And then there was him. Him. Hot Lighter Guy. Without him there, I wouldn’t have been able to fight whatever was happening to my body, and I had no idea what might have happened after that. I didn’t even know his name, although he seemed to know quite a bit about me, and he was following me around uninvited. For all that, however, I just couldn’t find it in myself to be afraid of him. Not after today.
I rolled off the bed with a groan and searched through my bags until I found a small packet of potato chips and a warm cherry sports drink, spoils of war left over from a gas station raid and sat at the table to eat them. They were that was left of my food supply, and I found myself thinking longingly of Maria’s offer of tamales. I was going to have to figure out how to eat along with how to pay the rent, and the twenty bucks I had left in my pocket wasn’t going to cover either of those things. I spent the next few minutes staring off into space, eating chips and hating the dickhead trucker who’d stolen my purse, when a shout from outside jerked me from my daze. My heartbeat immediately began to pound, my entire being on edge from my encounter at the factory. Cautiously I rose and crept to the window to look outside, finding a clear view of the street below and the crowd in front of Duke’s where the shout likely came from. I leaned against the sill and gazed down thoughtfully at the bar, then crumpled the empty chip bag and slipped into my jacket. I had to start somewhere.
I locked up behind me, mentally adding the need for another deadbolt on my door to my growing list of problems, then headed down the stairs and outside, turning immediately towards Duke’s. I’d passed several bars on my way through town, but this was the only one with a crowd outside, which made getting to the door extremely uncomfortable. There wasn’t a wait, just a cluster of people smoking, laughing and staring at me when I walked past.
“How’s it going, baby,” a woman murmured, and I looked over, recognizing her from the day before mainly by the fact she was wearing yet another shirt that barely contained her boobs.
“Great.” I forced a smile. “Just fucking great.” Her eyebrows climbed slightly, and I moved past her to pull the door open and step into a dark interior that swallowed me the moment I entered, the heavy door swinging closed to leave the light and noise and crowd behind.
Duke’s was exactly what I’d expected, and for some reason I found that comforting. A small room with a bar running the length of it. A few tables were scattered in the space between, and another small room opened to my right where a single pool table sat, scratched and battered, beneath a florescent strip of light. Two men circled the table with cues in hand, and a handful of people sat hunched over drinks at the bar. There was the faint smell of cigarette smoke, but it was old, the kind of smell that never really comes out despite the large No Smoking sign on the wall. No one was talking over the classic rock playing from an ancient jukebox pushed into the far corner—in fact, it was silent save for the clink of the balls from the table. I moved to the bar and slipped onto an empty stool, drumming my fingers on the scarred wooden surface. There was no bartender, no waitress, no bouncer. I was starting to wonder if the people sitting beside me had poured their own drinks when a door opened in the back to admit a woman carrying two glass racks, my eyes widening in recognition.
“Hey,” Gina smiled, “I was wondering if I’d see you in here.”
“You were?”
“Well,” she said, stowing the glass racks beneath the bar, “Maybe I was just hoping. There’s not a lot of talking going on tonight, as you can see.” She moved to a cooler and pulled a bottle free, popping the top before sliding it towards me with a wink. “You look like you could use a drink—on the house,” she cut over me when I opened my mouth.
“Thank you,” I gave her a grateful smile, slipping my fingers around the condensation on the bottle and pulled it closer to me. “I, um. I didn’t know you worked here.”
“Work here, live here—pretty much the same thing. It’s my place.”
“You’re Duke?”
“Sort of,” Gina laughed, “The guy who opened this place disappeared and the bank was about to take it. I was already tending bar, and it seemed like a waste to let it close, so I kept it going.”
Images of the MISSING signs flashed in my mind, and I frowned slightly, then pushed the thought aside. “You’d be the one to talk to about a job then?”
“Yep, that’s me. Although I’m not sure this is your kind of place. We have a pretty rough crowd at night. They’ll run right over anyone who can’t keep them in line.”
