City of Ghosts

by Stacia Kane

  No. No, and no. She was not going to do that to herself, not anymore. Whatever. He was on a date, fine. Out with some other girl—now draped over his chest like one of Dali’s melting clocks—who didn’t even have the grace to look a damn bit like Chess so she could comfort herself with the idea that he was hunting out some kind of replacement for her.

  Not that that actually would comfort her, but at least she could think shitty thoughts about it. As it was, she just felt shitty, and that was infinitely worse.

  She managed to make it to the bar for another bottle of cheap self-esteem without being seen, but as the bartender handed it to her, she felt it. Him. Felt his gaze on her. How she felt it she didn’t know, but she felt it just the same, knew the second she turned around she’d catch him looking at her.

  Sometimes she hated being right.

  His face didn’t move while he watched her walk back to her seat; not so much as a blink or a twitch of the lips to indicate he even knew who she was, that they’d ever shared a conversation, much less bodily fluids. Fine. She could do that, too.

  And she didn’t have to do it alone. She sat back down, threw a glassy smile at the guy sitting in her booth.

  “Saved your seat,” he said.

  Terrible was still watching. She smiled wider. “Really? From a fate worse than death?”

  It took him a second, but he got it. “Yeah, you could say that. Or maybe I saved me. You should have seen the guy who wanted it.”

  “Not your type?”

  He shook his head, his expression solemn. He had a nice face; any other time she would have studied it, would have wondered how he looked from the neck down. Would have considered finding out, if she had nothing else going on.

  As it was he was nothing, just a face at which she could smile and pretend to be having the time of her life. She didn’t think that if she blinked she’d recognize him again when her eyes opened. “I like them smaller,” he said. “Makes me feel like a man.”

  “Do you not usually?” Terrible had looked away; now he glanced at her again, shifted in his seat. She leaned forward a little, keeping tabs on him out of the corner of her eye.

  “Am I supposed to?” He didn’t appear to notice her sneaky eye-corner spying.

  “Well, it’s usually—” Oh. Oh, no. The music changed. Chess recognized that song, heavy with bass, those sonorous opening notes …

  The Stooges, “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” The song that played the night she and Terrible first—that night at Trickster’s, the night she’d fucked everything up for the first time. The most serious time. The night before she’d gone ahead and slept with Lex, sending all of them down the slippery road to hell.

  “Usually?” The guy prompted, but Chess barely noticed. She wasn’t looking at him. Couldn’t look at anything or anyone but Terrible, because he turned to look at her and she knew by the way his brows drew together and his mouth turned down that he remembered, too.

  His date took the opportunity to slide her hand over his chest, stroking her fingernails over his throat. His gaze faltered; he turned back toward the girl and her ample bosom, and Chess couldn’t sit there for another second.

  She mumbled something, she didn’t know what, and got up, still clutching her beer. The music filled her head, swelling inside it, and the pressure was going to kill her in another minute, it hurt so fucking bad.

  To get out of the bar she’d have to walk right in front of him. No way. Let him see her hasty and embarrassing retreat? Fuck that.

  Her seatmate tried to stand up, reaching for her, but she ducked away and headed for the bathroom, using the sheer force of her embarrassed rage to propel herself through the crowd. They were in her way. They deserved to get shoved or elbowed.

  It was early enough that nobody was waiting for the bathroom. Or hell, maybe she just didn’t see the line. All she saw was the door and the promise of a few minutes of privacy. That was all she needed. Just a couple of minutes, just to get her head together, just until that fucking song ended and she could pretend it never came on in the first place.

  It was also early enough that the bathroom itself—a cramped room only slightly bigger than a closet—was fairly clean, or again, maybe she just didn’t see it. She couldn’t see much, not with the tears blurring her vision.

