Iced
Lor’s in front of it, arms folded over his chest. “Boss didn’t say you could leave.”
“I didn’t say your boss could boink Jo,” I say real calm-like, but inside I’m seething. I don’t know why I feel so betrayed. Why do I care? They’re grown-ups. Grown-ups never make sense. Jo doesn’t even like him. And I know he doesn’t give a shit about Jo.
“Honey, boss don’t ask nobody who he fucks.”
“Well, he ain’t going to do Jo again. Get out of my way. Move.” I’m going to tell her I’m never talking to her if she has sex with him ever again. I’ll make her choose and she’ll choose me.
“So you can start some shit?”
“Yep.” I don’t even try to deny it. I’m ready to knock heads and I’m not going to feel better until I make somebody else as miserable as I am.
He looks down at me. I slant my jaw at a jauntier angle, and I can tell he’s trying not to laugh.
“What? You think I’m funny?” I’m so sick of people smiling at me like that. My hand goes to the hilt of my sword. It closes on his hand. They’re all faster than me. “I’m not funny. I’m dangerous. You just wait and see. I’m not full grown yet, but when I am, I’m going to kick your ass from one end of Chester’s to the other. You just wait and see.”
He lets go of my sword and moves out of my way, laughing. “Go ahead, kid. Raise some hell. Been boring around here lately.”
On my way out the door I decide maybe I could like Lor. He lives in color, too.
When I blow past Ryodan’s office, I think I feel a breeze and spin around real fast, ready to fight him if I have to, but nobody’s there. I shake my head and bounce down the stairs, freeze-framing sideways in between steps because I have so much energy this morning, checking out the dance floor as I go. It’s packed and the place is rocking. Looks like I either didn’t sleep long or I slept a whole day until the next night, because there’s Jo, waiting tables in the kiddie subclub, looking all long-legged and … Geez! I squint over the railing at her. Happy. She’s, like, glowing! What does she think? That this is some kind of fairy tale she’s living? It ain’t. These fairies maim and kill, and the dude she’s having sex with lets them. How can she glow about that? There wasn’t even any romance or anything. Just … Gah! I don’t even want to think about it. I can’t scrape that memory off the inside of my skull fast enough!
I freeze-frame through the club, hyperfast, knocking folks out of my way left and right. Hearing grunts all around makes me feel better ’bout stuff.
When I stop in front of her, she looks startled then mad. What the feck does she have to be mad at me about?
She removes the last drink from her tray, sits it on a napkin in front of a Rhino-boy then holds the tray to her chest, her arms around it like it’s a shield or something.
“Traitor.”
“Dani, don’t do this. Not here. Not now.”
“You did that up there,” I say, flinging my arm up toward Ryodan’s office, “without worrying for one tiny little sec about my here and now. The whole time I was practically dying, you were having sex two doors down with the dude you came to rescue me from. From his dungeon. Like, where he was holding me prisoner. Remember?”
“It’s not like that.”
“What? I wasn’t in the dungeon? Or you didn’t come to rescue me from him? Don’t tell me you weren’t having sex. I saw what I saw.”
“I didn’t believe he’d hurt you and he didn’t. He didn’t hurt either of us.”
“He’s got us both working like dogs for him! You’re waiting on Fae, and I’m running around on his fecking leash! He feeds people to the Fae, Jo. He kills them!”
“He does not. He runs a club. It’s not his fault if people want to die. What is he supposed to do? Talk them out of it? Start a Chester’s counseling service? What do you expect of him, Dani?”
I stare at her in disbelief. “You’ve got to fecking be kidding me! You’re going to defend him? Stockholm syndrome much, Jo?” I mock.
She moves to an empty table and begins to clear it, stacking dirty dishes on her tray. It makes me madder that she’s cleaning up after these monsters. Doubly mad that she looks so good doing it. Jo’s making herself prettier. I don’t understand it. She used to be perfectly happy wearing jeans and a T-shirt and no makeup and just hanging with the girls. We had pj parties and watched movies. Now she’s all superglam Jo. I hate it.
“I thought you didn’t know what that was.”
“I looked it up and, dude, you got it bad. You’re letting him screw you every which way. How long do you think it’s going to last? You think he’s going to bring you flowers? You think you’re going to, like, go steady with the owner of Chester’s?”
She stacks a small tower of glasses on her tray and gives me an exasperated look. “Can we just not do this right now?”
“Sure. If you tell me you’ll never have sex with him again, I’ll go away. Right now. End of conversation.”
Her mouth tightens. As she wipes the table off with a damp cloth, she glances up at his office. It pisses me off how soft her face goes when she looks up. The tension fades and she looks like a woman in love. I hate it. I hate him.
She looks back at me.
“No, Dani. I won’t. And stay out of this. It’s none of your business. This is grown-up stuff between grown-ups.” She turns away and heads for the bar with her cluttered tray. Distantly I hear Fae calling orders, trying to get her attention, but I don’t care. I want her attention.