I forced a smile.
Stubin looked pointedly at Adam. “Surprised you’re willing to risk the Patriarch’s wrath by sneaking out on the town with his daughter. Though I guess I shouldn’t be.”
Adam looked at him with confusion for a second, likely recognizing his face but not knowing his name. He wasn’t used to being challenged, even by the people who knew him well. He blinked, and then he smiled wider than I’d seen since he returned.
“I guess we have that in common, sweater guy. I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced. I’m Adam Fitz.”
He held his hand out to Stubin, who was so flummoxed he visibly wavered between charmed and irritated. He offered up a wary handshake.
“Stubin Mansfield. I know who you are.”
Adam shrugged and looked at the rest of us. “We’re all acquainted then. Let’s rock.”
We hustled after Adam through an unmarked door that led into some sort of service hallway. He pushed through another door into a dark alley, the nearby smell of exhaust and the whir of traffic beckoning to us. Mercy picked her way gingerly behind Adam, trying and failing to catch his arm as she dodged little pools of street sludge. I watched her like a hawk and secretly wished for her to bite it, even though I knew I shouldn’t. Dora was giggling behind me as Stubin whispered something she couldn’t possibly find funny. It felt lonely.
A moment of doubt tugged at me. Willed me back to the safety of my hotel room. There were a million ways this mostly innocent outing could go horribly wrong. I was risking disaster going out when the voice was running loose. It could sneak up on me at any moment, and there was no telling what might happen. But I forced myself to keep moving forward.
There was a minivan cab waiting at the end of the alleyway. Adam must have called for it. He looked over his shoulder and caught my eye. There was something there: an entreaty, a dare, or a warning. I couldn’t tell which.
The cab door swung open automatically as we approached. Only in Japan. Adam took the front and the rest of us piled in back.
“So, where are we going, exactly?” Adam asked.
“Koenji. MegaWatts,” I said.
Adam turned to the driver. “Nippon no panku no genten ni tachite kudasai. MegaWatts.”
He was speaking Japanese. It was impossible not to crush on him when he busted out unexpected intellect like that.
“I didn’t know you spoke Japanese!” Mercy gushed, tipping forward. She wasn’t going to fade into the background like a wallflower. “What did you say?”
Adam looked over his shoulder and smirked. “Take us to the origin of Japanese punk.”
“The origin of Japanese punk?” She looked confused.
“MegaWatts—it’s a club where the punk movement started in Japan,” he told her.
“It’s a livehouse,” I corrected.
“Ahh,” she said, like she had any clue what that meant.
“In Japan, they call a show a live, and so a venue is called a livehouse,” Adam explained. His eyes met mine, an almost-smile playing at his lips. My heart beat a little faster.
“Personally, I prefer classical.” Mercy sniffed.
“MegaWatts is like the CBGB of Japanese punk,” Stubin chimed in enthusiastically from the way back.
“You know about CBGB?” Adam asked him, incredulous.
Adam and I had learned all about the epicenter of the old-school New York punk scene by digging through the confiscated scrapbooks of some once-famous Fellowship member. We’d found the scrapbooks molding alongside the punk rock vinyl—there was all kinds of interesting stuff in the bunker beneath my house. Most of the high-ranking Ministry members were once celebrities, academics, or politicians.
“Yeah, my dad used to be, like … in a famous punk band or something. He had a stage name but refuses to tell me what it was. Sometimes he talks about the old days.” Then Stubin seemed to think better of it and added, “Mostly just to say how glad he is to be reformed by the Fellowship.”
Adam and I exchanged a look of disbelief. Dorky Stubin Mansfield’s dad was probably the original owner of our stolen records and the frontman of one of our favorite bands. The silent connection between Adam and me was back, and stronger than ever.
“Harlow’s the punk rock princess. You’ll have to tell her some of your dad’s stories.” Dora nudged Stubin playfully. “My girl’s got mad taste.”
