by B. F. Simone
“I think she was twenty at the time. She had a big reputation in the underground city there. I never imagined she’d stroll right threw the door of my house and chastise me for not punishing the members of my brotherhood that sometimes went—astray,” Lawrence laughed, “I can still hear some of them screaming out “injustice” in their thick dutch language. I fell in love with her that day. Love at first sight sounds silly, like something from Shakespeare’s plays, but it happened to me.
“She didn’t make dating easy. I followed her to New York where she lived and she avoided me at all cost. I spent countless hours thinking of ways to win her. It wasn’t easy. She came from a pure untouchable family and she was the only child to be a guardian. She had a twin sister who choose to have her memory erased, and I think she felt she had to make up for it. Her father was a purist, and he was ashamed by her lame sister. When I found out, I tried to stop seeing her. I was on my way back to Europe when she showed up at my front door.
“During the time your mother and I had our affair, I was the happiest I’d ever been in my life. We met together for ten years or so and no one ever knew. Eshmael—he found out about us. The day it all changed was the day she got attacked by a pack of werewolves.”
Larry stopped. He started a new canvas. There was a lot of red.
“I was on my way to see her—I killed them all before they took her.” More red. “But—I had to change her. She’d lost too much blood. If I knew she was pregnant—anyway, she cursed me when she awoke as a vampire. She’d lost everything that made her who she was. ‘You killed me Lawrence. You killed me.’ ” Larry picked up another brush and spread black across the canvas. “That was the last thing she ever said to me. But when you think about it, if I hadn’t changed her, you would have died in the womb or days after your birth. One life for another.”
Katie stared at her canvas. She couldn’t bring herself to look anywhere else.
“I’m sorry, Katie. I’m all out of stories for today.” They didn’t talk after that. Just painted as the light outside grew dimmer.
It was official now. He was her biological father. A man who loved her mother.
She packed her things to leave. “I’m going to head home now,” Katie said still not really comfortable making eye contact.
“You can call me Lawrence. I never liked the name Larry much, but it seemed to fit with the ice cream shop.”
Katie nodded.
“Do you mind coming with me to the shop first. I have something to tell you.”
Larry—or Lawrence—led her to his shop and unlocked the door. He left the lights off and disappeared to the back room. He came back with a glass in hand and a packet of blood.
Katie swallowed hard.
“You need to be regular with drinking. I watch you go into withdrawals and that’s dangerous. It can mess with your mind. You can go mad and become a fallen.” He opened the packet and poured it into the glass.
“A fallen?”
“Your people call them D-ranges. The fallen get trapped in their shadow form and search to fill their blood lust. You’ve seen them in the shadows of Gray City. They can never change back and the only way to free them is to kill them by exposing them to sun light.”
“That’s cruel.” Katie said, shivering from the the visions she’d had of Tristan doing just that.
“It’s crueler to let the shadow consume their souls. Some of them don’t have a chance. They are created recklessly and are left to starve when they are reborn. But you, you have a choice. Now that you’ve started drinking, you can’t go back.”
Katie remembered the silver glinting eyes from the night she’d been with Allison in Gray City.
“Drink.”
Katie’s stomach turned. She started to make an excuse but Larry wouldn’t hear any of it. She drank it. It was just as violent as the last time.
“It’s strange. To you, my brother, and all other halfborns, it’s unpleasant. To me, it’s like eating rainbow sherbet ice cream every Friday.” He smiled, but Katie didn’t return it. Not while her stomach still threatening to bring it back up. As always, it was only a matter of seconds before she started to feel better.
She left Larry at the ice cream shop and her feet took her to Lucinda’s house. She’d been avoiding this place. She told herself it was because Tristan was gone, but the truth, she knew, was because she was avoiding Lucinda. Allison had told Katie that Will had left her. He never came back from Seattle with Brian and it didn’t look like he was going to come back.
