He was her temptation, and she gave in to him. The apple tasted like honey and cinnamon. Irresistible. If she kept thinking that, maybe she’d be able to convince her conscience that it was true—although it wasn’t like she listened to her conscience anyway.
“Oh, sorry. The tent was open,” Kitty said, hesitating at the entrance. She was looking peculiarly pretty today in a light green dress that ribboned away from her legs and showed off the long, shaggy, lustrous hair all over her body.
Bell relinquished Maya’s mouth, but continued to hold her against him. “Come in,” he said. “I was distracted. I didn’t know just anyone could come in and see.”
“Yes, you did,” Maya whispered, facing away from Kitty. “The tent was closed. You opened it, exhibitionist bastard.”
He licked her neck. She twitched away, conscious of Kitty’s presence.
“I’m not sure how professional that is,” Kitty said. “You know, in front of potential customers.”
“It is my circus,” Bell said, still gazing hungrily at Maya’s body rather than addressing Kitty. “I can do as I wish, including take an unscheduled break. Speaking of, Kitty, you’ve been away from your post quite a long time this afternoon. You ought to have returned by now.”
“I know,” Kitty said, sitting across from them in one of the customer’s chairs. “I just had a feeling.”
“You aren’t prescient,” Bell said.
“Don’t play high and mighty with me, Bell. I might not be jinn, but that doesn’t mean I’m completely unconnected to the beyond,” Kitty said.
“You’re experiencing the same neural misfirings that cause mistakes like déjà vu. A phantom feeling of dread,” Bell said. “You don’t have a psychic bone in your body, love.”
“I’ve never been wrong,” Kitty said softly.
“Because bad things always happen,” Bell replied. “That’s life.”
“Oh, charming,” Maya said. She tried to get up for Bell and Kitty to argue it out without her lounging like a concubine on his lap, but Bell tightened his grip on her waist. “Let me up,” she said, tugging at his arm.
“Stay,” Bell said.
“I’m not a dog. It’s hot and so are you—in the literal sense. It’s not the best combination,” Maya said.
“You didn’t seem to mind a minute ago,” he said. He loosened his embrace but did not quite release her.
“A minute ago, the heat had a purpose,” Maya admitted, ducking her head so she wouldn’t have to see Kitty’s reaction. “Now it’s just sticky, and I could use a walk while the two of you snip at each other.”
“You don’t have to escape, Maya,” Bell said. He still didn’t let her go. “Kitty is hardly one to judge.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Kitty said. She sounded angry, but when Maya glanced over at her, Kitty instead appeared stricken.
“This is not just my circus. I am Arcanium, my little Kitty cat,” Bell replied. “Secrets kept do not remain secrets for long, even those specially hidden from me.”
“God, you know, Derrick was sometimes a dick, but at least when I wasn’t in the mood for the whole cuddling thing, he went and played GTA while I got some space,” Maya said, squirming harder to get off Bell’s lap.
He abruptly removed his arms from around her. She slipped in the grass, bracing herself on the backboard and trying not to knock over any candles in the process.
“So there it is,” Bell said. “I wondered when the first idealized mention of your disloyal boy would cross your lips.”
“Given what I’ve been doing the last few weeks, it’s rich calling Derrick dis― What?”
“Almost a month in Arcanium, and already the few years living with him have taken on a patina of nostalgia, of lost perfection. But you allowed me into your mind, Maya. I know what’s happened to you on the other side of locked doors. You’ve never had it as good as me,” Bell said, crossing his ankle over his knee with the cold arrogance of a king.
“Conceited much?” Maya said. She straightened her skirt, which had risen up during the fall. “Derrick never tied my wrists together and strung me up without explanation. And he certainly never attempted to unsuccessfully juggle two women at once. He was a lot of things, but he wasn’t disloyal.”
Bell tilted his head. “He never tied you up, but he bound other things, didn’t he? More important than the integrity of your wrists. I am, of course, excepting the fuzzy handcuffs you kept in the top drawer of his nightstand.”
