Chapter 21
STRANGERS
Bronte
Blood trails behind me in the studio as I paw through the shelves for the isopropyl alcohol above the slop sink. After splashing the fresh gash with water, I dump the solution onto a rag and slap it to my throbbing cheek.
An inferno ignites the cutting pain to a burning affliction. I brace a hand against the sink and gasp into the stained basin. Unbidden teardrops blur my vision as the searing agony grows and doesn’t fucking stop. I slam my eyelids shut against the torturous burn.
All I see in the darkness is red.
It paints the canvas of my father’s flesh.
Streaks down my brother’s face. Coats my own like oil.
Cold metal scorches my hands. A gunshot blasts my eardrums. Beneath my stampeding heart, I can still hear the distant howls of the hounds, braying from their cages as the grim reaper comes for their master.
Years flash behind my eyes. I see blood slickening my hands. I feel skin slipping from sinew. I hear screams of the living destined to join the dead.
I shake my head in a feeble attempt to clear it.
Play Mozart over the speakers, the ebony and ivory notes chasing the memories back to where they belong.
Pat my weeping wound and dig in my pockets for a cigar.
My nerves are so shot, I fumble the lighter three times as I try and fail to flick the flame to life.
“How John Constantine of you.”
The lighter slips from my useless fingers, metal clanging a cacophonic clatter. “Putain.”
A snicker sounds from behind me. “Relax, monsieur. I haven’t actually come to collect your soul.”
I fix a glare on the little devil that must’ve followed me here as she picks up the lighter and thumbs the trigger. Fire leaps between us, ochre light warming her arctic mask.
“There,” Poppy chirps when gray streams from my nostrils, snapping the lighter shut in my face. “All ready for hell.”
“Cute.” Blowing smoke at her smirk, I approach the worktable, finding a needle and surgical suture. My hands quake so badly, I’m barely able to thread the eye.
“Sit,” Poppy murmurs, her gentle hands pressing firmly on my shoulders, coaxing me down to the stool. “Parfait.”
She takes the needle and thread then steals my cigar. Holding up a finger against my protest, she lifts her vape in invitation. “Go easy. Bax is notorious for brewing his batches strong.”
Like a drowning man desperate for air, I take the deepest breath I can.
Vivid colors flood my tongue. A kaleidoscope of flavors collide in my throat. Sugary sweet, like rainbow sprinkles. The hit calms the tremor in my bones, soothes the bucking beast in my breast.
“Angels.” A lavender plume curls from my long and tranquil exhale. “What is that?”
“Unicorn Cum.” Poppy chortles, pocketing the liquid magic and threading the needle. “No cock will ever compare.”
A chuckle slips out. “I suppose not.”
“Speaking from experience?”
“I’ve had my share.”
Poppy grins, hollowing her cheeks on the cigar. “You should trade these for a vape. Would work wonders for that chip on your shoulder.”
“How much does that cost?”
“For you?” A shrug. “Your soul will do.”
“Just my luck.”
Chortling, Poppy passes over the cigar. With a careful pinch and sharp poke through the tender flesh of my cheek, she starts the first suture.
Keeping my focus on my bloody hands twitching in my lap, I remark, “You know what you’re doing.”
“I’ll take your blatant shock as a compliment.”
“Not many people know how to properly stitch aside from doctors.”
“And soldiers.”
“Touché. Your father taught you well.”
“Actually, it was Nikolai who taught me.”
Against my better judgment, my interest piques. “Your sworn enemy was your mentor?”
“Our grandfathers were enemies, not us. We grew up as friends.” She dabs a rag to the numbing gash on my face then resumes the stitches. “Nik and I had a lot in common: both born criminal heirs, both raised to kill. As we got older, our friendship grew into something more.”
“Let me guess. He was Romeo, and you were his Juliet.”
“Hai. That is, until my family won the war against his family and made them bend the knee.” She takes a long breath, her hands remaining steady as she sutures with clinical precision.
“We were at V and V. He stole my phone and locked me in a storage closet. The music was too loud for anyone to hear me. I was soaked in my own piss by the time I was found the next morning. When I saw him again, I left my mark on him. To this day, Nik hasn’t apologized for what he did.