“She certainly does,” Adam agreed, turning to face forward in his seat.
This time I was sure. I didn’t know what had changed, but he was definitely smiling when he said that.
MegaWatts was decidedly off the beaten path. We got out of the cab on a street that looked like its overhead wires were supporting the telecom infrastructure of Southeast Asia. There was a small chalkboard A-frame sign perched on the street, right outside a 7-11 knockoff and a porn shop. It said “MegaWatts” in English, and a list of other things in Kanji characters—bands, presumably.
There was a collection of gutter punks hanging outside—disaffected Tokyo teenagers who I instantly identified with on some misfit level. Adam opened our door and Mercy climbed out in front of me. He held her hand as she climbed out; jealously sawed at me like a dull blade. She slipped her hand into the crook of his arm.
Dora looked at me pointedly. What could I do but act oblivious?
“I can’t believe we’re actually here,” I said.
“Me either.” Stubin nodded vigorously. “Super cool.”
I examined the grungy half-lit entrance, the thick crowd spilling out of the club. It was do-or-die time. I knew I shouldn’t be out on the town in my tenuous mental state, but my common sense was drowning in the thumping bass of the club—and in the idea that maybe, just maybe, my Adam might return to me.
“So are we just gonna stand here? Let’s go in,” Mercy said.
“Hell yeah. Let’s do it,” Adam said.
Dora grabbed Stubin’s arm and they plunged into the crowd together. Mercy, Adam, and I followed after.
We forced our way down the sticky stairs and, within seconds, were entombed in a low-ceilinged black box that smelled like steamed gym socks and stale beer wrapped in a million decibels of skull-pounding grindcore. Beat-up leather jackets and peroxide mohawks were everywhere. The walls were covered with crudely painted anarchy symbols and it smelled like cigarette smoke. It was so loud I could barely hear myself think.
I stayed right on Adam’s heels, immediately losing sight of Dora and Stubin. Panic rose in my throat, but I resisted the urge to pinch the back of Adam’s T-shirt. I wasn’t sure if our tenuous reconciliation extended to physical contact, and Mercy had staked a claim on his arm. The three of us traced the curves of the crowd, weaving our way through clumps of Japanese teenagers.
The air curved in on me like a sinusoidal sound wave. I knew that feeling—that trapped feeling. The one that often preceded something worse.
I actively ignored it. Maybe if I didn’t acknowledge it, nothing would happen. Club-goers bounced off my shoulders, causing electric explosions of sight and sound in my head. Another bad sign. Why had I set this in motion when I knew what could happen? Now I was stuck—either back down and be an even bigger freak than I already was, or stick it out and hope for the best. Unfortunately, my best wasn’t very good.
Adam halted before the thickest part of the crowd, on the fringes at the back of the room. At the front of the room there was a teeny-tiny stage where a shirtless Japanese rocker, with chicken legs in skinny jeans and row upon row of studded belts, was screaming into a scratchy microphone. The spikes of his glo-hawk grazed the ceiling as the band’s drummer energetically pounded the sticks behind him like the cymbal might go out of style at any moment. I stood at Adam’s side, my knees knocking as I surveyed the rolling knot of tangled bodies bouncing to the music. For a second I thought he was going to plunge right in, but he looked at me and hesitated.
“This is probably far enough for now,” he said.
I nodded. “Yeah, let’s start here.”
“I’m going to the bar,” Mercy announced, like she went clubbing all the time. “What do you want, babe?”
Babe? Adam turned to her with a quizzical look, like even he couldn’t believe she said it.
“I don’t drink,” he said.
That was a lie. I drank with him twice in the carriage house. Once, playing Truth or Dare, he dared me to kiss him and I chickened out. I wished he would dare me now.
Unfazed and completely fearless, Mercy walked away. Oh, to have her confidence.
Adam turned his attention to me, searching my face like he was looking for something he’d lost. He looked away. Then back to me. Like he didn’t know how to talk to me anymore. The feeling was mutual.
