Flamethrower for Your Friends
SNOW
"You've said his name four times since we left the apartment," Ariel says as we head to work our shift at Poison Apple.
"I have not."
"Hoodie guy." She ticks off a finger. "Mystery man." Another finger. "The magic one." Third finger. "And then just him, which honestly was the most telling."
I open my mouth. Close it.
A middle-aged man openly gawks at us as I walk and Ariel rolls by in her wheelchair.
Four PM and it's another blazing hot summer day, so we didn't bother to cover up our work attire.
My leather bustier bodysuit is barely covered by a tiny red and black plaid schoolgirl skirt with garters holding up my stockings.
Ariel is similarly dressed in turquoise rhinestone-covered booty shorts and a purple crop top that beautifully brings out the copper orange of her hair. Her black choker is the perfect touch of extra edginess.
We aren't just bartenders.
We are Lost Girls.
Spectacles, myths, booze-pouring legends at Poison Apple, the hottest bar in the city.
We don't dress to impress, we dress to dazzle and devastate. I almost giggle, remembering our emcee, Geanie, introducing us with those exact words last night. He's the best hype man ever.
I lasciviously waggle my tongue at the passing man, the silver stud catching the bright sun rays, letting him know I've caught him staring. He turns beet red and sets his gaze forward again.
"I'm just saying I've never seen you like this.
" Ariel navigates around a broken section of sidewalk without breaking stride, the wheels of her chair finding the smooth line through it with the practiced efficiency of someone who has mapped every fault in these streets.
"You usually lose interest before you've even learned someone's last name. "
"I don't know his last name."
"You don't know his first name."
"Details." I wave a dismissive hand.
Ariel's mouth twists in a terrible attempt to suppress a knowing smile. "How much of your interest is because of him, and how much of it is because of his super-speed power?"
Warmth rises to my cheeks as I remember the way the mystery mage pinned me to the wall. How even with his pale eyes, the look he gave me was so dark and hot that I squirmed underneath it. I had never experienced that level of raw, animal attraction before, which was saying something.
Since becoming a Lost Girl, I’ve learned it was okay to follow my impulses and urges to wherever and whoever's bed they led. A hell of a change from my insanely stifled upbringing.
I wish I knew what level mage that guy clocked at. Level fives were crazy rare, so if I had to guess, I'd peg him at a three or four, but I wanted to know more.
Hell, I want to know everything about him. Especially what he looked like with his hood pulled down, what else he uses his power for, why he’s stalking the night.
I also want to know what he tastes like. What he would have done if I had run my tongue up the pulsing vein that throbbed in his neck when he had me trapped against that wall. What the weight of his body would feel like on mine, and...
Whoa, girl.
He made it clear I was nothing but a human of no interest to him.
That stung. He couldn't possibly have known how deeply that cut me.
"I...don't know," I answer. He and his magic were compelling in equal measure. I wanted to suck his face off, but not just because he was super fast. But that didn't hurt either.
"You know, you are the coolest chick I know, even without powers," Ariel says quietly, as if reading my mind and my insecurities.
I roll my shoulders back. "Duh," I say, but there is no real confidence behind it.
Since working at Poison Apple with so many badass chicks with mage powers, the smoldering fire in my belly that yearns to be more, to have what they have steadily eats at me.
Level five mages are crazy rare, which is why it makes it even more insane that several of them work as bartenders at Poison Apple. In the middle of a human city no less.
I want that. Power. Magic. That special extra bit that sets me apart from everyone else.
I've always wanted it.
Hell, if I was even a fae like Tink, that would be rad. The numerous piercings and tattoos Ariel and I sport were done by the fairy who owns Inked by Tink.
I glance down at my inner arm and the pixie dust-infused tattoo of an ornate hand mirror, its surface broken into different segments. The only magic thing about me, and it's more a symbol than anything.
My eyes are then drawn to the numerous angry red scratch marks from that asshole cat, Lucifer.
I was the one to name him after the devil because that’s what he is.
The stray is a deranged mass of black fur that always hangs around our building and constantly ninjas his way into our apartment to get into our food and terrorize Ariel and me.
One of these days I’m going to catch Lucifer, cook him, and serve him up to those vampire rabbits—the flutterbuns—that are spreading across Boston. Though judging by the tiny fangs, they would take him raw...
I shake off the thought and my attention turns back to my tattoo.
I have no idea what it's supposed to mean. Tink said its meaning would reveal itself to me one day. That's how her magic tattoos work.
I hate how painfully human I am.
Even Ariel is more than I could ever be, though no one else knows her secret.
When she stops suddenly, I do the same. My friend slips her hand into mine, giving it a squeeze that somehow also wraps around my heart.
"Seriously, you are your own kind of magic, Snow. And the best friend any girl could have."
I fight back the lump in my throat. "You’re just saying that because I'd cut a bitch for you."
She inclines her head with a considering look. "I did hear about that time Goldie's powers activated and everyone tried to claw at her to get a piece, and you broke a bottle, ready to stab the mob back. I can only assume I'd get a similar treatment."