Katie didn’t believe it. She couldn’t. Allison was all about divorce now that her parent’s were getting one. She saw it everywhere it was all she talked about. She had to be wrong.
Katie rang the bell and Lucinda answered. “Why do you always ring the bell, Katie? You know where the key is.”
Katie shrugged.
“Want a sandwich? I was going to make myself one.”
Katie shook her head. The thought of food made her feel over stuffed.
“Ah, that’s right. Well, come in. I’m working on some paperwork in the living room, why don’t you pop a movie in?”
They watched the movie and talked. And talked. And talked. When was the last time Lucinda had someone to talk to? She was alone in this big house.
Lucinda got a phone call and Katie went to Tristan’s room. It was a pull. She’s been itching to go in there since she’d stepped into the house, as if maybe she’d open the door and he’d be in there smiling at her like usual. It never failed. He’d always know she was coming and she always looked for that smile.
It wasn’t there this time. Her heart still sank even though she knew it wouldn’t be.
The room was the way it was before, as if Tristan had ever come to this house. No. There was one thing different. The book sitting on the desk. That was never there before. After all, she’d bought it for him for Christmas. Katie touched the leather bind remembering the night she gave it to him. It all seemed so petty now.
It hurt that he left it.
She picked the book up and fanned through the pages. The pages suddenly stopped, and Katie pulled out the paper that had stopped it. A picture. Wrinkled and worn over the years. It was a picture of him and his family. Tristan wasn’t looking at the camera though, he was looking at his dad.
“Katie?”
Katie put the picture back in the book and closed it.
“I wondered when you’d come in here.” Lucinda stood in the door frame. “I haven’t been in here since he left.”
Katie sat on his bed. It was cold.
This was her fault. This empty room.
“Don’t cry, Katie.” Lucinda sat next to her. “I know he’ll show up.”
Katie shook her head. Lucinda didn’t know the things he thought. If she did, she’d know he’d never come back.
“He doesn’t really hate you, you know. He was just angry. I can’t blame him. I failed him. I’d be angry too.” Lucinda sighed. “Those knives you use in practice—he gave them to you didn’t he?”
Katie felt her waist and nodded. She always kept them now. She was still too anxious to walk around with a loaded gun, but the knives she kept with her at all times.
“I’ve seen them before. A long time ago.” Lucinda stood up and walked over to the window. She ran her fingers down the curtains softly. “My sister came home with them one day. We always told each other everything, but she wouldn’t tell me where she got them.” Lucinda cleared her throat. “We stopped being friends that day. And by the time I’d found out she was dating Tristan’s father I was too mad to see how ridiculous I was being. All I did was spout propaganda at her like she needed saving.”
Katie watched Lucinda pick at lint on the curtains.
“We wrote each other letters for a little while, after she left. I thought if I could get her to leave him and come home everything would be better again.” She rubbed the fabric. “I found out she was pregnant and—and she had become like him. I called my own sister a blood-whore.
” Lucinda cleared her throat and opened the window to the room. “I was a terrible sister, but I can be here for her son.”
It had been a long day, and yet, Katie didn’t go home. She’d made up her mind. Either she was going to be there for Tristan and share the burden he’d been carrying, or run away forever. Being tormented by his memories wasn’t enough. It was time for her to be the person she was born to be, to grow up and be brave. She wasn’t going to abandon him. That’s not the person she wanted to be.
She walked by Larry’s shop expecting him to nod as she passed by, but the shop was closed.
Odd. But, she couldn’t say she was sad he wasn’t there. She didn’t want anything to distract her from her purpose. She passed by the movie theater, Joe’s Coffee, a few thrift shops, and her feet kept moving. Taking her deeper and deeper into downtown. Tristan must have been close by. Underneath her somewhere. Sometimes she’d skip school and let her feet take her around downtown. She moved until her feet told her to stop. Start again when they felt like moving. It was him.