“Is it what you expected?” he finally asked.
I was keenly aware of his hand, inches from mine. He might have been asking about the club, but it almost felt like he was asking about us.
“It may be just the teeniest bit more intense than I imagined,” I admitted.
He started laughing, and for the first time since he’d disappeared, his smile was genuinely for me.
“No joke. This is insane,” he said.
“Right?” I laughed as kids bounced by like pogo sticks right in front of us. It felt good to let go a little.
Suddenly the entire room seemed more vibrant, more alive than it had been only moments before. My anxiety and fear were replaced with the slamming bass of possibility, which vibrated through my bones.
Adam’s eyes scanned the crowd. He was taller than pretty much everyone in here.
“So, Japanese guys have an art form that’s, like, based on using cheesy pickup lines to snag cute girls,” he commented.
As usual, it felt like we were talking about something more than what we were talking about.
“It’s called nampa.” He looked down at me, waiting for my reaction. There was a playful tilt to his shoulders.
“Maybe you’re nampa-ing me right now,” I teased.
Out of nowhere, it was like old Adam and old Harlow were back.
“Using nampa to pull a nampa.” He paused, as if considering it. “That would be so meta of me.”
There was an exhilarating undercurrent to this exchange. Talking to him had always been like sticking my finger into a light socket, but this was different—more intense. My world was being rocked right now, and it wasn’t the roiling beat of the music that was doing it. I tried my best to keep my voice even. We were in uncharted territory in the best possible way.
“You are the master of meta,” I said.
He moved closer, his bare arm pressing into me ever so slightly but with absolute intention. He bobbed his head to the slamming music. He looked over at me and I did a double take, looking away and then looking back again. He held my gaze and raised an eyebrow, then leaned closer to speak into my ear.
“You have really smoky eyes,” he said.
“Oh, the eyeliner? I told Dora it was too much.”
“No, your eyes.” He pointed to his own eyes. “The color. It’s like seafoam with clouds of smoke blowing through it. Mysterious. Your mystery’s always been one of my favorite things about you.”
His words made me feel special in a way that had nothing to do with whose daughter I was. Adam had always made me feel that way. I looked at the tattoos swirling over his skin and the strange runes embedded there like a code.
“So what’s the story with the tattoos?” I asked. I was afraid of fracturing the fragile shell he’d built around himself, but I wanted to understand this new version of him.
Adam shifted back to the stage, his shoulders stiffening. “It’s just ink.”
“It doesn’t look like just ink,” I said. I wanted him to feel me reaching out for him. I wanted him to reach back.
Instead, he kept his stare steadily on the band. This was a risky subject. It wasn’t like he’d been banished, like Romeo gone to Mantua; his family had been abducted. But I wanted to understand who this new person was. And I didn’t see any way around it. Only through it.
“This band is awesomely terrible.” He tried to change the subject, his voice strained.
I examined his face, searching for some clue as to what was going on with him. He turned and met my stare—the vulnerability in his eyes like an open wound for a split second, and gone just as fast.
“Maybe it sounds better up front,” I joked.
“Want to go closer?” he asked, completely serious.
I glanced in the direction Mercy had gone. There were certain benefits to changing coordinates, namely her inability to find us in the crowd. But the air was feeling tight again and I could almost hear the beat of the voice building in my head. Not now. Not here. I’d been so in control a moment ago.
“Absolutely,” I lied.
I didn’t want to be swallowed by a crowd. What I wanted was to feed the current of whatever was happening between me and Adam. I was walking a tightrope; one misplaced step could send me hurtling toward the abyss.
The moment we immersed ourselves in the knot of bodies, I realized what a huge mistake I’d made.
Purity.
Her voice was following me. The walls of the room started to close in.
Penance.
I kept moving, as if by some miracle I would be able to outmaneuver Her. The universe would be my friend tonight. This wasn’t happening. I wouldn’t let it.
