And it didn’t look like Andrea was going to ask her to.
“Can we – can we talk in private . . .?” the young man stammered quietly, shoving his hands deep into his jeans’ pockets and looking all around anxiously. He was tapping his right foot like a jackrabbit.
“No, Aaron, we can’t talk in private,” Andrea said roughly. “I don’t want to talk to you at all. You think I don’t know exactly what you want? You blew your disability check on coke, and now you want me to give you money. Is that about the size of it?”
The young man cast a stricken look back at Blake. She didn’t know if she’d ever seen anyone so embarrassed. He hung his head miserably, looking as if he wished a crater would open up in the floor beneath his feet and swallow him whole.
“Yeah, I thought as much,” Andrea spat. “Well, you’re shit out of luck, brother. You’ll get nothing from me. Never again. Not so much as a single fucking red penny. Do you understand me?”
The young man turned his face away from her, his lower lip quivering. He seemed to be on the verge of tears.
“Do you understand me, Aaron?” Andrea repeated, more loudly this time. “I want to hear you say it. Tell me that you fucking understand!”
“Yes,” he breathed in a scarcely audible whisper, teardrops he obviously loathed coming to trickle down his pallid cheeks.
“I never want to see you again,” Andrea declared in a low voice, sweeping past the young man in a white-hot rage.
Blake stared at the boy for a minute, feeling almost torn. He just looked so . . . utterly pathetic and lost. She reached in her purse for her wallet, drawing out five hundred-dollar bills. She held them out to the boy without a word.
He looked up at her in complete stupefaction. “I don’t – I don’t understand,” he stuttered, gazing fearfully at the money, as if it might try to bite him or something.
“There’s nothing to understand,” Blake said gently. “Just take it.”
He held out a shaking hand and accepted the cash with an incredibly humble expression. “I don’t know who you are,” he murmured, “but thank you.”
“You don’t need to know who I am,” Blake replied. “Just try and get yourself well.”
He nodded, almost frantically, and shoved the money in his pocket. But suddenly Blake realized that Andrea was alone downstairs, and with a single nod towards the young man, she hurried away.
Chapter 7
Unbeknownst to any of the three individuals who’d just taken part in this little scene, there was someone waiting in one of the darker pools of shadow, watching and listening, and biding his time.
After Blake rushed downstairs in pursuit of Andi, leaving Aaron all alone, this man stepped out of the shadows and cleared his throat. Aaron’s head snapped up in alarm. His first thought was that someone had seen the blonde woman give him five hundred bucks, and had taken it into their head to try and steal it from him.
“There’s no need to be frightened,” the man said politely. “I simply want to speak with you for a moment.”
Aaron looked at him curiously. He was a handsome man, maybe in his late thirties, solidly built and amply muscled, with fair slicked-back hair and ice-blue eyes. He was well-dressed, wearing black jeans, a white button-down and an expensive-looking leather jacket. He even had a gold Rolex on his wrist.
“What do you want to talk about?” Aaron asked. He couldn’t help but be suspicious. Men dressed like this one didn’t just walk up wanting to talk to him. It was creepy, and he didn’t like it.
“I want to talk about your sister,” the man answered.
“Half-sister,” Aaron grumbled bitterly.
“Oh, come now,” the man said. “I’m sure it wasn’t her intention to be hurtful. She’s been through a lot this week.”
Aaron’s eyes widened, and he felt a stab of anxiety. Despite everything, he cared about Andi, and he never wanted to see her get hurt. He thought of the wounds he’d just seen on Andi’s body, and he knew they must have something to do with what this man was talking about.
“What happened?” Aaron inquired.
“She was attacked by vampires,” the man replied. “Her friends were killed.”
It’s true that most people weren’t aware of the existence of vampires; and yet, just as Andi’s previous occupation gave her a glimpse of things most people never see, so did Aaron’s life in the junkie underbelly of Shadow City give him the same sight. He knew about vampires. He’d seen them suck people dry while they were strung out on pills. Sometimes he had nightmares about the things he’d witnessed.
