Page 69 of Edge of Darkness (Night Prowler 4)
It wouldn’t be recompense, but it would be something.
That very day, Ember found an apartment on the other side of town near the docks, in a rundown building with thin walls, bad plumbing, and questionable locks. As she signed the paperwork with her new landlady—a sour-faced old woman with a mouth like a prune and a withering stare that shot laughter from the air like a clay pigeon—she wondered briefly if the group of surly young men lounging around the entrance giving her hostile, assessing looks would murder in her in her sleep or merely beat her unconscious before they rifled through her handbag for drug money.
Either way, she didn’t care.
Asher, however, was not quite so laissez-faire about the situation.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he said as he stood in the kitchen the day she moved in, gazing around her new apartment with his hands on his hips and his face blanched in disgust.
She imagined the word “kitchen” with air quotes around it, because it was little more than a gouged stainless steel sink, a dwarf refrigerator the color of a rancid avocado that rattled and wheezed, and a hot plate crusted with the remains of what looked like a cooked squirrel. Or maybe the fur was just growing from the layer of black mold that lurked beneath the heating element.
“Home sweet home,” Ember replied flatly to Asher’s cry of horror as he gingerly lifted the corner of an ancient placemat on the scarred wood dining table and a roach scurried out. Asher swept it to the floor and crushed it with one stomp of his Prada-shod foot.
“Ember, there is no way you’re living here!” he snapped. He swept an arm around in an angry, jerky motion. “Look at this place! You’re going to catch the plague from the rats living in that couch”—he jerked his chin toward the sagging, faded, plaid sofa in the “living room,”—which, judging by the frayed holes in the cushions and the small black piles of droppings on the floor around it, did indeed appear to be home to a large family of rodents—“or you’re going to fall through that hole by the window and wind up in the apartment below. Which is probably occupied by a gang of meth-addicted parolees, if the crew hanging around outside this place is any indication of the quality of the tenants!”
To be fair, the hole in the floor near the “window” wasn’t large enough for her to fall through. A large cat, perhaps. Maybe a small dog.
“It’s perfect, Ash.” Ember’s voice was as hollow as her heart.
Asher gave her a sharp look, his eyes narrowed behind his glasses. He crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his head. “Why don’t you tell me what this is really all about?”
Ember avoided his penetrating gaze and moved to the small, dirty piece of leaded glass that passed for a window. It overlooked a narrow, dark alley. The abandoned building on the other side was surrounded by chain link and barbed wire. There were little patches of grass growing on the roof, which in some places was caved in; the wood structural beams showed through like bones.
“Nothing,” she lied.
“Okay, I call bullshit on that.”
She turned back to find Asher staring at her, the look on his face clearly telegraphing his disbelief—and more than a little anger.
“I couldn’t afford to live in Dante’s building anymore, that’s all. This is what I can afford.” She looked around the dirty, dreary room and added, “Believe me, it’s perfect.”
The “for me” she left unsaid.
There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of a dog barking furiously a block or two over and the sporadic metallic clanging of the empty soup can a rag-draped homeless man was kicking down the alley below.
Then Asher lowered his arms to his sides and accused in a low, shocked voice, “You’re running away from him.”
“What? Who?” she replied, in a futile attempt at avoidance.
“Supermodel Asshole, that’s who!” he shot back. In three long strides he was in her face. His own was turning red. “What the hell did he do this time?”
She sighed, closed her eyes, and pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers. “Oh, Ash. He didn’t do anything. This isn’t about him. I just couldn’t afford my old apartment anymore. I swear.” She let her hand fall and looked into his eyes, trying with all her considerable acting skills to keep her face entirely devoid of emotion. She’d practiced this look for years, and had perfected it on the endless rounds of therapists her father had insisted she visit, before they all gave up on her for good.
He studied her face carefully, then said softly, “Yeah, I’m going to have to call bullshit on that, too, honey.”
Ember lowered her forehead to his chest; he wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on the crown of her head. After a moment, she said tiredly, “I know you won’t believe me, but Christian didn’t do anything wrong. He was the best thing that happened to me in a long time, Ash, and I screwed it up, not him. If you only knew how generous he really is, how thoughtful…”
How right he is to hate me.
She shivered and pulled out of his arms. She went back to the window, wrapped her arms around herself and stared up at a fat, glossy crow circling lazily in the slate gray sky above. Asher stood where she’d left him, and though she wasn’t looking at him she felt his eyes like two hot pokers
boring into her back.
“This isn’t on him. So let it go, okay? Don’t pick on him anymore. Let’s just pretend the whole thing never happened.”
She hadn’t told him what happened between them; she’d barely mentioned Christian’s name at all over the past few weeks, and only when Ash had asked for updates. The only update she ever gave him was this: we’re not together.
End of story.