She never mustered up the courage to go down into Gray City. After going through the trouble of pulling out the elevator passcode from Michael, she’d find herself, countless times, in front of the Bistro or the Knitting Factory. She wanted to take the elevator down and follow her feet until she found Tristan—no doubt sitting at a bar stool.
However, each time was a fail. Maybe today she could do it.
The Bistro was crowded. A perfect time to slip in and to the back room. She did what she had done three times already. It wasn’t hard. She walked between the tables and towards the bathrooms. When no one was looking, she slipped into the large room and pushed the button for the elevator.
She had done this already. Even sat inside it for fifteen minutes once.
Katie pushed in the numbers: 6743256.
Her finger rubbed over the enter button. She couldn’t stop it from shaking. What was she afraid of? He already said he hated her. What more could he say that would hurt as bad as that?
The elevator doors opened and Katie jumped.
“Er, Hello. K—Ka—I’m sorry I’m not good with names. But you’re the girl that almost took off my hand.”
It was the werewolf from her evaluation. Mr. Reynolds. British accent and all. He had a peppered five-o’clock shadow that made him look younger than he was.
“You’re not supposed to be here are you?”
Katie moved towards the elevator doors. He blocked her way and pushed pushed the green enter-button. They started to move.
He smiled. “I’m not going to tell anyone.”
Katie gripped the metal bar behind her. She was moving—down into Gray City.
“What brings you to Gray City?” he said, tilting his head towards her.
“A friend.”
“Your halfborn friend?” He looked at her. “I take it they haven’t found out about you yet.”
Katie froze.
“I’m not going to tell anyone about that either.” He turned to her. “Guardians like to pretend people like you and your friend don’t exist.”
“H—How did you know?”
“Any good wolf can smell a shadow born. Even the ones who haven’t drank. But I see that’s changed about you too—you should be careful. You’re lucky Carver is too dense to realize why you were able to use your power so quickly. He doesn’t know the other part of you helps you control it,” he paused. “You live in the lions den. What you are is like a disease to them. They don’t like that you’re more powerful than them.”
Katie stared into his dark eyes. They were warning her. “How do you know so much about how my power works?”
“My brother was halfborn.” The doors open and Mr. Reynolds stepped out and into the hotel. “When you find your friend. Keep him close. He’s the only one who will ever understand what it means to be what you are.” Mr. Reynolds winked.
“Yeah,” Katie said. She stood in the hotel and watched him leave.
He knew. Ever since that day.
What did he mean his brother was half? Half what? Vampire? Wolf?
She ran out of the hotel and onto the street but he was gone. Cars blurred past her and the sound of Gray City filled her ears.
It didn’t take long for Katie’s feet to find the right direction. Her heart pounded with every foot step.
8th street. The werewolf district. Maybe he would be with Mercedes. Maybe she was the one who stood by his side now. Katie shook the thought from her mind. Her feet stopped, on the corner, not sure where to go. She looked up and down the street moving out of the way of a small boy who sneered at her. His mother was close behind and smiled apologetically. The cross walk blinked green and she almost crossed the street, when a sign caught her eye.
The Pub.
She stared at the little white sign. It was The Pub. She’d seen it before, maybe, but that wasn’t what bothered her.
The Pub.
Mercedes had said Tristan had stopped coming to the pub. Maybe she meant The Pub. An actually place, not a nondescript bar.
Katie jogged down the street and ran across the road. She couldn’t see in the window, it was blacked out. The actual building itself was next to a dark alley where she heard quick and fast grunts.
She blushed as a sharp gasp escaped from someone.
What happened if she was wrong. What happened if the place she was walking into was a whore house. Or worse, what if the people here took her for someone who would walk down a dark alley and do something similar.
She had come this far. What did she expect? She’d spent weeks seeing what he saw, trying to block out his violence. Just because he was quiet now didn’t mean he was sitting in a park somewhere staring up at the stars. She’d made up her mind when she’d gotten out of the elevator. She was going to find him no matter what. She was going to help him put the pieces of his life back together. Even if he hated her.
