“You don’t need him dead. You know you—”
“Aye? You gimme the tell, then, what it is I’m needing. Seems to me I recall makin the offer he come on working for me, I did, and he gave me the nay on that one. Knew what were on when he done it, too. Maybe oughta be givin the chatter to he now, aye?”
“Don’t fucking pass—”
“Aw, fuck this.” He stabbed out his smoke and stood up, crossed the few steps to stand in front of her. “Ain’t having this chatter with you, I ain’t. An ain’t callin no shit off, neither. Told you an he both I got plans, I do.”
She met his glare with one of her own. “Right. Such great fucking plans you need to use me to carry them out.”
She had him with that one. She had him, and she knew she had him because he smiled a too-casual smile. “Aw, I dig it. You all on the angry side causen it you putting the danger on, Tulip. Ain’t me. Be you. An ain’t that a low-bone?”
So much for having him. “This is not me doing this.”
“Oh? You sure on that one?” His smile changed, just enough so her heart gave a tiny jerk in her chest. She knew that smile. Knew the look in his eyes, too.
The urge to take a step back was almost overwhelming. She refused to do it. No. No fucking way would she let him see that he was affecting her, even the tiniest bit. She would stand her ground. “I didn’t hire somebody to kill him.”
“Oh nay, nay, you sure ain’t done that one. But what was it you did? Aw, right, I gots the memory now, I do. You was spending you nights over on here with me, aye, an playin like you wasn’t to he. Aye? That one were it, weren’t it?”
Had he gotten closer to her? “That’s not—”
“Thinkin it is, I am. Thinkin all them nights we had ourselves a damn good time over here—ain’t we, Tulip?—you letting Terrible have himself the belief you all alone in you own little bed, aye?”
His eyes loomed over her, bigger than they should be. Yeah, he was definitely getting closer; she smelled the faint spiciness of his skin and the alcohol on his breath. People said you couldn’t smell vodka. They were wrong.
Looking like a pussy sucked, but her only other option was to stand there and let him kiss her. Because that was definitely what he looked like he was getting ready to do, and knowing she wasn’t exactly available for kissing didn’t matter a damn bit to him. If anything it would make it more fun for him; it always had, hadn’t it?
So she took a step backward, then another, subtle steps that she hoped seemed casual. Mistake. It only seemed to egg him on, and somehow she’d let him maneuver her so her back was almost to the wall.
“Guessing he thought something on between you and him—maybe even there was, aye? Seems to me he playing awful damn mad in that death-yard he finding us on that night. Like maybe thinking had heself the right to be so mad.”
This was not good. Not good, really not fucking good. Her heart hammered in her chest as if it was trying to take flight. As if it was trying to escape. She’d never seen Lex like this before.
Well, no, that wasn’t entirely true. She’d seen Lex like this before. More times than she cared to count, she’d seen Lex like this.
She just didn’t remember him being this … “insolent” was the only word she could think of. Insolent. He was trying to get to her, not just because he wanted to turn her on but because there was some kind of point to be made by doing so. Because he had some kind of point to make to her. About her.
And, shit, she was afraid he was making it, because her eyes stung and her chest ached, and because no matter how much she didn’t want it to, her stomach was tingling—her stomach and everything below it—and her lungs refused to expand enough to let her take a deep breath. No. What he was saying wasn’t … It was true but he wasn’t getting it right, he—
No. He had it exactly right. He had her exactly right.
“So now … now you here all pissed up at me, aye, only maybe I ain’t the one deserving it. Maybe you gots youself all meaned up causen you the one sold him out at the start, aye? An causen you know you keep on doing it.”
“Fuck you, Lex.”
“Ain’t that why you here, Tulip?” His fingers touched her hair; she was flat against the wall now, with her only option for escape being to duck down and spin away. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
At least, fuck, she wanted to believe that was why she wasn’t moving. Please, please let that be it and not because she wanted him to do what he was about to do, not because she saw the flames and wanted to shove her hand into them because she deserved to burn. Not because all she was really doing with Terrible was destroying him right along with herself, and whatever sick fucking part of her it was that enjoyed that shit saw a way to do it even faster.
