I nodded, not trusting myself with speaking just then, and he walked to the door, pausing just before disappearing into the hall to look back. “Be careful, Avery,” he said, echoing his mother’s words. Another shout rose from below, and then he was gone.
CHAPTER THREE
* * *
I sat in my new armchair for a long time after Alex had gone, sipping the rest of the coffee Gina brought and thinking about what Maria had told me. Occasionally my hand moved on its own, my fingers grazing over the burn on my shoulder. Marked. There was a sickening feeling trying to take hold, but I pushed it away, gazing instead at the new furnishings around me. There was a permanence to them that I hadn’t expected; somehow a single night spent on the floor of a transient rental had turned into a real apartment. It was as if everyone but me knew that I wasn’t going to be leaving Industry City anytime soon. Or if I’d known it, I hadn’t been ready to admit it.
My attention strayed to the counter where the detective’s business card lay ignored. Call me, Avery. He’d be waiting a long time for that call, especially since I didn’t own a working phone. There was no way I was getting myself wrapped up in this mess, no matter if I’d seen 9B fall or not. The detective was Connie’s problem, even if she’d given enough information to make him mine as well.
Gina was walking around above me, and I stared up at the ceiling, tracking the sound of her boots around the apartment. Bathroom to kitchen to couch. Two thoughts occurred to me simultaneously then: the first, that I’d never asked what she did for a living and the second, if I was going to stay more than a week in Industry City, I was going to need to make some money, and fast. Unfortunately, most of the work force I’d encountered since arriving consisted of a job I wasn’t desperate enough to consider.
Yet.
The floor creaked above me and Gina’s door slammed. I knew I could catch her in the hall to ask for advice, but I stayed where I was, listening as her footsteps faded on the stairs. I wasn’t used to taking help from strangers, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about being indebted to someone the day after I’d met them. Alex, too. They’d made it clear that it was done from the kindness of their hearts, but in my experience, no one did favors without expecting something in return.
I pushed from the chair when the coffee was gone and counted out Connie’s money on the kitchen counter. It would take almost all my meager stash to keep this place, and I held back the feelings of panic by telling myself I had a week to figure it out. I shrugged into my jacket and locked up behind me, glancing over at the broken railing when I left. Crime scene tape was stretched across the twisted metal, and the broken door had been removed. I resisted the urge to look inside the apartment by reminding myself that I had no interest in knowing more about 9B. I already knew how he’d died, I didn’t want to see how he’d lived. Curiosity effectively killed, I hurried down the stairs to knock on Connie’s door.
“Yep,” she said when I handed her the money. She was still in her bathrobe, though I was sure the cigarette dangling from her lips was at least six packs past yesterday’s. From behind her, her husband hadn’t moved from in front of the blaring television, and I shook off the deja vu that ran through me. There was no rental agreement to sign, just a raspy reminder that rent was due on Mondays.
I didn’t stay to chat, escaping the smoke and permeating smell of cheap gin to run down the remaining stairs and into the lobby. Crime scene tape was stretched across here as well, leaving only a narrow pathway from the staircase to the door. I avoided looking at where the body had been and slipped out, my hands automatically turning up the collar of my jacket as I hunched into it. I wasn’t sure what time it was, but the sun still hung low in the sky and the street around me was deserted—apparently Industry City wasn’t much for early risers. It had taken me the better part of an hour to walk in yesterday, and I hurried down the broken sidewalk with only one real goal in mind: get to my car, get a load of my stuff and get back to the apartment as quickly as possible.
At first, I didn’t notice the figure that appeared on my right, blocking me in from the street and keeping silent pace beside me. When I did see him there I nearly stumbled—I hadn’t heard him come up from behind, and I shied instinctively away from him, picking up my pace. He matched it, not saying anything, and I cut my eyes towards him without turning my head, a flash of anger running through me when I recognized his tousled brown hair.
“What do you want?” I asked, rounding on him without warning.