“Your sister is in danger,” the man went on. “She needs someone to protect her.”
“Who?” Aaron asked quietly, feeling overwhelmed by the conversation. This discomfort was intensified by the fact that he seriously needed a fix. His hands were shaking and his forehead had broken out in a cold sweat.
“There’s someone who can,” the man told him. “His name is Mr. Jarvis. But he never extends his services free of charge.”
Aaron thought of the five hundred dollars in his jeans; thought of how badly he needed a fix. But if he could help Andi . . .
He reached into his pocket and removed the bills, holding them out to the man in his trembling hand.
“No, I’m afraid that won’t do,” the man said with an amused grin. To do him credit, however, there was no condescension in it. “Mr. Jarvis accepts different forms of payment.”
“What do you mean?” Aaron asked, feeling confused. The dim corridor was starting to spin around his head, mixing blots of dark shadow with the dirty glow from the bare lightbulb.
“Come with me,” the man said, “and I’ll explain everything. I’ll even give you something to help with those shakes.”
Aaron nodded frantically, having trouble thinking clearly at this point. All he could focus on was helping Andi. He had never before given her a reason to be proud of him, and although he still never might, he had to at least be able to say that he’d tried.
He followed the stranger into the blots of shadow, hands shaking more fiercely, perspiration pouring down his face. He’d wondered many times, lying cold and half-starved in the city streets, if this day would be the day that he died. It had never yet proved to be that day; but now, walking along in the wake of an unknown errand, feeling morbidly ill and more than a little terrified, he found himself wondering whether today could be the day.
***
Andi waited impatiently next to Blake’s car. She was practically seething after her unexpected run-in with Aaron. Every time she saw him, she hoped it would be the last time, but things never worked out that way.
It didn’t take Blake long to come down and meet her. Andi wondered what Aaron had said to her. Given her some sob story, maybe? The same one she’d heard a hundred times.
Blake unlocked the car, and they got in without a word. Andi opted not to put her duffel bag in the backseat, but to leave it down on the floor by her feet instead. She’d seen too many people get jacked while they were stopped at a red light. She was still traumatized by Carmen’s theft of Rocko’s money, which had been the whole reason for the wall safe in the first place.
Blake started the car and pulled out of the lot, heading back the way they’d come. There was something about the heaviness of the silence that put Andi on edge. It was almost as if she could hear the wheels turning in Blake’s mind.
“You think I’m a bitch for talking to him the way I did,” she observed sharply.
“I didn’t say anything like that, and I certainly wasn’t planning to,” Blake countered calmly.
“Sure you weren’t,” Andi growled, throwing herself back in her seat.
She stared out the window for a long moment, lost in thought. It was late, but there was a young mother standing on the sidewalk with her children, waiting for the bus. There was a baby in a stroller and two little ones, each of them holding one of the mother’s hands while she kept a vigilant eye on the stroller.
“You gav
e him money, didn’t you?” Andi asked, her voice dull and toneless now. She just stared at the young mother, wondering where she was headed. Probably to some run-down little shit tenement like the one Andi had just left. Infested with cockroaches. Drug dealers pounding on the doors at all hours of the night. Certainly no place to raise three small children.
Blake said nothing in reply to Andi’s inquiry. She simply kept her eyes on the road.
“I guess I don’t blame you,” Andi murmured. “He’s good at playing people. He’s played me more times than I can count.”
“It’s none of my business,” Blake said quietly.
“You made it your business when you enabled a junkie,” Andi persisted, her voice getting a little louder again.
“He was starving,” Blake returned, and it seemed as if it was taking a bit more effort to keep her own tone subdued.
“Well,” Andi said through gritted teeth, “that wouldn’t have been the case if he hadn’t pissed away his money on drugs, now would it?”
“It’s none of my business.”
