Chapter 20 To Be Seen
To Be Seen
New York in early August was a haze of heat and noise; blocks shimmered under the relentless sun.
The air clung to skin, thick with humidity, as bodies jostled for position beneath faltering air conditioning.
The city, never quite clean, felt like a restless beast, slick with sweat and memory, its pulse quickening in the swelter, refusing to slow.
My days off used to feel like permission.
Lately, they were just hours with the volume of my own thoughts turned up to eleven.
It was almost a relief to return to the club because at least there I could disappear into the rhythm of work.
Until the shift ended, and the silence came back with twice the teeth.
I couldn’t put Ava’s journal down. I’d read her note so many times that the pages were starting to wear thin along the edges, but it only made less sense as I went.
She wrote in fragments, as if she were running from something, even on the page, and the gaps between her words were what haunted me most.
Sunday night, I lay in bed with the journal open across my chest, tracing the pen grooves with my thumbnail, desperate for something that made sense.
By Monday, when I took Mateo to the park, my body was present, hyping him up as he raced past like he were at the Tour de Park, but my mind was two steps off the edge, spiraling back to the shadows where Ava’s words lingered, refusing to reveal their secrets.
I tried to remember every detail of that Monday in the park: the way the bench slats creaked under my thighs, the cheap coffee churning in my stomach, the bees hovering around the cap of his sports drink. He fired off questions, then answered half of them himself when I didn’t respond fast enough.
Some part of me was still with Ava, mapping out her words on an invisible grid and coming up short. Even the sky looked coded, streaked with clouds that didn’t move, as if the world was waiting for a signal I couldn’t give.
I lost hours like this, drifting between present and past, watching for signs that meant nothing to anyone but me.
Tuesday blurred out like a smudge on glass.
I arrived at Neon before sunset, but already the club was wound tight, humming with a chemical anticipation I could almost taste.
The dancers clustered in the back hallway, whispering about tips and the new ones, trying to hide their jitters under layers of foundation and bravado.
I went through the motions: clock in, change into costume, fix the seams in the fishnets I’d only bought last week.
All the while, my mind was looped around Ava’s journal, the weight of her secrets pressing down on every breath I took.
Backstage smelled like hairspray, powder, and the metallic tang of nerves.
Girls preened in front of mirrored vanities, contouring bruises or slicking on another layer of stage glue.
At any other point in my life, this might have felt like community.
Tonight, the camaraderie felt papier-maché-thin.
I let the noise wash over me, kept my eyes down, and waited for my turn in the rotation.
When my name was called over the crackling intercom, I barely registered it.
The DJ gave me a wry thumbs-up; I responded without thinking, settling into the routine.
The stage lights were blinding, but at least they wiped out the faces.
I did my set: three songs, two costume changes, a handful of bills tucked into my garter by a bachelor party spilling whiskey all over the runway.
I moved like something pre-programmed, muscle memory firing in place of thought.
In the wings, between sets, I found myself picking at the cuticle of my thumb until it bled.
I’d never been nervous about performing; it was part of the job, and I didn’t mind it too much.
But the club felt especially predatory tonight, like the air itself was watching me.
Even in the brief hush between songs, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being stalked from the dark.
After my third set, I ducked into the dressing room, hoping for a second to breathe.
Ulysses was already there, perched on the counter with a glass of whiskey, like he owned the oxygen.
His suit probably cost more than my rent.
He didn’t say hello, just watched me in the mirror as I wiped away the sweat and glue from my brow line.
“Josie,” he said, drawing out the syllables like a caress. “You’re off your game tonight.”
“It’s Tuesday.” I kept my eyes on my reflection. “No one’s ever on their game on a Tuesday.”
He let out a quiet laugh, then slid off the counter and into my space.
I felt the chill before his hand touched my bare upper arm, his fingers trailing down with a deliberate slowness that made my pulse thud in my ears. Ulysses always carried the scent of aged whiskey and sandalwood, but up close it was more like something mineral, almost metallic.
He leaned down, his mouth close to my ear. “You and I could be extraordinary together.” His voice was soft. The promise wasn’t. “A force,” he murmured, “to be reckoned with.”