He came to an immediate stop just before running into me, nearly toe-to-toe as he looked down with a dark green gaze tinged with amusement. The intensity of it shook me, bringing my dream from last night back into sharp focus. I hadn’t wanted to remember it, in fact I’d done a pretty decent job of pushing the entire incident with 9B out of my head—and that included weird premonition dreams featuring hot guys from hallways. He said nothing, and I flushed, giving him my most hateful look before turning my back on him and starting off again.
Two steps later he was back at my side.
“Nice jacket,” he offered.
“Fuck off.” From the corner of my eye, I saw his lips twitch up.
“That’s no way to talk to your friends,” he told me.
“That’s because we’re not friends.”
“Sure we are, Avery.” He sounded pleased.
I stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk and so did he, his body mirroring mine when I slowly turned to face him. I could feel the blood draining from my face as I stared up at him, a loud warning bell going off in my head. “How do you know my name?”
He chuckled, and despite the alarm that was pressing in at the fringes I couldn’t help but notice the fine lines at the corners of his eyes and the way his teeth gleamed white when he smiled. He was dressed in the same clothes as the day before, wearing the tight t-shirt and beat-up jeans like they’d been created just for him, and the lighter was back in his hand, the flash of silver glinting in the sunlight as he turned it through his fingers. “I have my ways.”
I’d given my name to four people since I’d come into Industry City—or seven, counting the uncles. Now not only the detective knew my name, but the lighter guy from the hallway, too. “Who told you? Connie?”
“Don’t blame Connie,” he told me, “It’s not her fault.”
“That’s a yes, then.” I turned, angry with myself that I’d given her my real name and angry that she’d shared it—again—though I honestly shouldn’t have expected anything different. She’d probably told the whole building by now. I continued up the street, and he fell immediately back into step beside me. In any other situation I would have felt alarmed, even hunted by his behavior—but there was something playfully teasing about him that felt safe. Aggravating, but safe.
“Don’t you have something better to do?” I asked him after we’d gone half a block side by side in silence.
“Nope,” he shrugged, and I could tell without having to look over that he was enjoying this game. “I thought you might need my help.”
“I don’t.”
“Don’t be so sure.” His tone turned serious. “The Civic factory isn’t a nice place.”
“How did you—” I bit back the rest of what I was about to say. Connie hadn’t known where I was going. “You’re a friend of Gina’s, right? Or Alex? They sent you after me?”
“Nope,” he said cheerfully, “Never met them.”
He knew too much. My name. Where I was headed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about or what you want,” I told him coldly, wrapping my jacket further around myself to ward off the sudden chill down my spine. “Just leave me alone, okay? I’m not afraid of the factory.”
He stopped abruptly, and I swept past him, making it several steps before I realized he was no longer there. I looked back to where he stood on the sidewalk, watching me go with that same unwavering gaze.
“You should be.”
His words followed me up the street, echoing in the space he�
�d left at my side. The sudden urge hit me to turn back, to find safety in his self-assured, mocking presence, fighting with myself to keep moving forward. Of course I was afraid of the factory, anyone in their right mind would be after the night I’d spent, never mind the warnings I was getting about going back. I didn’t have much of a choice, though. Everything I had was in my car, and if they towed it I would be left with nothing of my own but the clothes on my back.
My shoulders hunched, the ache in the left one reminding me of the mark and the mark reminding me of my dream again. I’d never really been a nightmare kind of person. There had been something very real about my dream last night, though, and I remembered the need to reach for him, for the feeling of safety he’d offered. Maybe that was why I wasn’t overly concerned with his presence now, even if he did know too much. I glanced to my side, half hoping he’d appear again, but a final glance back showed me he’d disappeared.
For some reason, my steps felt heavier as I continued, distracting myself by mapping out the store fronts I passed. Each block of faded, burnt out signs and rundown businesses bled into the next—hair salons with their windows plastered with ancient ads of women with out-of-date hairstyles, liquor stores covered in advertisements for lotteries drawn years ago. I passed a pawn shop, a broken-down car wash and a small market selling everything from cat food to guacamole. I ticked them off in my head when I passed. Most were empty and boarded up, many with the signs still in place—grave markers bearing the names of the businesses that died there.
