Page 14 of Wicked Things
“And I said fuck off. Twice. You don’t appear to be listening, though.”
I stride down the hall, my footfall muffled by the thick, high-pile carpet beneath my feet. The girl stumbles, struggling to keep up as I pull her along behind me. “Slow down. Jesus, you bastard. Let me go!”
I release her just as we arrive in front of the elevator. She staggers away from me, holding a hand to the side of her head, wincing. “There was no need for that,” she hisses.
“Wasn’t there?” The elevator doors roll open. I gesture inside, giving the girl a meaningful look—get your ass in there right now, or I willputyou in there.She scowls, cursing me out non-too subtly under her breath.
“You know I won’t get paid now, right?”
“It’s six-thirty. I’m sure you’ll be ridden hard and put up wet by someone else within the hour. Now disappear.”
I reach inside the elevator and hit the button for the lobby. The girl flips me off as the doors close and she vanishes. I wait for the car to descend. I’d rather stand here and waste five minutes than ride down to the ground floor with a hooker.
I look out of the window to my right, out into the darkness, and a bright dot of light catches my attention. Red. Small, yet noticeable. I make my way over to the window, and I see him: a dark figure standing on the roof of La Cucina Del Diavolo. He pulls on his cigarette one more time, standing there, staring back at me, then he tosses his smoke over the edge of the roof, turns and melts into the shadows.
SIX
MASON
I’m out of vodka. I’m out of whiskey. I’m out of tequila. There are a couple of beers left in the fridge, but beer isn’t going to cut it right now. I need something strong. Strong enough to take the edge off for a start. And once the edge is nicely dulled, it’d be great to throw back some more liquor until I can’t remember my own name. That’s the real end goal here. I don’t want to know myself. I want to become strangers with my pain again. I want to be distanced from it, and not ‘other side of the country’ distant, either. I want to be ‘other side of the galaxy’ distant.
I want to forget.
The apartment’s cold. I haven’t paid the gas bill, so the heating stopped working at some point, I’m not sure when. The thing about being drunk most of the time is that you don’t always feel the cold, so I could have been sitting in uncomfortably chilly conditions for days now, weeks even, and I simply haven’t noticed. I can hear the gentle, persistent hum of the fridge, so the electricity hasn’t been shut off. Yet.
There are empty pizza boxes and cartons of rotting Chinese food perched on every available counter. The sink is full of dirty dishes, and the trashcan is overflowing and starting to stink. I don’t give a shit about any of that stuff, though. I sit in the old, tatty armchair I used to read to Millie in every night, her tiny body braced against mine as I told her to turn the pages of whatever book we were reading for the fifteenth time. I sit there and I stare at the stack of boxes piled up in the corner of the room. There are only four of them. Four small boxes, taped closed and gathering dust.
All of her things are inside those boxes. All of her clothes. All of her books. All of her toys. All of her drawings and her pre-school reports and her medical records. I threw every scrap of paper and cloth related to my sister into those cardboard boxes and I taped them closed, placed them one on top of the other behind the door, and I’ve sat here and stared at them every day since.
I’m supposed to start work at the gym tomorrow. I’m supposed to show up there at eight in the morning and open the place for Zeth, but I can’t see it happening. Honestly, I already know what I’m going to do tonight; the likelihood of me seeing any of the AM hours is slim to none. I sit and I stare at the boxes for another fifteen minutes, then I get up out of the armchair, grab my coat, and leave the apartment.
There’s a liquor store five blocks away. Should still be open. I pull up the hood on my jacket and stuff my hands deep into my pockets as I start walking. It’s the end of autumn, almost spring, but Seattle is still cold, still cloudy, still buffeted by wind most days. I barely even notice the outside elements, though. I’m wet, soaked to the skin by a fine rain, by the time I cross the final street, rounding the corner to Abe’s Fine Wine and Liquor Store. The place is lit up, yellow light pouring out onto the dark street, and there are people inside, talking at the cash register.
Thank the lord the place is still open. I would have had to go to a bar to drink otherwise, and I’m not in the mood to get shit faced in public. I push the door open, and the place is instantly too bright, too loud, too hot, too overwhelming.
“Hey!”
I head toward the back of the store, to where the bottles of whiskey are kept in a locked glass cabinet.
“Hey! Asshole!”
I turn around, and the overweight guy behind the counter is staring right at me. He shakes his head, his brow furrowed. “No hoods, man. You come in, you gotta take down your hood.”
“Sorry.” I push back my hood and I grin, baring my teeth at him. He doesn’t seem very impressed by my obviously hostile action. He’s probably reaching for the baseball bat he undoubtedly keeps stashed behind the register there with him at all times, preparing himself because I ‘look like trouble.’ Idolook like trouble. Iamtrouble. If anyone looks sideways at me right now, I’m liable to start swinging before they can even open their mouths.
I pick out which bottle of whiskey I want, and I wave the clerk over. He simply grunts when I point out what I want to buy, and opens up the thick sliding glass door on the cabinet only enough to remove the bottle from the shelf before he’s quickly locking the cabinet back up again. He doesn’t hand over the bottle to me; he clutches it tightly to his chest.
“Be up on the counter for you when you’re ready to pay,” he says curtly. Fucking cunt. As if I’m going to steal a bottle of whiskey. I’m a violent, volatile human being right now, but I’m hardly at the point when I’m stooping to steal right from under his nose.
I’m disheveled and bleary-eyed, though. I have dark bruises on my face. I obviously haven’t been taking very good care of myself, so I can see why he might be suspicious of me. I don’t bother buying ice. Ice will only water down the alcohol. I settle up with the clerk, then I carry the bottle outside and I consider opening up the brown paper bag immediately so I can take a few healthy gulps before I head back in the direction of home, but I manage to stop myself. I manage to keep myself in che—”
“Mason?”
My heart stutters to a full stop. Looking up, I see the woman standing only a few feet away from me and I nearly throw up on the spot.
Kaya Rayne.
She’s wearing that Parka of hers, the fur all tufty and wet from the rain, her cropped, short blonde hair curling a little, damp-looking and all over the place. She’s standing next to some douche bag wearing a varsity letterman jacket of all things, his arm slung around her shoulders. He’s covered in tattoos, his bottom lip pierced along with his eyebrow, and the very first thing I do, theveryfirst, is I imagine fish-hooking the motherfucker and tearing the metal straight out of his face.