I could feel her gaze on me, appraising, and I knew what she was seeing. There was nothing particularly intimidating about my five feet, five inches, and my dark hair was done in an ‘I let it dry like this’ style today, which resulted in wavy, chaotic brown locks tumbling down to my shoulders. Gina’s words suggested needing a hard edge that I didn’t have, even after two weeks of sleeping in my car. “I can handle it,” I told her, not sure if I meant it or not.
“Didn’t say that you couldn’t,” She chuckled, “Just not sure if you’d want to.” She moved down the bar to replenish a drink, leaving me to brood over my own until she returned to fold her arms on the bar and level her gaze at me. “Any bartending experience?” I shook my head dully, and she grinned. “Any bar experience at all?”
“No.”
“Waitressing?”
I sighed. “No.”
“Ever wash your own dishes?” I laughed, and she straightened. “Well, you’re in luck. My barback took off last week without a word. Think you can handle that kind of work?”
“I think I could handle just about anything at this point.” I shifted uncomfortably on the stool, my fingers worrying at the label on my bottle. “Seriously though, Gina, I had no idea you worked here. If I’m not what you’re looking for, it’s okay. You’ve done so much already.”
“It’s no big deal, Avery.” She shook her head. “Trust me, it’s not a great job. It’s a lot of hard work.”
“I can do that.” I took a grateful drink, glad that at least one thing was going right.
“So,” she pulled a bottle of her own from the cooler and leaned against the counter to drink it. “Anything exciting happen today?”
“Something like that. I went to get my stuff out of my car.”
“You went to the factory?” Her voice was sharp, and she glanced at the pool table.
“Yeah.” I wasn’t about to tell Gina about the weird chanting that had almost taken me down. It sounded crazy, and I really needed this job. “Someone tagged my car. Pretty bad, too. It’s all in red paint, with these weird words and symbols all over it.”
“Not here.” Her tone was quietly urgent, and her gaze travelled again towards the two men at the pool table before flicking back to me. “We’ll talk about it later, okay?”
My attention moved to the other room then, watching the pool players out of the corner of my eye for a moment. They seemed normal enough, no different than the rest of the population I’d encountered in Dust. Both looked to be in their early twenties, wearing black t-shirts and jeans. The only real difference between them were the tattoos that covered every inch of the tallest one’s arms, while his friends were bare.
“Sure,” I said carefully, “Later works.” She gave me a tight smile, and I took a long drink, glancing one last time into the other room before changing the subject. “There’s a guy who I’ve run into a few times. Tall, brown hair, needs a haircut. He says he lives in our building, do you know him?”
“You’re going to have to give me more than that,” Gina laughed. “Is he white?”
“Yeah. I don’t know his name, though. He has full sleeve tattoos down both arms and he’s always playing with a silver lighter.”
“I don’t think I know him,” Gina frowned, “Which is weird. I thought I knew just about everyone in the building.” She gave me a knowing smile. “Is he hot?”
“Yes. In this really annoying kind of way. I can’t decide if I hate him or if I want to have his babies.”
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“I definitely don’t know him, then.” Gina laughed, “I wouldn’t recommend breeding with any of the people I know in that building. He must be new. Weird how you keep running into him, though.”
“More like he keeps running into me,” I said dryly, “He has a habit of popping up.”
“Yeah.” Her gaze suddenly narrowed on something behind me, “They tend to do that.”
Arms slid around my shoulders and I jumped before recognizing Alex’s face grinning lazily down at me. “What are we talking about, ladies?”
“Irritating men,” Gina told him, and his grin widened.
“Not about me, then. Too bad.”
Gina rolled her eyes at him and placed another beer onto the bar, and Alex’s arms tightened briefly around my shoulders before pulling away to take the stool next to me.
“How’s it going?” He asked me, his dark gaze running down my form. I knew I wasn’t looking my best just then, and concern shadowed his eyes. “You look like you had a rough morning. Did you go out to the factory?”
