11 Poison Promise (13 page)

“Gin?” Owen asked.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I said, lying through my teeth. “I should let Bria handle this one.”

We talked for a few more minutes. Owen promised to come by the Pork Pit for lunch tomorrow, and I told
him how much I appreciated him letting me vent. Then we hung up.

I tossed my phone down onto the coffee table, making the fork rattle on my empty plate. I stared at the fork, then at the runes on the mantel, then back at the fork.

What the hell. I went and got a third piece of cheesecake.

•  •  •

Sometime between polishing off my latest round of dessert and watching some mindless TV, I fell asleep on the couch.

The dreams started soon after that.

My dreams were more than weird, random images strung together—they were memories of all the bad things I’d seen, done, and survived. Most nights, I dreamed of the jobs I’d gone on as the Spider, the people who’d tried to murder me, and all the ones I’d killed in return. But tonight was a real blast from my past, back before I’d met Fletcher, back when I’d just started living on the streets and didn’t know how I was going to make it from one day to the next . . .

I was so
hungry.

Hungrier than I’d ever been before in my
entire life.
So hungry that I was actually considering eating the withered brown apple I’d plucked out of the Dumpster behind this dive bar in Southtown. I didn’t know why there was an apple in the trash outside a gin joint, but it was the only thing I’d been able to find today that was even remotely edible.

Despite the constant grumbles in my stomach urging me on, I still held the apple out with two fingers, as if it might bite me like the rats that lived in the alleys sometimes did.
I turned the fruit this way and that, carefully scrutinizing every single part of it.

It only had two bites taken out of it. Most of it was still good. That’s what I told myself. And really, I was too hungry to care how long it had been rotting in the Dumpster, what kind of germs it had on it, or how sick it might make me. Most nights, I just wanted to go to sleep in some dark alley and never wake up. If the apple killed me, well, maybe that would be for the best.

So I sank my teeth deep into the fruit, trying to tell myself that the bitter, sour taste was normal—natural, even. But it didn’t stop me from devouring the whole thing. All too soon, the apple was gone, and I was left with nothing but a rotten core.

And I was
still
hungry.

Sighing, I tossed the core behind some trash cans for the rats to fight over, then turned back to the Dumpster and stood on my tiptoes so I could peer over the side and see if there was anything else lurking in the dark, damp corners that I’d missed. And not just food. Even though it was September, the nights were getting colder and colder, and I’d quickly learned that wrapping a few newspapers around your body was better than letting the wind whistle down the alleys and sink into your clothes. But I’d lost my stash of papers to a bum a few alleys over. Apparently, I’d been sleeping in his spot, over this sewer grate that blew up warm air, and he didn’t like it. My ribs still ached from where he’d kicked me awake this morning, and I could still feel his dirty hands and sharp nails ripping the papers off my body so he could clutch them to his own sunken, shriveled chest.

After that, I’d started running, and I hadn’t stopped until
I couldn’t run anymore, which was how I’d wound up in this alley, scrounging for food yet again—

“What do you mean, you’re finished?” an angry male voice called out.

“I mean I’m
finished.
You got what you paid for. You want something else, you pay for it up front. Those are the rules, pal,” a younger, feminine voice snarked back.

I hunkered down beside the Dumpster and peered around the side. Two people stalked into the alley. One was a middle-aged man wearing a cheap suit, with a bad comb-over and a big, round belly that made it look like he’d swallowed a basketball. The other was a thin girl with teased bright crimson hair, a silver sequined tank top, and silver shorts that were way too short and tight, given the cool fall breeze. The girl wasn’t that much older than me, maybe fifteen or sixteen, despite the heavy makeup that rimmed her brown eyes.

“I told you that I’m good for the money,” the guy pleaded, scurrying along beside the girl, who was walking fast, despite the strappy silver stilettos on her feet.

“Sure you are, hon,” she snarked again. “Just like all my other
special friends.”

“Well, if you won’t give it to me, then I’ll just take what I want,” he snarled.

He reached out and shoved her up against the wall.

“Hey!” the girl shouted, slapping her hands across his face and chest. “Let go, loser!”

But he was stronger than she was, and I knew what was going to happen next. I’d seen it happen before to other girls in other alleys. Guys too. I should have slipped away while I could, before the man spotted me, but I couldn’t ignore the way his hands tore at her skimpy clothes like the bum’s had
done to mine this morning. And suddenly, I was more angry than scared.

Before I even really knew what I was doing, I grabbed an empty beer bottle from beside the Dumpster, darted across the alley, and smashed it down on top of the guy’s head. He growled as the glass shattered and sliced into his skull, but he whirled around to face me.

“You little bitch!” he yelled. “You’ll pay for that!”

He reached for me, but I lashed out with the broken end of the bottle. It was a wild swing, but I got lucky, and the glass cut through his jacket and shirt and sliced a jagged gash all the way up his forearm. Blood spewed everywhere, the coppery scent overpowering the stench of garbage in the alley, but strangely, I wasn’t afraid. It actually felt . . .
good
to do
something
other than run away.

“You little bitch!” the man hissed. “You cut me!”

He staggered forward, but the other girl stuck her foot out, tripping him, and he fell onto his hands and knees.

“Run!” the girl yelled, grabbing my hand and pulling me along behind her. “Run!”