  The wall was cold, hard white tile. She pressed her forehead against it, wrapped her arms around herself. Shit … just … shit. Why had he come there, of all places? Why couldn’t she grow a fucking pair and stop being such a baby? What was the matter with her that she couldn’t just get over this—over him? She’d never done this before. Never had any regrets when something didn’t work out. For that matter, she’d never had anything to regret, never had someone she wanted to keep around for any length of time.

  It wasn’t like she hadn’t done this to herself. She had. Every step along the bastard trail had been made by her alone. She’d gone back to Lex’s place that night instead of crashing at a friend’s place like Terrible wanted her to—had tried to get her to do, he’d had his phone in his hand. She’d stood in Lex’s bedroom and thought he looked like a good time, so why not have one? She’d lied to Terrible the next day, convinced herself that was the right thing to do.

  And all of that she could maybe excuse herself for. Maybe.

  Chess lied to herself every day; it was just something she did, like taking her pills or making sure she had a pen in her bag. Little lies, mostly. Insignificant. Of course there were big ones there, too, like telling herself that she was more than just a junkie who got lucky enough to possess a talent not everyone had. That she was alone by choice and that she was not terrified of other people because they couldn’t be trusted, because they carried filth in their minds and pain in their hands and they would smear both all over her given half the chance.

  But the biggest lie she’d ever told herself, the one she’d told herself for months after that night at Trickster’s, was that she wasn’t falling in love with Terrible, hadn’t already fallen. That all those nights spent sleeping on the couch, shutting her eyes against the lamps because sometimes if Terrible saw her lights on he’d stop by, meant nothing; that he’d call and offer to buy her dinner and she always said yes even though she wasn’t hungry at all; that their friendship was casual when, in fact, they saw each other almost every night.

  Hell, wasn’t that why she’d slept with Lex to begin with? To escape those feelings? So it was useless to pretend that continuing to sleep with Lex as time went on, that spending the evening getting itchy with Terrible and using Lex to scratch with afterward wasn’t … twisted.

  And now she was paying for it as the music pounded into the bathroom and she huddled against the icy tile and cried the tears she knew she deserved to cry.

  Someone knocked on the door. Shit, couldn’t they even give her two minutes? The fucking lyrics had just started, she’d barely been in there for thirty seconds.

  “I’ll be right out.”

  They knocked again.

  She swiped at her eyes with her hands, but the tears wouldn’t stop. They’d been building up for so long, turning into a lake behind a dam, and now the wall had been breached and there was no plugging the holes. “Just a min—”

  The door swung open, and Terrible slipped into the room.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  It’s always tempting to think you can get what you want by giving a man what he wants. Don’t be fooled by this! And teach your daughters not to be fooled either.

  —Mrs. Increase’s Advice for Ladies by Mrs. Increase

  She tried to spin around and hide her tears, but he was too fast. One hand caught her arm and whirled her back to face him; the other hooked around her waist and pulled her against him.

  Their eyes met. Oh, no. If he thought he could come in here and grab her and she would just drop her pants for him again, after all the things he’d said to her, after his fucking apologies, like he was ashamed of himself for wanting her—so fucking patronizing—and he’d changed hi
s number and there he was with a date sitting in a booth outside—

  Then he kissed her, and she caught herself in another lie. Dropping her pants was exactly what she was going to do, what she was doing, because without her telling them to be, her hands were already at his belt, tugging the buckle free, practically ripping his jeans open and shoving themselves inside. She wavered on tiptoe, straining to reach his mouth, unable to hold on to his neck or shoulders because there were other, far more important parts of him to grab, and his hands slid up and down her body, tangling in her hair, heating her breasts and neck and back.

  Her jeans and panties fell to her calves, her back fell against the tile. He pushed her shoe and the bundle of fabric off one foot—his mouth left hers to bite the sensitive skin over her hipbone—and came back up, hooking his elbows under her thighs to lift her. Her jeans dangled from her right foot; it probably looked ridiculous but she didn’t give a damn.

