Sins & Needles (The Artists Trilogy #1)

by Halle, Karina

  I didn’t know how I felt about that. Part of me wanted him to like me; after all, I needed to get close to him to at least get inside his shop and house again to figure out how I was going to pull off the robbery. The other part of me—the moral one—didn’t want him to fall too hard. I didn’t want to break his heart again. And I guess there was a third part. One that wanted him to like me because I was starting to like him. One that loved the fact that he put his arm around me in a possessive way.

  Oh boy.

  “Guys, this is Ellie,” Camden said, nodding at me.

  I gave them a flirtatious smile while checking them out. The one who spoke was a beanpole shaped man-boy with shoulder-length red hair and a 70s mustache that looked ridiculously out of place on his baby face. The second guy was broad-shouldered and stocky with a toothy grin, paint-splattered jeans and a grey wife beater that showed off his tats. The third was wearing sunglasses, with black hair smoothed into a tight ponytail, a long black leather jacket coating his thin form. From his tight-lipped smile and air of superiority, I guessed he was the singer. From the Matrix.

  Everyone except snooty Neo said hello in that “someone’s getting lucky tonight” way and squeezed into the booth with us. Snooty Neo left to get a pitcher of beer, while I learned mustache man-boy was called Randy and Pete was the wife beater. I didn’t remember Neo’s name, which was fine because I preferred my name for him anyway.

  We talked for about an hour, all the way until it was time for them to set up. By then the joint was hopping with people and I was getting tipsy. Two bands had already screamed their way through mediocrity and I couldn’t wait to see what Kettle Black was really made of. The Cramps had a way of brightening up any scene.

  The whole time we sat there, Camden kept his arm around me. Occasionally it would drift down to my waist where he would thumb the hem of my shirt. Once, he brushed it against my bare skin and I had to keep my body from shivering at his touch. Even with all the people around us, the smoke that lay in sheets in the air, and the loud music that rattled my teeth, it felt like we were the only two people alive.

  “Well we better go get ready,” he said to me as they slid out of the booth. Thank god, I had to piss like a racehorse.

  I followed him out and he grabbed my hand to help me up, giving it a quick squeeze.

  “Will you try and watch from the front?” he asked. Fuck his dimples and his boyish charm. How could I say no to that?

  “I’ll be your biggest fan,” I told him.

  For a second there I thought he was going to kiss me. Or at least do something with the intensity that he was giving off. But he just nodded and disappeared into the crowd, following the band backstage.

  What the hell was going on with me? I needed to think. I took off to the bathroom, finding it just as pleasant as I thought, with no toilet paper, used pads and tampons hanging out of the sanitary container, and sticky stains on the ground. I washed my hands thoroughly and tried to splash water on my face without ruining my makeup.

  A girl with smeared red lipstick and death-by-platforms was looking at me askew as she leaned against the smudged mirror.

  “Trying to sober up? Here.”

  She rummaged through her warehouse-sized purse and brought out an unmarked spray bottle. She thrust it in my wet hands.

  “Mist your face with this. It won’t smudge your makeup.”

  I gave her a shy smile and did as she asked. It wasn’t as bracing as the cold tap water but it was refreshing enough to bring my thoughts around.

  “Thanks,” I said, giving it back to her. “I hope you don’t get that mixed up with your mace.”

  She looked at me blankly for a second then mused on. “I had to mace my boyfriend once.”

  And that’s the kind of bar we were in.

  Now that my thoughts were clearer and Camden’s hunky tattooed form was nowhere near me, I left the rambling drunk and made my way back into the bar and started looking for the scapegoat. It was going to be as easy as shooting slimy fish in a dirty barrel.

  I leaned against one of the timber posts and surveyed the packed crowd. I had to pick someone that probably should end up behind bars, or at least someone that had enough of a reputation that being blamed for a robbery wouldn’t do much to it. Not that anything was going to happen to the dude, not without any proof. I just didn’t want the fingers pointed at me when Camden discovered that his money was gone.