The sun was high in the sky by the time I reached my car, and I forced back the panicked feeling as the empty factory loomed before me. Just for the hell of it, I slipped behind the wheel of the car and tried to start it. Nothing—no spark, no click, no answering hum of battery. Just dead. I sighed and slumped low in the seat. I didn’t know anything about cars, and there was no use pretending that I did. I’d gone so far as to open the hood and stare into the greasy depths, but since nothing had actively been on fire, it didn’t tell me much.
I climbed out of my car and slammed the door, circling around to the trunk where everything was locked away—and froze.
Someone had tagged my car.
Red spray paint bled down the trunk and onto the bumper, applied so heavily it pooled onto the asphalt below. Fear slithered slowly through my stomach and I backed away, my gaze darting around the empty parking lot before returning to the mess on my car.
Unintelligible words covered the top of the trunk and along the passenger side, noticing that whoever had done this left the driver’s side and front of the car, which were angled in the direction of the highway, free of paint. Symbols I didn’t recognize were scattered throughout, but it was the single word bleeding down the rear of the car that truly caught my attention, the blocked letters that had been carefully applied.
GIVEN.
A gust of wind swept through the parking lot, and I pulled my jacket tighter around me, staring at the word. Marked. Given. Somehow those two words seemed to fit together in a terrifying way, and my hand moved to press my palm against the dull throb in my shoulder. Marked. Given. A voice spoke up in the back of my mind then with a very good plan. Take my bags, walk to the highway, climb into the first vehicle that stopped and hope the driver wasn’t a serial killer. Go and get the hell out of this place before anything else happened. I forced myself forward, my hand shaking when I fit the key into the trunk and popped it open, a feeling of relief washing over me when I found all my things where I’d left them, apparently untouched.
“Nice paint job.”
The voice came from behind me and I spun as a wave of panic slammed into me so hard it took my breath, almost climbing onto the car before my brain recognized the smirking figure standing a few feet away.
“What the FUCK!” I took two steps towards him in fury, and he put his hands up, backing away.
“I’m sorry,” he laughed, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
I leaned against the open trunk, one hand at my neck to try and calm my breathing as I stared at him, wild-eyed. “Why are you following me?”
“I thought you might need my help.”
“You keep saying that, and I keep telling you I don’t.”
“You’re wrong. No one survives in Dust without help.”
“Dust?” My eyebrow rose. He hadn’t come any closer, though I noticed the lighter was back in his hands, a flash of silver when it moved idly through his fingers.
“Industry City,” he answered, waving his hand towards the city, “Dust.”
Oh.
I pulled a battered blue suitcase from the trunk and set it on the ground beside me. “So, what are you, a pimp or something?”
“No,” he grinned, “I’m not a pimp.”
“Then what is it? Why do you want to help me?”
He shrugged. “Maybe I just think you’re pretty.”
I hadn’t been expecting that, and I stared at him for a moment before turning abruptly back to the car, tossing a purple duffle bag and an old backpack onto the ground beside the suitcase. I didn’t feel pretty, I felt used up and neglected, but despite feeling indignant at his words, there was a small part of me that was pleased. Which was irritating. When the trunk slammed, the blocked letters were clearly visible, and I felt the same sick feeling of fear run through me, quickly lifting my hand from the paint.
“I’m sure you don’t know anything about this,” I backed a step away without realizing he’d taken several forward.
“I know it’s some bad shit,” he answered from just behind me, “I don’t think you should come back here.”
I caught my breath at how close he was but didn’t move away. “I’m trying to get the hell out of here.”
He didn’t answer immediately, and there was a small, sad smile on his face when I turned to look at him. Pity, almost, in the way his gaze settled on me. “We all are,” he said.
