by Laura Bickle
“That doesn’t sound smart.”
“Yeah, well...” I weigh how much I can trust her. Maybe I should start, bit by bit.
“If we’re going to run away together, I think you should start trusting me,” she says.
Shit. My heart stops beating in my chest with a solid thunk. She’s right.
“The artifact he wanted to buy is magical.”
“Like Bert, magical?”
“Sort of. It prolongs life. My dad’s using it to give Pops some extra time.”
Her brow wrinkles, processing. “How did the Mob even know you have it?”
“I don’t know. But I do know that magical items don’t move around much without everyone in the community knowing about it. Sensing it somehow. Magic workers like to blab.”
She rubs her bare arms. “Creepy.”
I take her hand. It’s cold. “That’s probably not the hourglass you’re feeling. That’s the Gnome.”
“The Gnome?”
“Dad put a gnome in the front window. Bad juju. Supposed to keep the baddies away.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Great. Your dad works magic?”
“No. He just sells shit that is.”
She squeezes my hand. “Thanks for telling me the truth, Raz.”
I nod slowly. It’s not the whole truth. Just a little part of it. But it’s a start.
Lily rises, and so do I. I reach for the ladder to go back downstairs. But she pulls me back through the window, to my room. It’s dark and empty, and the door is shut.
“I’m cold,” she says by way of explanation. She crawls into my bed and opens the blanket.
I pause, half in and half out the window.
“We don’t have to do anything,” she says. “Just sleep.”
I take her at her word. I kick off my shoes and climb into bed with her. She snuggles up against me, and I awkwardly slide my arm underneath the pillow and her head. It immediately falls asleep, but I don’t move. I’m holding my breath.
I smell the shampoo in her hair as her head slides under my chin. I curl up around her, spooning. It’s like we were meant to fit together. Her heartbeat synchronizes with mine, and my breath evens out and slows with hers. She falls asleep immediately, a soft whistle of a snore coming from her parted lips.
I’m torn. I want to stay awake and savor every instant of this, but I’m exhausted. The darkness is creeping up on me. I close my eyes and surrender to it, hoping Lily will be in my dreams as much as she’s in my arms.
I WAKE IN THE EARLY hours of the morning, when the light is still gray. A tow truck trundles down the alley, and that rumble jars me from sleep.
A thick, dreamless sleep. Just lovely. I haven’t slept like that since I was small.
I think about disentangling myself from Lily. I’m on my back, and she’s cuddled up next to me, her head on my chest. Her hand rests on my belly, just above the button of my jeans.
I decide disentangling just this second would be a bad idea. Instead, I drink in the warmth of her body next to mine. A bit of her hair is in my mouth and on my cheek, and it’s as soft as those fur coats we keep in the vault. The line of her shoulder rises and falls with her breath. My T-shirt has slipped off her neck, showing the creamy skin of her shoulder. What would it be like to wake up to this every morning? To feel this sense of warmth and peace, this stillness? I wonder what it would be like for this to be the rest of my life. Or at least, the next part of it.
The garbage truck clunks close by.
Lily wakes up. Her breath shallows, and her eyelashes flutter against my chest. It’s like she transitions from something dead to something living—still and then liquid.
“Good morning,” I say. I kiss the top of her head, burying my fingers in her hair.
She tips her head up. A shadow falls over her expression, and I can’t see it. I touch her face, feel the curve of her lips. She’s smiling. “Good morning.”
I kiss her. Maybe it’s the sleep muzziness or the dreamlike quality of the gray that makes me bold. I’m not sure. But I kiss her deeply and without regret, unafraid of her reaction or morning breath or her sister walking in on us. It feels right. Every fiber of my body is tense and singing. My hands cup the back of her head, her bare shoulder.
She kisses me back. Her hair falls against my cheek. Her breasts are pressing against my chest, and I’m very conscious of an ache growing below my belt. My hands slide down her back, down to the small of her back. Somebody once told me that really turns girls on. My fingers hover there on the bare base of her spine, stroking her soft skin.