“Giving me the tell you here causen you want me leaving Terrible alone. Coulda called me with that one, you could. Coulda told Blue on me—you ain’t done that, noticing. Why come?”
“I—”
“You here causen you got the thought you oughta be, Tulip, and causen you like it. Causen you wanting pretend you ain’t who you is, wanting pretend you got it in you be all straight and solid an all. Aye? Only you ain’t can be.”
How was it possible for her mouth to be bone-dry but watering at the same time? She swallowed; it seemed like her voice went down her throat, too, because when she spoke it barely made a dent in the thick silence. “That’s—”
“Iffen you could be, you ain’t woulda come here. Ain’t even woulda kept me on you speed dial. Never had the thought you the kinda girl tells herself lies, I ain’t. Maybe all them others, but not youself. So why you keep tryin it now?”
He had her. He had her, and he knew it. And yeah, he was enjoying it but maybe not as much as she’d originally thought. Something lurked there behind the pleasure in his eyes—the pleasure and that other thing drowning her with every breath she took. Frustration, maybe. Anger. Curiosity?
She tried one more time, tried in the most pitiful way she could. “I love him, Lex.”
“Aye, sure you do.” His fingers brushed her cheek, slid into her hair to curl around the back of her neck. “Too bad it ain’t in you to make that mean shit.”
And his mouth fell on hers.
She didn’t want to respond. Especially not when his words, when that fucking cruelty he’d handed to her as casually as a fucking cigarette, reverberated in her head and her chest, vibrated through her body.
But she did respond. She responded because he was right, because she wasn’t good enough, because her presence in that room was evidence enough of that even before she grabbed him with arms that hurt—even before she grabbed the flame and yanked it closer to her because that pain wasn’t enough.
He was right. He was right, he was right, she couldn’t do it. Who the fuck had she been kidding, thinking she could have a real relationship, that she could be true to someone, that she could not fuck someone over, not destroy them. Who the fuck had she been kidding, thinking loving someone with every fucking thing she had, with every … every part of her, her entire soul, was enough?
Everything she had and everything she was didn’t equal shit. Even if her soul was quadrupled on top of the pile. And that hurt so much she couldn’t stand it.
So she let Lex slide his hands down her back so one could slip between her legs from behind while the other grabbed her hip and pulled her closer. So she squeezed her eyes shut in a vain attempt to stop the stinging and fought back the sounds that wanted to escape from her throat as she kissed him harder; she didn’t know for sure what they were, if they were sobs or gasps or what, and she didn’t care.
So she let him use her.
Maybe at least if Lex was using her—if she was using him—she would finally stop hurting Terrible. Maybe she could finally stop waiting; not for him to leave her but for her to admit she couldn’t do it, that the Chess he saw wasn’t the one that really existed. That she’d almost died the night before and only cared because of what that would have done to hi
m, and part of her hated him for that obligation. That she couldn’t stand having him love her, because it forced her to try to be better than she was.
It was so hot in that room, so hot and small, the walls shrinking around them to press them closer together. She’d suffocate. She’d suffocate and she’d die, and that would be fine because she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t be good. She couldn’t be the person Terrible needed her to be. The person he deserved. Fuck, Lex was right, wasn’t he? Why else was she there, why else was she letting him kiss her neck, why else was she letting him open the top button of her jeans and pull her toward his bed?
She didn’t want him. Well, no, she wanted him, she couldn’t help wanting him, because every inch of her skin remembered those nights they’d spent together. She wanted him but she didn’t want to want him, and her body warred with itself, and that felt right because that was what she knew, that confusion between knowing something was wrong, knowing it was awful, but knowing that it felt good and she wanted it when she shouldn’t. Trapped.
