EIGHTEEN
DETERMINATION WAS APPARENTLY MY GAME. After that night, I stalked local businesses for the items we would need to get electricity at our place.
A generator.
Extension cords.
The works.
I wasn’t usually one to steal things I didn’t need—always putting wants behind the necessities—but this was different. Everyone should experience the joys of entertainment in their life because without those things, you are only surviving.
I wanted to live.
Also, we had nearly frozen to death the winter before. Even wrapped in all the blankets we could find while burning anything we could in a large burn barrel we had snagged.
That wasn’t going to happen again. We wouldn’t survive. If it was the last thing I did, I’d find us a way to generate some heat. My fingers and toes depended on it.
So after casing a few places, I convinced a local kid to help me steal a generator from a Chinese restaurant around the corner from our place for the last ten bucks I had in my pocket from pawning Jane’s grandmother’s ring.
He was an obvious tweaker—his eyes wide and red and his hands shaking for his next fix—and I knew he would do anything for his next hit.
It worked out.
I had the manpower I needed to drag that heavy son of a bitch home, and he had enough money in his pocket to get his high that night.
“Holy shit!” Vick exclaimed when I turned on a light for the first time. “This is amazing!”
I laughed as she turned a lamp I had snagged on and off with a wide grin on her face.
Electricity.
Light.
Such a normal thing to have and this girl was flipping out because she wouldn’t have to use candles anymore. We would have to make sure we had plenty of gasoline to keep the thing running, but that was fine by me. We only needed light at night, and we only needed heat on occasion.
A source of heat was next on my list.
I had cleaned the area around the building we made a home and checked to make sure the place was secure. I didn’t want to wake in the middle of the night to find some crazy fuck standing over me. If we had found shelter in the building, I was positive someone else would try to at some point, and we needed to protect ourselves.
Thankfully, we hadn’t had that problem yet, but I wanted to make sure to cover all our bases.
Burning the brush I’d cleared to get heat was no longer an option since it was gone, but I knew I would come up with something. If I could steal a generator, stealing a heater should be cake.
“I can’t believe you did this, Sebastian,” Vick whispered with emotion in her eyes.
I looked away since emotion wasn’t something we ever showed. She was hard as stone, and so was I. We didn’t need to go getting soft now, not when things were slowly looking up.
“Well, there’s more to come. I promised things would get better, and I always keep my promises.”
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to keep that promise.
A week later, we celebrated Vick’s birthday the weekend before the actual day. We dined and dashed at a seafood restaurant since she was determined to try lobster, and then we managed a few cheap bottles of vodka and drank and laughed on the corner under Graffiti Bridge.
Street kids left their stories there, marking their madness with spray paint and sadness under a broken, unused bridge on the edge of the city. Vibrant colors swirled as pictures depicting life, love, and sorrow played out around us. Names in thick unique fonts stood out, naming those who had been in the same predicament as us—homeless, alone, and taking on New York City.
“We need to leave our mark on this place,” she slurred, lying back on the dirty concrete and staring up at the artwork plastered on every available surface.
“Next time, we’ll bring paint.”
“Yeah, you can draw your Jessica Rabbit everywhere.” She laughed.
I snorted. “Yep. Except I draw for shit.”
She turned on her side, facing me with a smile. “Is Sebastian actually admitting that he sucks at something? No fucking way.”
I pushed at her shoulder, rolling my eyes, and took a swig from my bottle. The burning liquid somehow warmed me from the inside out.
“I’m great at everything I do.” I chuckled.
“Yeah, right.”
Silence moved over us as we stared at the cracking concrete above us.
“Sebastian?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s your last name?”
I knew my last name, but for some reason, it had never held any meaning to me since I had no family to hold that name with me.
I wasn’t even sure how I had gotten the name or where it had come from. And at that moment, as her question bounced around my brain, hitting all the receptors and triggering terrible memories of my life, I knew I had to drop Stephens.
One day, I would make my own name. Something that belonged to me and only me. A name that matched me as a person and the life I had led since I had no family name to claim.
“I don’t have a last name,” I muttered, swallowing more of the burning liquid.
She sighed.
“Yeah. Me either.”
Vick was my friend, and somehow, she was slowly becoming like family, but I wasn’t about to hold on to her. I had lost every person I had ever dared to love, and something told me the second I claimed a connection with Vick, I would lose her, too.
“This shit is depressing. Let’s do something fun,” she said, standing and throwing her bottle at the colorful concrete wall at her side.
The bottle exploded, shattering into bits of glass before falling to the ground.
I stood and brushed off my ripped jeans.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Something exciting.”
I could see the wheels working in her mind then I watched as her eyes went wide and she grinned.
“I got it,” she said, pulling on my hand and dragging me along with her. “I think it’s time I learn all about this Jessica Rabbit.”
I laughed. “Oh yeah, and how’s that going to happen?”
After emptying my bottle, I threw mine against the wall as we passed; it shattered like hers had before glittering to the ground.
“With a TV and a DVD player, of course.”
“And where are we going to get those?”
I had a feeling I knew the answer, but I asked anyway.
She turned and faced me, her smile growing evil and determined.
“The same way we get everything we have. We’re going to take them.”