No one knows aside from us. Well, except you. ”
I don’t dare reply, unsure what to say or how to say it. What Nikolai did to her wasn’t where her distress started. But it could’ve been where it all began to snowball and roll downhill until it became an avalanche that buried her beneath decades of trauma.
“I want to know what I said or did to upset you so much,” Poppy goes on, looping the final stitch. “I’ll respect your boundaries if you don’t wish to tell me, but it’s been bothering me, Bronte. Whatever it is, I’d like to apologize for it. If you’ll let me.”
The last dregs of my anger drain from my system. “I know you were using me to make him jealous.”
“Hm.” Poppy squints, cutting the thread with her butterfly blade.
She dabs the drying blood from my face and neck with the rag, taking care to clean my hands, too.
Then she flattens the knife under my chin, forcing my gaze up to hers.
“I have no need to make Nik jealous. Such behavior would imply I care about what he thinks, and I don’t.
But you, Bronte Bourbon”—she steps closer, wedging herself between my spread knees—“I care about what you think of me. The reason I asked you to be there that night was because I wanted you there. I felt solid with you. I, um…I have a lot of stress, which is why I have the vape. I don’t know how, but your presence is becoming more potent than any smoke.
You kept me rooted to the present instead of spacing and getting lost in the past while a demon from mine was five feet away. ”
Remorse floods my system. “Do you still care for him?”
Poppy heaves an impressively hefty sigh for someone so small and rests a palm on my chest. “A part of me will always care for Nik. But I care for you more.”
As she holds my stare, I see these past months reflecting back at me from her ocean eyes. We still hardly know each other, yet what we have feels almost like friendship.
But not quite.
No, this is companionship. A connection shared between kindred spirits. We’re alike, her and I, two predators circling each other in a cage. I’m a fool if I pretend otherwise. But Poppy is still a criminal. Even if she does ever forfeit her birthright, she’ll always bleed black.
It’s maddening, this magnetism. I want—no, need it to end. Before it turns me into the person I was before I fought to earn my halo and wings.
“In case you were wondering,” Poppy says, her gaze dropping to follow her forefinger tracing my tattoos, “the street cams outside Nik’s apartment were—surprise, surprise—scrubbed the night Leviathan dropped by.”
I nod stiffly. “Did you scope out the graveyard?”
“No. Been busy losing a war.”
“Fair enough.”
“Has Emi found anything more on Margot?”
“Nothing but dead ends.”
“How is Dante taking it?”
“He doesn’t know.”
“I see.” Her palm splays over my heart, and her tone softens as she whispers, “Do you care for me, too, Bronte?”
Of course I do. I’ve cared for her since I saw her fighting for her life in an alleyway. Hell, before that. Since I felt the scars on her hands as she handed me her favorite book and looked at me like I hung every damn star in the sky.
But this…whatever this is, it would never work.
We are from two very different worlds. Poppy is a crime lord’s daughter. I am a coroner. She’s a criminal, and I work with cops to put people like her behind bars.
“It’s late.” I savor the cigar like it’s my last meal. “You should go. Talk to Emi. Process what happened to your friend.”
“I don’t want to talk to Emi. I want to talk to you.”
“Bonne nuit, Petit Diable.”
That face. It’s like I’ve plunged my fist into her chest and crushed the precious diamond inside.
Better this way, I tell myself, even as the beast within bellows its fury.
Poppy drops her hand and steps back. I look at anything but her. She doesn’t offer the apology she came here to give, and I don’t ask for it.
In less than an hour, we’ve reverted back to complete strangers.
“Bonne nuit,” she murmurs, “mon ange.”
Mon ange. My angel.
I have the sudden urge to set myself ablaze and burn myself all the way down to hell.
Poppy’s boots leave my periphery. The moment she’s gone, the cold slithers in. It permeates my blood, wraps my bones in permafrost, nestles in my marrow like an eternal winter. A violent shiver wracks me, my own body unstable without her infernal fire.
“By the angels,” I carp, rubbing an ache in my temple. “I’m so fucked.”