4-Kit #2
“She’s a beauty,” I remark, and Zach snorts.
“You really are your typical rockstar asshole, huh,” she says flatly. “She’s old and messy, I get it. I’m well off, but I’m not exactly rolling in the dough. Cherry Bomb gets me from point A to point B, and that’s all I really care about.”
For fuck’s sake.
She doesn’t shrink or apologise, and I can’t help the warmth of admiration that stirs in me. It’s a kind of confidence that comes from surviving things most people never talk about. Zachary looks at me like I’m shite on the bottom of her trainers, and for some reason, it bothers me.
She puts the key in the ignition and turns it over twice before it starts. That awful screeching noise happens again, metal grinding against metal, like the car’s screaming for help. The locks slam down with a clack. I flinch.
“Oh, calm down, Princess,” Zach retorts, twisting in her seat to reverse.
Sunlight catches the shadows pooled beneath her bloodshot eyes. I’ve envisioned flashes of that face for years. In dreams and forests, in half-formed images where I can never quite catch up to her. She’s always in motion, running just out of reach.
Until today.
Her work drew me in, but her presence makes me stay. My dream woman, in the flesh, is like wiping a smudged lens so the picture finally comes into focus. It’s impossible, but I know her.
I’ve spent years dismissing the god’s warnings as divine melodrama, but seeing her now makes every dream and omen snap into place with brutal clarity. A cold jolt runs through my bones, the truth immovable.
That, out of all the people in this bloody universe, she somehow wears my necklace, is hard to take as anything other than a blasted sign.
It took me weeks to stop reaching for it absently, and every time, I wondered if Officer Reyes kept it.
Never in a million years would I have guessed it could somehow find its way back to me via dumb luck and chance.
Some new pop song with a heavy bassline blares through the blown-out speakers. I roll down the window, letting the city noise rush in. I haven’t been to the States in months, and I forgot how loud it is. Cars rumbling, horns blaring, dozens of them all at once.
My synesthesia flares, the incessant sound transforming the vibration into texture. The bassline pulses in deep red. Horns flash sulphuric yellow and russet triangles. I roll the window back up.
The noise folds into colour until it’s all one blinding rush, sharper than it’s been in years. I can’t tell if it’s the city, or the weight of this fate, that overwhelms me.
“You okay?” Zach’s voice cuts through my muddled thoughts.
“Do I seem okay?” I ask, but it comes out more condescending than I intended.
“No,” she replies simply.
I pick at my nails, then force myself to stop. Glancing over, I see her lips press together in concentration as she watches the road. “I’m sorry. It has been quite a day.”
“I’m assuming you didn’t walk into this debacle willingly?” She looks at me and half-smiles. Zach doesn’t view me with pity or greed, but with understanding.
I hate it.
“No,” I say, trying to stretch my legs. “I did not willingly back myself into a corner to be paraded around like a godforsaken trinket or get sued for more than what I have. There’s no way I would have freely put myself in such a precarious situation.”
“Makes sense.” With a casual click of her tongue, her earthy gaze drifts straight ahead. “You seem like you’re a bit of a control freak.”
“Excuse me?” I scoff, twisting my torso to face her. “That’s quite the assumption to have about someone you’ve known for an hour. There’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance, you know.”
“I know.” She thrums her fingers along the steering wheel completely off-tempo.
“I am both confident and arrogant.” The off-beat drumming stops, and her hands curve around the ripped foam as she sneers into the rearview mirror.
“Um, I don’t want to alarm you, but I’m pretty sure someone’s tailing us, and it’s definitely not me they’re after. ”
I turn in my seat to confirm that it’s Yensil and not some random paparazzi. The familiar sleek black SUV trails a few feet behind us, my head of security giving me a questioning look as I wave.
“That’s Yensil,” I say, turning back to sit straight, “he’s with me.”
Zachary shakes her head, those curls swaying like wispy willow branches. “What, you mean to tell me you had a ride this whole time? You’re followed, like, everywhere?”
I nod. “Did you really think they’d let their prize Heffer out and about in LA unattended?”
“Are you scared? I mean, are you scared of losing yourself to Judas?” She clicks her tongue, rubbing her face as though she can scrub me from her sights. “To all of the Hollywood bullshit?” Her throat bobs as she swallows, staring straight ahead. “Is that why you don’t want to do this project?”
I shake my head, taken aback by her straightforwardness. “Quite the opposite, actually.”
She glances at me, brow arched. “What do you mean?”
“They were always supposed to love Judas. He can be whatever they need him to be.” I snigger emptily.
“I, me, Kit, can never be that. Kit cannot fulfil their dreams and fantasies. And I figured creating that sort of pressure would set myself up for failure. If Kit simply vanished, no one would really know because Judas is all they’ve ever seen. ”
“Oh.”
Silence stretches between us, long and heavy.
“But it’s not Judas they relate to,” she says, “you know that, right?”
“Somnium was never about me. It’s never going to be about me. It’s about the fans and their journey. I’m simply a portal. A beacon. A path of sorts to guide them along the way.”
“So, there’s no occult power?” she asks, biting her lip. “No deity to worship?”
“Well again, I suppose that’s not up to me to decide. I certainly don’t possess that kind of power.”
“But Judas does?”
“Judas has the illusion of power,” I answer earnestly, stroking my chin. “And I think the illusion is enough for most people.”
“Is it enough for you?”
Her eyes are too much. Too honest and knowing.
Almost everyone in the industry measures me by the potential quid I’m worth. Zachary, a ridiculous name for such a beautiful woman, seems to view me as something priceless. I don’t deserve that. I don’t want that.
“I know how long and hard you’ve worked for this,” she continues, muting the radio.
“Your lack of a digital footprint is something to commend.
I can draft a clause in which you hold the sole rights, and if there's anything you don't like, I'll change it. Your anoni— anina— look, your identities will be the top priority.”
She stumbles over the word anonymity, and it’s adorable. “It’s up to you as to how far you want to go with your identities, even with me.”
Her promises pile up. It’s all wrong.
“This is beginning to feel like a negotiation,” I interject. “I’m supposed to be asking the questions.”
“Well, lucky for you this is the end of the road,” she says, pulling up to the curb. “Your ‘umble abode, sire,” she adds in the most atrocious Cockney accent I’ve ever witnessed.
The car screeches again. I jerk back, shooting her a glare as she snickers. Opening the door, I turn to her.
“Thank you for the lift.”
“No problem,” she says, hiding a smirk as she gestures to the pile of rubbish I just sat in. “I’m sorry it wasn’t luxurious.”
I scoff.
If only she knew.
My past clings to me like the smoke in my clothes, impossible to wash out no matter how hard I scrub. I came and fell from the leather-and-gold world, only to rise again. It should taste sweet—triumphant—but it’s hollow, like biting into fruit gone sour.
“Anywho,” she drawls in that grandmotherly accent, “I’d like to join you on tour in September. And I hope you can visualize this project with open eyes. I really don’t want to work with someone who doesn’t want me there.”
“Well,” I say, grounding myself to the pavement, “I may be contractually obligated to do this, but it’s not going to be with enthusiasm. I’m sorry. I don’t want to set your expectations only for me to fail them and give you more reason to be upset.”
I shut the door before she can reply, turning so I don’t have to witness the disappointment etching into her features.
The death machine clunks worse from the outside.
It rattles away, its clanging a smear of colour at the edge of my vision.
Exhaust and cold metal scrape down my throat as I walk towards Yensil’s car, every step too loud.
The world’s closing in, and it demands a truth that I’m not ready to swallow.