by Elliot Wake
But tonight I wasn’t running for catharsis. I was outrunning the avalanche of rage bearing down. That infinite heaviness that had almost crushed me once, when I was wronged. When I was hurt.
By him by him by him.
I flew under a bridge and kept going. No rest. The oxygen in my lungs combusted into a million particles of flame. I didn’t feel like myself anymore but some dragon, limbs heavy and graceless from long years of slumber, ready to crack my wings and take flight, roar fire, snap my jaws on the motherfucker who’d done this to me. Tear him in half.
Someone was sitting on the bench up ahead.
I staggered, slowed. Tamsin raised an eyebrow.
“Not in the fucking mood,” I gasped.
“I know. Laney texted me.”
“Great.”
“I’m not here at her behest. I’m here on my own. Please, rest a moment.”
I dropped to the bench, gulping air.
Tamsin watched awhile and said nothing. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run again until I couldn’t breathe so I couldn’t scream, because if I started, how could I stop?
Laney was not on my side. Didn’t have my back when I needed her most. Didn’t want to stop a monster, because his victim wasn’t a girl and that didn’t fit her feminist vigilante narrative.
She’d shown me time and again: In her world, only men hurt others. Only women deserved our help. Not once had she sent me to hurt a girl—not before Tamsin had I ever fought one.
Not once had she sent me to help a boy.
Now I saw why she chose me as her right hand. Because she knew my biases. Knew I’d be happy indulging my internalized misandry. Until it came time to help a man—to help me—and then it was “risky” and “jeopardizing” and “selfish.”
Fucking hypocrite.
Wind rumpled the river, pulling folds of black satin over the reflections of skyscrapers, stirring strands of twinkling gold filigree. I shivered, sweat-soaked. The hot throb in my heel was probably blood.
Finally Tamsin said, “You want to hurt someone.”
“Yes.”
“A man.”
“Yes.”
“But the Little Wolf said no.”
We regarded each other in a dusk tinted sepia with streetlight. “Did she tell you that?”
“I inferred.” Tamsin crossed her ankles. “Who is he?”
“Someone who’s lived too long.”
Light flared in those hazel eyes. She mulled over this bit of info. Then, “I have one, too.”
“What?”
“A vendetta.”
Electricity zigzagged down my arm, to my fingertips, to the warm aura of her body beside mine. The space between us pulsed.
“Perhaps we can help each other, Renard.”
“I don’t trust you, Tamsin.”
“So let me earn your trust.”
She stood and so did I. Wind combed her curls, pulled at my hood. Steely edge of cold in it, running down my neck like a blade. Tamsin bent one knee, stretching.
“Earn it how?” I said.
She touched her toes, her tight little heart-shaped ass facing the sky. Fuck.
“Like this.” Tamsin eyed me coolly. “I know where Adam is. If you want to know, catch me.”
Then she was off, a blur of leather and oiled hair.
Unthinkingly, I chased.
She ran down the riverbank, leaped up the stairs to street level. Dashed headlong into the nightlife rush, the musk of cologne and suede and cigarettes. Cut her silhouette against the searing beams of headlights. When she veered out into traffic on Lake Street I almost stopped.
But she knew his name. How?
I chased her beneath the L tracks, a rusty spine throwing ribs of shadow over us. Above, a train screeched into the station. She hopped nimbly up the steps and I followed, exhausted, as she vaulted over a turnstile and disappeared into the crowd on the platform and I, like an idiot, hit the bar. That was an end to that. Maybe she didn’t mind being busted, but I could not afford a police record. I fumbled my CTA pass out of my wallet, lurched against the turnstile and through the closing doors.
In the fluorescent light all the faces looked ghoulish. I felt sick. I felt like the girl who rode public transit all night because she was afraid to go home, to run into her “boyfriend.”
Laney must have told her his name. Warned her not to help me.
This was nothing. Taunting. Trolling.
I staggered toward a vacant seat at the far end of the car. Sat down beside a familiar pair of shiny black pants.
“Well done,” Tamsin said.
