by Wren Weston
This wasn’t a sparring session. It might have started slow, but it quickly developed into something altogether different. It was a real street fight, with pumping fists and turned-off brains, with hot blood and anger coursing throughout both men’s bodies.
Dixon’s punches snapped back and forth, like a striking snake. They had to, for Tristan outweighed him slightly.
Tristan planted a fist into Dixon’s jaw.
Or at least he tried. Dixon ducked to avoid it, and punched his brother in the gut.
Tristan turned his abdomen at the last moment, his brother’s blow glancing off his belly. He grabbed Dixon’s neck, throwing Dixon off balance.
But Dixon didn’t fall.
Tristan did. The tranq rode on a puff of air, landing on his cheek due to her shaking hands, a little speck of black near his jaw. He grimaced, his eyes widening at Lila’s drawn gun, betrayal etched in every crinkle and line on his face.
Dixon lunged, guiding his brother to the ground.
Katia’s mouth hung open, and she knelt upon the floor beside her lover.
Tristan’s hands slapped against the wood, his lips trying to form a few slurred words before they stopped altogether.
Lila holstered her tranq. “I can’t do this anymore,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. She hitched the strap of her satchel higher on her shoulder, turned quickly, and threw open the apartment door, fleeing quickly down the corridor.
Dixon shouted her name, the word scrambled and pronounced without a tongue. It was a call, a moan that barely resolved in her ears.
It did not reach her.
Chapter 24
Lila parked her black Cruz sedan in front of a run-down apartment complex a kilometer from Randolph General. The white trim had been painted with a coat of grime. Weeds peeked from cracks in the sidewalks. A group of men in the parking lot passed a paper bag back and forth, folding down the top to drink. Their hollow laughter rang out into the night, floundering when Lila slammed her door and marched toward one of the buildings.
A dog barked as she jogged upstairs.
She rapped upon the door of a third-floor apartment, blowing into her hands for warmth.
Inside, claws scratched at the door. The knob jiggled. Helen, in baggy gray sweats and an even baggier robe, cocked her head and stared at Lila expectantly. Beside her, a black Labrador panted, his collar and tags tinkling as he sneezed and wagged his tail.
“Lila?” Helen said, looking down at her own clothes.
Lila licked her lips. How like her mother she’d become, imposing on people unexpectedly, expecting them to do her bidding whenever she needed something. She wasn’t even an heir anymore.
“I’m sorry, doctor. This was rude of me. I shouldn’t have come over here this late.” She turned around and dashed toward the stairs.
“Come back,” Helen called out before she’d reached the first step. “You came here for a reason, didn’t you?”
Lila gripped the railing, nodding.
“It’s cold. Come inside before my ears freeze off. Look at Scout. Even he is giving up on us, the big baby.”
Sure enough, the Labrador had retreated farther into the apartment.
Lila wiped her boots on the mat and stepped inside, a blast of warmth carrying away the chill on her cheeks. The apartment had been decorated only by need, for the doctor had not bought any furniture she did not intend to use. As such, it only contained a gray leather couch and a glass coffee table. The darkly stained hardwood floors contained a small amount of dust and dog hair in the corners.
If Lila didn’t return to the Randolph estate, then she’d have a similar apartment soon.
Helen took Lila’s coat and hung it on the rack next to the door, the gray leather contrasting with the crimson wool beside it. The doctor was still a Randolph, whether she lived in the family’s compound or not.
She was no exile, she was just not important enough to bother.
“You look miserable. I’ll make you some hot chocolate.” Helen bumbled into the kitchen. Scout followed on her heels, his tags jingling.
Lila lingered near the counter. She eyed a row of painted cabinets and the small stovetop.
Helen grabbed a blue teapot and filled it in the sink, then settled it on the stove.
“I shouldn’t have come. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You’re not the first woman I’ve seen in crisis, Lila, and you certainly won’t be the last.”
“I’m not in crisis.”
“Oh no? Then what drove you to my doorstep tonight?”
While the doctor retrieved two mugs from a cabinet, Lila opened her satchel. She slid the vial with Tristan’s hair across the counter, wincing at the scraping sound it made against the granite. “I might have just tranqed the baby’s father.”
“You tranqed him to get the sample?”
Lila shook her head.
“Okay, then just to be clear, did you maybe tranq him or you did tranq him and he might be the father?”
“The latter.”
“I suppose you had your reasons, and I won’t ask what those reason were, but tranq darts can be dangerous. He might need medical attention. He could choke on his own tongue, on his vomit, on sand if he’s fallen into it.”
“I tranqed him indoors, and there are people with him. His brother and his lover.”
Helen’s eyes widened. “Oh.”
Lila pushed the vial closer. “Please, I have to know. I have to know if it’s his. I don’t want to be wrapped up with him anymore.”
“As opposed to being wrapped up with the other one, the one who nearly murdered you?”
“I don’t want to be mixed up with either of them, but I can’t take not knowing.”
“And you have to know now. Tonight.”
“I can’t even pay. I’ll get you’ll the money later, I promise.”