“Pervert,” Maya snapped. Once again, she wanted to cross her arms over her chest or arrange herself in some other suitably aggravated and imperious position, but anything she could do in this costume only accentuated her assets when she was angry. That’s the way he liked her. She settled for hands on her hips, insufficient as it was.
Bell stood, managing to intimidate her with more than just his height. Bell was a man with confidence in his abilities, and why shouldn’t he be? Only someone fully secure in his strength would sometimes wear a flower wreath in his hair.
“That paragon of virtue, that man who was six months away from hitting you and you hitting him back, swollen lip, swollen eye, because you meant nothing to him—that ginger Narcissus with delusions of manhood, that pestilent petulance,” Bell spat, “that is what you long to return to?”
“Bell…” Kitty murmured, setting a hand on the table in a nervous warning.
“You expect that less-than-white knight to come galloping after you on his nobler steed?” Bell asked. He narrowed his eyes and caressed Maya’s cheek. The gesture was somehow warm and ice-cold at the same time. “You would have stopped hitting back eventually, because underneath your anger, you harbor a heart of fear—fear that what happens to you is what you deserve, that what your men do to you in word or in deed is what is meant for you.”
“What does that say about you, you son of a bitch?” Maya hissed.
“I am jinn,” Bell replied. “If I think I am better than those puling boys, it is only because I am. But you, what makes them better than you?”
“You said I’d hit back,” Maya said.
“You wouldn’t hit first,” Bell said. “And then you wouldn’t hit at all.”
“Irrelevant,” Kitty interrupted. “It won’t happen now, and who knows what circumstances might have arisen to interrupt that chain of events? It’s not that simple, Maya.”
“It had already been woven into the tapestry, had his wish been spoken outside of my hearing,” Bell said. “The wish unraveled it, but the possibility was still very real.”
“I wi―would have preferred that,” Maya corrected. Then she covered her mouth. It had almost just spilled out.
“Would you?” Bell asked, staring at her lips as though he could see the wish that had nearly escaped. He encircled her waist and brought her to the table. “Why don’t we see what your dishonest hero has been doing, my dear? Do you think he pines for you? That in your absence he has realized he threw away the rough, jagged gem that you are? Do you think that spoiled little prince has sent all the king’s horses and all the king’s men out looking for you?”
“Bell, don’t,” Kitty said, but she was hitch-hiker to a bullet train, and he barreled past her as though she wasn’t there.
“If you didn’t keep them away, they could have found me,” Maya shot back, wrenching out of his arms, but not backing away, because he was bringing the crystal ball to the center of the table. “You hide my phone signal. You do something to confuse the police, and maybe you make people forget about me or come to the wrong conclusions.”
“That’s my usual approach,” Bell said. “Imagine my surprise when I discovered I didn’t have to engage in my usual machinations to keep you. Your boy did most of my work for me. Haven’t you been wondering why even your loving mother hasn’t called or texted you to find out how you are? It wasn’t me, Maya.”
“You’re a liar. You’re a demon and a liar,” Maya replied, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet as she tried t
o simultaneously back away and lean in closer to the crystal ball.
White, glowing smoke had begun to billow in its center.
“I am neither,” Bell said. He didn’t need to raise his voice for emphasis. He filled the small tent with the command of his tone. “How I have waited for you to invoke his name against me, Maya, so that I could show you the monster to whom you almost imprisoned yourself, stubbornly and willingly. The one who imprisoned you here to begin with.”
“That was you, asshat. You,” Maya said. “You weren’t the passive savior in all of this.”
“I don’t need to save you, Maya,” Bell said. “I just need to show you.”
The cloud had filled the crystal, and color bled in like paint, coming into focus.
“Bell, if you…” Kitty began, walking around the table, but Bell put a strong hand on her shoulder, and she froze.
“And point of order, I didn’t know about the handcuffs from looking through your head,” Bell said.
It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s a trick. He’s lying because that’s what demons like him do. He has access to your mind. He can make it look as real as possible and still lie to you. This isn’t real.