I never put my hands on a girl without her permission. But I was exceptionally close to breaking that rule right now.
“How?” I rasped.
“I told you. I need to understand who my partner is.”
“Who told you that fucking name?”
Her head tilted. Her eyes were oddly soft, and her voice, too. “Laney did. Who is Adam, Ren? What has he done to you?”
I had half a mind to pry the doors open and jump out.
Instead I sank into my hoodie, beaten. No energy to fight. I tired easily these days. Maybe Armin was right—maybe I was depressed.
We rode the thundering train in silence, thrown into each other as the car bucked and braked. It barely registered. My head was full of poison. A memory: another train, a skeezy older man hitting on me while I squeezed my thighs together and prayed the bleeding would stop.
My body tightened reflexively. Made itself smaller. Too small to contain so much pain.
Tamsin rose at the next station, touched my shoulder. “Come on.”
Too tired to say no.
Story of my life.
It was somewhere near the lakeshore, in the cold glamour of money. Skyscraper lights twinkled far above like tossed coins. I let her lead me into a vestibule lined in navy velvet and glowing brass. Some glitzy tourist hotel. The doorman nodded at Tamsin.
“What is this?” I said as we entered the lobby.
“Home sweet home.”
I stopped. “You live here?”
“For the moment.”
“How can you afford this?”
“I can’t. My sister can.”
“Who’s your sister?”
“So many questions. All in due time.” Her hand rose, light glimmering on her dark skin like gold powder. We didn’t quite connect but I felt the charge arcing off her fingertips. “Let’s talk. I’ll tell you everything I know about . . . him. Not much, but it’s a start. Join me for a drink?”
In the warm tungsten glow of the lobby, everything seemed softened, faintly imbued with magic. My fear and anger washed away. I wanted to stay, so badly. I wanted to fall into her spell.
“I’ll pass.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know a thing about you, and you know too much about me.”
Now those fingers made contact, curled over mine.
“Come and learn,” she said, stroking my palm. “I’ll tell you everything.”
I’m not made of stone. I’m made of the same stuff as other boys, and it responds very, very willingly to throaty invitations from pretty girls.
“Why did you run?” I whispered.
“To make you chase. To bring you here.”
“Couldn’t you have asked?”
“Would it have worked?”
I thought of her at Umbra, staring, stalking, and shook my head. “You know what you are, Tamsin?”
“Tam.”
“You’re a female pickup artist, Tam. You play games. Push me, pull me. Jedi mind tricks.”
“You know what you are, Renard?”
“Ren.”
“You’re a little boy who’s intimidated by assertive women, Ren.”
Conditioning finally kicked in. I flipped her hold, twisted her wrist as I stepped close. “Is this your new strategy? Couldn’t win a fair fight, so now you’re negging me? This is some seriously fucked-up seduction technique.”
; Her eyes went flat. “It isn’t seduction.”
“So what the hell is it?”
“It’s me wrestling with infuriating feelings of attraction, you daft twat.” She snapped her hand free but didn’t back down. “Pardon me for presuming they’re reciprocated.”
“They’re not,” I growled, my face inching closer. “Not even a little.”
“Good,” she spat.
“Good.”
“You’re not even that handsome.”
I laughed, not nicely. “You have a serious attitude problem.”
“You’re an arrogant bastard.”
“You’re trying too hard with the whole rebel-without-a-cause thing.”
“You’re trying too hard with the whole—” She glanced down at my torso. “Big. Muscles. Thing.”
She glared at my chest for a moment, then my face.
And suddenly I laughed again, genuinely.
It was like a catch coming loose. I leaned against a marble pillar, shaking with laughter, and relief. Forgetting everything else for a blissful moment. Tam crossed her arms and donned a stoic look that didn’t last long.
“You are irritatingly intriguing, Mr. Grant,” she said.
“Likewise, Ms. Baylor.”
“And annoyingly handsome.”
“I thought you said ‘not even.’ ”
“Yes, well, I lied.”
“It’s just a shell.”
“A very fetching one.”