“Oh, I know you will, one way or another. Payment is not my main concern. I’m wondering if you’ll keep the child depending on whom the father is.”
Scout poked at Lila’s hip. His tail whacked against the counter like a ticking clock.
“I don’t know. I don’t think I can do this. They’re both violent in a way that I can’t…”
Helen squeezed her shoulders. “Lila, just because someone’s father resorted to violence, doesn’t mean that they will.”
“I can’t have that in my body.” Her belly twisted as if a snake wriggled inside. “The thought makes me ill.”
“Why don’t you save that decision for another day? You’re upset and rattled, for good reason. Let’s just focus on the paternity test tonight.”
The doctor poured a mug of hot chocolate and slid it across the counter, withdrawing her palm from her robed pocket. “Drink that while I contact the lab. Rosemary should be on tonight.” Helen excused herself. Scout followed behind.
Muffled whispers came from a back bedroom as Lila sipped her drink.
Five minutes later, the doctor emerged, dressed in a red sweater, thick trousers, and sturdy boots. She snatched up the vial on the counter and slid it into her pocket. Rummaging around in her cabinets, she opened a ceramic bin with black paw prints stenciled along the side.
Scout wagged his tail and followed her into the living room, happily clamping down on a new rawhide bone, his eyes darting back and forth to find the best gnawing location. His tags jingled as he lay down on his dog bed in the corner.
The doctor replaced the ceramic bin in the cabinet. “That should keep him occupied for about ten minutes. Then he’ll forget about it and get himself into trouble.”
“You could buy him a crate.”
“I know, but part of the fun in owning a dog is seeing what sort of trouble they’ll get into next.” She handed Lila her coat. “Did you arrive on that deathtrap you call a motorcycle?”
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Lila shook her head.
“Good. You can drive, then.”
The pair jogged downstairs and crawled into the cold sedan. Heat oozed from the vents as soon as Lila started the car. She pulled out of the complex and drove quickly toward the hospital, keeping an eye on her speed.
“You think anyone will recognize the car?” Helen asked.
“I screwed on fake plates.”
The doctor’s mouth twitched as they reached a green light. “I’ll go in myself and drop off the sample. No sense in one of your mother’s spies ratting you out.”
“Someone might have seen me come in before.”
“Might have. Might not. There’s no point in giving them a second chance.”
Lila parked in the shadows behind the hospital. As Helen strode toward one of the hospital’s back doors, Lila slid down in the seat to hide from view. The car lost more and more heat, and the little hisses in the engine quietened. From time to time, a car drove by, blinding her in the headlights. She pulled her scarf just a little bit higher each time one passed.
At last, Helen marched across the parking lot and wrenched open the door. The car shook as she plopped into the passenger seat. “Rosemary says it’s a busy night, but she’ll get to it as soon as she can.”
Lila nodded and started the engine, cranking up the heat as she backed out of the hospital’s parking lot. She turned onto the street, and the lights above the road flickered. “Thank you for doing this for me. I’ll take you back to your apartment. I’ve imposed on you long enough.”
“Where will you go now?”
Lila scratched her forehead. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. She couldn’t go back to the shop, and she refused to return to the oracle until she knew more about Camille’s partner.
Her brakes screeched softly as she came to a red light. She realized that at twenty-eight years old, she had no home, no money, a shit car, and nothing else to show for her life.
And she’d just tranqed her best friend’s brother, perhaps the father of her unborn and unwanted child.
A child she had no means to support.
Her breaths came faster. Her face grew hot, then cold. Headlights blurred in her vision, and her heart fluttered in her chest. Her stomach turned. She nearly gagged.
She’d be sick inside the car.
Oh gods, it would happen in front of Helen.
“You know what? I don’t want to go home,” the doctor said. “Take me to La Bodega. I feel like playing pool.”
Lila’s surprise switched off her illness. She breathed in and out deeply, catching her breath. “That’s a strip club, Helen,” she said when she could speak once more.
“Yes, a male strip club.”
“I thought you wanted to play pool?”
“They have pool at La Bodega.”
“They also have naked men frolicking around in thongs.”
“So you’ve been there before?”
Lila opened her mouth to answer, then closed it immediately. There was really no way to answer that.
At least her breathing, her stomach, and her temperature had gotten back under control.
“You don’t want to go? Have your recent troubles caused you to switch teams?” Helen asked.
“No. Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
Helen shrugged. “La Bodega has pool and alcohol and amusing company. That’s where I want to go.”
“I can’t drink.”
“I can. That is, unless you want to go to a café and talk. You have a great deal on your mind. I can see that.”
“Oracle’s light, no. The last thing I want to do tonight is talk about my feelings.”
“Good, then. We’ll do something far more interesting. I don’t have to work tomorrow, and now I have a designated driver who owes me one. Take me to La Bodega and promise never to speak of this night again.”
Lila turned the car around.
Helen’s self-satisfied smile didn’t fade, not even when they parked in the brightly lit parking lot of La Bodega. Cars crowded around the metal building. Techno music pumped through the cracked open door. A neon-yellow banana waved happily on the sign out front.
