by Amo Jones
“Okay! Dinner time!” I throw the dishcloth onto the small island that’s made out of steel and yank open the fridge, taking out a bottle of Chardonnay.
Trust me, with these two, I might need it.
I take down some glasses from the top cupboard and go back to the table, placing everything down.
I take a seat, just as they continue their debate about—I don’t even know what now.
“Okay, so, how was everyone’s day?” I ask, dishing salad onto my plate.
They both stop, and Katiya exhales, her eyes coming to mine. She looks beautiful—but there is no way she could ever not look beautiful. Her hair is up in a little messy bun and her face is clean of makeup. She’s wearing a hoodie and some yoga pants, her foot up on the chair as she rests one hand on her knee.
“Good.” Her eyes come to me. “Hey, have you heard from Ae?”
I put some chicken on my plate. “Um, no, but I haven’t turned on my phone.”
“Why?” Kyle asks, his eyebrows raised at me as he digs into his food.
“Um, I don’t know. Just because. Want some dressing?” I ask Kyle, but he ignores me, glaring, and then looking to Katiya.
He wipes his mouth. “Okay, someone tell me what the fuck is going on.”
Katiya smiles sadly at me. “Can you turn it on?”
I look at her, her eyes are pleading with me and I feel a pang of guilt. “Do I need to?” I know Katya can’t say anything in front of Kyle—and won’t—so I’m hoping she will give me a hint.
“Yes, might be a good idea.” Probably is, since the last time I spoke with Aeron he told me I wasn’t to fuck anyone else.
“Hold up,” Kyle says, grabbing my hand with his. “If you don’t want to, you don’t have to, Beat. I mean I know the whole one-night stand thing isn’t your deal, but it’s okay to walk away.”
“Excuse me, but you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Katiya snaps.
That’s it.
I groan, standing from my chair abruptly. I make my way for the stairs and dash into my bedroom, shoving all of Katiya’s crap off my bed. I can’t deal with their fighting anymore, I’m honest to God sick of it.
“No, it’s your fault!” Kyle snaps, both their voices drifting up from downstairs.
A few minutes later, there’s a knock on the door. I don’t look up, my face staying buried in my pillows.
“Can I come in?” Katiya asks softly.
“Sure,” I answer muffled. I’m not mad at her, or Kyle, but God I wish they’d stop fighting.
The mattress sinks beside me. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” I ask, flopping onto my back so I can see her.
She brings her legs up and tucks them under her butt. “For fighting with Kyle, I know that’s what’s upsetting you.”
“So, can you both stop?” I ask softly, hoping she says yes.
“God, I hope so. He just annoys me so much, Beat, like oh my God.”
That warrants a giggle. “I see that.”
She smiles at me, and it’s scary the similarity she has to her brother, especially when it comes to their eyes. Her hand reaches for my cheek as she swipes my hair out of my face. “If my brother wasn’t psycho over you, I think I’d give it a go.”
“Kat, I’m straight.”
She waves her hand. “So am I! Sometimes.” She pauses. I glare. “Okay so like, occasionally or six times a year.”
I smile. “Much better.” I feel so comfortable with Katiya, I sort of always have. Even when she has gotten flirty with me—I didn’t feel like she was going to push me to make out with her or whatever it is that girls do together. She and I just felt like old friends.
Like sisters.
She exhales. “You really should text my brother. He doesn’t like playing games that he doesn’t start.”
“I sort of get that.”
She laughs sarcastically. “Oh booboo, you have no idea.”
I sort of get that too.
She stands from the bed, and just as she reaches my door, she turns back to face me. “I’ll make things right with Kyle and I, okay? I really am sorry.”
My shoulders slack and my heart beats off a load. “Thank you, and hey!”
She raises her eyebrows at me. “Yeah?”
“Wanna come watch me dance tomorrow? I mean, it’s just at a studio downtown, but they always sort of record me when I’m on and upload it to Instagram—which I never really use—”
She cuts me off. “—Beat? I know who you are on Instagram.”