It didn’t matter how many times Maya repeated the mantra, it faded to nothing as the scene in the crystal unfolded. It was amazing how clear such a flawed crystal ball could be, especially when she put her hands on the table and brought her face inches away from it. She could see the entire bedroom, full of little details that a lesser artist would have left out. The pile of dirty clothes on the hand-me-down, hideously orange armchair that Derrick loved. The Iron Man bobblehead on the dresser. The Swarovski crystal hanging from the ceiling fan’s chain. The houndstooth comforter askew, dark blue sheets twisted around the legs of the inhabitants on the bed.
There was no mistaking Derrick’s pale, freckled body or his distinctive red hair. There was also no mistaking Little Miss I-Left-My-Wallet-at-Home, Little Miss Tell-Me-Everything-in-Sordid-Detail, Little Miss Oh-You-Poor-Thing, sitting on top of his dick and moaning like a howler monkey.
Kerry Thomas, one of the last friends Maya had had in her old life who hadn’t just been one of Derrick’s. The only one that hadn’t abandoned her during one of Maya’s previous relationships, or finally bailed when she’d started dating Derrick, like all the others.
Sure, Kerry sometimes didn’t know when to shut up and Maya had always had to pay for Kerry’s coffee. But Kerry was more than willing to listen to Maya when things were bad, so Maya had always deliberately overlooked the fact that Kerry was a gossip vampire. She was there, which was more than Maya could say for anyone else. That, and when they went over to Kerry’s apartment, Kerry wasn’t stingy with the wine.
But right now, she wore Maya’s turquoise bracelet, the sterling silver one that Maya loved. Maya literally saw red at the sight of it on the vile, traitorous slut riding Maya’s boyfriend.
When it came to her own questionable decisions, Maya could argue that she was making the best of a bad situation under the influence of a demonic ecstasy mist. But Derrick should think she was missing. She didn’t expect him to be gouging his cheeks and wearing burlap, but the photograph of Derrick and Maya in Central Park shouldn’t have been face down on the nightstand, and Maya’s fucking bracelet shouldn’t have been on Kerry’s wrist as though it belonged to that bitch.
On the comforter, Derrick’s phone beeped with a text message.
“Shhh, shhh, baby, gotta take a look at this,” Derrick said.
Kerry giggled and moved her hips in little circles. He groaned, falling back against the pillow, but he reached for his phone. The crystal ball zoomed in on the conversation.
“My mother. Why is he talking to my mother?” Maya said. Somehow her voice had gone up an octave in pitch. Maybe the sharp pebble stuck in there had something to do with it.
We’re coming into town next weekend. You and Derrick free to meet for lunch? <3 Mom
Derrick smirked as he typed back.
Can’t. Got a wkshop that weekend. Sry to miss u. Good to hear from u. Sry I keep missing ur calls.
“Apparently, you lost your phone, and you’re sharing your boy’s now until you can afford a new one,” Bell murmured over her shoulder. “You’ve been very busy via text message. He’s quite the vindictive termite, if I do say so myself.”
“He’s… I’m missing!” Maya said. “I haven’t come over to get my stuff. My bracelet is on that bitch’s wrist. My mother gave me that bracelet. It was my grandmother’s. In what universe would I have let him keep my things and give them away to the first whore who walked in and took her shirt off? Yes, I’m talking to you, Kerry, you fucking whore. How long did you wait after I disappeared to crawl your diseased cunt over his prick?”
“Would you like to know what he sent your principal to get you fired?” Bell continued, the devil in her ear. “It was one of those pictures he took of you in the car last summer. In the Sonic parking lot.”
“Skittledick son of a dead bitch,” Maya swore. Her face flushed violently at the thought of her boss getting those pictures and how stupid it had been to take those pictures at all—it wasn’t like she hadn’t been burned before. But though Derrick had many faults that Maya wouldn’t have hesitated to name, loyalty had never been a question in her mind—at least not until now.
