Chapter 4
four
I start living my life in thirty-minute increments.
Lindy Girl:
I can’t sleep.
5–4–3–2–1. Name them.
Lindy Girl:
Five things I see?
And four you can touch. Three you hear. Two you smell. One you are.
Lindy Girl:
I am…trying to be brave.
That counts.
I set the timer, put the phone face-down, and walk away.
If I stay, I’ll give in. I tap my knife at my hip, one, two, three, like a heartbeat I can hold in my hand.
I don’t look back. I remind myself control is a muscle, and that I got myself into this fucking mess. I never should've answered her message.
By minute four, not that I’m counting, I’m in the garage, my Harley growling like a dog that knows the door is about to open.
By minute nine I’m on the road, wind needling the edges of my fairing, city light pouring out like spilled liquor.
By minute thirteen I’m telling myself this is a good spot to turn around, except I can’t turn around because I’m meeting Sava.
By minute fifteen I’m convincing myself that leaving my phone at home was a dumbass move. What if my brothers call?
Sava waits under a spray-painted billboard in a busted lot where the asphalt scabs and the chain-link sings in the wind.
The ad peeling above her is for a perfume called Faith.
The real Faith is the woman who sells the same perfume from a milk crate at the base.
Sitting at a plastic card table covered in fake orchids and a tea light candle guttering in a jelly jar.
The air is hot tar, dust, fryer grease from the taco truck two blocks over, the dry rattle of palm fronds, the slot-machine hum bleeding out of a sad little bar with one neon letter dead.
“Morning, Cassius,” Faith says. “You come to buy the whole crate again?”
“What can I say, it’s good shit,” I tell her, and set a rubber-banded stack on the cash box. We’ve done this dance before. I tap the lid so her eyes stay on mine. “Take a break.”
Her mouth twists. “Do I need to pack up?”
“No,” I say. “Your inventory won’t move. When you get back, it’ll be like you never left, promise.”
She grabs the cash, slides her FAITH sign into the crate, and hooks her tote over her shoulder. “If Manny tries to charge me for my meal, I’m sending him your way.”
“He won’t,” I say as she crosses the empty lot, straightening a velvet pad so the bottles don’t roll.
Sava’s all smoke in leather and steel, her braid dark down her spine, eyes the part of night that doesn’t give light back. No smile. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile.
This is my city. The grit behind the marquees, the service corridor, the lock that only turns for people like me.
Lindy is the high-end lobby across town with marble, soft light, and towels folding into fucking swans.
Sava and I stand where the glamour dumps its trash. I belong here. That’s the problem.
The girl under the streetlight belongs in the sparkle, too, not in this ash-and-oil I breathe.
But when I close my eyes, she’s in both places at once.
A lobby that hushes when she walks through and an alley back entrance that can’t quite swallow her light.
Knife tap. One, two, three. I’ll guard both versions, both women.
“You’re early,” she says. Which means she clocked the engine half a mile out and heard the way I opened the throttle.
“Target’s early,” I lie. “Window moved.”
She watches me a second, because that’s our game: who says the true thing first. “You’re tapping.”
I look down. My thumb is drumming the knife at my hip. I stop it. It starts again.
Two men in a box truck pull into the storage lot to the left of the billboard. One stays inside and one smokes behind it. These two fucks are brand new delivery men to Spider. Wrong night to start a career.
Sava ghosts left. I take right. The smoker never sees her.
Sava ghosts up behind the curl of his lighter, scarf already looped in her hands.
One step, a slip of silk over his face like a lover’s blindfold.
The scarf’s hidden core bites with nylon wire braided inside.
She drops her weight, heel hooks behind his knee, and the world goes sideways for him.
The loop cinches high under his jaw; she rides him down, knees in, spine arched, forearms levering back.
No thrash, no sound except the small, ugly click of the hyoid giving.
When he’s slack, she eases him to the asphalt like she’s laying a coat over a puddle.
The driver clocks me in the side mirror a breath too late.
I’m already there, door ripped wide, my elbow smashing his cheekbone to turn his head.
Thumb breaks the sheath snap. Steel clears in a blink.
He’s still deciding what to do when I’ve already decided for him.
I lay the blade across the carotid, not deep, just enough to split skin, my forearm sealing his mouth so the air goes back into him instead of out.
He spasms, boots drumming against the running board, then slowing.
I hold him until his pulse goes from fast to far to nothing.