“You do?” I ask, shocked.
“Yes.” She rolls her eyes. “You have a decent following, girl. Wouldn’t be surprised if one of them is my brother now.” She winks and then pauses, stepping backward and looking at me. “Actually, no, he wouldn’t, because he hardly uses that shit.”
I toss the pillow at the door and she squeals, disappearing to hopefully make it right with Kyle.
My eyes fall on the little white phone box that’s sitting on my dresser and my mouth fills with saliva, kudos to the nerves that have been constantly harassing me.
“Screw it.” I jump off the bed and grab the box, ripping the cover off and plugging it into the wall. I bite my nails nervously, waiting for it to switch on.
The Apple logo lights up the screen and I swear a teardrop of sweat rolls down my temple.
“This is stupid.” I leave the phone and go back downstairs. As long as it charges, that’s a step up from it sitting in its box.
Landing on the bottom step, I hear laughter and quickly run into the kitchen, afraid of what I’m about to walk in to.
I find Katiya and Kyle doing the dishes and talking. “Hmmm,” I murmur, leaning against the counter. “This isn’t dodgy at all.”
Katiya winks at me. “We can play nice.”
Later that night, I’m slipping into bed beside a snoring Katiya when my phone vibrates on the nightstand. I quietly grab it and take it back to bed, being careful to not wake up sleeping beauty. She’s a light sleeper—the complete opposite of me.
Text messages (125)
Voice messages (63)
Missed calls (83)
That pang of guilt hits me again when I realize I really did worry Kyle. It’s not like it was my fault, what with being kidnapped, but I really hope he hasn’t changed his view of me from this. I’d never do that to him—not in a million years. I wonder if deep down he knows that.
I start by clearing out the voice messages, deleting them all at once as well as all of the missed calls, then I go to the text messages. 124 of those were from Kyle, I’m guessing it was his number since I had so many messages from it, but there was another number that came up with one text.
Unknown: Remember the rules, Cub.
My heart thuds in my chest, beating so hard that it sets off my sweat glands.
“Fuck,” I whisper out the foreign cuss word.
“Mmm, must be my brother,” Katiya says, rolling over to face me.
I take my eyes away from my phone and look to her. “Yeah, it is.”
She pauses, resting her hand under her cheek. “Do you want to know something?”
“Not really,” I answer truthfully.
“Aeron is a Vor.”
“What?” I ask, confusion etched into my tone.
“Listen, I’m telling you this because I know people. I read people and I’m damn good at it. Not as good as Ae, but good at it because he taught me.”
“Ok, and yes, you’re right.” I nod, hitting the screen to my phone to create the light. “I’d never say a word.”
She smiles weakly. “I know. You’d make a good woman one day.”
“I’m a good woman without a man, thank you,” I laugh, and she joins me, then both our laughter dies out.
“So, he’s been initiated into The Family. He took the ritual. I’m not sure exactly what happens during this process, but it’s not pretty—from what I hear.”
“Okay, I’m listening.” I roll onto my si
de to face her, but she goes to her back.
“My brother has endured shit that you can’t even comprehend. Do you believe in nature or nurture?” she asks, her head tilting to me.
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I haven’t thought enough about it.”
“Well, Aeron is… troubled.”
“No shit. He scares the crap out of me.”
She snorts. “You have no idea. He is far from human. The thing is…” She pauses, and I watch as her throat tightens when she swallows. “He enjoys it. He tries to put up a false wall and make us all think that he doesn’t, that he hates who my father is and what life he has given us, but he doesn’t, Beatrice.” She turns back to face me. “He lives for it. He inhales the dying breath of his victims like it’s a line of cocaine.”
I freeze. “I could see that there was a darkness brewing beneath the surface.”
“It’s not a darkness, Beatrice, it’s a caged beast. He lets it out to play every time my dad has him on a job. It even has a name,” she utters, low enough that I almost miss it.