“Subtle,” Lila declared as they disembarked.
“I imagined that being dour in a place like this would be hard, but apparently, you have found a way.” Helen took her hand and led her across the parking lot, squeezing through the door as it opened.
The doorman skirted back behind the counter, his thick coat and hips barely squeezing by. “Twenty bucks each,” he grunted.
Helen handed over a bit of cash from her purse. He wrapped a couple of pink plastic bands around their wrists and jerked his chin toward a black velvet curtain. “No touching the boys,” he warned as they tugged the dirty fabric aside.
Inside, the techno pumped louder, crashing against Lila’s eardrums. Several men in thongs danced on a stage in the front, wearing black boots that reached halfway up their calves. A group of women hooted and hollered below, with sweaty, wadded-up cash in their fists.
While Helen threaded through the crowd around the bar, Lila headed to the pool tables, running her fingers over the smooth, worn felt. She’d never actually played the game before, though she knew the general principle well enough. Tristan owned a pool table back at the shop.
If she did have the baby, she wouldn’t have another chance to learn, especially if she signed a contract as a workborn. She’d work a full-time job, and without a father in the picture, she’d take care of the baby whenever it wasn’t in daycare. Government nannies would only take the child while you were at work or in the hospital.
She’d spend her days working and her nights changing diapers and feeding a baby. No end. No release. No time to do anything. No life beyond motherhood. When the chairwoman had talked her into reversing her birth control, she’d been promised Randolph nannies around the clock. She’d been promised an eager senator to take the baby during Father’s Week every month. She’d been promised a life away from the baby.
She’d not signed up for this. How did workborn women manage?
Was this why they married so often?
“Dour again? I only left you alone for two minutes.” Helen sipped some concoction made from pink and orange clouds. A tiny red umbrella leaned over the side, as though it had grown dizzy from the fumes. She handed Lila a clear, fizzy drink. “Yours is just soda. It’ll rot your teeth out, but it’s better for the baby than mine.”
“Yours is very festive.”
“There are places for boring drinks. La Bodega is not one of them.”
Lila’s palm vibrated in her coat pocket. While Helen inspected the pool cues, Lila checked her message.
Where are you? I’m at the oracle’s compound. Are you here? We need to talk.
Lila frowned at Dixon’s words and began typing out a reply. No. I’m with—
She paused, eyeing Helen as she rolled a few cues on the pool table.
—a friend. We’re somewhere else. Lila figured that if someone brought you to a strip club, then they could be referred to as a friend. Besides, she was fairly sure the doctor hadn’t lacked a designated driver.
Before Lila could slip her palm into her pocket, it vibrated again. I’m sorry about before. Tristan was being a brat, but I shouldn’t have lost my temper. I didn’t mean to scare you.
Why are you apologizing? Lila typed back. He would have choked you! I saw him grab your neck.
Helen watched her tap madly. “A friend of the father, I presume?”
“Sort of.”
He wasn’t going to choke me, Lila. It was just a throw. I started the whole thing. If anyone deserved to be tranqed, it was me.
Helen bought a tray of balls and set them on the pool table with a clatter, settling them inside the rack. “Maybe you should call this friend. It seems
like you both have a lot to talk about.”
“He’s mute,” Lila said, continuing to type. I saw the whole thing.
You weren’t looking at me. You were too busy looking at him. I knew you were freaked out. I should have left instead of letting my temper get the better of me. I’m sorry.
He grabbed your neck.
Tristan had grabbed his brother’s neck just like La Roux had grabbed hers, right before he’d nearly squeezed the life from her body.
She’d seen it in his eyes. Tristan had promised to do the same thing to his own brother.
It was a throw, Lila. The same one you practiced this morning. He and I have had our troubles lately, and I finally had enough of his crap. He started up with the highborn shit again and told me to back off, and I just snapped.
Lila dropped the palm to her thigh.
It vibrated again.
Katia is with him. He’ll be okay. Come to the compound. We should let the oracle know what we’ve found.
Lila typed back a quick response. Not yet. We need to find the second mole before we speak to the oracle.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Helen handed her a pool cue.
Instead of explaining, Lila merely handed over her palm.
Helen scrolled through the messages quickly, then scrolled through them again. She gave back the palm and put down the pool cue, looking around the club, a bit lost. “This whole thing has been about the other one, hasn’t it?”
“What?”
“I feel so utterly stupid, bringing you here. You’re going through far more than I thought, and I brought you here? To a strip club? What is wrong with me?”
“It wasn’t a terrible idea. Out of all the places I don’t want to be, I don’t want to be here the least.”
“Well, I suppose that’s something.”
“It’s better than your first idea.”
“The café?”
Lila nodded.
“Yeah, well, I’m your doctor, and—”
“If it makes you feel better, after tonight you won’t be my doctor any longer. It’s not safe for you. If the chairwoman learns that you’re helping me, especially that you didn’t tell her about my condition, then your career will be over. Rosemary’s, too. I’ve put you both at risk.”