[Jump cut.]
But I am. I’m taking back control.
No more self-harm. Now there’s a silver bullet of testosterone in my bloodstream, and I didn’t even have to beg a god. Thanks, Obamacare.
So this is it. The girl part dies. A little boy wakes up, confused and alone. Irrevocable changes are happening inside his cells and he’s stuck on the island of himself, sailing messages out into the wide blue nothing.
This is what they say:
Somebody, please listen.
My name is Ren. I’m one day old. I’m a lost little boy.
Please find me.
—2—
PRESENT DAY
I stood on a balcony overlooking Chicago, the city lit up like a circuit board: gold wires snaking through the night, heat thickening the air into violet gel. Summer was all pulse and shimmer, a billion ones and zeroes manically flipping on and off.
A beautiful night for mayhem.
To my left was the devil herself: Blythe McKinley, inked Aussie bombshell, glitter and cigarette ash spangling her wild blond mane like dirty stars. Her scarlet strap dress showed off sleeve tats. Being near Blythe felt like hovering in the eye of a tornado. Where she went, roofs came off, lives were uprooted. Shit flipped.
On my right, her seraphic opposite: Ellis Carraway, androgynous redhead, very much a sir till she opened her mouth. Ellis was shy and sweet, blossoming only when she could nerd out over something. She ID’d as genderfluid: sometimes a boy, sometimes a girl, sometimes something else. Tonight she was all boy in a skinny tie and tweed blazer and Chucks.
Not only were they my angel and devil, they were also each other’s exes. Right now the exes were arguing about men who played video games.
“Explain to me, Professor,” Blythe said, inscribing the air with her cigarette, “the fact that ninety percent of our targets are hard-core gamers.”
Ellis took an anxious hit off her vaping pen. They even smoked in good and evil ways. “Where do you get ninety percent?”
“Observation.”
“You made it up.”
“All statistics are made-up.”
“Correlation does not imply causation, Blythe. Otherwise I’d be the biggest misogynist ever.”
“Yet nearly every sexist troll loves his bloody video games. Explain that.”
Ellis ruffled her short hair. “I’m not the psychiatrist. Ask Armin.”
Her voice dipped into bitterness. An entire novel’s worth of resentment hung in the air between us.
No, literally. The novel is called Black Iris. Laney wrote it.
We’ll meet her in a sec.
Blythe reached past me and brushed Ellis’s hand. “Just taking the piss, little bird.”
The touch lingered a moment, then they jerked away simultaneously.
“Come on, kids,” I said, circling their shoulders. “I’m getting too much oxygen out here. I’ve almost forgotten the smell of Axe body spray.”
Blythe cocked an eyebrow. “Is that not what you’re wearing, mate? Just standing near you raises my blood alcohol level.”
“Shots fired. Actually, Ellis is wearing that delightful fragrance.”
“You guys suck,” Ellis said. Then, softer, “And it’s not Axe. It’s Ralph Lauren.”
Blythe spun away from me and seized her, laughing. “Come dance, you beautiful boy.”
“I can’t dance. You know that. Ren, help.”
“On your own, stud.”
They swept into the crowd inside the club. Before they vanished I caught the flash of Ellis’s engagement ring, coiled silver capped with lapis. So much condensed into something so small: a history, a promise, a future. You could take it off and on, switch fates like shirts. For a second it caught a curl of light and then was gone, breaking into bright pixels as the disco ball whirled overhead, scattering into the sea of grinding skin, sweat, want.
Welcome to Umbra: our home away from home, our glitter-flecked shadowland.
Who are we?
Like Laney says: you’ll know us by the trail of our vengeance.
We call the top floor of Umbra the Aerie because up here it feels like you can fly. Music light as helium, a tinge of sugar in the crystal droplets beading on warm skin. A happy haze of prescription drugs and sexual experimentation. Blame Laney. This is basically her queertopia.
Speak of the minidevil. A voice near my elbow said, “Hey, bad boy.”
“Hey yourself, bad girl.”
Delaney Keating was five foot one of sheer ruthlessness. I’ll be damned if I ever meet someone with as many issues—or as much badassery—per square inch. Bangs slanted across her Kewpie doll face like a feral crow’s wing, above ingénue-blue eyes and the kind of heart-melting freckles you don’t expect on diabolical masterminds. Laney was our boss, our dark queen. Like Dr. Evil as envisioned by Precious Moments.
“What’s up?” I said. “You have that femme fatale look.”
She didn’t smile, but her eyes gave a schemey sparkle. “This is my resting bitch face.”
“You’re going to ruin someone’s life tonight, aren’t you?”