The Artistry of Love

by C. J. Scarlett

  “Where are you going?” Diego asked from his spot on the ground, now struggling to get up.

  “Away,” she said. “We did our miraculous escape but now it’s time to go.”

  “But—wait—”

  “This wasn’t a make-up night, Diego,” she said. “I was angry and it manifested a little differently than how I imagined it in my head, but now we’re back to normal. It was a one-time thing. No breakfast the next morning or cuddles.”

  “You can’t just walk away.”

  She spited him by doing just that, moving down the street and away from him. Behind her, she heard him groan and force himself up to his feet. She heard him scrambling behind her, still out of breath, but now up to a standing position and trotting behind her. She rolled her eyes. This was exactly how things always went with him, persistent and hard to shake. He said it was a trait he inherited from his Mexican immigrant parents who had to toil every day to get the things they wanted. Andrea just thought it was his way of being frustrating.

  “Diego, I’ve got a lot to do today—”

  “This is more serious than just running from the cops because we got caught egging someone’s house,” he said, catching up to her and holding onto her shoulder tightly. “You won’t be able to just waltz back home.”

  “Why? It’s not like it was me they were after.”

  “It won’t take them long to connect the dots. They’ll look into my family, my relationships. One of the cops from today could have ID’d you.”

  She was very quickly losing her patience. She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed loudly. “All right, what do you propose I do then, smart guy?”

  “Come with me,” he said. “I can take you somewhere safe. You want to leave after a while, we can. But at least give me the chance to get you somewhere safe.”

  She wasn’t in a position to argue.

  Chapter 6

  He led her across town. He insisted they move on foot because they would be harder to track. And where they were going required stealth. Andrea knew as soon as he said that she regretted going with him. This was just getting deeper and deeper into a hole she already dug for herself. She could still take off running, still get away from Diego and all the lunatic things she’d learned he was up to over the course of the past few days. Or she could dig deeper and see how far it all went. She knew very little about shifters, about their world, about their life.

  But was curiosity worth the price she could pay in the end? Plenty of people were curious about North Korea but that didn’t mean they went tunneling across the fence just to see what there was to see.

  “We’ll be there soon,” he said as they crossed yet another dirt road. They’d left the main street long ago.

  “That could mean literally anything.”

  “It means before next week, for sure.”

  “You’re an asshole.”

  She heard him snort and was sure she could even sense the roll of his eyes. But she ignored him. She was in the position of power here. She had less to lose if they got caught and he knew that. She wasn’t entirely willing to go to jail just to mess with him. But she also wasn’t above milking this for all it was worth.

  This was where the regret set in. This was where she cringed a little too much at how she had lost all sense of control and not only fell into bed with him. She completely pushed him into bed herself. She really couldn’t blame that on bad planning or even impulse. She’d made a poor choice. He wasn’t about to pull at that thread though and she was grateful, but she’d never show it.

  When they finally stopped walking, it was in front of an old shed. Fantastic. She stood there with her arms crossed and sighed loudly while Diego walked forward and performed an odd sort of knock on the door. Then, like something out of The Goonies, the door opened. Someone awaited inside. A gatekeeper.

  “You know we don’t allow outsiders.”

  “There’s been a situation.”

  “Damien won’t like it.”

  “He’d like it even less if we let her get away after what I have to tell him.”

  Let her get away. That was a phrase that Andrea didn’t exactly appreciate. Diego had taken on a different tone, a different way of carrying himself here. He stood up straight, spoke louder. He didn’t shrink away as he had with her. They were outside a hideout of his shifter buddies. That much was clear. This certainly was digging much deeper into something incredibly dangerous.

  “This won’t be on me if he’s pissed,” the man in the shed said.

  “I know. If he’s pissed, we’ll both end up dead and all you’ll have to worry about is burying our bodies.”

  Nope. Definitely not something that Andrea was interested in. She wanted to back away. She almost stepped back to move and do just that. But then Diego was right there and the man in the shed looked at her as well. She was trapped under their gaze. She had no idea what could happen if she ran. Maybe they’d have guard dogs. Maybe these guys were the guard dogs. Maybe instincts completely took over when Diego let out his wolf. Maybe the last thing she would ever see would be the shine of his white teeth, the bare of his gums, the smell of raw meat on his breath, and the look in the eyes of a man who didn’t recognize her at all.

  She stepped forward because she had to. She had no choice anymore. Maybe she never did.

  #

  The shed, like any hideout, led down into the ground. They’d dug out a network of tunnels, the entrance to which was covered by the shed. They walked into the small structure and met with a hole in the ground attached to a ladder. They made Diego go down first. Then the gate man looked at her and nodded sharply for her to follow, closing and locking the shed door behind them.

  It was the descent into the underworld. She was poor Persephone, dragged down by Hades into his underground world and winter would sprout up on the earth above while it waited for her return. The question was, of course, if spring would ever return after this.

  Damien.