  I guess the fact that I was going through with it made me a pretty terrible person. Well, that was probably true and, unfortunately, I’d never been able to be anyone else but me. Yes, it kind of sucked learning that he had a kid and ex-wife to support, but that wasn’t enough to stop me from doing what I’d planned on doing. But I wasn’t going to leave Camden high and dry. There was no doubt that his shop was insured, and like I noted earlier, he had more than enough pricey crap in there to make up for the loss. It came down to who needed the money more. He had his opportunity to escape and start over. It was only fair that I had mine.

  Shitty reasoning, I know. Sometimes I was just all out of excuses.

  I found the guy, sitting at the quiet end of the bar. He was sickly pale, an oddity in this part of California, in a hockey t-shirt with mullety hair under a weathered baseball cap. He kept his icy, penetrating eyes focused on his bottle of beer which he gripped so hard that all the tendons on his forearms stood out. He worked his jaw back and forth on his gaunt face, as if he were trying to calm himself down by grinding his teeth down to the gums. He didn’t glance around at anyone and didn’t talk. He looked like one of those people who would suddenly pull out a gun and shoot the bartender in the face for pouring him a weak drink.

  He was perfect.

  I’d pulled the scapegoat scam on a few people in my day, and they’d always fit the same profile. The loner with the piercing eyes, the guy that people glance at and think “yikes, one day he’s going to blow.” When the crime happens—pickpocketing a few ladies at a café, for example—and there’s no clear person to blame, it always comes to “I bet it was that young man, the quiet one in the corner who wouldn’t look at anyone. He just smelled suspicious.” No one ever notices me heading out the door. Never commit a crime when you’re the only person to blame.

  The trick now was to get this guy on Camden’s radar, and that wasn’t going to be so easy in a bar as crowded as this.

  I pulled a notepad out of my purse and found a wedge of space at the opposite side of the bar. I ripped out a page from the back and wrote on it:

  You helped me out once before. Just returning the favor.

  I folded the note, motioned for the bartender, and slipped it to him with a $100 bill.

  “Can you give these to the man at the end of the bar, the pale guy with the hat?”

  The bartender looked behind him. “Ol’ scary eyes over there?”

  I nodded. “I’m the girlfriend of one of the guys in the next band, Kettle Black.”

  He frowned at me, unsure why I was telling him that. “Yes, I served you earlier. Can I get you anything?”

  I ordered another one of Camden’s specials, dropped him a $20, and left the bar with my drink before the bartender had a chance to deliver the message. I moved through the crowd until I was off to the front of the stage and waited.

  The scapegoat would get my message and the money and would be confused as all hell. Maybe even a bit suspicious. He’d ask the bartender who gave him the note. He’d describe me and then throw in the fact that I was the supposed girlfriend of a guy in the next band. Maybe he’d even describe Camden. That’s all I needed. With any luck, the guy would be casting calculating, guarded glances our way for the rest of the night. And since he wouldn’t know who I was, the chance of him approaching me over it was too risky for him. After all, this favor I was returning was probably something very illegal.

  I stole a peek at the bar and saw ol’ scary eyes looking around, already beginning his search.

  I smiled before he could see me and look
ed at the stage just in time to see Camden walk on with his guitar.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Then

  The girl walked into the cafeteria with her soda and carton of French fries, scouring the hellish landscape that was high school lunchtime. Even though she was now in the ninth grade and things were a little easier than the year before, she still didn’t have any friends aside from Camden, and each step she took was like a new nightmare waiting to be unleashed.

  She had stopped just after the cashier and knew she didn’t have it in her to walk down past the rows of kids, chatter, and flying food to try and find an empty table. She might as well walk down a runway with judges on all sides. She silently cursed Camden for not being at school that day, though she had no idea where he was.

  The girl was about to turn and head out into the halls, perhaps to eat her lunch down at the foot of her locker or in a toilet stall, when she heard someone call her name.