“So you keep saying.”
“Look,” Blake said with a sigh. “It’s obvious that this conversation has no productive value. What do you say we scrap it and start over?”
Andi chuckled in spite of herself. “That was a very CEO-type statement,” she remarked.
Blake showed a good-natured grin. “Was it?” she inquired nonchalantly. “You’ll have to excuse me.”
Andi spotted the little drive-in burger shack where she sometimes ate on summer nights. “I’m starving,” she said to Blake. “Can I buy you something to eat? That was the original plan, after all.”
“Sure,” Blake replied. She switched lanes and pulled into the drive-in lot, parking on the right-hand side of the little shack. Andi reached down and unzipped a side pocket of the duffel bag, pulling out a small wallet that was ready-filled with cash.
She and Blake got out of the car and walked up to the stand. Blake seemed to defer to Andi to take the lead, given that they were still on her turf, so she took the liberty of ordering their food. She paid the young man behind the counter, and then gestured to a nearby picnic table where they could sit while they waited for their meal.
Andi was silent for a long moment, and Blake simply sat across from her, waiting for her to speak. But the space between them was no longer heavy or oppressive. There was a peacefulness about it.
“I don’t really hate my brother, you know,” Andi finally said.
“I was fairly certain you didn’t,” Blake replied with a faint smile.
“It’s just complicated,” Andi went on, picking anxiously at the skin around her fingernails. She had a tendency to do that, sometimes, not even noticing that she was doing it until her fingers were a bloody mess.
Blake didn’t say anything else. She simply waited for Andi to continue.
“Aaron and I have different mothers,” Andi said. “Neither of them were exactly up for Parent of the Year Award – but our father wasn’t like that. He was a good man, and he made a good home for us. His name was Brian.”
She paused, taking several deep breaths. She hadn’t talked about this in so long. Hell, she had never really talked about it. She’d just shoved it down into the dark and tried to forget about it. Not that you can ever really forget about . . . well, about something like that.
“Aaron is a year younger than me,” she said. “Even when he was a kid, he was always getting into trouble. He started drinking beer and smoking weed behind his school when he was twelve. Our dad tried to reason with him, tried to talk sense into him, but Aaron never really listened. Not because he didn’t love Dad, or because he didn’t respect him – he was just too messed up from the years he’d lived with his mother when he was really young.
“She was a junkie, and she treated Aaron like shit. Half the time she beat him, and the other half she acted like he didn’t even exist. He came to live with me and Dad when he was six, after Dad filed for custody. But he never acted like a kid should. When you looked at him, it was like looking at a little boy, only the eyes of an old man were staring back at you.
“Believe it or not, I was actually a good kid. I got decent grades and I was never suspended from school. I played basketball on the varsity team, and I even thought a little about going to college after I graduated.”
She paused, suddenly filled with bitterness. Nine long years after life delivers you a swift kick in the ass, it still has a tendency to piss you off.
“I was sixteen,” she said. “I only had one year of high school left. Aaron was fifteen and he was a sophomore – not that he even showed up to school all that much. He usually cut classes, hanging out with his friends in the woods and getting high.
“Our dad had a heart condition. He was always afraid – I was always afraid – that he was going to have a heart attack. And then, one day, he did. I was still at basketball practice, and Aaron was home sniffing blow in his room. He was high as a Jack Street hooker when Dad stumbled in the front door, trying to get to the phone. He’d just gotten home from work. He never made it to the phone. He fell just past the front door, but he did manage to yell for help.
“Aaron ran out to see what was going on, and he knew what was happening. He got the phone and called 911. The operator told him an ambulance was on the way, but that it would be delayed because of an apartment fire on Boxer Street. She told Aaron to give Dad a dose of aspirin to try and ease the clot blocking his artery.
“Aaron got headaches from the drugs all the time, and he carried aspirin in his pocket in an old Vicodin bottle. I’m sure he thought that’s what he was giving Dad.”