It seems to work. Lily dips her head and kisses me under the ear, nibbling at my neck. I sigh into her hair, heart hammering, and let my hand slide down to her butt. I half-expect her to slap me away, but she doesn’t. I imagine that the skin there, beneath my sweats, is as pale as her exposed shoulder.
Lily’s hand slips underneath my shirt, fingers playing against my chest. It’s still pretty smooth. I’m envious of those guys on the reality TV shows who are fishermen and loggers with mats of hair on their chests that look like they’ve glued shag carpeting to their bodies. That’s not me. But Lily doesn’t seem to mind. Her fingers slide up and over my right nipple. I groan, enjoying the sensation lancing through my nerves. Damn.
I kiss her again, harder. I want her to know how incredibly beautiful she is, how badly I want her. I scrape one of my teeth against hers, but she doesn’t flinch. I grow bolder and slide my hand up the back of her shirt. There’s no bra strap, and my fingers dig into her shoulder.
Mmm. She’s not giving me any signals to slow down. Not “eek,” “stop,” “no,” or pulling away. She’s got one knee between my legs, straddling one of them. I’m sure she feels the pressure of me against her knee, knows how hot I am. She’s kissing the outside of my ear, and a million neurons are firing off all at once, like the Fourth of July. I’ve never had a girl chew on my ear, but it feels good.
I screw up my courage and slide my hand beneath her arm, cupping her breast. It’s heavy in my palm, sharp nipple pressing against my fingers. I have no idea what to do with it, but it’s the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me. I squeeze it gently, like it’s a fruit, somehow get my thumb on her nipple.
Lily moans against my ear. Encouraging. She arches her back and presses herself against me. I take that as a signal to keep working at that nipple with my thumb, keeping it hard with my groping.
Lily reaches down, down my chest, her fingers gliding over the top button of my jeans. And then her hand is on top of my denim-covered junk, jesusfuckingchrist. She squeezes me, and I involuntarily thrust myself into her hand, moaning.
Then there’s a knock at the door.
Jesusfuckingchrist.
Lily launches herself off me and dives under the covers. I roll out from under them and have one foot out the window by the time her mother’s voice leaks under the door.
“Lily...it’s almost time for school.”
“Just a minute, Mom.”
As the door opens, I’m out on the fire escape, breathing hard. Mrs. Renfelter makes soft motherly noises: “I think it would be best for you go back to school today. There’s nothing else for you to do here.”
Lily says something unintelligible that I can’t hear over the hammering of my heart. But it sounds as if it’s assent. A pigeon perches above me on the fire escape and coos at me. One of the alley cats makes no effort to chase it. He’s a big gray tiger tom, blind in one eye. His tail dangles down between the slats and tickles the top of my head. He looks down at me with a smug expression.
“I’ll make some breakfast for you.” Mrs. Renfelter shuffles out of the room.
“Thanks, Mom.”
The door closes. I release my breath, glance back through the window. Lily leans on the windowsill, gazing shyly at me.
I smile back, even though I’m pretty sure the cat is laughing at me.
I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT post-make-out etiquette is supposed to be, but I’m pretty sure
it’s not sitting at your kitchen table while the mother of the object of your affections makes scrambled eggs, toast, and bacon. Lily and I sit opposite each other. Lily’s picking at her eggs. I’m nonchalantly attempting to read the back of the cereal box. I’ve read the same phrase about the goodness of oats and the fiber content ten times already, but I can’t tell you what it says.
Carl eats like a ravening wolf. To be fair, I don’t ever remember anyone ever actually making us breakfast in this kitchen. Sid usually stocks us up on Pop-Tarts and granola bars, and any fruit that darkens our door usually becomes a furry civilization in the lightless depths of the fridge. But sitting around a table with Carl, Lily, Rose, and Callie is nice. Lily’s found the toy in the bottom of the box for Callie, and she’s playing delightedly with the miniature plastic unicorn.
Rose gnaws on a piece of toast. When she walks by me with her orange plastic Tiki cup of juice, I smell a hint of rum in it. She lifts her glass and winks. “Cheers.”
Carl walks behind her to drop his dish in the sink, stops, and stares at her ass. “Nice ink,” he says.
