Chapter Three Sunny
Chapter Three
Sunny
One of the glorious things about Las Vegas is that there is every imaginable color and flavor of margarita available, twenty-four seven. It is gloriously disgusting. But considering the atrocities I’ve committed, I deserve to suffer this level of hell.
I’m on a mission to drink myself into oblivion. I’ve been stumbling from one bustling casino to the next, replenishing my yard-long plastic cup at every overcrowded stop. Thank goodness for humans and their unwavering skepticism. Nothing muddles magic traces better.
“Humph.” If I have enough sense left to remember that I’m hiding from the Shingae, the world of gods, then I must not be drunk enough. That won’t do. Or maybe I’m just falling back on old habits.
“Sunny,” someone calls me from behind.
I lurch to a stop and sway in spot for a second.
Once I regain enough balance not to keel over, I turn around to face the person who said my name.
I really should be shivering in my breeches.
Because if someone from the Shingae found me, then I’m a sitting duck.
Even if I’m not too drunk to hide, I’m way too drunk to fight.
I am a drunk duck in breeches.
I snort. With admirable restraint, I refrain from quacking and focus my bleary gaze on the muscular, flannel-clad chest in front of me.
Then I look up—and up—until I meet warm hazel eyes smiling down at me.
I blink to make sure I’m not seeing things, but the mop of red hair is hard to miss even at my advanced level of inebriation.
“Ford?” I cringe at the loudness of my own voice. I’m not happy to see my old friend. The squishy feeling inside me is just margarita slushing around. “What are you doing here?”
His smile morphs into a frown. “I work here, Sunny.”
“Since when?” We used to work in the same shitty casino. Did he move jobs? I squint in confusion—and also because he’s swaying back and forth. The second part might be on my end, though.
“Longer than I’ve known you.” He throws his hands up. “What are you doing here? Are you okay? I haven’t seen you in months.”
“You work here?” I’ll catch up to the rest of the stuff he said later.
“Yes, like you used—Never mind.” He plows his fingers through his hair, then narrows his eyes at my neon-green cup. “What the hell are you drinking?”
“Oh, this?” I beam at him. Ford is a bartender—a cocktail connoisseur, if you will. He will understand the depth of my suffering. “It’s a green-apple margarita.”
He barely manages not to gag. “You don’t touch that shit.”
“I’m not the same person you used to know.” I deserve to drown in revolting margaritas. “I drink it in every flavor. If Las Vegas concocts it, then I drink it. It is my only source of sustenance.”
“Jesus.” He rubs his hand over his jaw and whips off the neatly folded white towel from his shoulder. Then he cranes his neck toward a petite blond with a gorgeous tattoo sleeve at the other side of the bar. “I’m taking my break now, Charlotte.”
I vaguely register that I’m standing at the bar of my former place of employment, a small casino off the Strip. What am I doing here? I shrug, jostling the margarita in my hand, which reminds me of my main objective. To get shit faced.
I open my mouth wide to catch the straw to my treacly drink and bob my head every which way because it’s a slippery little sucker. I snicker at the unintentional pun, then resume my chase for the elusive straw.
I come perilously close to sticking the thick straw up my nose before I finally manage to wrap my lips around it. I take a long, syrupy sip, and the ache in my chest eases for a brief second at my self-inflicted punishment.
“Let’s go.” Ford takes a gentle hold of my upper arm and leads me toward the back of the casino, through a crowd of tourists and regulars.
The chime of slot machines and the clink of chips fade away, and a different din hits my ears. Knives clack like woodpeckers as the prep cooks chop mountains of vegetables, and fat cuts of steak sizzle as the line cooks throw one after another onto the flaming grills.
“Where we going?” I mumble around the straw. I’m not taking it out of my mouth again after all the trouble I went through. “Not somewhere quiet, I hope. I need to be around a bunch of humans.”
Something niggles at the back of my mind.
I shouldn’t be telling Ford this. Beings of the Shingae like me must abide by its rules even when we’re hiding from it.
First, we can’t expose the world of gods.
