Chapter One
The sky over Dublin had darkened from a beautiful blue to a soft, pearly gray. Natalie Rook hadn't been in the beautiful Irish city for very long, but she had been there long enough to know what that meant, and to know that she wanted to be under cover sooner rather than later.
As she scanned the people hurrying past her on the sidewalk, the twenty-four year old couldn't restrain a certain stab of envy. All of the people rushing around her had places to go and a purpose. They knew where they were sleeping that night, and what they might have for dinner. Hell, they knew that they were going to get dinner, which was a sight more than she was going to get.
She took a deep breath and waved down a passing woman who looked friendly enough. The woman paused, which was far more promising than any of the people she had been trying to accost had done recently, and Natalie felt her hopes rise a little.
"What do you need?" the woman asked, briskly, but not unkindly.
"I... I was wondering if you would let me tell your fortune?" Natalie asked, holding up her battered deck of Tarot cards. "Maybe get a little glimpse into your future, maybe something good's going to happen to you?"
The woman's face went from one of polite interest and even concern to a look of disgust.
"Just a little vagrant, aren't you?" the woman snapped. "Can be bothered to get a real job like normal hard-working folks."
She shook her head and Natalie could feel herself want to curl up on her own shame. If the woman had said something like that to her when she was just starting out in Ireland a few weeks ago, Natalie might have actually burst into tears. It was hard to remember the thin-skinned girl she had been then, all nerves and fear. Now she felt hardened, and she persisted. The woman had stopped briefly, after all.
"You're a hard sell, and there's nothing wrong with that at all," she said, and if she hadn't been so focused on getting her point across, she would have been proud of the fact that her voice didn't waver at all. The woman hadn't chased her away or stormed off, and Natalie knew that generally, the longer she could keep someone talking, the more likely it was that she would be able to make the sale—eventually.
"Is that so?" the woman said, regarding her warily. "That's what you're telling me now?"
"So, I'm suggesting that you just give me a chance," Natalie said coaxingly. "How about if I give you a half price reading? It'll be simple, but once you figure out how good I am, maybe you want to see if I can do parties? Or, maybe you have a more serious question to ask me?"
She knew that she sounded desperate, but the truth of the matter was that she was desperate. She had managed to grab a few hours of sleep at a fast food restaurant before she was chased off, and that had been hours ago. If she was really going to regroup and bounce back from this truly terrible run of luck that she was having, she was going to have to do some real hustling, and right now, thank God, it looked as if it was going to pay off.
"Really, half-price..." the woman said, almost reluctantly. If Natalie was really lucky, she would be the type who couldn't pass up a deal, no matter how strange the item was or how little she actually wanted it. She took another step towards Natalie, and another after that, and Natalie kept her face solemn because if she burst out into grateful tears, she would absolutely lose the sale.
However, the woman's eyes narrowed, and then she shook her head, walking away quickly. She said something difficult to understand underneath her breath, but Natalie was so disappointed and shocked that she didn't even hear what it really was.
"What the hell...?" Natalie started, but when she turned, she could see exactly what had scared the woman off.
Overall, Dublin felt far safer than Chicago and New York had, but there was still an element to the beautiful city that she recognized very well from her home town back in the United States.
The two figures who approached her were a little too old to be boys, a little too unformed to be men, and they dressed in clothes that were purposefully distressed and ruined. In the United States, she would have called them punks. Here, they seemed to be called ‘chavs,’ but either way, it came to the same thing. The two were walking down the sidewalk, taking up as much space as they could, laughing and talking too loudly.
Most of the time, Natalie would have simply ignored them and been ignored in her turn, but she very quickly realized that this particular pair was walking straight towards her, and she did not trust the sly looks on their faces. A quick glance around told her that people were hurrying past, deliberately cutting their eyes away so that they would not need to intervene in what came next, and too late, Natalie realized that she was in no position to make a quick getaway. All she had to defend herself with was a deck of old Tarot cards, and she started to feel very afraid.