  And apparently neither did he. His mouth took hers again, hard, stealing her breath and her sanity. She knew she should resist, should tell him he couldn’t just storm in here and use her like that, but who was she kidding. She’d never been able to resist temptation—especially an unhealthy one—and at that moment he was another pill, another line; one she needed, one she would die if she couldn’t have, and her entire body was already vibrating in anticipation. So she twined her arms around his neck, holding on tight, while he shifted her in his arms and drove himself into her.

  She cried out, her voice echoing off the tile. Somewhere deep in her mind it registered that anyone standing outside the room would probably hear her, but she didn’t care. Couldn’t help herself anyway, because his fingers dug into her skin and his hips pounded her into the wall and it was just as it had been the day before, when she couldn’t see or think or do anything but feel. Like electricity running through her body or the thick velvet of magic making everything tingle; she was hot and cold and shivering from both, her senses in total overload. He refused to give her a break, to slow down, to let her process what was happening. It terrified her. It made her want to scream with pleasure. She bit him instead, hard on the neck, the taste of his skin filling her mouth while he gasped and let his head fall back.

  Behind him the door started to open. How he heard it over the sound of her voice and his own she didn’t know but he did, swinging her around and using her to slam the door shut again. The thin wood rattled in its frame and kept rattling, booming along to his punishing rhythm. Dimly she wondered if the door would break; then his grip shifted again so his hand could slide between them and she didn’t give a shit if it did.

  His mouth left hers; he leaned back, looking down. Watching as he slowed his pace, rotated his hips, made breathless sounds fly from her mouth. And she let him, stretching her arms up to grip the top of the doorframe, stretching her back so her shirt rode up and pulled tight across her chest and he got a better view. She got a good view herself, watching his face; the same absorption on it she’d seen when he was fighting, when he was working. Total focus. On her. It was thrilling.

  He came back to her. His lips found her throat, sucking hard enough to leave a bruise, crushing her to him again. She tilted her head, and clutched his shoulders so hard that her fingers were sore.

  The door bucked and creaked behind her; fists on the other side added their own offbeat clamor. She and Terrible were together on their side of it, she completely in his power, unable to move, unable to do anything but let him have her and to glory in the fact that he was. She fisted the hair on the back of his neck, yanked his mouth back to hers, lights exploding behind her closed eyelids. Her body tensed, she was ready, she was so fucking ready, and she had to pull away because she had to breathe and when she did their eyes met—

  It was too much. She couldn’t take it, couldn’t handle it, not when she knew he’d be able to see everything, all her feelings and stupid vulnerabilities plain in her eyes. She dragged her gaze away as her back arched and her head fell against the vibrating door and her body shook and clenched around him and somewhere in there she thought she screamed but she wasn’t sure.

  His low, thick voice danced over her skin. Her head spun, she couldn’t see, couldn’t think. Only his voice, only his hands on her and his body inside hers and against hers told her she really existed, that this moment really existed. Somewhere in the back of her mind she thought if he hadn’t been clutching her she might go through the door herself—which wasn’t a totally unrealistic idea—and simply disappear.

  But it wouldn’t happen. She knew it wouldn’t because he was there, because his strong arms held her up and his big chest pressed against hers and his breath heated her skin, because he shuddered under her hands and his body went rigid and she came back to awareness with her forehead resting on his shoulder and her arms aching from holding him.

  This time there was no long dazed pause; he moved again almost immediately, setting her down on her unsteady legs. She braced herself against the wall. The cool tile shocked her back to reality, where the door was still bucking and angry shouts came through the wood.

  He tugged his jeans back up and yanked the door open. From her position behind it she couldn’t see what happened, but the sounds told her well enough; the strangled gawk of someone being grabbed by the throat, the dull crunch of a fist against flesh, the tumbling thuds of a falling body.

  “Any else wanna bang the fuckin door? You bang that fuckin door again, I kill you. Dig?”

  Apparently they did. Certainly she didn’t hear anyone arguing. No surprise there.

  He slammed the door behind him and leaned against it, staring at the floor like it was about to jump up and attack him.