“I’m not what you think, Tam.”
“I’m not what you think, either. Now join me for a bloody drink. You’ve made me ask twice.”
“I will.” I gazed up at a chandelier dripping crystal and metal from the ceiling. That glitter was in Tamsin’s eyes, too, and I was afraid to look because I was goddamn sure I wouldn’t want to stop. “But not tonight.”
She walked me back to the train. Something was unfolding in me, delicate and see-through thin, a rose made of rice paper. Trust. I wanted to let her in. Let the bars down, let these feelings loose. Instead I kept my mouth shut and crushed that fragile white bloom in the black soot of my heart. Nobody got in. No-fucking-body.
As I jogged down the subway steps, she caught my arm.
“There’s something you should know. I told you Laney gave me . . . his name.”
All the warmth was gone now. Just cold, tired. “But?”
“But I didn’t tell you when.”
I put my hand on her. I didn’t have to ask.
She tried to read me, her eyes tracking back and forth rapidly. “It was summer. Near half a year ago.”
Before Inge heard he was in town.
Before anyone had known.
Nearly half a year ago I’d told Laney, Either I’m losing my mind or he’s back, and she’d said, I believe you. I’ll find him. When I do, you’ll be the first to know.
Little fucking liar.
“Thank you,” I said, and took the stairs at a run.
———
“Ingrid?”
The apartment was smoky blue with midnight, and empty. Where the hell could she be this late? Off living a life I wasn’t part of anymore. Laughing with some girl, leaning close. Dizzy from the alcohol and sweetness on each other’s breath. I grabbed a beer from the fridge and guzzled, and when my head came down I saw something stuck between fridge and counter. Flicked my folding knife open to fish it out.
School photo. Mina’s first-grade portrait. Dark eyes solemn, like mine.
I slid to the floor.
It felt as if a hundred years had passed since then, and I was old now, too old to understand anything. I stared blindly into the dark, remembering. Mina perched at the kitchen table, her pencil working furiously. Savaging her paper with the eraser when she messed up. It has to be perfect, she explained, as if I were the child. Or they won’t take me seriously. I said, Why not? and she answered, matter-of-fact, Because I’m a girl. Kari looked at us both and said, I’m a horse, and galloped around the table. I’m with her, I said. Giddyup. Mina rolled her eyes. Later that night she’d come to my room and asked me to read her writing assignment. The person I admire most is my big sister because inside she is a boy but can’t tell anyone, which I think is very hard. I would be sad if I could not tell anyone I’m a girl. I’d never told her anything. She figured it out herself. You can’t show this to anyone, I said, my voice breaking. Mom will kill me, Mina. Please don’t tell. Mina said, I won’t. I wrote a different one for class. This is for you.
I tipped the bottle into my mouth, but it was only dry air.
The front door rattled. Bell, Inge’s cat—named after her favorite feminist, of course—went bounding to say hello. I watched the tall shadow step through a portal of light. Watched her lock the door, go still, and turn to me, slowly. That sixth sense for each other. Always knowing exactly where I’d be.
“Hey,” I said.
“What are you doing?”
“Waiting for you.” To save me. Like always.
Languidly she unbuttoned her coat, not turning on a light. Scratched Bell’s head. “Do we need to talk?”
“I need to tell you things, Inge.”
“You never tell me anything anymore. Now you need to tell me Things. With a capital T.”
“This is serious. It’s about something I’ve been hiding for years.”
“Oh god.” She inhaled sharply. “Are you . . . are you trans?”
“You’re fucking hilarious.”
Ingrid kicked her shoes off. “Like you’ve ever successfully hidden anything from me, asshole.”
“I hid this. And I can’t anymore.” Deep breath. “It endangers you. Both of us.”
“If it’s about Adam—”
“It’s bigger than him.”
She snorted. “What isn’t.”
I turned my head away.
She said, “Shit. Sorry. Insensitive.”
“I’m not fucking around, Inge. We need to talk.”
“So let’s talk.” She cocked her head. “In my room.”
