by Tessa Elwood
I hated that book with every fiber of my being. Then Mom left, and I read and reread it until I half had it memorized. Can still quote whole passages verbatim. I fully intended to quote those passages to her. She’d come back because she forgot something, and I’d be ready with my quotes and she’d be so impressed that this time she’d take me with her.
Except she didn’t come back.
Then, later, I found her.
“Not okay, Dad.” I flatten my palm over the digibook’s smooth screen, rub out the smudges. “Not okay.”
“I was careful, I promise.” He grins, hand to his chest. “Heart swear.”
I pause. Dad only heart swears when he’s happy, and he’s only happy when he’s had a drink.
I softly lay the digibook down and lift the juice glass from the couch side table. It smells stringent, earthy, acidic. “Dad.”
“What?”
I cross to the kitchen and pour his latest down the sink.
He rises with that fluid grace that means he’s had at least one, but not three.
“Wait—lord, Kit, don’t you know how much that stuff costs?”
I slam the glass down and grip the sink’s edge. Breathe past the hole in my gut. “Get a shower. You’re leaving.”
“Kit—”
“No, Dad. Just you being here could get me kicked out. It was only supposed to be one night and you’ve had two.”
Not to mention Dee knows he’s here.
“Kit—” Whiny and forlorn.
“You know what,” I say, “forget the shower. Just go.”
He steps forward, smile gone. “Kit, please—”
“Out.” I point at the door.
He sags, body and soul. Like I’ve slit his tendons and he’s forgotten to fall. His eyes glaze bright, shine and swim.
It’s the alcohol; it’s just the alcohol. He is not going to cry.
“I’ve nowhere to go,” he says.
“You’ll find something.” Or, more likely, someone.
“No, Kit, you don’t get it.” He sinks to the floor, right there in the middle of the carpet, head in his hands. “He took everything. You see? He took it all. My money, even my clothes, and he still says it’s not enough.” He flings his arms out and almost topples over. “You see this? This is everything I have in the universe, right here. This is it. This, and you.”
A chill threads claws down my spine. “What are you talking about? He? He who?”
Dad’s hands fall to his lap, eyes drawn over pallid cheeks. “I’ve nowhere to go and no money to get there.”
“Dad, who?”
He sinks into himself. “Decker.”
“Wait, East 5th Decker?”
The lord of the pawn dealers. Money, drugs, antiques—if it’s illegal, Decker’s got a hand in it. He can get anyone anything they want, assuming they don’t mind offering their soul in exchange. Decker always collects.
I’d gone to him for help with Yonni’s pills when Greg and Dee fell through. He’d laughed and said I was a pretty little thing, but those were worth more than I could pay.
Dad collapses into the carpet and cries silent, fat tears. It hurts to look at him. It hurts not to. Everything hurts.
“Don’t kick me out, Kit,” he says, very soft. “Please.”
Begging. He’s actually begging.
If he’s in trouble with Decker, he’d have to.
“No, shit, Dad, get up. Just get up.” I lock my hands behind my neck to run them over my head, except my hat’s there. I almost knock it off.
He can’t stay. He won’t keep quiet, especially if Dee shows again.
Dad gulps air and pulls himself upright, stumbling as if he’s had five glasses instead of two.
“How much do you owe?” I ask.
“Fifteen hundred reds,” he whispers.
Three months’ salary.
Hell.
“Kit—”
“No.” I hold both my hands up as if I could push back the words, this truth, his voice. “Shut up and let me think.”
Three months’ salary. Even if Mr. Remmings hires me back—if—there’s energy to cover and food, so it’s more like six months. Decker won’t wait six months. And the thing about Decker? He’ll make you pay up, one way or another. Often in blood.
That’s why Greg stole Missa’s pain meds. He owed Decker, too.
That’s why, when I tracked Greg down to retrieve them, I let him keep half. So that when I next saw my cousin, he wasn’t missing a limb or a spleen.
Yonni would have skinned me. She never knew. By the time I returned with the pain meds I had, Missa was dead.
But Greg still has all his internal organs, and so far, so does Dad.
Yonni’s gone, and Mom. There’s not many of us left.
I close my eyes. “If I cleared the debt, could you manage a room somewhere? Like a boarding tower or something?”
Not stellar living, but clean and cheap.
I’ve flipped the light switch of Dad, he brightens to near blinding. “You’d do that? Square me with Decker?”
Apparently, I am really this stupid.
“You have to be quiet.” I come round the counter and get right in his face. “Don’t open the door, don’t answer the intercom, don’t do anything. I’m going to tell everyone you left last night and weren’t here the night before. Do not make me a liar.”
“Oh, Kit, you’ve no idea—”
“I mean it, Dad. You are not here.”
He wraps me up, big hands balling in my shirt, breath more juice than alcohol. “I know, baby. I know.”
I knock on Mrs. Divs’s door and someone else answers.
“Kit!” A dark-haired blur leaps from the doorway to hug me tight. I stiffen, one arm braced on the colorkit box. She smells like open fields and sunbells, hair swept in a long braid down her bright purple shirt. She pats my shoulder like she’s got twenty years on me instead of eight, tops.