  She fastened her jeans, stuck her foot back in her shoe while an ugly certainty crawled into her brain to make a home. “If you apologize to me again, I will hit you.”

  His shoulders lifted; not a shrug, but a hunch, as if he expected her to hit him anyway. Which, given what happened the day before, she couldn’t exactly say she blamed him for. “Aye, well … guessin I ain’t can say that one again. Ain’t like I come in here by surprise.”

  She dug around in her bag for her pillbox and pulled it out. The heavy silver filigree, rough against her palm, grounded her. Gave her whatever it was she needed to keep talking. “So why did you come in here, then?”

  He shook his head.

  “Terrible … come on, just—”

  “Aw, shit. Ain’t can do this, Chess. Fuckin speeches and shit. Whatany you’re wanting, I ain’t—ain’t can give it. Not on the now, dig. Not after …” He shook his head again.

  “After what you saw,” she finished. “After you found out about—Lex.”

  “You ain’t even quit seein him now.” Light flared through the room as he lit a cigarette, the enormous flame on his black steel lighter blowing heat against her skin while he eyed her. “Givin you knowledge bout them tunnels, aye? Still seein him, and you wanting me to—”

  “But that’s different, it’s work, and—”

  “He ring you up, gave you the knowledge? Or he come at your place for aught else, just happen to drop it down while he there?” The darkness in his eyes, the bitterness in his voice, told her he already knew the answer. And why wouldn’t he? He knew Lex—not as well as she did, but he knew him. Knew Lex wasn’t the type to hand out chunks of helpful information out of the kindness of his heart.

  Knew because when it came right down to it, he wasn’t the type to do that either.

  She looked away. Lit her own smoke, wishing it was something stronger than plain tobacco. “Yeah. He came for something else. But he didn’t—I ended it. Really, really ended it, and he knows it.”

  “Only knowledge Lex got is what Lex wanting.”

  “Yeah, I know. I know that, that’s why I never—It never meant anything. He never meant anything to me. And I never told him anything about you, never. But he did help me out, he helped me out when Kemp was killing hookers and he helped me out …”

 
Shit. What did it say about her that telling the truth always made her sound like such a liar?

  “Earlier tonight he took me into the tunnels. He—”

  “Earlier? You with—”

  “No, just listen, please. He told me they found—ow—I needed to see the tunnels. And we were chased, we found a body, one of the—He was dead and they chased us with psychopomps and it was—You remember, who we saw yesterday. And I found out more about him, he isn’t just—ow!—he’s bigger than we thought. He’s someone else.”

  Her beer still sat on the floor where she’d set it, by the sink. He scooped it up and took a long drink. “What the fuck, Chess, keep tellin me I gotta give you trust an then—”

  “Because I can’t lie to you, I don’t want to hide things from you anymore. I’m trying to make it right, Terrible, and I can’t help it if there’s things you don’t—Would you rather I kept lying and pretended I hadn’t seen him and hadn’t found out what I found out? I have a job to do and that’s what it was, that was all it was, he had information I needed.”

  “Aye? Maybe I got some knowledge you need right, too. Lex trying to push Bump off Forty-third, aye? Sent he men just on the other night, start gunfights there on the border streets. Figure he tryin kill em all, stick he own in afore we—”

  “What?”

  “What?”

  She shook her head. “Say that again. Say what you just said again.”

  His brows lifted, but he did as she asked. “Try an kill Bump’s men on them border streets, put he own in.”

  “To push Bump out. To take over.”

  “He got he goals, aye, an having me an Bump dead at the top of he list. You got that fuckin knowledge, aye? You had it months gone, you know what he givin the try, an you still—”

  “He’s trying to push them out and take over.” Her phone had fallen into the bottom of her bag; she’d forgotten to slip it back into its little pocket. She dug around for it, found it and pulled it out. “That’s what he’s doing. It’s not the—Not them, I mean, maybe it still is, but it’s him too, he’s taking over their plan.”