His hand lingered on my wrist, cold enough to make me shiver. I tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip just enough to remind me who signed the paychecks. His eyes found mine in the mirror, and for one brief, dizzy second, I wondered if he could read every secret I’d ever tried to bury.
A flash of something, anger, or maybe fear, flickered in my gut. I wrenched my arm free and turned to face him head-on, my voice steady even though everything inside me was trembling.
“I don’t want to be a team,” I said. “You’re my boss. Let’s keep it there.”
His smile didn’t falter, but the temperature in the room seemed to drop by twenty degrees. He stepped back, hands raised in mock surrender, then offered a slow, deliberate wink.
“Your loss, Josephine.”
Then something shifted.
His smile faded, replaced by a weighty seriousness.
“You ever wonder,” he said quietly, staring past me, “why I have a soft spot for lost causes?”
His voice was low, almost drowned out by the hum of the night. He wasn’t looking at me; his eyes were fixed somewhere far away.
“I was human once.” He paused for a beat.
“There was a palace. Smoke. Blood.” His jaw tightened.
“We thought we were righteous.” He left out breath that almost passed for a laugh.
“We weren’t.” He swirled his whiskey. Ice tapped the walls of the glass.
“We slaughtered a family and called it justice.”
Silence settled between us.
“That was the night I stopped believing in men.” Then his eyes found mine. “And started listening to monsters.”
I didn’t know what to say. My chest ached for reasons I didn’t understand.
He tilted his glass back, the amber liquid disappearing in a swift gulp. His expression closed like a door. The weight of his gaze lingered, heavy and unyielding, as if he were sealing away the fragments of a story too dark to share.
Then, he slipped out as quietly as he’d arrived.
I slumped onto a cracked vinyl chair, breathing in the silence and trying to scrape the memory of his hand off my skin.
The rest of the shift moved in jump cuts: packing up my bag, counting out tips, ducking the rest of the girls as they peeled off into the night. My head was full of static, my limbs heavy with something I couldn’t name.
I waited until the club emptied, then stepped out into the alley behind the building, hoping the damp air would sober me up.
The city at three in the morning was a different animal, suddenly soft around the edges, glittering with the promise of forgetting.
I started walking, letting the rhythm of my footsteps erase the echo of his words.
The night spilled through my fingers like blood, dark and impossible to hold. Exhaustion weighed on my bones as I left Neon behind, the memory of Ulysses’ touch still crawling across my skin. His breath had been cold against my neck, his voice a silken threat as he’d whispered in my ear.
I shuddered, pulling my jacket tighter around my shoulders as if it could ward off the chill that had nothing to do with the temperature.
The city streets stretched before me, neon signs and streetlights reflecting off puddles like portals to some darker dimension.
My mind replayed the moment Ulysses had cornered me in the dressing room, his eyes glittering with hunger that went beyond the physical.
The worst part wasn’t his advances; I’d dealt with handsy men before. It was the way he’d looked at me, like he knew something about me that I didn’t know myself.
Like he was waiting for me to remember.
I was so lost in thought that I didn’t notice the shadow detach itself from the alley until it was directly in my path. My heart lurched into my throat as a tall figure stepped into the pool of streetlight.
“Josie.” Aiden’s voice was low and steady, but I still jumped, my hand flying to my throat.
“Jesus Christ, Aiden! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” I snapped, adrenaline making my voice sharper than intended.
He stepped fully into the light, and my breath caught. Even disheveled, with his dark curls falling across his forehead and shadows under his eyes, he was beautiful in that wild, untamed way that made something in my chest ache.
He wore dark jeans worn soft at the knees, scuffed boots that looked like they had walked through a hundred late-night adventures, and a leather jacket that I swore he only donned when he was in a mood.
The jacket hung open slightly, revealing a fitted black shirt underneath, and the whole ensemble exuded an effortless cool that sent a shiver down my spine.
His hazel eyes searched mine, concern evident in their depths.
“Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “I wanted to make sure you got home safely,” he said, as if that explained everything.