“Alex,” Gina cut in, her voice tight, and gave the slightest of nods towards the two men in the other room. Alex paused, his fingers closing to a white-knuckled grip around the bottle in his hand.
“What the hell are they doing here?” Anger was radiating from him like a switch had been thrown inside his body, his lip curling into a snarl. “I told you not to let them in.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not like you’ve been here to keep them out,” Gina shot back in a harsh whisper. “What am I supposed to do?”
Alex stared at her a moment, a muscle ticking in his jaw—then slammed his beer down onto the bar and stood, walking towards the pool table. “Hey! What the fuck is this?”
The two men stopped playing as Alex approached, and both stood now with their cues held in both hands before them, giving the impression of weapons. Slowly, as one, they stepped forward and stopped a few feet away. Now that I had a reason to look at them, it was immediately apparent that there was something off about their appearance. It wasn’t just the tattoos on the tall guy’s arms that were odd, though when I looked closer I could see there was a strange roughness about the ink, the lines bleeding out until there was no discernable patterns or shapes, only darkness coloring his arms. Both were pale, with sunken cheeks and red-rimmed eyes, their dark hair holding a greasy shine where it fell too long around their faces. Both held an air of neglect and decay about them that made one virtually identical to the other, save for the long, jagged scar that streaked down the left cheek of the shorter man.
“Just playing a little pool,” the taller one smirked. His voice was high and grating, like a little girl’s, and the weirdness of it only served to make him more sinister. “What’s the problem?” He turned the pool cue slowly in his hands, and I saw with a shiver that the backs of his hands were covered in crescent-shaped scars very similar to the mark I had, the pink-white flesh gleaming dully in the low lights. Brands, I realized as the sick feeling rushed back in. He’d been branded.
“The problem is I told you not to come in here,” Alex’s hands were fists at his sides, the muscles in his shoulders bunched, reminding me of a coiled snake about to strike. “So why don’t you get the fuck out?”
“Easy, Alejandro,” the shorter man said, taking a step forward. “You don’t want to cause any trouble here, do you?” His gaze moved past Alex to focus on me, and I flinched. “It would be a shame if someone got hurt.”
Alex moved in front to block me, but it was too late—the pressure in my head was back. My breath shallowed, fingers gripping at the bar to keep myself from falling off my stool. For a moment the room pulsed and blurred, narrowed down to the distance between those bloodshot eyes and everything I was, drawing me in and holding me there. I knew that Alex still stood between us, but I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t see anything. From somewhere deep in my memory, the chanting began again, and this time I knew I couldn’t run. I felt a strange-but-familiar tugging in my shoulder, like I was being pulled forward, and I swayed, trying to slip from my bar stool, knowing only one purpose just then—to come to Him. To serve. I was His. I belonged to—
“Enough.”
Gina’s voice cracked sharply across my consciousness like a hammer’s blow to a mirror, shattering the moment as the pieces hailed down around me. I was shaking, the beer in my hand trembling so violently the contents were sloshing out of the bottle.
“I heard the man say it was time for you to go.” Gina reached beneath the bar and pulled out a black handgun, which she levelled without hesitation at the shorter man. “So like he said. Get the fuck out.”
I stared at her wide-eyed, my gaze focusing on the gun in her hand before turning back to the man she pointed it at. He had paused, his focus sharp on Gina while he considered her in silence. Then he smiled and stepped slowly around Alex to throw his pool cue onto a nearby table with a loud clatter. “Fine,” he told her, “We’ll go. Remember, though, bad things happen when we aren’t welcome.”
“Out,” Gina repeated, tracking him across the room with the gun, and his smile dropped into a scowl.
“Later, Alex,” Girly-voice smirked, his gaze moving once over me before following his friend out.
“What the fuck,” I breathed as they left, looking at Alex. “Friends of yours?”