Adam showed no sign of pausing as we passed the halfway mark to the stage. I reached out to tug on his shirt. I couldn’t go any farther. I needed to pause and get myself together. Adam turned to me with a question in his eyes, and I pointed down to the nice little island of space I was rooted to.
Onstage, the singer bent his legs, arched his back, screamed full-throttle into the mic, and then threw it to the ground. Looking out over the crowd, his eyes fixed on the space near me. He leaped headfirst into the crowd. Right toward me.
Obliterate.
I turned my shoulder against the impending blow.
Decimate.
At the last second, Adam snatched me out from under the incoming missile. I didn’t register the crowd filling in behind me and body-surfing the singer over their heads, the song exploding to its raging climax. I was too busy with an explosion of my own.
Exsanguinate.
My eyes met Adam’s. His arms tightened around me, and a feeling like the closing of an electric circuit between us coursed through me.
Exsanguinate.
Adam’s head jerked up at the sound of the voice. Like he’d heard Her, too.
Exsanguinate.
The vision overtook me.
The kid standing next to us turned to look at me, clotted blood streaming from his empty eye sockets.
“Exsanguinate,” he said, his voice like a howl of rushing wind through some faraway tunnel. A petite girl at his side convulsed as red bubbles formed at the corner of her mouth. She clutched at Adam, then vomited a river of red down the front of her artfully tattered white shirt.
The entire room erupted in chaos. Geysers of blood sprayed across the room. Through the haze of my vision, I watched as Adam’s eyes followed their arcs in disbelief. Now I was sure. I was like a livewire of horror in Adam’s arms, channeling my visions into him. He was seeing what I was seeing.
His eyes locked onto mine. The sensation that he was seeing me for the first time washed over me again. Only this time, it wasn’t pleasant nostalgia I saw reflected there.
It was fear.
All around us, clubbers fell to the floor in convulsions. Pustules erupted across their skin. Meanwhile, people continued dancing on the edges of the vision like marionettes dangling from strings. It was the only thing that let me know this wasn’t rea
lly happening—the normalcy at the edge of my nightmare. Our nightmare. As if Adam and I were the only two people left in the world. Maybe we could pull each other out of it.
I looked at him. Tried to tell him to run.
Obliterate. Obliterate. Obliterate.
I couldn’t tell, but it almost sounded like the words were coming not from Her voice in my head, but from me. Adam’s grip on me went slack. He gaped at me, stumbling back. I reached a hand out for him, pinwheeling blindly in the pitch blackness, searching for a lifeline. I wanted to bring him back. To explain that She wasn’t me. She was something I fought against. My balance failed me, and I fell to the floor.
The lights blinked out in MegaWatts.
AFTERSHOCK
A shiver of panic rocked the crowd. The blackout was real, not part of my vision.
The lights flickered on again for a second, then pitched us back into darkness. Shrieks. Feet tripping. Panic. I anchored my palms to the floor and pushed myself to sitting. Adam. Where was he? A strobe came on, mixing with the pulses in my brain to create a full-force migraine.
I looked up and there he was, staring down at me. His face was lit up in bursts of light. The haunted look I saw there told me I was right—he’d seen my vision, heard Her voice. There was an accusation in his eyes. Like I was responsible. Maybe I was. The possibility of us was slipping through my fingers like sand, and every part of me screamed to make it stop.
Sprinklers went off. Manufactured rain drenched us, raindrops bouncing off the floor. I couldn’t distinguish it from the tears I felt slipping down my chin. The feedback from the abandoned microphone onstage squealed an ear-piercing alarm. It combined with the fading footfalls of the fleeing live-goers like some kind of portent of the world’s end. I stood up and reached out to Adam.
He flinched, shaking his head like he was emerging from a trance. His face registered disgust. He saw me now for what I truly was: a freak, a menace, someone to stay as far away from as possible. He turned to follow the crowd, running from something more terrifying than whatever had set the alarms howling. Me.
The Violet Hour Page 4