Who the hell—?
“You poor thing,” she coos, finally backing up for breathing room. “How’s your father?”
Oh, right. From yesterday’s intercom extravaganza. She’s the one who stood up for Dad.
“Uh, fine?” I say.
Mrs. Divs’s cane thuds, followed by a cranky, “About time you showed up, I’ve been waiting all morning.”
It’s barely even ten.
Her paisley dress swishes her ankles, a green/pink/yellow number that Yonni would have loved. Apparently, paisley was the in thing back when people had no taste.
“Sorry, Mrs. Divs.” I glance at the hugger, then ask, “Can I talk to you a minute?”
Her eyebrows rise, but she flaps at the other woman with shaking hands. “Go on then, Annie. I’ll see you at the salon later, yeah?”
“Of course!” The hugger beams enthusiasm, big eyes and pearly teeth. “We’ll get you fixed right up, Mrs. D, don’t you worry.” She skips out the door in a bounce of heels and tight pants.
Her perfume sticks to my tongue. “Who’s that?”
Mrs. Divs smacks her cane to my shin. I yip.
“That is Annie Sheldane, who’s only lived here four years and does the best hair in town. And you of all people have no right to be talkin’ her down.”
“I didn’t say anything!”
“Yes, but you thought it.” She scans me over, then centers her cane between her spread feet, folding her hands atop it like a general. “And I’m guessing if you’d asked for her help last night, you wouldn’t be in that god-awful hat now. Come on, let’s see the damage.”
Always sharp, Mrs. Divs.
I rub my stinging leg. “I’ll pay for the colorkits.”
“I don’t want to see your money, I want to see your hair.”
“There’s nothing to see.”
�
�Now that’s a lie and you know it.”
I hold up the box. “Where should I put this?”
“Anywhere, the table is fine.”
I slip past her into her suite and dump the box as directed, while Mrs. Divs fills the doorway, blocking my exit.
“I need a favor,” I say.
She sniffs. “I’m listening.”
“If someone from the Records Office stops by, can you say that Dad wasn’t here? That he left after Dee?”
Her face grows very grave indeed. “You want me to lie for you, Kit?”
There’s no making this pretty. “If the Office knows, then Dee can get me kicked out. It’s part of Yonni’s will. But if all they have is Dee’s story . . . no one will believe her over you.”
Mrs. Divs taps her pointy-toed foot. “And this is how you steel your fists? By getting your elders to tell stories?”
Partly. The least threatening part. All the parts are a mess.
I stand straight, radiate neutrality, calm. So much calm. “I just need to keep my place.”
She sizes me up, chin lifted, eyes narrowed. The one with the power and well aware.
“All right,” she says. “I won’t mention your father.”
The wires in my chest retract their barbs. “Okay. You’ll pass the word on to Annie?”
“My, your net keeps getting bigger and bigger. How about I just make sure she’s not around at the time?”
Even better. “Thank you, Mrs. Divs. I mean it. You need something, just say.”
She points her cane. “Hat.”
Well, fair’s fair. I flip the brim and reveal all my blind-ing glory.
Her tiny frame sags. “Oh, Kit.”
I had no doubts it was bad. But still—
It’s bad.
I slam the hat back on my head. “You’re right, I should have asked someone. Too late now.”
She thumps closer and pats my scalp. “What did you do?”
“Left it on too long.” I edge around her into the hallway.
“How long exactly?”
“Overnight.”
“Kit!”
I pause at door. “Yeah?”
Her pink lips weave for a full three seconds, but at last she shakes her head. “You better talk to that boy, if you’re making the rounds. He’s up in 308.”
Niles.
I don’t know that I want to talk to Niles.
My hand tightens on the doorframe. “Has . . . he been here long? When did he move in?”
Mrs. Divs’s mouth takes on a sly little twitch. I shouldn’t have asked. “He hasn’t,” she says, “not as such. You remember old Mr. Green, don’t you? That’s his grandson. He’s here for a seasonal internship or some such. Mr. Green moved to North 9th you know, after that last surgery. Deathly afraid of elevators and couldn’t do the stairs. Such a sweet man. His grandson seems sweet, too, so don’t you go snapping at him.”
Too late for that.
“Thanks,” I say, again, and close the door.
I wake Niles up. His hair flies every which way, dark pants slung low, ribbed shirt only half tucked in. It’s a Greg outfit. That Niles somehow makes it look sexy says something—and nothing good.
Though even at Greg’s spiffiest, he wouldn’t know sexy if it knocked him in the jaw. He tried to come on to me once, when he was way too blissed out to know better or even who I was. He didn’t remember when he sobered up. Wish I could likewise.
My nose scrunches, and I shake the memory away.
Niles straightens, tucks in his shirt, smooths his flyaway hairs, and suddenly he’s so far from Greg they might not exist in the same House—Greg a bug and Niles a lordling.
I stare. Or gape. Take your pick.
“I see you kept your promise,” he says.
“I tend to do that,” I say.
“Okay, let’s try another.” He holds out his hand. “Not today, or tonight, either.”
I close my eyes. Why did I come up here?