“A job?” I ask, but she pauses and then giggles.
“I’ve said too much already.”
I wanted to know more. It was just getting interesting and I wanted to know more. “You know I will never breathe a word about anything that you tell me—ever.”
Her hand comes up to my face. “I know.” She trails a finger down, but again, I don’t feel uncomfortable by her advances. “But can you promise me something?”
“I can try.”
“Don’t let Aeron have you.”
I snort. “That’s stupid because he doesn’t want me.”
She glares, and I can almost feel her eyes boring into me. “Stop being dumb, Beat. Aeron has been trained from a very young age to not feel. He will never be that guy who expresses his feelings to you, or even show an inkling of emotion—but that doesn’t mean that it’s not there, it just means that he’s very good at hiding it, and he is. Hell,” she laughs, shaking her head. “He doesn’t even kiss girls.”
I freeze, and she notices because her head whips around to face me again. “Did he kiss you?”
“No, he didn’t, just went down on me.” But, now that I think back, it is weird how he didn’t. Now I know why.
She sags in relief. “Oh, yeah, well, not surprised.”
“Should I be slightly disturbed by this?”
She looks at me. “No, but you should feel warned. He’s not a knight in shining armor. He will never sweep you off your feet. You need that kind of man, I can tell. So just save yourself the hurt and don’t go deeper than what it already is. Think about it before you reply to his message, okay?”
I nod, sinking deeper into my bed covers. “Okay.”
“Everybody Dies in Their Nightmares”—XXXTENACION
“Paul wants to hear what we have so far on this album,” Lenny says, leaning back in his chair.
I shrug, shoving the last piece of chicken into my mouth. Keeping up with my fitness routine and my life, in general, is fucking exhausting. “Then tell him he can, when it’s ready. It ain’t ready yet.”
Lenny pauses, and I can see him watching me from the corner of my eye. “What, Lenny?”
“You got words down last night after going to see your dad?”
I pick up my glass and down the rest of the milk. “Yeah, I did.”
“You wanna talk about it?”
My eyes shoot up to him. “Do I ever? And if I did, would I ever?”
His eyebrows creased in confusion. “Can you stop with the mind fuck thing that you do—my brain still can’t keep up.”
My face is flat, and I’m just about to ask him about the album when my phone starts ringing in my back pocket. I reach and grab it out, swiping it to unlock.
“Talk.”
“She’s—God, Ae…”
I close my eyes. “What? What’s happening.”
“No, it’s nothing. It’s just, I’m at this small studio thing in town watching her dance.”
“She dances?” I ask, shocked. Beatrice just seems too mellow to be into anything like that. Dancers usually have no problem with the spotlight or being the center of attention, where I’ve always gotten the vibe that Beatrice hates it. I shouldn’t give a fuck what she does. Why the fuck do I care, and why do I find myself interested and wanting to watch her dance? My thoughts go back to fucking Lenny. “Everyone has that one girl.” Motherfucker probably cursed me or some shit. It’s like the law of attraction. The more people stunt talking about something, the more you think about it.
Yeah, fuck it. I’ll go with that.
“You didn’t know?” Katiya sounds shocked. This is what’s wrong with my sister. She sees humanity inside of me that doesn’t exist.
I massage my temples. “Why the fuck would I know that?”
Long pause.
“Um, I don’t know, because you run checks?”
“And I did, but none of her checks showed anything about her being a dancer. What is it—jazz? Ballet? Something nice and cute? Oh, I know. Cheerleading…”
Another long pause.
“How about you come down and take a look for yourself? Then I can tell you my other news,” she suggests, and I look up at Lenny, catching him watching me carefully.
I flip him off.
“Send me the address.” I hang up on her and smirk at Lenny. “Want to watch ballet?”