Second, we must protect the magic. Hence, I shouldn’t be explaining why I need to mingle in a crowd of humans to hide my magic .
. . to a human. But the third and most important rule inconveniently flashes past my alcohol-dulled mind.
Keep the Amheuk at bay.
“Oopsy daisy.” I drink more margarita to suppress unwanted memories from surfacing. “Pretend you didn’t hear that last part.”
“Oopsy daisy?” He pinches the bridge of his nose, reminding me of a stern seonnam I don’t want to think about. I quickly take another sip of my adult slushy, and Ford mutters, “Christ on a cracker.”
He takes me through the kitchen and out the back door. Inside the casinos, time seems suspended at the peak of night, but a new day is awakening outside. Fortunately, the faint wash of dawn hasn’t reached the dim alleyway yet. Good. I’m not ready to face the light of day.
I crinkle my nose. The stench of the overflowing trash bins competes with my margarita for the title of the most disgusting thing in the alley. I took myself out of the running to keep things fair.
“What happened to you, Sunny?” Ford gingerly props me up against the building. “Where’s Ethan?”
I spin away from Ford in the nick of time and hurl rainbow-colored vomit like a fucking unicorn.
Where’s Ethan?
Somewhere I can’t be . . . In a realm I’ve sentenced to a fate worse than death by destroying its one defense against the Amheuk. I don’t want to remember. A scream builds in my chest, but it doesn’t get a chance to escape as I throw up some more.
Ford gathers my hair into a fist and rests his warm, meaty hand on my back. I shove him away and stumble back from him. His gentle touch is too much to handle. The Yeoiju makes a keening, worried noise inside me. The Yeoiju? I haven’t heard its voice in days.
For a fleeting moment, I’m deeply relieved not to be completely alone. But then, I shove away the Yeoiju, too—deep down until I can’t hear it anymore—because I don’t deserve its solace.
“Oh goody. I didn’t drop my marg.” I take a sip of the melted green liquid and gargle my mouth with it. Then I chug down the remainder. “I need a refill.”
Ford grabs a hold of my shoulder when I turn to walk away. “What’s going on, Sunny?”
I spin on him, dislodging his hand, and snarl, “It’s none of your business.”
“Then why are you here?” He arches a thick red eyebrow, unfazed by my antagonism. “Of all the casino bars in Vegas, why did you walk into mine?”
Because I’m scared. Because I needed to see a friendly face. Because I don’t really want to be alone.
“Don’t flatter yourself.” I narrow my eyes at him. “I was too drunk to see where I was going.”
“Yeah, right.” Ford snorts. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten? Food, not that abomination.”
I recall a crowded PC bang in a Korean fishing village, where I ate my last meal.
And just like that, the memories come crashing back.
Oh gods. No. The tyrant tricking me into a blood oath to leave the Kingdom of Mountains and to never return.
Leaving Ethan without saying goodbye. Tracking down Daeseong in Santorini.
Battling the dark mudang at the caldera. Running toward the kid . . .
Draco.
The tears I’ve kept at bay rush out of me in torrents. They were so brave, so strong. I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you. But I avenged them. Daeseong died at my sword like he deserved.
I stabbed him in his black heart, then I bewitched him to force the truth out of him. I needed him to admit that I am not his daughter. With my darkest power, I robbed him of his free will—violated him in the worst possible way—only to find out that he was telling the truth.
I am the dark mudang’s daughter. And I killed him. My own father.
Monster. Abomination.
Gripping my head in both hands, I scream until my stomach clenches tightly enough to curve my back. I glance at Ford through my tears. Help me. My eyes plead with him to make it stop hurting, even though he can’t. No one can.
I broke my promise to my mother and used the vilest magic anyone could use on another being. I deserve to suffer. Ford steps toward me with his hand outstretched.
“Take another step, and you forfeit your life,” an icy voice says in a crisp British accent from somewhere behind me.
Run, Sunny.
My gumiho pushes against my skin, urging me to shift. But it’s too late. The Shingae has found me. Again.