"Hey look at that, she thinks she's telling fortunes," sneered one. He was shorter than she was but almost twice as wide. He slouched back on one leg to stare her up and down as if she were a horse that he was thinking of buying. Despite keeping her face perfectly straight, Natalie could feel a thrill of fear run up her spine.
"You think maybe she'll tell me a love fortune if I ask her nicely?" crooned his friend. This one was as skinny as a rail with half his head shaved. His clothes fluttered off of his shoulders like flags, and Natalie thought there was a good chance she weighed as much as he did even if she was a foot shorter, but this was the one who frightened her. There was something dark and deadly in his eyes, and she resisted the urge to shrink against the wall.
"Maybe she would, but I think you better ask her really nice," said the first one, and together they sauntered up to her. Natalie desperately glanced to the people who were passing by on the street. With the instinct of people who lived in large cities, they could tell that something was happening, and at the same time, they had decided that they wanted absolutely nothing to do with it at all. They avoided her glance, looking away and walking faster.
This could get very bad, Natalie thought. There was a small knife in her jacket pocket that she kept for cutting string and peeling apples, but she had a feeling that introducing a weapon to this issue could make things go sideways.
"I'm just packing up for the night, guys, I'm sorry. Maybe another time."
She started to walk past them, not fast, not slow. For a moment, she thought that she might have gotten away with it, but then she felt the skinny chav grab her shoulder and push her back to where she was. The moment he touched her, she knew that the incident had gone beyond the standard asinine catcalling and harassment that she was unfortunately used to. This was another level entirely, and she could feel her nerves ratchet upwards.
"Hey, we just want a little bit of your time," the tall one said. "Nothing too much, right? Not for a cute little American like you."
"I'm just packing up for the night guys," the other one mimicked. "Sound just like someone from the movies."
She looked around desperately, praying that someone would step in. It might not even take a lot. Punks like these two were often cowardly, bowing to any authority that presented itself. It was not authority that she could leverage, but almost anyone else could.
However, it looked as if no one was going to come to her rescue, and that meant what it always did. She was going to have to rescue herself, and even if she was very good at it by this point, she had to quell a certain rise of panic deep inside her.
"Look, I'm in no mood," she repeated, but when she tried to move from the stone wall again, their laughter was even louder.
"Oh, you don't have to be in the mood at all," said the tall one with an ugly snicker. "I don't think most of my women were ‘in the mood’ much, but they got there with a little help from me..."
He ran his tongue out of his mouth, making an obscene licking gesture at her, and any patience that Natalie had ran out.
"I said leave me the hell alone!" she shouted, making sure that her voice could carry to the people on the street. At this point, it was not about having them come help her. She had been alone far too often to think that someone was going to magically step in. Now it was about making sure that people nearby, and hopefully, in short order, the police, did not misunderstand her position.
The shorter chav looked taken aback by her shout, and she wondered if it was just a game to him, something that no one should take seriously. The other one, however, lost the smile entirely and grabbed her by the wrist.
"I been asking you polite and all," he snarled. "Maybe you would like it if I asked sorta mean? Is that what American girls like?"
She responded by giving him a hard shove on the chest, not hard enough to push him on his rear unfortunately, but hard enough to push him back, and that was enough for her.
Natalie dashed between them, and for a moment, she thought that she would be able to cut down the street and be safe. Then she nearly ran flat into the other chav, and almost in surprise, his arms came around her, holding her still after a moment of shock.
"Bloody cow," said the other, recovering. "Come on, bring her here."
No matter where here was, she knew that it was no place that she wanted to go. She started to kick and shout, trying to get attention.
It was strange how time slowed down. She felt as if her senses were turned up past ten. She could feel the way the air had cooled down drastically, she could feel a single chilly drop of rain fall down on her arm. She could feel how strong both of the men trying to grab her were, and even as she was struggling, digging her nails in and shouting around the hand one had clasped over her mouth, she knew that it was far too late, that she would have to deal with whatever terrible thing they had in store for her.
Then she heard the one who was not holding her give a terrified yelp, and then everything was happening in real time again.