She hadn’t realized how tightly she’d clenched her fists around the tablecloth. She was shaking from head to toe. The image of Kerry and Derrick laughing as he sent the text swam in her vision then became clear again.
“With Maya working her big ass off, how are we going to fill your time?” Kerry asked, rolling her hips.
Derrick flipped them over, and Kerry squealed as Derrick snapped his cock into her.
“No more Maya,” Derrick said. “If she knew what she was missing, she’d have crawled on her knees to my door by now, begging me to take her back after all she’s pulled. If we keep talking about her, I’m going to go limp. Christ, I was this close to blue-pilling it if we’d gone on much longer. I want to be with you. Have for so long.”
“You’ll never hear me complaining like she did,” Kerry said, stroking up his chest. “The shit she said about you… She doesn’t deserve this. Oh, baby, that’s…”
“That’s right, this cock is gonna make you scream,” Derrick groaned, pistoning his hips in. “Fucking your tight pussy. Forget her. Forgetting her already. Screw her.”
“Screw her?” Kerry asked in another moan. “Screw me, baby.”
“Do they even care where I am?” Maya asked, barely above a whisper.
“He waited two days,” Bell whispered. “Two days to sink himself into her willing…arms. But she kissed him long before you were lost. Wine and vodka on their breath, him lying over her on the couch, he came in his pants making out with her while you were out on a run.”
Maya didn’t have words, curse or insult, left. Tears streamed hot down her cheeks, safety pins in her eyes.
“I barely had to do anything to keep you,” Bell continued. He brushed his fingertips over her arms. “The police don’t even know you’re missing yet. The people in your life that your boy didn’t scare away before you became a part of Arcanium? They think everything’s normal. The rest haven’t spared you a second thought.”
She wanted to grab that crystal ball in both hands and smash it against the ground into a million tiny pieces. But doing that wouldn’t make the images go away, the images of those two getting off on their collective mockery of her.
She was damned in this supernatural prison because of Derrick—because of his refusal to listen, his lack of compassion, his incapacity for love, such that anything not in line with his desires seemed like the worst kind of selfishness because it wasn’t his. Then there was her remora of a best friend, who had apparently only stuck around because she’d been waiting for Maya to get out of the way. Had she just been siphoning all of Maya’s dirt on Derrick back to the source, poisoning the water of the relationship the whole tim
e in order to get a taste of it herself?
“This is your man, Maya,” Bell whispered. “All he really is.”
He had told her that he loved her. That he’d never leave her. That he’d never cheat on her. He’d never promised to be perfect. She hadn’t been looking for perfect.
She hadn’t been looking for a salted slug slime trail either.
She shook so violently that the words trembled out of her, “I wish he could feel the—”
“No, Maya, don’t!” Kitty shouted, going the other way around the table, away from Bell, to reach Maya.
“Yessss,” he hissed. He licked up the shell of Maya’s ear. “Finish the wish.”
“Don’t say another word, Maya,” Kitty said, clapping her hand over Maya’s mouth.
Kitty’s hand flew away, making Kitty stumble over the hem of her ribbon skirt.
Bell wagged his finger and clicked his tongue at her.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Kitty accused. “You did this on purpose. You gave Maya this pain to make her wish for you.”
“I did not cause her pain. I don’t enjoy her pain,” Bell said. “But I will enjoy justified retribution. I will enjoy revenge. Make your wish, Maya.” He touched his fore and third finger to her lips. His magic pulled at something deep inside of her, like a fisherman reeling in his net.
“So much better than her, babe,” Derrick grunted into Kerry’s collarbone.
Kerry curled her fingers into Derrick’s hair. The sterling silver glinted at Maya.
“So fucking hot.”
Derrick stringing her mother along and fucking her best friend in their bed. A cracked couple photograph. The mine had been planted.
“Make him pay,” Bell whispered.
Too late nights. Too early mornings. Leather and sweat and unseen chains. A pit of vipers teaching her how to slither.
Suddenly, it was so easy.
“I wish he could feel the way I feel right now,” Maya said.
Fortune Page 17