I wipe the bloody edge on his shirt before dropping his dead weight way less gracefully than Sava.
She peels her scarf free and fades to the van.
I stay a beat and take the point of my knife to the smoker’s sternum and score a quick, careless web.
A black-widow charm slides from my pocket to his tongue.
At the cab, I do the same, tug the man’s shirt down enough to carve a web over his heart.
Another charm between the driver’s lips.
Let Spider count its dead and know exactly who sent the bill.
By the time I reach the back of the van, Sava’s cracked the cargo latch. Six girls inside with their wrists zip-tied, eyes blown wide. The smell is fear, piss, and diesel.
“It’s okay,” Sava tells them, palms up. “You’re safe now.”
I dial Dominic on speaker while Sava cuts plastic. He answers on half a ring, engine noise behind him. “Cassius.”
“Storage lot under Faith,” I say. “Two down. Six survivors.”
Silence, then his voice goes hard. “Understood. I’ll bring the van and two ol’ ladies.”
“Bring blankets too,” I add. “Water. And clothes if you have them. They’re all soiled.”
“You got it.”
“Thanks, Dom” I say, and hang up. Sava is already moving, calm and contained. She swings the rear doors wide and starts shepherding them one by one. “You’re safe. Step down. Watch the edge.”
I thread my jacket over the smallest shoulders until she stops shivering. She can’t be more than eight and it makes me wish I'd shoved my knife up that fucker’s ass and pulled it out his throat by the blade.
Headlights rake the lot. Dominic’s convoy.
I tip my chin at the bodies. “Tell your boys to scrub the cameras on the way out. I’ll have Adrian do the same for good measure.”
He nods once, voice for the girls now. “Hey, sweetheart. We’ve got you. We’re going somewhere warm, okay?”
Sava meets my eyes over a knit cap being tugged down. “You taking them?”
“You go,” I say, returning my blade to its home at my hip.
She nods. Locks click. Doors open. Bike engines turn over.
The women Dom brought start pulling out clothes and every man in Dom’s club turns their back.
I follow suit. Sava helps and in minutes they’re all in dry clothes.
I watch six lives blink back at me, one by one, as they’re loaded.
It doesn’t kill the web, but it frays a strand. Tonight, that’s enough.
Once the girls and women are all safely loaded, and the taillights disappear, we finish the mess.
Dom’s men roll the truck behind the storage units and I strip anything that could point to me or Sava, making sure there’s nothing left to find.
Detective Blake won’t tie this to me because there’s nothing to hold, but I’m not taking any chances.
We salt the ground with flames, and leave the ash off the bodies to the wind.
“Is my break over?” Faith asks, crossing the lot and lifting a white Styrofoam box.
“Yeah,” I say, taking the box. Heat bleeds into my palm; lime and cilantro punch through diesel and ash. “You didn’t see me.”
“I never do.” Her gaze flicks past my shoulder, reads the quiet where noise should be. She doesn’t ask. She never does. “Thanks, Cassius, for pushing that shit outta sight, not leaving the lot a mess.”
“Anyone comes bothering you about that, find a way to call me.”
She taps the FAITH placard back into place, checks her little cathedrals of glass with a practiced sweep. Nothing moved.
Faith tucks a curl behind her ear, leans in just enough for her gold bangles to sing. “Thank you for the lunch break.”
I crack the box. Carne asada, heavy on the lime, extra radish slices. I eat standing there under the billboard until the last thin threads of smoke pull apart on the wind, then flip my visor down and head for the street.
“Thanks for the tacos,” I say as I pass Faith. “Stay safe.”
I point my Harley toward home and make it three lights before the itch starts. Tap, tap, tap at the knife on my hip. I tell myself I’m going straight home, taking a shower, and sleeping. I miss the turn anyway.
I peel off onto a side street, then again, and now I’m rolling past Silver State instead of my driveway.
I don’t slow. I don’t look. I feel it look at me.
A clean little glass box across from our warehouse.
I take the corner, circle once, tell myself I’m just making sure I wasn’t being followed home.
Second lap. I try to fight the compulsion but realize I’m playing a losing hand.
I stop in front of the building. Even if she’s in there, I won’t see her unless she comes out.
My fingers itch to text her to come out. Let me see you, just for a second. My pocket’s empty, because my phone’s at home proving I’m still in control of this mess. It’s late. I hope she isn’t here. I hope she’s home, asleep, not under fluorescent bullshit and a security camera.