  She knew that name but she dared not trick herself into thinking there was a chance that it was the same one she read about. That man was terrifying and powerful even in YouTube videos. She could only imagine what he would be capable of in person. She swallowed down a tacky gulp in her throat.

  The tunnels were carved out as if by a large animal. They were lined with various types of lights: fairy lights, emergency lights, virtually anything they bought at a store and strung up on the walls. She wondered how far it went, how deep and complex they were capable of digging. But they were shifters. Of course, they could tunnel themselves something big and hidden. She heard the claw reach of a dragon could measure over a foot. She imagined it as a shovel and it wasn’t that hard to imagine.

  She tried so many times to catch Diego’s eye. She had so many questions she wanted to voice but she was so afraid that if she so much as coughed, then it would be the last sound she ever made. She had gone from her smug lording over him to completely reliant on his good graces and friendship with her. His protection might be the only thing that would rescue her from God knew what down below. She was more than out of her element. She was in another world entirely. This wasn’t a place she was welcome to nor was it friendly to her. She was a stranger in a strange land. Who knew that strange land would be right in her own backyard?

  They led them into a room, segmented off by thick curtains that pulled to cover the opening. That gave Andrea a little bit of comfort. She wasn’t so completely locked in. It wouldn’t be her tomb. Nothing about the curtain stopped anyone from hurting her or killing her. But, in her mind at least, there was an escape. Though she knew, realistically, there was absolutely no escape for her. If she wanted to try to run, they would take her down. They would shoot her, maybe someone would maul her.

  But a curtain was better than a steel door.

  They were brought into the small room with garish lights and nothing in it except two chairs sitting in the middle of the space as if they had been waiting for them. They walked in and their
escort left without a word, snapping the curtain shut behind him. They were left to sit there alone. Diego immediately dropped into the seat, but Andrea was less than willing to so quickly turn over.

  “It’ll be easier if you just take a seat and calm down,” Diego said, sighing and brushing his sweaty palms out on his pant legs.

  “Yes, that’s what I want, to make my imminent death a little more convenient for everyone,” she huffed and he made another face.

  “Suit yourself.”

  She wanted to ask if this man was the one she feared he was, if it was Damien Orlando waiting to bust in on the other side of that curtain. She didn’t know if it would be better or worse for her if it was someone else. Perhaps someone even worse waited to stick nails under her fingernails or burn her with cigarette butts or all manner of torture that she could imagine.

  She paced. It was easier that way. Andrea couldn’t exactly go for a jog in the tunnels so she paced her way around the room, despite Diego’s glares and constant huffs trying to tell her to stop. She didn’t care. If she would die, she would figure out how to do it on her own terms and with her comforts. She was a pacer. She needed constant movement. She thought better when her legs were in a steady pace and she felt better too. It was like when death row inmates requested their last meal and it was always something crazy like their mom’s homemade chicken or some other things. It was creature comforts. Things from home. She could work with this.

  That was, until, Damien entered the room. He wasn’t quick nor was it like a snap of the curtain to tell them that he was here. He entered slowly, quickly, like a cat. Perhaps that was his shifter. The news outlets and YouTube videos never talked about what he was. Andrea knew dragons and wolves were most common, but there was no way this man wasn’t some sort of large, predator feline.

  “Diego,” he said. “How are you?’

  Even with Andrea sitting next to his chair, the man didn’t acknowledge her at all as he strode into the room and stepped in front of them. He looked only at Diego, stared at him heavily, wore the kind of smirk that wasn’t obvious. This was part of the game too, Andrea realized. Psychological warfare in the eyes. This man was good at being dangerous, and being perceived as dangerous. He excelled at it and it scared her to think that he didn’t just derive his power from making people think he was capable of scary things. She felt as though he’d be able to snap her neck in a heartbeat, without ever acknowledging that she had been there in the first place.

  “I’ve been better,” he said.

  “You got caught.”

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  “I should hope not.”

  Now it was Damien’s turn to pace. He did it so much better than Andrea ever could. He moved like something gliding over water and looked sharply at his target: Diego. He mentally separated them, dealing with them one on one. They couldn’t stand together because, as far as Damien was concerned, they wouldn’t be guilty of the same crimes, nor would he accuse them of anything they could agree on. He was both good cop and bad cop, sympathetic jailer, and harsh judge.

  “You know the rules about getting caught,” he said, his hands clasped behind his back.

  “I got away.”

  “Did you?”

  Damien turned back. His eyes were the sharpest shade of green that Andrea had ever seen. She didn’t even know it to be a color but she’d go to the Crayola factory and invent herself if she ever got out of here. Sharp green. Damien green. Danger green.

  “I’m here now.”

  “And how many did you bring with you besides the girl sitting right here?”

  “I’m not a cop,” Andrea said and realized her mistake of speaking almost immediately.

  Those dangerous green eyes turned to her. The full effect of his face was jarring and terrifying. He was the epitome of what she imagined a super villain to look like. He was Lex Luthor in the flesh, ready to pump her full of kryptonite and drop her in the river with some rocks tied to her ankles. The organized crime circuit for shifters was intense, brutal, and controlled most of the unorganized crime at this point, depending on the city.