I’m in the center, and I tear off my shirt, leaving me in my sports bra and loose grey sweatpants. “Rattlesnake” from Tsar starts playing through the speakers and I roll my body around, letting the rhythm take me over. This isn’t a freestyle, it’s choreographed by one of the guys who trains here. I can see the door open out of the corner of my eye, and I don’t know why I notice that. When I’m dancing, I’m performing. I’m not entirely me when I’m out here with the music—it’s someone else that takes over me and I allow it. It’s also being recorded. I’m not famous or anything extra like that, I just like to dance, and because I’ve danced with some well-known people in the past, it has helped boost my following. I never claimed to be the best, but I always bring my best. Talent doesn’t work unless you do.
The beat drops and so does my body. I flirt around the camera and wink at it. Tensing my abs and muscles with every move, I ignore the tight tension that’s throbbing over my hip. It’s still a little tender, but it works as a reminder to keep everything tight, so I ignore it. I drop to the ground, sticking my ass up and shake before spinning back around and rolling off one of the girls who is dancing beside me. It’s a thirty-second slot, so we bounce out and the next group set up to do the exact same routine with the exact same song.
I’m laughing and hugging one of the girls when I remember that Katiya is here and that I better check on her.
I freeze when I see she’s not alone, my water bottle stopping short of my lips.
Shit. Double freaking shit. He’s here.
I start walking toward them slowly, while frantically trying to figure out why he could possibly be here. I chose not to text him back last night. Katiya was right, I probably don’t need that in my life. She didn’t say it, but I’m pretty sure he has hurt a lot of people before. Could the same hands that end lives be the same ones to make mine come alive? I don’t know. It feels too much like I’m dancing one-on-one with karma, and that’s a dance battle I will never win.
“Hey!” I say, looking at Aeron and Lenny. “What are you guys doing here?” I suck down my water until they notice I’m sucking down all of my water. I pull it away, not wanting to be obvious that he may sort of have an effect on me.
Stockholm Syndrome? Maybe I need to get checked out.
“To learn how to dance…” Aeron quips sarcastically, his eyes going over my shoulder.
I turn around to follow his glance and I see everyone’s face is pale, jaws dropped open. “Oh, right.” I click my fingers, looking back to Aeron. “I forgot how famous you were.”
His eyes cut to mine and
I flinch because they’re inhumane. Those eyes are not made by genetics, they’re placed on this earth to mess with girls like me.
I scan what he’s wearing. Casual jeans, a hoodie with its hood up and white sneakers on his feet. He looks like he has stepped out from the bad-boy sector of every ruthless neighborhood your parents told you to stay away from.
“You dance?”
I swipe the sweat from my stomach, his eyes following the movement. “Yes. Have since I was little.”
Aeron tilts his head. Is he shocked maybe? I don’t know.
Lenny chuckles around his protein shake. “I’ve gotta say—”
“—No, you don’t…” Aeron cuts him off.
Katiya stills beside me so I look directly at her, who then looks directly at me, her face now pale too. “Are you okay?” I ask, reaching out to her.
“Yes,” she says, shaking off her shock and giving me a completely fake smile. She looks back to her brother. “What are you guys doing today?”
Aeron’s eyes are still on mine and my stomach is doing that achy thing again.
“Finishing up this song.”
“How many songs in are you?” Kat asks, and I get the feeling she’s trying to deflect the conversation. Why, I’d have no idea.
“We have eight. With a couple features.”
“I have one more set and then we can go?” I gesture to them all.
Manik nudges his head, pulling his hoodie down and I do that breathing thing again that matches that heart thing, because he’s so stupidly beautiful.
As soon as I’m back where all of the dancers are—some I’ve known since I’ve been here and some new—the questions start. I brush them all off and lie by saying that Katiya and I are close—that’s why he’s here.
They bought it.
I hope.
Music starts playing and I slide down to the ground slowly and then suck in my stomach while arching my back. This one is a solo, just me, and I’m pretty proud of it because I choreographed it myself. I hit every line with perfect precision, losing myself in the music.