Trapped like she always had been by her weak body and her weak soul and the fact that she was filthy and sick and wrong. Terrible loved her and she didn’t deserve that, and now she was proving how little she deserved it, because she couldn’t stand expecting better from herself.
Lex’s fingertips slipped below the waistband of her jeans, opening the fly further so he could start pushing them down, and something snapped. No. No, this was wrong, not just wrong because it was wrong but wrong because it was wrong. The body against hers was smooth instead of hairy, wiry instead of brawny; it smelled wrong and it felt wrong, and it wasn’t what she wanted—wasn’t who she wanted. It wasn’t Terrible’s. And she could choose not to do this.
She could try to be what she should be.
“No,” she mumbled. It was harder to do than it should have been with her tongue wrapped around his. “Lex, wait.…”
“Shit, Tulip.” He had her jeans halfway down over her ass now, his fingers digging into her flesh. “Ain’t matter, we ain’t never gotta say on it, be our secret, aye? Ain’t—”
“No!” Somehow she found the strength to push him away, to force the words out. “No, Lex, I don’t, I don’t want to. I don’t want to do this.”
The haze in his eyes cleared slightly; his chest heaved as badly as hers did. “Aye, you do.”
She guessed she couldn’t argue that one. “But I’m not going to.”
He stood there staring at her, with his jeans hanging open at the waist and his Crimpshrine T-shirt bunched up and caught on the button. She tried not to notice, especially not when cool air touched her bare hips because her own jeans were still halfway down them. So close. She’d come so fucking close to throwing everything away.
Maybe she had, anyway. What the fuck was she going to do? Tell Terrible she’d let Lex kiss her because she knew Terrible was wasting his time with her? Fuck.
She fastened her jeans with shaking hands. “I meant what I said. About calling him off.”
He shrugged. “An I did, too.”
Great. Just fucking great. So what had she done, what had she accomplished? She’d gone to Lex’s place to make some kind of fucking stand and had succeeded in not only failing to get him to agree to do anything she wanted but in almost letting him get her into his bed again.
Chess Putnam, ace problem solver. For fuck’s sake. She needed to get out of there immediately. She needed to get high immediately. She needed— Well, she needed a lot of things. At least two of them she could have right away, although she couldn’t imagine how willing Terrible would be to even look at her after he heard what had happened.
Of course, she could just not tell him.…
“Got any else you wanting to give me, or what?”
As if she hadn’t given him more than enough.
The thought popped into her head that he might agree to do what she wanted if she did what he wanted. That she could offer him that deal, and he might very well take it. It would make her a whore, yeah, but … but it would be worth it if it meant Terrible lived.
He’d hate her for it when he found out. And he would find out; he would know. She wouldn’t be able to hide it.
But that might be worth it, too.
Lex shook his head. “Ain’t changin my thoughts, Tulip. Not even for that one.”
She blinked. “I didn’t—”
“Nay, you ain’t, but you was having the thought, you was. You forgetting, got me some knowledge of you, aye?”
What could she say to that? Nothing. Shit. Not only had she made herself a whore by even contemplating that deal but he’d turned her down, thus making her an unsuccessful whore.
Cold spread through her chest, through her body. Such awful cold, the kind of cold so deep it hurt. The kind she didn’t think anything would warm. That was it, then.
She didn’t say anything else. There wasn’t anything else to say. She grabbed her bag from the floor and left—ran, really. The sounds of the TV blaring in the other room, reminding her that Lex hadn’t even been alone when she got there, got louder and louder until she wanted to scream from the noise echoing in her head. All those old familiar voices and a new one: Too bad it ain’t in you to make that mean shit.
She barely managed to make it back to her car before she started to cry.
She needed to see him. It probably wasn’t a good idea to see him, not when her hands still shook as she lit herself a cigarette and even after her second shower of the night she felt deception clinging to her skin, a stain she couldn’t wash off.
No, she hadn’t gone to Lex’s place hoping he’d kiss her. She didn’t think so. She hadn’t been aware of wanting him to do it, at least. But what the fuck did that matter?