Andi had to take a moment to pause. She hadn’t thought it would be so hard to talk about this.
Blake seemed to want to say something – it even looked as if she were going to reach for Andi’s hand – but in the end she was silent, and she made no move.
“Turns out Aaron also had a bottle of speed in his pocket,” Andi said quietly. “He mistook them for aspirin, and he gave Dad two pills. The speed caused the artery where the clot was lodged to burst. Dad drowned in his own blood before the ambulance could get there.”
Andi exhaled shakily, trying to maintain her composure. She really, really hadn’t thought it would be this fucking hard.
“I’m so sorry,” Blake said softly. The deep sympathy in her bright green eyes helped to calm Andi down a little.
“It was a long time ago,” Andi said, attempting to make her voice light, but also completely aware that she was failing to do so. She flicked angrily at a few hot tears in the corners of her eyes. “The past is the past, I guess. It’s not like anything can change it. But sometimes I just can’t help thinking . . . if I’d been the one there that day, me and not Aaron, Dad might still be alive.”
One of her tears broke free of its weak and ineffectual cage, sliding slowly down her cheek. She wiped it off so hard, the friction from the heel of her hand burned her face.
“Dad did everything he could to help Aaron,” she went on, pulling roughly at a deep hangnail on her left hand. She could feel the sharp sting as the skin came loose, and she rolled a thick drop of blood under the pad of her finger, squeezing it violently.
“He put Aaron in therapy,” she said. “He sent him to detox. He tried to figure out where he was getting the drugs, but of course he couldn’t. Aaron had too many friends. He even had him put on a psych hold for two weeks, but the doctors couldn’t keep him because he hadn’t actually tried to physically harm himself. Apart from putting bars on his window and a deadlock on his bedroom door, there was nothing more Dad could do. Aaron was a junkie at the age of thirteen.
“After Dad died, I swear to God, I tried to help Aaron. I couldn’t afford the mortgage payments with the paychecks from my waitressing job, but I rented a crappy little apartment, and I brought him with me. But he just kept . . . stealing from me. Every chance he got. He’d figure out my PINs to my checking account and withdraw every penny from the
ATM.
“Eventually, I kicked him out. I told myself I didn’t care what happened to him. He’s been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia since then, and he’s on disability, which would be enough for him to live on if it wasn’t for the coke. But he just – well, I don’t fucking know, I guess he is who he is.”
Listening to this story, you might think it was strange that a young boy addicted to drugs wasn’t removed from his father’s home, or that the situation didn’t at least attract the attention of Child Services. But things didn’t work like that in Shadow City. In order to take a child from his parent, you’d have to have somewhere to put that child. And Shadow City wasn’t that kind of place.
If you were shot and you called an ambulance, just as Aaron had done for his father that day, you’d be lucky if it even arrived before you bled out. Apartment fire on Boxer Street or not, the paramedics still might not have come in time. But now they would never know the answer to that question, because Aaron had killed Brian De Luca.
Chapter 8
After they finished their meal at the little drive-in, they got back into the car and set off towards Blake’s house. It was late by this time, almost two in the morning. Andrea had been very quiet since she finished talking about her father and brother, and they had mostly eaten in silence.
Blake wasn’t sure what to say. She felt badly for Andrea, but the other woman didn’t seem like the type of person who was easy to console, if she even wanted to be consoled at all, which she probably didn’t. Blake wanted to say something, anything at all, but she had no idea what that thing should be.
They arrived at Blake’s house without having said anything to each other on the way there. It was as if Andrea were hiding in a patch of shadow, trying not to let Blake see her. But Blake wanted to see her. She wanted to talk to her. She wanted to know what she was thinking.
She pulled into the driveway, cut the engine, and then just sat there, staring straight ahead out the windshield. She hoped to God Andrea would say something.
Voltana & the Rogue Vamps (The Voltana Adventures Book 1) Page 6