"Pfft. I'd pull a flamethrower on anyone who even so much as mildly offended you."
She gives my hand another squeeze before resuming her roll. "See? The best friend any girl could have."
The lump in my throat doubles, and I resist the urge to stop us and wrap Ariel in a tight hug and never let her go.
I had to let Rosie go, and I never want to know that feeling again.
We turn the corner into a wall of noise.
Voices layer over each other, chanting something I can't make out yet.
A cluster of over a hundred people are gathered around the base of the steps outside the old civic building, some holding signs.
A portable speaker crackles, feedback hissing at the edges of a woman's voice.
"Boston deserves magic-free streets. Boston deserves to feel safe in its own city again—"
The signs bob above the crowd.
BOSTON: MAGIC-FREE ZONE
MAGIC-FREE. FAMILY SAFE.
QUEENIE FAIRCHILD FOR SENATOR.
So, Queenie Fairchild has decided to run for Senator. The human rights activist puts a real emphasis on that “human” part.
Not that I pay attention to politics, but the unrest in Boston is getting harder and harder to ignore. The rise in Humans Against Magic neighborhood watches has led to more than a few bloody beatings of mages and fae.
There would be even more if I weren't lurking around at night. I’m like the neighborhood watch for the neighborhood watch, though I prefer to call what I do a patrol. Sounds more badass.
Seeing the overt bigotry out in broad daylight makes me uneasy.
Even in the blazing heat, I open my slouchy purse, pull out a sweater and tug it on without breaking stride. It's immediately smothering hot, but I still tug the hood over my white hair.
"You okay?" Ariel asks, quirking a brow at me.
"Fine." I keep my eyes forward, my pace the same. Don't slow down. Don't look.
I look.
Queenie Fairchild is at the top of the steps. She’s immaculate. In her late forties, wearing a cream blazer, platinum hair swept back. She’s the kind of put together that takes a butt-ton of money to look effortless.
Her smile is warm. Genuinely warm. It’s the thing that always gets me about her, the thing I couldn't articulate when I was fifteen and sitting in a beige common room eating institutional oatmeal by the grace of Miss Queenie’s generous funding under a motivational poster about human power.
"—the children in our city deserve a future free from influence they didn't choose and can't control—"
The crowd hangs on her every word. My eyes immediately spot several familiar white HAM jackets. One of them catches me watching, her eyes narrowing.
If I were going to stand out so much, the least the universe could have done is grant me magic powers. Then, I'd rub them right in that lady’s face while sticking my tongue out at her.
"What's the deal?" Ariel asks, not letting it go. She reads me too well.
Or I'm too fae fucking transparent. I'm not super good at hiding my emotions. They tend to broadcast on my face like a damn billboard. That or it’s because my shoulders are hunched around my ears in my makeshift protective shell.
I pull my gaze away. "Fairchild was on the board of directors that ran the home I grew up in."
"And you don’t want her to...see you?"
I shrug, not able to explain. My past makes my skin itch and my throat close off.
Not that Queenie would recognize me. She came and schmoozed at the home a few times, got some good photos and footage for the local news to show how generous she was.
She brought us gifts at Christmas and told us how loved we all were.
Still, I shied away from being seen by the senatorial candidate. I had unsettled feelings around the circumstances of how I left the home.
What I did wasn't exactly allowed. Not that anyone would come arrest me, but I never shook the feeling I needed to keep looking over my shoulder. I never got out of the habit of keeping a low profile.
Except for the whole patrolling the night and dancing performatively on bars in a spectacle that got people to tip me generously at my job.
But for years I was poor as shit, working shitty waitress jobs from town to town to survive, lying about my age all the while. Some of that still sticks to my bones.
A beat of silence. Ariel doesn't push. That's one of the things I love about her. She knows when I don’t want her to push. She lets it sit.
We get through the crowd, and the voice fades behind us, swallowed by traffic and distance and the ordinary noise of the city going about its afternoon.
My hood stays up for another half block before I pull it down.
"For the record," Ariel says after a while, in that even tone she uses to get us back on track, "I hope you see him again. Since you can't stop thinking about him."
I glance at her.
"Whoever this guy is, he's here." She taps her temple. "Maybe it means something."
I face forward again. The Poison Apple is two blocks up, the neon-lit apple-shaped skull and crossbones already glowing. I half expected to see some of those magic protestors, or even some of the HAM assholes out front with their dumb signs, but thankfully they were all condensed at the rally.
"I probably won't see him again. How many other people in Boston deal with their insomnia by stalking the streets in the middle of the night to help anyone who might run into trouble?"
"Sounds like that’s exactly what he was doing, so I’d say your odds of seeing him again are high." She throws out an arm as if to stop everything. "Wait, did you show him your special brand of magic?"
I scoff. "He was totally unimpressed by my floating finger trick."
"What? What a loser. That trick is objectively awesome," she says with the conviction a delusional bestie has hyping up her equally delusional bestie.
"Then he told me to leave him alone."
Ariel's mouth curves. "And yet."
I can't help the evil grin from spreading across my face. "And yet."