There was something in those three words that scared me more than anything else had—more than the weird mark on my shoulder or cryptic spray paint promises on my car. Something final.
I turned back to get my things, shouldering the backpack and picking up the duffle just as a familiar noise began to fill the parking lot, the same rhythmic chanting as the night before, but this time much louder. My head came up in alarm as the sound swelled around us, ebbing away and surging back in with each gust of wind across the asphalt.
“What—” I started, but he cut me off with a sharp wave of his hand. There was a sudden tightness in his expression, and his gaze was hard on the bank of empty warehouses beyond the fence.
“You need to go,” he said. “Now.”
The chanting grew louder, pulsing inside my head and turning my breath into shallow, fearful gasps. I staggered back against the car and squeezed my eyes shut, my hands covering my ears in an effort to block it out. A sudden unbearable burning seared through my shoulder and I cried out, beginning to slide down the car and onto the pavement.
“Avery.” His voice cut through the noise almost as if he were inside my mind, demanding my focus. “Open your eyes.”
I slowly obeyed, blinking tears away to find him standing just before me.
“Good. Now stand up and pick up your bag.”
The chanting rushed forward when I pulled myself up and bent for my suitcase. The burning in my shoulder flared again, pain shooting down my arm, numbing my fingers on the handle.
“Pick it up.” His tone was sharp, somehow forcing my hand closed. I straightened, trembling, trying to concentrate past the throbbing pressure building behind my eyes with every second the sound went on.
“Good,” he told me. “Now run.”
CHAPTER FOUR
* * *
I ran, my suitcase slamming against my leg with every step. The chanting followed, the sound rushing after me down the never-ending sidewalk until the pain of carrying my suitcase outweighed the terror pressing in from behind. I slowed to a walk, gasping for air but not daring to stop
moving, though when I finally focused again I realized that the sound and the pain in my head was gone. My shoulder hurt like a bitch, though, but that was more from the weight of the suitcase, my fingers painfully locked around the straps of my duffle and the handle of the case to keep them from slipping out of my grip. It wasn’t everything—there had been more bags and boxes stuffed into the trunk and backseat, but there was no way in hell I’d be going back to collect them. I never wanted to go near the Civic factory again.
The day was warming, and between my panicked bolt from the parking lot and my jacket, I was a sweaty mess by the time I reached my building. There was more activity in the street now that it was past noon—the same crowd from yesterday taking up residence around the doors to Duke’s with several more standing aimlessly in front of the apartment building. I avoided eye contact as I shouldered through the doors and into the tiny lobby, glaring angrily at the broken elevator through the yellow tape still stretched across the tile, then turned towards the stairs and began the long climb up, my bags seeming heavier with every step. By the time I reached the ninth floor and staggered through the door, all I had left in me was to drop everything onto the bed—myself included.
My breathing finally slowed, staring up at the ceiling, my mind numb, waiting until the pounding of my heart settled to even begin to think about what had happened. I pulled off my jacket and shrugged my shoulder out of my shirt to look at the mark there, my fingers gingerly exploring the hot flesh around it. It looked the same as yesterday, maybe worse—constantly reminding me of its presence with a dull, aching throb. I let my shirt fall back in place and stared unseeing at the opposite wall while my mind tried to make up reasons and excuses for everything that had happened, methodically creating, believing, and discarding scenarios like leafing through a deck of cards.
I was allergic to something there—that’s what caused the pressure in my head. Or there was something left over from when the factory was operating, like magnets. Or something radioactive. The sound was just a machine, louder today because of the wind. I was just overly sensitive to it. Gang graffiti never made sense, the words and symbols on my car were the work of a bunch of teenagers. I ran through them all, over and over, wanting desperately to believe in something that made sense, but none of them felt right. Band-Aides over a sore of a truth I didn’t want to acknowledge, because the truth was none of it made sense and something was very, very wrong.
Into Dust: The Industry City Trilogy - Book One Page 4