewhere on the floor. “Lemme give you the help, aye?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “C’mon, Chess. I ain’t—Just lemme do this.”

  Guilt covered his face like five o’clock shadow. Well, good. Maybe it was mean—hell, no maybe about it—but good. About time he got to feel guilty for something. Why should she always be the one?