“Rose! That’s awful!” Mrs. Renfelter wails.
“Thanks,” Rose says.
“Cool,” Carl says. He frowns. “What is it?”
Rose lifts her shirt to show him. “It’s Nicola Tesla.”
“Ah. I see it now. Cool.”
“Rose!” Mrs. Renfelter wails. “Put your shirt down!”
“What?” Rose argues. “I decided I’m gonna major in physics. Think of it as a declaration of intent.”
Bert pokes his head in the doorway. “Hey, the school bus is leaving in ten minutes. Get yer butts in gear, kids.”
“The school bus?” I mumble around a mouthful of hot bacon. I haven’t been on a school bus in years.
“Your dad said for me to drive you to school.” Bert says this in a nonchalant way, but stares at me in a beady-eyed fashion that indicates he’ll brook no argument.
I still try. I don’t want Bert to drive us to school. “We can walk to school. Really, man.”
“Nuh-uh. Everyone gets to go in the happy wagon.” Bert’s nostrils flare. “Mmmm...is that bacon?”
Mrs. Renfelter scoops some bacon onto a plate for him. Bert falls into it, face-first, making happy snorkeling noises. In his reflection in the toaster, he looks like his usual disguise, a Jersey dude tucking into his mama’s home cooking.
I slink down into my seat. Carl and I exchange looks.
We do not want Bert to drive us to school. The last time that happened, it took us two grades to live down the humiliation.
No good is going to come of this.
CHAPTER 19
I understand, really, I do.
My dad and Sid don’t want us to get picked off by the Mob walking to school. I get it—I don’t want to be a target, either. I like my skin where it is, firmly attached to my body. Especially since it seems Lily is interested in fondling it.
But they don’t get how much damage it does to one’s reputation to be delivered to school in an ice cream truck.
We beg and plead with Bert to let us off a block before school, but no luck. I even threaten to call him by his demon name, but it’s no good. My dad and Sid have already pulled dibs. Apparently, there’s some kind of hierarchy of conflicting orders for demons that has to do with timing and explicitness of instructions. I really want to see if he’ll pull a RoboCop and flip out if he has conflicting prime directives, but he just chortles and keeps driving. This is something I’m going to have to explore at a later date. Y’know, when I’m not about to get my ass kicked.
Bert pulls right up to the yellow-painted curb, right behind the school buses. He hits every goddamn speed bump on the way in, activating the ice cream truck jingle. Every single kid walking up the steps and streaming from the buses turns and stares. Every. Single. One.
You have no idea how much courage it takes to open the back door of the ice cream truck, hold your head high, and step out onto the street with about two hundred kids staring and sniggering at you.
I go first, then Carl, then Lily. The cackling decreases a bit when the kids see the school’s star lineman giving them shitty looks. It increases among the girls when Lily gets out, hugging her books to her chest.
I grab Lily’s arm and scuttle up on the curb with Carl glowering behind us. Bert watches as we climb the steps. I swear to god, if he honks the horn, I’m going to slap him.
A merry toot-toot sounds behind me. I flip Bert the bird.
“He is such an asshole,” Carl growls.
Some of Carl’s teammates are hanging out by the flagpole. “Hey, Carl...what’s with the fun wagon?”
Carl grunts. “We stole it. It was fun joyriding around at 3 a.m. Not so fun now.”
I lift an eyebrow. That’s good. I wish I’d thought of that. Carl finds a way to preserve his cool.
“What’s with the jarhead haircut?”
Carl pauses. “My dickhead cousin and I got into a razor war. Sneaking up on each other with the clippers. He got in a few. So did I.” He shrugs. “Couldn’t leave it like it was.”
Jesus, Carl is good. That is so much better than the head lice excuse. Everyone’s seen guys attacking each other with clippers on YouTube. Maybe I need to shut the fuck up and let Carl run my life. Or at least take some notes on how he does it.
The rumbling from the athletes dies down as we progress to the front of the building. The bell rings. Carl and I trudge up the steps. I pause at the newspaper box and freeze in my tracks. I grab Carl’s arm, drawing him out of the stream of people flooding into the doors. Lily melts into that stream and vanishes.
