A Poised Nuisance (Lithe Book 1)

by Iris RIvers

  “Oh, Lizzie,” Lillian whispered, putting her frail hands on Elizabeth’s shoulders as she trembled in Anabelle’s arms.

  Slowly, Elizabeth pulled out of the hug, her cries quieting. Anabelle reached her shaky hands forward and wiped the remaining tears from Elizabeth’s cheeks. Then she placed her own forehead against Elizabeth’s, their breaths mingling in the air between them. Lillian stood beside the pair, hands touching both of their shoulders. They stood there for a few moments, bodies connected—united. They breathed the same cold air; touched each other’s warm skin.

  “We are going to do something about this,” said Lillian, breaking the silence.

  “You don’t have to,” Elizabeth began. “Nothing will happen to him. He is a man—a powerful man—and we are only women.”

  Anabelle grabbed Elizabeth’s small face with her two hands, looking into her eyes—their lips a breath apart. “Yes, we are women,” she said, “but that is not a weakness. We have more power than the men of today realize.” She paused, looking down at Elizabeth’s quivering lips. “We will make them realize.”

  She said it with such conviction, such strength, that both Elizabeth and Lillian believed her. They believed her with the whole of their battered hearts.

  Lillian stepped closer to them, leaving no space between the three. They stared at one another, suddenly realizing their nearness. And then, with a startling abruptness—as if it was on impulse; as if she had no other choice—Anabelle touched her lips to Elizabeth’s. The kiss began with a sort of softness, a delicateness, but quietly changed its pace, becoming passionate and messy and everything but soft. Elizabeth cried out, not in pain, but in relief. In the anguish the kiss brought—the best sort of anguish; the torment of new-found happiness and the fear of losing it.

  Anabelle pulled away first, not because she wanted to stop but to look over to Lillian. Her face was shocked, uncertain. Anabelle looked down at Lillian’s parted lips and, quickly, kissed her as well.

  As voices sounded from outside, as steps pounded against the sidewalk, they all began to kiss. Loudly. Ardently. They were kissing and crying, tongues touching and teeth clanking. Their lips swelled brutally under each embrace.

  They stopped eventually, breaths labored, vision blurred. Elizabeth stared at Lillian as Lillian stared at Anabelle. Anabelle looked down at their joined hands.

  They were no longer three separate entities but one. They were three girls who shared the same heart, the same soul. They had been sculpted by the same star—their bones and veins pounding in perfect rhythm; their individual pain indistinguishable from one another’s.

  The girls slowly found their way to a bed—it was hard to remember whose; their minds were swollen and their hearts were pounding. They closed their beating eyelids all at once, limbs tangled, and as Elizabeth drifted off to sleep, she thought only of Anabelle’s words.

  We will make them realize.

  October 2019

  LOWRI BYRNE WAS ONE for tradition. She prided herself in being structured—organized. She’d gone to her night class with color-coded supplies packed in her backpack—each notebook a varying shade of yellow and each pen a varying shade of gray. Lowri wasn’t quite sure why she’d decided to sign up for such a late course, but it sounded like a good idea at the time. Now, as she walked back to her dorm room, she found herself yawning uncontrollably—craving her warm bed.

  It was incredibly cold, nearing mid-September, and Lowri had layered clothes upon clothes to keep her warm. She was originally from Arizona—the heat being something she was accustomed to, the cold something she had never known—but when she had first arrived at Juilliard, she knew she wanted to spend the rest of her life in New York.

  The streets were lined with all sorts of people, but Lowri couldn’t help but notice the man walking closely behind her. Not close enough to be obvious but close enough to be seen. She’d looked back a few times when she felt the strange inclination that came with being watched, and the man had been looking directly at her. Lowri quickened her pace, her phone in hand.

  Finally, she reached her dorm building. The doors spun past her as she rushed inside, her red hair a river of blood against the darkness.

  Lowri turned her head, her eyes searching for the man who’d been following her. He stood there like a shadow from the moonlight and stared at Lowri—stared at her until she could feel the steadiness of his gaze pierce into her veins—then left, lowering his hat as he disappeared into the darkness. Lowri felt like he had taken a piece of her with him.