  He didn’t say anything. He just let his gaze linger on her for a bit before turning back to Diego. He looked and then sighed, shaking his head like he was the coach of a losing baseball team trying to talk to the locker room about how they could improve, knowing that he’d said the same thing several times already. Then he bent down, brought himself to kneel and keep eye level with Diego. He put a hand on Diego’s shoulder and squeezed to the point where Diego cringed at the sensation. He squirmed under the grip but Damien held it.

  “I’ve got a rally to get to downtown,” Damien said. “You’ve delayed me and now you’ve distracted me. All I will be thinking about is the danger you’ve put us all in. So, if I manage to stumble over my words, something I haven’t done since I was ten, then that’s on you and I won’t be happy.”

  He released Diego and got back up. He nodded to two men standing behind them at the entrance of the room.

  Suddenly, hands were on Andrea, shoving her roughly at the shoulders into the chair that she hadn’t occupied, next to Diego. Once her bottom connected with the seat, they kept their hands on her, forcing to her to stay still. She could feel the heat from them. Dragons. They had to be dragons. And they tried to intimidate her. It was working. She’d give them that much. They held her there as Damien walked to the back of the room.

  “Separate them,” he said, giving instructions to the men holding them down. “I’ll talk to them separately when I get back. Put them in rooms with TVs.”

  Andrea thought at first that he was doing it to be funny or to intimidate them, offer them some kind of entertainment or comfort from home, only to have it snapped away. She wouldn’t put it past the man to pull something like that. Then he was gone. The curtain let out the swooshing sound of a ruffle and they were left alone with the thugs in the room, the energy of Damien Orlando was gone.

  They were allowed one moment of stillness before the men dragged them to their feet and immediately yanked back. She didn’t see Diego as they separated, though she heard him call for her. She didn’t have the mental presence to call back. She was too busy trying to keep track of where she was going, what hole they dragged her to. They took her deeper into this labyrinth and she needed to figure a way out. She could never escape, but she needed to know the path if she could. She needed to know there was a way to do it, that things weren’t completely lost to the void of darkness. Her feet dragged across the dirt floor, creating rifts behind her.

  They threw her into this room. It hadn’t been like before. This one had a cot and bars attached in place of the curtain. They slammed shut behind her and she heard the click of a lock. When she turned, their sneering faces were gone from her sight but the TV clicked on. It was colder here, damper. She was farther underground, she was sure. They’d dragged her to a cell and left here there with a blank TV screen.

  She’d seen Clockwork Orange, she knew this had to be a part of their game too, but she wasn’t sure how. She should avoid looking at the TV, stare at the floor or out her cell, or try to curl up into a ball on the cot. She would do whatever she could to not play their games.

  Chapter 7

  The TV had been turned on to a live stream of Damien’s speech. Even if she could look away, his voice would be booming throughout the cell. It was a powerful voice, one incredibly hard to ignore.

  “Things like this often start with ‘my fellow Americans,’ do they not?” came the sound of Damien. “But none of us seem to be fellow Americans to each other, not while half the country is forced into hiding. There have always been the haves and the have nots, and the have nots have always managed to be louder, even with all the money and power that the haves try to throw at us.

  “Our country is divided. This is true, and it sickens me and hurts me. I don’t want to see anyone hurt, not Christians or Jews, or shifters or nons. All creeds, all lives, all races, all religions are important to
me and important to our cause. We understand the struggle of everyone; it’s what’s made us such capable leaders of ourselves and each other. But there is a storm on the horizon and we have a choice—run from it or head straight for the eye.”

  Andrea felt her blood run just a little bit colder at that. Whatever storm was brewing, he would be making it, of that she was sure. Damien would reap what he would sow and it seemed like nothing would please him more than taking inventory of the amount of blood he managed to spill along the way.

  “Collateral damage is regrettable and not something I ever want to accept,” he said and Andrea thought him the biggest liar in front of a podium. “But sometimes, there are sacrifices meant to be made in the world and we’re the ones to see it through. It takes a considerable amount of courage to be willing to face these challenges.”

  How noble it was of him, to be willing and brave enough to sacrifice other people for his cause.

  The speech went on like this. It was all inflammatory, all propaganda and buzzwords and rhetoric. She ignored most of it; it was white noise like on any news station. But his voice, the sound of it, the coldness to it, the way it seemed to be everywhere at once like a magician capable of throwing his voice every which direction, that was what stuck with Andrea. She couldn’t shake the sound or the shiver that he managed to send through her, even through a live streamed video on a slightly outdated TV. It didn’t really shock her. She’d been in his presence, she knew what he was capable of with just a look.

  Eventually, the TV went silent and she’d never been more grateful in her life. But that didn’t keep the sound away. She could still feel him, as if he were talking right into her chest, reverberating there. His was a voice that would haunt her dreams. If she got out of this, she would have nightmares of him each night, and think of the darkness of this cell. He was so much smarter than she realized. And she realized quite a bit about him.