  She looked around and was surprised to see it was coming from a mostly empty table nearest to her. There was a girl with a short brown pixie cut and dangling chandelier earrings that looked really heavy and far too blingy for high school.

  Her name was Janice and the girl knew her from their Spanish class together. Janice was a new student and hadn’t found her place in the ranks yet, which was probably why she was even acknowledging the girl. Birds of a feather flock together and all that jazz.

  Janice waved, motioning her to come over. The girl looked around, wondering if it was a trick or a trap, but didn’t see anything suspicious. Janice was clearly eating alone and wanted company. The only other people at her table were a bunch of kids who were into skateboarding, and all they were doing was wolfing down their burgers like they had an extreme case of the munchies.

  It’s just three steps, make them count, the girl told herself. She threw back her shoulders and tried to walk as if she had feeling in her foot, as if she didn’t limp. Sometimes, if she concentrated hard enough, she could pull it off.

  When Janice kept smiling and didn’t seem to notice anything was wrong with the girl, she relaxed and sat down across from her.

  “Hi Janice,” she said.

  “Ellie, right?” Janice was from Atlanta and had a peachy accent that made the girl envious.

  “Right. So…how are you liking Palm Valley?” she asked, grasping for conversation that wouldn’t make her look like an idiot.

  “It’s dry,” Janice said, but she was smiling. “But I guess I’ll get used to that. It’s hard meeting people though. Do you find that? You just moved here too, right?”

  “Last year,” she said. She didn’t bother telling her that she still had a hard time meeting people. That should have been obvious.

  Janice went on about her lack of friends and her life back in Georgia and how much friendlier people were in the South. The girl could only nod, knowing all too well.

  The two of them talked comfortably for about fifteen minutes before they realized they’d barely touched their food. While they were chowing down, a group of girls approached their table. The girl didn’t even have to look up to know who it was—the scent of Angel perfume was way too strong.

  “Well, what do we have here?” came the haughty voice of Vicky Besset.

  The girl kept eating, though her eyes were now on Janice and watching her carefully.

  “Vicky, right?” Janice asked, pointing a fry at her. “And I forget the rest of you guys, I’m sorry.”

  The rest of Vicky’s minions introduced themselves: Kim, Hannah, Jenn, Debbie, and Caroline. From their ironed hair to their Fendi bags, they were all pretty interchangeable.

  “Mind if we join you?” Vicky asked. While Janice obliged cheerfully and moved over, the girl was frozen in place with fear. This was going to end very badly with someone getting very hurt.

  Vicky took a spot right beside the girl and leaned forward with her elbows on the greasy table like she had called together a business meeting.

  “So, Janice,” she began, tossing her silken brown hair over her shoulder. Part of it whipped the girl in the face. “Since you are new here, we’ve decided to stage a bit of an intervention. You know that it’s important to make friends. You must also know how crucial it is to not commit social suicide.”

  The girl cringed. She knew what was coming.

  “Social suicide?” Janice asked, eyeing the girl briefly.

  “Yes. For example, it would suck if you were to become friends with someone like Ellie Watt. She’s a freak, with parents who are actual criminals, and she’d probably steal your lunch money out from under your nose. She also needs to wear a better bra. Talk about a cow.”

  The girl swallowed hard, trying to shove down more than just saliva. Anger was flaring inside her chest and she was so afraid she’d either flip out—something that was long overdue—or start crying. The latter was something she did enough of.

  There was a hush that fell over the table, punctuated by a few snickers and giggles from the bitches. But Janice didn’t look too unfazed.

  “I don’t really look at a girl’s bra when I’m trying to be friends with her,” Janice said. “I’m not a lesbian.”

  One of the girls snorted loudly and Vicky looked shocked. “Lesbian? I’m not a lesbian.”

  Janice shrugged and took a bite of her burger. “It wouldn’t bother me if you were.”

  Vicky narrowed her eyes at her, unsure what to make of the newcomer. She might have even been impressed. Perhaps intimidated. Eventually, appearances won out and she plastered a fake smile on her face.