So we ran and ran and ran, ending up in another alley four blocks over before we collapsed on top of the steps that led up to the bright, glossy, crimson-painted back door of a ratty-looking apartment building. I put my hands on my knees, sucking down giant gulps of air, but the girl started pacing around me, grinning from ear to ear.

She laughed and threw her hands out wide. “That was awesome! I loved the look on that guy’s face when you cut him. Son of a bitch wasn’t even going to pay for it. He deserved that—and more.”

She spat onto the cracked asphalt before facing me again.
“You know, you were pretty good with that bottle. You done that before?”

I glanced down and realized that I was still clutching the neck of the broken beer bottle—and that the man’s blood was all over my hand. I dropped the glass and kicked it away, sending it skittering down the alley. I grabbed the end of the red-and-black plaid flannel shirt I’d swiped off a Southtown clothesline a few days ago and used it to wipe the blood off my hand, wincing as I rubbed the raw, red skin of my palm.

The girl frowned. “What’s wrong with your hand? What’s that mark on it?”

My fingers curled into a fist, hiding the silverstone spider rune that had been branded into my palm. “Nothing. I just burned myself a while back.”

“Oh, okay. Well, I’m Coral,” she said. “What’s your name?”

I shrugged, instead of answering her. I knew better than to tell anyone that my name was Genevieve Snow. If the Fire elemental who’d murdered my family ever found out that I was still alive, she’d come and kill me too. I just
knew
she would.

Coral eyed me, taking in the long floppy shirt that covered the three mismatched T-shirts I had on underneath, the gray cargo pants I’d tied around my waist with string from a kid’s discarded kite, and the tattered too-big sneakers I’d stolen from a yard-sale table when no one was looking. The dirt and grime of living on the streets were smeared all over my face and hands, with even more matted in my dark brown hair. I hadn’t had a shower in more than a week, and I smelled even worse than I looked.

Still, Coral’s gaze took on an almost speculative look, as
if she could see through the layers of grungy clothes and filth to the person I used to be. The nice, quiet girl with plenty of food and clothes and a family that loved her.

“You hungry?” she asked. “You want some food?”

She said the magic word, and a loud, demanding rumble erupted from my stomach, answering her question.

Coral laughed. “Come on, kid. Let’s get you a hot meal and get you cleaned up.”

She drew a key out of the pocket of her silver short-shorts, slid it into the crimson door, and opened it. Coral crooked her finger at me. I bit my lip, hesitating, knowing that it was dangerous going anywhere with a stranger, no matter how nice she seemed. But I didn’t have anywhere else to go, and I had absolutely nothing to eat, so I followed her inside, into the shadows, letting the door bang shut behind me . . .

I woke up with a gasp, the sound of that long-ago door slamming rousing me out of my dream. For once, I didn’t sit bolt upright or thrash around. Instead, I lay there on the couch, my head twisted at an awkward angle, staring at the rune drawings on the fireplace mantel. I sighed, and some of the tension left me, even if the memories didn’t.

They would never, ever do that.

I untwisted my neck and swung my feet over the side of the couch, sitting upright. I scrubbed my hands over my face, then stared down at the scars branded into my palms. A small circle surrounded by eight thin rays. My spider rune. The symbol for patience.

Something I had run out of a long time ago when it came to my memories. But ever since Fletcher had been murdered, they’d just kept coming and coming, reminding
me of so many things in my past that I would rather forget. But the nightmares had been getting worse, the dreams more frequent, violent, and vivid, the closer it got to my birthday. They were so bad that I would sometimes have odd little daydreams about them, flashing back to whatever bad thing was buried in my subconscious at any given moment, even when I was wide awake. Like seeing Fletcher’s blood on the floor of the college yesterday.

Like I’d told Owen, this wasn’t my favorite time of year. Not by a long shot. But I’d get through it, the way I had everything else.

So I sighed again, turned off the TV, and went upstairs to bed, even if I knew that sleep would be a long, long time coming tonight.

10

The next morning, I got up, drove downtown, and opened up the Pork Pit right on schedule, as though it were just another day and nothing noteworthy at all had happened last night.

And Catalina did the same.

She showed up a few minutes before eleven to work her shift, just as she’d told me she would. She gave me a grim smile when she stepped inside the restaurant, before quickly lowering her eyes, pushing through the double doors, and heading into the back. Several minutes later, she reappeared, wearing a blue work apron over her jeans and long-sleeved white T-shirt. She stopped at the opposite end of the counter from me and started rolling silverware and straws into napkins.

It was the same thing she always did when she first started her shift, but her movements were slow and clumsy today, her fingers fumbling with the napkins
like they were made out of butter, instead of paper. Her shoulders slumped forward, and her soft, subtle makeup couldn’t hide the tired slant of her mouth and the faint pallor that dulled her bronze skin. Looked like I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t gotten much sleep last night.

A fork slipped out of her hand and clattered to the floor, breaking the quiet. Catalina let out a soft curse, stooped to pick it up, and tossed it into one of the plastic gray tubs we used for dirty dishes. Normally, she would glance in my direction, smile, and make some joke, but instead, she concentrated on the silverware and napkins again, hunching over the counter so that her black hair hung over her face like a curtain, hiding her tense, exhausted features from my sight.