I hadn’t been inside in a long, long time. I paused at the door, that habitual hesitation triggering. One night I’d walked in while she sat at the vanity in bra and panties, a hand on her heart and her hair curling over her shoulders like gold shavings on porcelain. I’d stood there staring till I realized she was watching me in her mirror. At the question in my eyes she answered, Checking if it’s still beating. Come here, Sofie. Touch it. For all that I hated the world seeing me as a girl, I didn’t hate it, always, when she did. It didn’t even feel like we were girls. Just wild things, rough beasts wrapped in soft skin. Sometimes I thought I could hold on to androgyny for her. Live in some gender limbo to stay that close, that deep, caught under each other’s nails. It frightened me, that willingness. I’d joke and call her Svengali but it wasn’t a joke, really, the same way it wasn’t a joke when she said Be a girl for me, just for tonight and touched me till I couldn’t say no. So when Adam Halverson kept asking me out, kept pushing his nice-guy act, I said Yes. I fucked him. Let him come between us, figuratively. Literally.
Let the whole disgusting narrative play out.
Like the weak little boy I am.
I drifted through Ingrid’s room, fingers gliding over things. Brass-plated basketball trophies. Framed newspaper clippings. DOUBLE TROUBLE: SVENSSON AND KHOURY ARE UNSTOPPABLE TOGETHER. My stomach clenched as I looked at my seventeen-year-old body. So small, so delicate, all bone and glass, like something made purposefully to tempt the world into smashing it.
Ingrid watched me in silence. Different now: My body was strong, hard. Not that frail thing anymore.
“What’s the big secret?” she said.
I touched the bottles arrayed around the mirror. Her smell was everywhere, cool and mysterious. White-blond hair knotted in a brush like a glistening spiderweb. These strange things I’d never understood: liquids and powders and creams, wands and sponges, the insane amount of work it took to be a girl, to put a mask on each day so the world wouldn’t
eat you alive. Beauty as battle armor.
There was an unmarked vial filled with something clear, viscous. I wondered what it was. Some chemical to correct a minor flaw.
Funny. In a way, that’s what I was doing, too. Correcting myself from the inside out.
“You know my friend Laney? You’ve seen her in pics.”
Promise me, she’d said, running the blade against my palm. Hot blood kissed cool steel. Never tell anyone about us. Never betray us.
“Creepster with the hot Aussie girlfriend?”
I promise, I’d said.
“And Armin, and Ellis.”
“Your friends from that nightclub.”
“We’re not just friends, Inge.”
She gave me a look. “Is this about to get X-rated?”
“I’m serious. It had to be this way, okay? I couldn’t tell you before.”
Ingrid flopped onto her bed. “Fucking spill it already.”
There’s a scene in every superhero movie where the mask comes off and the loved one reacts with shock. As if a scrap of polyester hides everything. As if you don’t know someone you love by their eyes, the inner self that shines through.
My parents had been searching my room. I should’ve known. Ellis helped hide my tracks online, all the transition videos and before/after pics I fantasized over, but it didn’t matter. They found Mina’s assignment. What am I, Clark Kent? I’d said. I put on a pair of glasses and suddenly you can’t see what’s so obvious to everyone? I’m a boy, Mom. I’ve always been a boy. Everyone else saw it but you.
I crouched at Inge’s feet. I’m no hero, and she’s seen through every mask I’ve ever worn.
“Ingrid, I’m a member of a secret vigilante group that avenges women who’ve been wronged. We do very illegal stuff. Very bone-breaking, scar-making stuff. Laney, Armin, Ellis, Blythe—they’re all part of it, too. We call ourselves Black Iris.”
Blank stare. Then she started laughing.
“Ingrid—”
“You’re good. You almost had me.”
“I’m not kidding.”
“So, what, you’re a superhero, saving damsels in distress?”
“Not exactly. More like . . . balancing the scales of justice.”
“Oh my god, you sound like a comic book. Is this for YouTube? Are you filming this?”
I frowned. “I’d never do that to you. I’m dead serious, Inge. I’m deep into some heavy shit.”