  “Well that’s good,” Vicky said sweetly. “Though the only person who should be a lesbian is Ellie here.”

  The girl finally looked up at Vicky, utterly perplexed at this newest insult.

  “What?” she asked.

  Vicky gave her a dry look. “Well it’s no secret that you’re having sex with Camden the Queen. And he might as well be a woman.”

  The girl was outraged, red hot heat flushing her face. The most she and Camden had ever experienced was that one kiss. “I am not having sex with him!”

  “Yeah right,” said one of the girls. “You’re totally boning him. He’s your boyfriend.”

  She looked over at Janice who only raised her eyebrows in curiosity.

  “I am not and he’s not my boyfriend!”

  “Sure, sure,” Vicky said with a laugh. “You guys are inseparable. Like total fuck buddies. You know, sometimes I think you’re not as much of a loser freak as I thought and then I see you drooling after that she-man like he was made of chocolate. Makes everyone sick.”

  The girl pushed her fries away from her, shaking her head, choking with frustration.

  “You’re mad. You’re all mad. He’s just a friend.”

  “A friend you’re in love with,” Vicky teased menacingly. “The only reason we’re even talking to you today is because he’s not here. If you want some real friends in this town, like us, like Janice here, you better keep that in mind.”

  “I am not in love with him,” the girl said through grinding teeth.

  “Oh yeah, prove it,” Vicky said. She nudged the girl on her shoulder and she followed her line of sight. Camden had just entered the cafeteria, apparently back at school for the day, and was walking down the center of it. He hadn’t spotted the girl because he would have never looked at the tables at the front of the room. He was heading for the back where the losers and freaks sat.

  “Prove it,” Vicky egged her on. “Tell everyone that he’s not your boyfriend. Tell him that. Because he seems to think it. And everyone else does too.”

  The girl watched Camden as he walked by, as if in slow motion. His shiny pants and knee-high patent leather boots, Freddy Kruger shirt, and his dog-collared neck with spikes. His trench coat floated around him like a swirl of crows, his limp hair held back with a rubber band that came with bananas you bought at the store. His eyes were lined with slick blue liner and his lips were painted purple for a change.

  Why
the hell do you have to be such a freak, Camden? the girl thought bitterly to herself. She was filled with anger that it was his fault now that she was an outcast. She could never help her flaws but he just flaunted his. He liked pissing people off. He liked being the martyr. And he wanted to bring her down with him.

  “Do it,” she said. “Or are you just as pathetic as he is?”

  Before she knew what was happening, the girl found herself getting to her feet. She found herself yelling Camden’s name.

  He stopped and was stunned to see her surrounded by their worst enemies.

  With his eyes and everyone else’s eyes upon her, she swallowed hard, put one hand on her hip and yelled, “Your mother called! She says she wants her lipstick back.”

  It wasn’t a particularly funny joke, nor was it anything that Camden hadn’t heard before. But the fact that his only friend had said it, the fact that the whole cafeteria had burst out in laughter, was devastating. She saw the look on his face, the way it crumpled from within, and it pained her so deeply to have hurt him so.

  But with that feeling of remorse came another stronger and more peculiar one. It was pride. And acceptance. Vicky, her bitchy clique, Janice, everyone else in the godforsaken school, they were all laughing at something the girl had said. They were laughing with her. And not at her.

  The girl sat back down and Vicky gave her a high five and a genuine smile. The girl turned her body away from Camden, who was still standing in a daze in the middle of the aisle, his head no doubt pegged by French fries, and pretended he didn’t exist. She pretended that she’d never miss that piece of integrity that she lost that day.

  She pretended she had to do what was best for her, no matter the cost to others.

  And she never looked back.

  Now

  I don’t know what it is about seeing a musician in their element, but somehow their element (which must be fire, if it has to be any of them) turns them into an animal. It simmers their being into something sexual, sensual, almost primal. Camden was no exception.