  “Miss? Are you okay?” said the building’s security guard. She jolted and turned back, smiling softly.

  “Yes,” she said, “I’m fine.”

  Lowri walked over to the elevator and traveled up, up, up toward the night sky.

  THE CITY WAS AT ITS absolute worst during the night. Everything was in motion: the cars, the people, the lights. As Lara walked through the streets, bumping into tourists and residents alike, she wondered if she was living inside a snow globe, snow piling atop her clustered mind like a pile of rocks; wondered if there was a hand beyond her reach, shaking her world and everything in it. If that hand was to belong to anyone, she knew it would be her mother. They hadn’t talked in weeks, though this was not unusual. Still, Lara wished for a text, for a call. Even an email would suffice—though she tended not to check her overflowing inbox.

  Lara wanted to feel, and she had not felt in a very long time.

  She blamed her mother for that—for the desolation that had buried itself deep inside the gnawing pit of her gut. Her mother had carved her into some passionless creature; a doll meant for display. Still, Lara was grateful for the emotions that arose within her when her mother spoke. They were not of happiness or adoration but of a powerful acidity, an acidity that burned through one’s insides, leaving nothing but fury in its place.

  She walked along the sidewalk, so close to the road that she could feel the rumbling of cars against her bare arms. She’d dumbly forgotten a jacket and simply wore a red crop top with a pair of charcoal jeans. Her muddy boots dragged along the concrete, a heavy, unexplainable feeling of vacancy rising against the soles of her feet. She was alone—so alone that she could collapse; fall to the ground in a miserable yearning.

  Lara could barely hear the voices of those around her as she walked, each word turning into a nonsensical muddle of sounds. Several cars whirled past her, making her feel more alive, more fervent, than she ever had. She was so close to the road, so close that if she took one step in the wrong direction she’d be gone—she’d be dead and lifeless and completely unknowable. She would close her eyes with memories of nothing, with no one who loved her—cared for her. Lara thought of her funeral, of the empty room and her polished casket at the front of it. Of the chairs that would never be filled because no one had chosen to attend—because no one had cared enough to attend.

  Abruptly, Lara felt a body bump against hers. She stumbled backward, her feet slipping on the curved path, and closed her eyes—accepting it, accepting the fall. Before she could hit the ground though, a cool hand swept under her, stabilizing her shaky body. Lara’s eyes remained shut—she was afraid to open them for some reason; afraid that, somehow, despite the improbability, it would be her mother. She’d stare into her teary eyes and yell at her before the people crowding the street, tell her, How could you be so careless? and a few other things that she would be slapped for repeating.

  Despite her fears, she opened her eyes—slowly, wearily. It was somehow worse than her own mother; somehow more painful.

  Kai.

  She became all too aware of his hand against her cool skin, the sensation so sharp that if she looked down, she was sure she’d find razors taped along his palm. Kai’s eyes were wide, shocked, as if he couldn’t believe that he had willingly grabbed her—willingly saved her from death. He looked her flushed face up and down, regret burning through his blood. Lara pulled away so suddenly that she nearly stumbled back again—back into the absorbing roa
d.

  “Lara,” he said, not in uncertainty but in indignation. He said her name like it was a vigorous poison, a vile substance made of malice and impiety. Like, as he spoke her name aloud, he was being stabbed in the chest by a long-time friend—the betrayal cutting deeper than the blade, piercing his heart and tearing his veins.

  Lara stepped back, as far as she could from Kai’s maddening presence. “What are you doing here?” she asked, her tone laced with the same venom Kai had spoken with just a few seconds before.

  “Smoking,” he said, his eyes dull. Lara looked to his hands—they were empty. She looked to his face, her eyes landing on the glint of his septum ring, and then to his ear, where a small joint rested against his skull.

  She unconsciously took another step back. A light flashed in her periphery before she could comprehend how far she’d gone into the street, how deeply she’d placed herself in trouble. Then, as she snapped her head toward the light, a car’s horn blared inside her ear, the wind a ripening force to her skin. Time slowed. The world warped. She could see nothing but the light, the horribly bright light. Lara sucked a breath in. Out. The rhythm of her heaving chest her only constant. She watched as the air clouded out of her mouth, as the car closed in on her—not slowing down, not stopping. And then suddenly—almost unfeasibly—she was pulled from the street. Shoved against a wall.