Katie opened the door. Laughter erupted from inside. A few heads turned to look at her but turned back to the bar after sizing her up. It was dim. Music played in the background, but nothing loud. Conversations bounced back and forth and more laughter ensued.
“See, Mer. This is what happens when you let one blood licker in. The others start thinking it’s okay.”
Katie swallowed and stood her ground. Tristan had been here before. The funny looking guy with the handlebar mustache must have been talking about Tristan.
“Get off it, Clyde.” Mercedes arose from the underneath the bar and sat a crate of beers down. Her long braids swayed. She locked eyes with Katie. Katie’s chest eased a little; she was in the right place. “Come sit. Have a drink.”
“Mer!” Clyde The Handlebar gasped.
“I said get off it. My bar my rules. She doesn’t bite.”
“Not if I bite her first.”
Katie tried to act nonchalant, but her hands shook and she sat on the only open bar stool—next to Clyde.
“What’s your name?” Clyde asked as if he hadn’t just threatened her. Katie took in a deep breath. Time to grow up. Be hard. Act like Tristan.
“I’ll put it on your tombstone,” she held eye contact with Clyde. If he stood up, she’d lose it and pee on herself. She was stupid. Tristan wouldn’t have said that. No one would have said anything to Tristan to begin with.
Silence.
Clyde laughed. “Why would you put your name on my tombstone? You can stay, Spitfire. You’re much cuter than the other one anyway.” He took took a swig of his beer.
Mercedes smiled. “Don’t pay attention to Clyde. What’s the saying? ‘He’s all bark’.” She pulled down a glass and then stopped. “What’s your poison?”Mercedes bounced her perfect eyebrows up and down. What was this, a saloon in the seventeen-hundreds?
Katie shook her head. “Thanks, but I’m fine.”
“Nobodies ever fine.” Mercedes put the glass back and leaned over the bar. “You’re here for him aren’t you?”
Katie didn’t need to say anything. The
re was no other reason she’d show up at this place. Her stomach turned over and over she was so close.
“I haven’t seen him since the day before yesterday.” Mercedes arched one of her perfect eyebrows. “He does that sometimes though. He comes and then disappears.”
“And he tears the place up.”
“Clyde,” Mercedes said, in warning.
“It’s bad for business, Mer.”
“Me putting my fist through your face is bad for your health. Don’t think I won’t do it. Again.”
Clyde grumbled and picked up his beer.
“Clyde’s not a fan of our friend.”
Clyde opened his mouth but closed it when Mercedes cut him a look.
Katie looked down at the bar. He wasn’t here. But she was led here. Maybe he was close. Maybe he was coming. Her heart sped up a little. “What time does he usually come?” she said.
“Around this time. To be honest, I thought you were him. I smelled you out there. Actually everyone did, they were placing bets on how many drinks it would take before he went off.” Mercedes sucked in her breath.
Katie looked at the door instinctually. The door didn’t budge.
“Your face is priceless. You look more scared than Clyde did when you opened the door.”
Katie stuttered. She was afraid. What would she say to him. What would he say to her. This was what kept her from pressing the button in the elevator.
“He talks about you a lot.” Mercedes watched the door with her. “It’s not always pleasant, but nonetheless, he’s usually going off about you.”
Katie wanted to know more. What did he say when he was sober and closing his mind to her?
“He rants and raves, but when he passes out and wakes up screaming, talking about you is the only thing that calms him down.”
Katie shook her head. Half the things he woke up screaming about had to do with her. She couldn’t believe that. Mercedes must have seen the disbelief on her face.
“Then tell me why I know you hate tomatoes, or that you used to have a gerbil, but you dad ran it over? Or that you could eat your weight in rainbow sherbet ice cream, your left hook is killer, you still watch Saturday morning cartoons, and you collect ratty old books. Not to mention your room looks something like a botched crayon abortion—his words not mine.”