Page 48 of Glamour and Grit

“No, it's not,” I say quickly. “It’s great. It’s a great question.”

“Oh yeah? Then what’s your answer to it?”

“I guess I like Jason.”

She rolls her eyes and groans.

“Jason? Really? He has no charisma whatsoever. He just lumbers around chopping up teenagers with no grace or creativity.”

“And he should make bad one-liners and turn himself into a moose or something instead, all while wearing a striped shirt?” I counter. “Clearly I answered wrong, but I would argue that your question is inherently flawed.”

“Flawed?”

She punches me in the arm, but playfully. It only stings for a minute.

“How dare you call what my fifteen-year-old self worked laboriously for an entire hour on flawed? How dare you? It’s a great question because people who pick Jason usually like to envision themselves as unfeeling, indestructible forces of nature, while people who pick Freddy are more likely to have a sense of humor about themselves.”

“I see. It’s quite clever, but instead of giving two choices you should make it an open-ended question. Like, if I had to answer, I’d pick Hannibal Lecter over the other two.”

“Hannibal? His kill count isn’t even that high.”

“True, but this isn’t about being Rambo. Hannibal Lecter is more terrifying than the other choices because everything he does falls into the realm of human possibility. Nobody is going to enter your dreams and make you relive childhood trauma, but someone could easily drug you and cut out your liver and eat it.”

Selene grins ear to ear and caresses her fingers down my forearm.

“Look at you, being all creepy and cute at the same time. Where has this Dane been for the last six hours? You were killing me with that whole silent treatment act. Or is that just a thing you do after sex?”

I chuckle, trying and failing to erect the walls between us again. What is it about her that’s got me so tangled up inside? This is all new territory for me. I don’t get soft spots for women, I get hard spots. Somehow I found one that impossibly gives me both, but I should stay the fuck away from her. For her sake.

The traffic jam breaks up at last. Petty takes the exit, and we follow. For a minute I think I lose him, because traffic is so thick. But I spot him at an intersection and cut through the back parking lot of a service station to get back on his tail.

This area used to be affluent, but it’s fallen on hard times. Like a lot of LA, it seems. What used to be nice homes are boarded up crack fortresses with gang signs painted on the outside. Derelicts and degenerates wander the streets with impunity. Whatever Petty is doing here, it can’t be on the up and up.

He pulls off onto a gravel road leading to a run-down, abandoned studio lot. Petty gets out and uses a key to open the locked gate as we roll on by.

“What are you doing? You just passed him.”

“I know, but we couldn’t exactly pull in behind him. Now that we know where he is, we can circle the block and come back. Or better yet, find another entrance.”

Selene’s mouth stretches tight. She rocks herself with frenetic energy as I round the block. It takes a lot longer than I hoped it would, because of traffic and road construction.

I breathe a sigh of relief when I finally come back around to the front gate and see Petty's car parked outside one of the massive concrete buildings. He’s still there. We didn’t lose him. But what’s he doing here?

We pull up to the gate and I cut the engine. I alternate my gaze between the studio lot and the locked gate as I creep up on it. No sign of Petty or anyone else.

“Dane? What are you doing? Isn’t it locked?”

“Not for long,” I say, drawing out a thin eyeglasses case from my pocket. Inside there are numerous thin metal tools. A lockpick kit.

“Are you seriously picking the lock?”

“Shhh,” I say softly. “Keep your voice down. And yes, I’m seriously picking the lock.”

“Why does a sniper know how to pick locks?”

“The best places to take your shot are always at an elevation. But most of the good, elevated places in an urban environment are locked.”

“I see. I guess it does make sense.”

---