It didn’t, not really. It had happened. She couldn’t make it un-happen. She had to live with it, shove it down deep inside her where all the shit went, that place so overflowing with it that she thought one of these days she’d die choking on it. And if it weren’t for the fact that death meant the cold, merciless horror of the City of Eternity, that wouldn’t be such a bad damn thing, either.
It was too hot outside, even at midnight when the streets were starting to fill with people. She threw on a denim skirt, shoved her bare feet into her Chucks, and headed for the Market. Terrible would be there; he hadn’t replied yet to her text but she knew he’d be around there somewhere, probably at Bump’s place right off it, maybe closer to the pipe room, but there, collecting debts and keeping an eye on things.
She stopped at Edsel’s booth first, as the pills she’d taken before leaving her place started to hit. He was breaking down his booth early, his skin an almost eerie luminescent orange in the torchlight providing the only illumination; he’d already switched off the string of little bulbs he hooked up with an oil generator to show off his products.
“Hey, baby,” he said. Was it the light, or did his smile not seem as wide as usual? Did his eyes dart from side to side as if he expected her to have someone lurking behind her? Terrible, maybe?
Which meant she probably already knew the answer to her question, but she asked it anyway. “Seen Terrible?”
Sure enough, he shook his head. “Were hopin he’d be on there behind you. Heard he around breakin heself some bones, sure, but he ain’t come by say hiya or nothin.”
That might explain why he hadn’t texted her back yet, at least, if he was busy. “Okay, well— Wait, you were hoping?”
Yeah, something was definitely wrong. Edsel’s ice-blue eyes shifted again. “Got some knowledge for him, thinkin. You call him up, tell him bring heself over here?”
“Yeah, sure, I—I can pass the message on, you know, if you want to—”
Someone stepped up to his counter, cutting her off as if she wasn’t even there. “Got any cat bones?”
Edsel looked at her, looked at his new customer. Or customer-to-be, at least. Exhaustion and the necessity for income warred on his face for a few seconds before he nodded. “Aye, gots em here.”
/>
Chess turned to glance around the Market, looking for Terrible. No, she wouldn’t see him over some of the booths, but they weren’t all that tall. He had to be around somewhere, if Edsel had been told he was, if Edsel had been asking around.
People walked past her and it felt like they were staring, accusing her; she felt naked in front of them, sick and sad and all those feelings the pills were supposed to chase away. Their casual glances made her itch; their imagined hostility—or, hell, some of them were genuinely hostile, this was Downside, after all—made her tattoos tingle, because she was sure they knew what she’d done.
Another check of her phone showed no reply. Shit. Had he— He couldn’t have heard she’d gone to see Lex, couldn’t know what had happened already, could he? And decided to dump her without another word?
She bit her lip, bit back the panic threatening to build. No. Not unless Lex had called him the minute she left, sent an emissary over to find him and tell him. And Lex wouldn’t be that cruel. Or stupid. He knew the only reason Terrible hadn’t killed him was her; because he’d helped save her life the night the Lamaru had gotten hold of her, and because she’d asked Terrible not to. Lex had to know that if Terrible was done with her, he himself would be done living very soon after. Lex wasn’t that damn hard to find; he couldn’t hide from Terrible forever. No one could. No one ever had.
Of course, if Terrible had found out about her going to see Lex, on top of what happened the night before … Yeah, she could see him deciding that was enough. If she wasn’t almost dying on him, she was sneaking over to his enemy’s house the second he left her place. Great. She was terrific at this whole girlfriend thing, wasn’t she?
Shit. If she were Terrible, she would have gotten sick of herself already. But then if she were Terrible, she never would have given herself another chance to begin with. Never would have fallen in love with herself to begin with, not if she could help it.
That was the problem with love, though, wasn’t it. It couldn’t be helped, couldn’t be controlled. It just roared in and took whatever it wanted, destroyed whatever it wanted; the most dangerous addiction of all, because nobody survived it intact.