  “Are you insane?” Kai yelled against her neck. His arms had caged around her, forcing her back to grate against the brick of the wall. Her scars—the ones her mother had given her—burned so badly that she could feel blood seep through the cotton of her shirt. Kai had completely ripped apart her flesh, torn her open so gruesomely that her biggest insecurity had smoldered in the air between the two—turned to ashes and dust by the touch of his hands.

  She overwhelmingly felt the slenderness of his body against her own—their limbs fusing together, their hearts beating in perfect consonance. The two of them stood there, close, but not close enough, looking murderous, looking like they were two stars fused from the same flame—one composed of two elements that were never meant to be combined.

  Kai’s breathing was hard, ragged. “That car,” he said slowly, his hands clutching her waist, his nails indenting her skin, “would’ve hit you.”

  When she said nothing, he squeezed harder, as if she was about to vaporize in his grip. “They weren’t going to stop. You would’ve died.” His tone was filled with fury, as if he couldn’t decide if he wanted her dead or alive; as if he couldn’t decide which was worse.

  And then, as she stared into the vexation of his eyes, as she watched the fullness of his lips part, she began to understand the gravity of their situation. He’d saved her, he’d helped her, despite all she’d done to him—despite the times she’d sliced his skin, torn open his heart. He was good—he was good and Lara was evil. She was the same evil as the villains of the storybooks, the same evil as the monsters that children cowered from. And because of that, because of his unconscious nobility and her own profound wickedness, she knew that their hatred was set in stone. It was written on the earth, carved in the very first star. She knew—with no doubt—that she would die before this hostility faded. It was permanently etched into her soul, into her bones. It was a fixture in her heart that could never be erased.

  The joint still rested against his head. Kai watched as Lara raised her hand, raised it to the preciseness of his cheekbones, and pulled the joint from his ear. Her fingers grazed his skin with faux benignity. She placed it carefully between her chapped lips as she leaned in close—close enough to see her reflection in his septum ring, to feel his labored breaths against her cheek, and whispered, “I’d rather be dead than standing here with you.”

  Lara blew into his face, satisfied at the way he coughed into the air, choking on the smoke that came from her tattered lips. As she walked away, she felt his eyes rake along her back. She hoped he could see her blood.

  CLARKE’S INVESTIGATION board felt boring. Plain.

  He sat in the grimness of his home office, the only source of light coming from the bulb of a desk lamp. The shade was green, filling the room with a sort of unpleasantness. He held a Corona by its neck, the bottle almost empty, as he stared into the vastness of his board like it was an unsolvable puzzle.

  It was not that the board was empty—because it wasn’t. There were several newspaper clippings that surrounded the border, headlines ranging from MYSTERY MURDER IN MANHATTAN and ANOTHER SUICIDE ON JUILLIARD’S BELL TOWER: WHEN WILL IT END? There were photos too—of his father, Liam Murphy. Some were taken on film while others were developed, yet all bore his father’s familiar, cat-like smile. There was a single photo of his parents together, taken right after Clarke’s tenth birthday. His mother, Cassie Murphy, had her arms wrapped around Liam’s shoulders, her hands clenching the material of his shirt. To anyone else, it would’ve looked like a tender embrace. To Clarke, it looked like she was choking him.

  There was also, of course, a picture of the detective’s newest discovery—Lowri Byrne. She was not in the center but taped to the right, her face overlapped with other miscellaneous findings. Clarke didn’t feel like she deserved that sort of attention. No, the center was for something else—for someone else. Someone wicked and nefarious. Someone he dreamed of destroying.

  Clarke drunkenly brought his hand to her picture, tracing the spine of her nose, his thumb on the bow of her threadlike lips. He thought back to a few hours before, when he’d followed her home, his eyes never straying from the redness of her hair. She was so pale, like her skin had never met the sun—but he knew that wasn’t true. It had taken Clarke merely ten minutes to research everything he needed to know about her. She was from the South West, had an older brother named Don, who resided in Colorado with his wife of five years, and another older brother named Robert, who’d joined the military fresh out of high school.