“I wouldn’t call us close,” Alex snapped. He turned, his hands still in fists at his sides, glaring at the gun in Gina’s hand.
“I had it handled,” he growled at her, “You didn’t need to get involved.”
“Yeah,” she said dryly, “You had it all under control. You okay, Avery?”
Alex’s gaze shot to me, his eyebrows climbing when he saw my arms wrapped around my middle in an effort to stop shaking. “What happened?”
“What do you think?” Gina leaned down, stowing the gun away. “If you’d drop the machismo bullshit, you would have noticed. Mom was right. They have her.”
“What do you mean they have me,” I demanded, looking between them both.
“Ve fácil, Gina,” Alex murmured in Spanish, “Ella podría no saber nada.” Gina gave him a hard look before walking around the bar to stand next to me.
“Alright,” she said, “Show me your hands. Where is it?”
I pulled my hands instinctively into the sleeves of my jacket. “Where is what?”
“The brand. There’s no way they could get to you like that unless you were part of their fucked up club.”
I felt myself go pale. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Let me see your hands,” she demanded, and I hesitated a moment before slipping my hands free of my jacket and holding them out.
“What are you looking for, exactly?”
Gina’s didn’t look up from her inspection, though her eyes narrowed at the question, and she was silent for a moment before answering. “The crescent moon. They all have it branded into their hands. It’s part of some creepy initiation ritual.”
I stilled at her words, my stomach tightening in fear. “I don’t have that.” I forced the words out, turning my hands so they both could see, and she shook her head.
“She doesn’t,” she confirmed, looking back at her brother. Alex only shrugged.
“Maybe it’s somewhere else,” he suggested, and my breath caught, but he followed it up with a slow smile. “I’ll volunteer to look her over.”
“Alex!” Gina snapped.
“Will someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?” It was taking everything I had in me not to press my hand against the throbbing mark on my shoulder, Gina’s words still playing hollowly in my head. Marked. Given.
“Someone should,” Gina agreed, “But I’ve had enough of this shit for tonight.” She turned to her brother, “Take her home, will you? She shouldn’t walk back by herself.”
“Hey—” I started, then stopped when she shook her head.
“Alex can explain, probably better than me. Come back tomorrow at three, and we�
�ll get you ready to start your shift, okay? I need to get to work.”
“I’ll come right back,” Alex told her, but she had already turned and walked off, the door to the back room slamming behind her.
“She’s pissed,” I said, mostly to myself, but Alex chuckled.
“She’ll be okay. You ready?”
I nodded and slipped unsteadily off my stool, glancing down the bar at the others who’d stayed on theirs throughout the entire scene, apparently oblivious. Either this kind of thing happened a lot in Duke’s, or they were past the point of caring. I followed Alex out then, ducking my head around the crowd that had grown around the doors since I’d gone in.
“Who are all these people?” I asked him when he nodded towards a group of men standing nearby.
“The old owner used to let any kind of shit go down inside the bar,” Alex looped his arm easily around my shoulders again as we walked, drawing me comfortably against his side. My arm snaked around his waist without thinking, leaning into him, a safety in his hold that I couldn’t deny. “When Gina took over, she kicked all that drama outside. And it stays outside. For the most part.”
“So what are they doing?”
“Sales, mostly,” he answered, letting me go to push the door open to the apartments, waiting for me to pass through before continuing, “Dealers and hoes. It’s not a problem as long as they don’t bring it into the bar.”
I didn’t say anything else, saving my breath for the stairs as we climbed. My body felt weak and used up, my steps dragging by the time we reached my floor. My hand was shaking too badly to fit the key in the lock, and Alex closed his over mine to steady it, but I didn’t move once it swung open. My attention was back on 9B, the crime scene tape still stretched across the railing, blocking it off from the rest of the hall. The door was still missing, however, and the apartment gaped open.
Into Dust: The Industry City Trilogy - Book One Page 5