That was saying something. When we were teenagers, our lives were practically laced with fear. We were living on the street, fighting for survival, the cold and hunger constant threats. If it weren’t for Isabel’s talent for spotting threats in advance, I shudder to think how our lives would have ended.
Finally, after nearly dying of cold one night, Isabel, Sinead, and I realized we had to get off the street. We could let the authorities take charge of our lives, which would mean we’d go back to foster care. Instead we decided to ask Anthony “Breadknife” Cisternino for help. It’s sad to note that we preferred a man nicknamed “Breadknife” to foster care. Unlike in our previous experiences with foster care, Breadknife would let us stay together, would not abuse us, and would feed us well.
In return, we just had to do what he asked.
This turned out to be a raw deal. Breadknife’s demands often got us hurt. They got other people hurt as well. The cold and hunger were gone, but the fear remained.
But Isabel had always seemed to withstand fear quite well. At least, until tonight. The cards had spooked her.
I was deep in thought, which is probably why I wasn’t on my guard. Or maybe I was just getting soft. Three years before, I would have noticed that there was something wrong a hundred yards before reaching the door of my shop. I would have smelled it, felt the hair rising on the back of my neck, tasted the bitter taste of adrenaline on my tongue. Living under Breadknife’s thumb, you had to be always on your toes, had to stay tuned to your five senses and your sixth one as well. But now I was oblivious, music blaring in my earphones, and I hadn’t noticed the four thugs until it was too late.
Here is what “too late” looks like: By the time I hit the brakes on my bicycle, two men were blocking the way to my shop, while two more were closing off my escape route from behind. One of the men in front of me held a gun, pointed right at my face. It was gripped lazily, the one holding it clearly believing a gun in hand gave you complete control.
Hard to argue with that logic, really. Still, no reason to let them feel like it.
His lips were moving. He said something, his face intense. Presumably it was something like “Your money or your life,” or “Well, look what we have here,” or maybe “Did you ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?” Whichever the case, it was all the same to me, because what I actually heard was Taylor Swift singing that she goes back to December all the time. I raised my finger apologetically, and he blinked, his monologue cut short.
“Sorry,” I said, removing my earphones. “The music was too loud. Could you repeat that?”
He looked deflated and angry. Perhaps he had practiced his terrifying speech in front of the mirror, imagining the scared look in his victim’s eyes. Now I’d ruined the moment, his fifteen seconds of glory as a badass criminal.
While he gathered his thoughts, I took in the situation. One of the thugs behind me was a woman holding a long knife. She wore black pants, black coat, and black lipstick. Cheerful. Her friend was a bit young, and chewed gum like he was making a statement with it. Maybe something like “I like my gum like I like people: chewed up.” The two men in front of me were bullies’ versions of Laurel and Hardy—thin and short, fat and tall. Laurel, the thin one, was holding the gun. Hardy was unarmed, but really, when your fists were like sledgehammers, there was no need.
“I told my friends here,” Laurel grunted, “that a young woman shouldn’t be walking alone so late in a neighborhood like this.”
“I’m not walking, I’m riding my bicycle.”
The loud gum-chewer snickered. The sound of his chewing got on my nerves. Also, I had to admit that, bravado aside, I was scared. The gun pointed at me was no joke. I still had some nightmare cigarettes in my pocket, but it was likely that Laurel would shoot me if I turned into a nightmarish hag, so that was out of the question. My hand began to get hot, uncomfortably so, and wisps of smoke smoldered from my palm. Damn it, not now.
Laurel clenched his jaw. “Tell you what, girl. You give us that bag, and your phone, and we let you go on home unmolested. How does that sound?”
I eyed the muzzle carefully, then raised my eyes back to Laurel. He quirked an eyebrow.
“Sounds fair,” I said, carefully getting off the bicycle. I leaned it against the wall, then unshouldered my backpack, taking a step toward Laurel, bag held high. He lowered the gun slightly, holding up his own hand.
“Oh!” I took another step forward. “I forgot. My economics essay is in here—I have to turn it in tomorrow, so just let me take it out. You guys don’t need it. I mean, it’s not like you care about my report on the laws of supply and demand, right?” I opened the bag, rummaging in it distractedly, taking another step toward Laurel. “Not that it’s a very good essay, anyway. Probably a C minus at best. My professor is a real asshole; I think he gives pretty girls low grades just so they come and complain to him personally. He’s just so sleazy—he makes you guys look like model citizens. Ugh, I swear, I can’t find anything in this bag. I don’t know why I need so much stuff inside—”
I slammed the backpack into the gun, forcing it aside, and kicked Laurel in what my grandmother would have called his “man-grapes.” True to his black and white counterpart, Laurel opened his mouth and closed it without making a sound as he crumpled to the floor.
I let the backpack drop, clutching my silver chain in one hand, a small vial in the other. Holding my breath, I shattered the vial on the floor.
With a sudden hiss, thick gray smoke rose from the broken vial. It enveloped all of us, making my eyes water as the smoke itched at them. Behind me I heard Gum-Chewer and Black Lipstick Girl gasping as they inhaled the smoke. Which was not something they should have done.
It was bottled sadness. Inhaling it evoked—depending on the amount you breathed in—gloominess, melancholy, depression, grief, and, in certain cases, a wave of incapacitating hopelessness.
I took a step back and turned around to face Lipstick and Gum. Gum sobbed and coughed, tears trickling down his cheeks, his shoulders shaking, and I decided he wasn’t a problem for now. Black Lipstick Girl’s eyes were wet, her breath wheezing from the smoke, but other than that, she was still armed and dangerous. The wave of misery hadn’t taken her by surprise. Perhaps sorrow was something she was accustomed to, carried with her constantly. It would definitely explain her fashion taste.
She lunged at me, knife thrust forward. I fumbled backward, not fast enough. It cut my shirt, and a sharp pain shot through my waist. I lashed at her clumsily with my chain, and she ducked. She was crying, the sorrow deep in her, but it didn’t dampen her reflexes.
My free hand smoked visibly now, thick tendrils rising from it, and the girl eyed them with fear. I tried to clench my hand, to make the heat dissipate, to calm myself. Not now, not now, not now…