  And then there were the useless facts that Clarke had found for no reason other than pleasure. Her parents had divorced when she was eight, rendering her utterly heartbroken. Her favorite color was yellow while her least favorite was red, mostly because of people teasing her hair, and she studied musical theory at Juilliard.

  Despite Lowri’s entirely mundane life, Clarke had become fascinated with her.

  When she had turned and noticed him following her, he was neither nervous nor panicked. He was not afraid that she would call the cops.

  Instead... he was delighted.

  Lowri was afraid. He had made her afraid, and it thrilled him to the point of wishing she’d seen his face and not just the outline of his presence. He could still remember the rising and falling of her anxious chest as she quickened her pace to get away from him. Silly girl, he thought now, you won’t get rid of me that easily.

  Clarke was obsessed with her—obsessed with her affiliations. Completely and utterly captivated with the whole of his being.

  He stepped away from the picture, his hand lazily gliding against the smoothness of the paper. His dizzy eyes traced the red thread that surrounded the board, connecting everything together, and he realized, with a dull sensation, that there wasn’t much to connect in the first place. There weren’t as many photos as he’d like. Not as many as he’d hoped for.

  “Soon,” Clarke muttered to himself, taking a sip from his beer. “Soon there will be.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, they danced by the light of the moon.” ––Edward Lear

  Lara Blake was going to ruin him.

  Kai was at rehearsal, practicing the same steps he had already mapped into the soles of his feet, but these felt different—monumental. Maybe it was because of his acute awareness of Lara’s imminent presence. Maybe it was something else. He didn’t know—he didn’t care. All he knew was that if he stood with Lara any longer, their skin touching and breaths mingling, she was going to destroy him entirely.

  Kai and a few others stood on stage, marking one of the final scenes of the recital.
Kai—who had betrayed the crown—was finally caught by the palace guards as he embraced the princess—or Lara. He was meant to look over at her and coat his face with heartbreak—with defeat.

  Kai painted his face with vanquish easier than he’d like to admit.

  Lara had already defeated him. Not in the dance, but in his mind. His mind was a constant muddle of her, and that was what terrified him the most.

  He hated her—sometimes, he wished her dead—but his mind seemed to be plagued by her—her voice, her hair, her skin. What did that mean? What did that say about his tortured morality?

  He must have been masochistic to crave someone as horribly vicious as Lara—to ache for someone that made his blood harden and his veins dissipate. It was the type of ache one felt in their heart as they lay on the concrete, dying in an excruciating slowness.

  It was an ache for pain, and Lara was pain. She was cold and brutal and vile, but she was the one thing that Kai was most familiar with. He knew pain like a close friend; pain had raised him, held his hand as he stepped out of his parents’ bathroom, cold and forever changed.

  Kai noticed Lara standing off to the side, chatting with a girl with blonde, nearly white, hair. They laughed casually, like friends. Kai had never seen her laugh like that—out of joy. She’d laughed at Kai before, yes, but it was the laugh of a murderer as they watched their defenseless victim shudder in their final breath.

  “Okay, everyone,” said Madame Dunne. She pulled her clear-framed glasses down to the tip of her nose. Kai wondered if she did that for any reason other than to appear sophisticated. “Let’s practice the second to last scene, the one of Kai and Lara.” The scene before the murder; the scene before Kai’s death.

  Lara walked up to the stage, leaving her friend behind, and took her place. Kai watched as she drew in a breath. The lift in this scene was complicated, difficult. They’d been practicing it for weeks. Kai was to push Lara up into an angel lift as she reached for her feet, contorting her body. It was a tiring position, not because Kai couldn’t lift her, but because Lara struggled to stay still in his arms. Every time Kai lifted her into the air, his fingers pushing into her stomach, Lara would fall out of his hold. Dunne was entirely annoyed by her inability. It angered Lara beyond reason—he could tell by the way she clenched her hands every time Dunne reprimanded her. Kai wanted to see the palms of her hands; he was sure there would be permanent indentations across her skin.