Why, why, why?
“This isn’t why I came,” I say.
“Then we’ll cover this, first.”
I blink my eyes open and he still stands, lordling-style, hand out. I stare from it to him, but he doesn’t back down and his fingers don’t drop.
“How about an exchange?” I ask.
He eases back a bit, head tilting. “Oh?”
“Can you forget Dad was here last night? No matter who asks?”
His expression rivals Mrs. Divs’s. “Like the Enactors?”
Yep. He’s a quick one.
“Yes.” Probably a good idea. I’m sure they all talk to each other. “But more like the Records Office. Any housing officials.”
His stare drills, and I’d offer a lung to be counting dust mites instead of staring back—especially as his face blanks out into nothing. But looking away means giving up.
“Do I get to know why?” he asks.
“Yonni’s will—she’s my grandmother. Was my—whatever, the will says I can’t have family stay overnight. If I do, then the suite’s forfeit and the Records Office can claim it.”
His blankness slides into confusion. “Why?”
“She hated her kids? And she thought . . .”
You always let those idiots tie you in knots, Yonni said, when her skin had turned to paste and her eyes to holes, and we both knew the new meds weren’t going to cut it. Now, I know you promised you’ll do better, but I also know what a little liar you are, so this will make sure. She tapped the digisheet of the will she just signed.
I’m not a liar, I’d said. A lie in itself.
“Thought what?” Niles asks.
I shake my head. “That I’d do exactly what I’m doing. You in or what?”
He considers me and then the paneling across the hall, as if working all the angles. Though at a guess, I’d bet money he’d made his choice the minute it was offered. Just a feeling.
“Not today and not tonight,” he says.
“Okay,” I say.
“Okay.”
That was . . . easy. I slide back a step. “Thanks.”
His hands slide in his pockets and he rocks on his toes. “So . . . you hungry?” He doesn’t wink. He might as well.
“No,” I say.
“We could get breakfast.”
“I’m booked.”
“Really?” He leans in, voice dropping low. “Not with those idiots at the market. Because it seems to me the last time you met up with them, that one girl pulled a knife.”
He’s too close and familiar by half, and with apparently zero respect for my brain.
“Why absolutely,” I say. “We plan to dance naked on tables and recite the Archivist’s Oath backward.”
“In that case.” He slips into his suite, grabs what looks like a wallet from a side table, and rejoins me in the hall. “Let’s roll.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Why not?” He saunters past me toward the stairs. “I love getting naked on tables.”
Yeah, and if he’s not careful, I’ll stake him to one.
“Do you want to get decked?”
“Did I come knocking on your door? No?” He swings into the stairwell, and bows me inside. “After you.”
Well, hell.
“So, where are we going?” Niles jogs backward in front of me, unafraid of the cracked sidewalks or potential pedestrians.
“We are going nowhere.” I speed-walk past him. He turns midstride and matches pace. It’s not even noon yet and the walkway fizzes under our feet. My shoes want to melt. So does my scalp, damp and icky under the hat. It gets any hotter and the universe will just have to deal with my hair.
Niles nods at my hat. “Disaster?”
“How did you know?” I ask.
“
Last night, you go home with a box of colorkits. This morning? Hat.” He salutes. “All hail my devastating powers of deduction.”
I roll my eyes.
He flicks the hat’s brim. “It’s cute, I like it.”
A streethover zooms by and I slip into the scattered traffic, crest the whoosh of speed and horns, and hit the other side.
Niles pulls out a traffic dance of his own and slides next to my elbow. “I thought we agreed, not today.”
“I wasn’t—you going to bring that up every five seconds?”
“Kind of hard to forget.” He shrugs, arms held close like he doesn’t know what to do with them.
Last night, he had them wrapped around me.
Yeah, so I wouldn’t go splat on the floor.
I stop and turn. Ahead, the street branches in a Y. Left for Low South, right for East 5th. For all Niles can swing the Greg vibe, he doesn’t seem the seedy type. Especially out here, with the sun catching his flyaways and gleaming off his skin.
I probably gleam, too. The air’s sticky enough.
“It’s safe,” I say. “I kept my word last night, right? You don’t have to guard your investment. Go home.”
He shifts back on his heels. “You really don’t like me.”
“It’s not about liking. I’ve stuff to do, and you don’t want to be involved. Trust me.” I flick a thumb over my shoulder, toward East 5th. “Go home.”
I swing down the right branch of the Y. Niles doesn’t take the hint. Three steps and he’s beside me again.
“Go home,” I say.
Another shrug. “Where do you think I grew up?”
“Wait, East 5th? But . . .” I glance over, reevaluate. He looks so clean. No obvious scars, at least not in profile. Even his nose is straight. “It didn’t break you?”
His mouth twists on something that should be a smile, and isn’t. “You don’t know that, either.”
I guess not. Yonni and I were in East 5th for a while before Missa gave us the suite, and it’s not like I have scars. That’s why she gave us the suite, and why Yonni accepted. We had a few close calls, or rather I had a few close calls. One bad one in an alley that Greg got me out of. Another reason I let him keep half Missa’s meds.