“Dude...what?”
I point at the front page of the newspaper, displayed behind its unbreakable glass case. The headline reads:
“FOUR COLLEGE MEN FOUND DEAD AT PIER”
“JesusfuckingChrist,” Carl snarls, staring at the picture of the pier.
I dig into my pocket for change, drop a quarter and lose it, and throw the rest into the machine. I grab a copy of the paper just as the second bell rings. Carl and I hustle inside the building, making a beeline for the men’s room outside the gym. Nobody spends much time in that restroom unless they’re looking to get high.
There’s a lone tweaker perched on the bathroom sink. Most schools have stoners. We have tweakers. Go figure. “Get lost,” Carl says. The tweaker slinks away.
With shaking hands, I spread the newspaper out on the sink. I read silently, and Carl’s lips move as he reads. Sweat prickles my brow and drops down onto the newsprint, blurring the ink.
Four college men were found under Pier 5 last night by dockworkers. The four men were found with their hands removed. The coroner’s office has not yet released a cause of death, though homicide detectives were at the scene. An unnamed source close to the investigation has informed the Starboard City Sentinel that the deaths were likely a result of blood loss.
“It was unbelievable,” said an eyewitness to the scene, who did not wish to be identified. “They were strung upside down like fish. All the sand below that pier is red. Red like the side of a fresh-painted barn.”
The men have been identified as State College students Harry Lazarus, Mark Ingers, Jason Carbonne, and Sam Geffers. They had been missing since Monday evening, reportedly visiting Starboard City for a bachelor party.
Anyone with information about these men is encouraged to contact the Starboard City Police Department...
“Fuck,” I say.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!” Carl turns away, pacing, his hands in his nonexistent hair. He kicks a urinal, taking a chunk out of the porcelain. The piece clatters to the ground and bounces away.
“Calm down, man,” I say.
“Calm down? How the fuck am I supposed to calm down?” Carl points at the paper. “They killed those guys. They found them and killed them. Even the ones who didn’t do anything!”
“They were witnesses,” I say. “The Mob doesn’t want witnesses.”
Carl grasps the front of my T-shirt. His eyes are wide and panicking. “They know where we are. We looked right into the eyes of Young Don yesterday. He knows.”
“He doesn’t know!” I’m in full-on denial. “He would’ve shot us right there—”
“He knows!” Carl shakes me.
Feeling my teeth rattle around in my head seems to jar something loose—the knowledge that we are totally fucked. It finally dawns on me how much trouble we’re really in.
I sag against the sink, staring at the stretched-out neckline of my shirt. Carl releases me, pacing up and down the green tile floor with his hands laced behind his head.
“We gotta tell our dads,” he says.
“No,” I say. “We gotta disappear.”
He pauses in his pacing at the far end of the room, beside the hand dryers. “What are you talking about?”
I swallow. “We get out of town. Blow this popsicle stand, as they say on TV.”
He shakes his head. “Why the hell would I want to do that?”
“Dude, the Mob is after us. You wanna get those magic football hands cut off? Seriously.” I’m babbling. I can’t stop myself. “There’s nothing here for us, anyway. Just growing up like our dads and running the shop, staring at the same four walls and wondering what the fuck the mountains look like.”
Carl stares at me like I’ve grown a second head.
I keep talking. “We have the money. We can take Lily and go, where nobody would ever find us. Maybe apply to college somewhere, get jobs, do something...”
He continues staring at me.
I falter. “...be something different.”
Carl lets me run out of steam. Silence falls like a curtain between us. And then he says: “I don’t want to leave. I made first string this year in football. Coach says I might be able to play minor league baseball, even. I have friends. I almost got lucky last week, and with a girl I could see a future with. I like the shop. Sure, some of the shit in it is creepy, but I don’t mind it.” He leans closer to me. He’s not consciously trying to be intimidating or intense; he just does this when he tries to make me understand. He leans close, so he can really see my eyes, see if what he’s saying is registering. “You remember when it was ‘take your parent to school day’ in elementary school?”
