Dark Star (7 page)

The girl Gideon had danced with moved to a table not far from us. Away from the whirl of the dance floor, I could see her clearly. Her hair was black and thick and tumbled toward her slim hips. When she turned toward us, I saw her huge dark eyes pinned on Gideon. She looked like she’d stepped out of a movie.

I nodded to Gideon. “She’s really pretty,” I said.

He grinned, quirking an eyebrow. “Jealous?”

“Desperately.” I leaned forward to drape myself across him.

“You know how I yearn for you. I bet I could take her, though. That’s the real reason I’m in martial arts—to scare away your potential girlfriends.”

He laughed, prying himself loose, and nudged me back to my seat. Then he tucked his hands behind his head and said, “I’ve always wanted girls fighting over me.”

“Hey, I already fought Hannah Starkey for you. Remember? Second grade?” I remembered. Hannah had developed a crush on Gideon and had apparently never learned about boundaries. She’d pulled down his pants at recess.

I’d pushed her off the slide.

“Ah, yes. Your early life of crime. How could I forget?” It had been something of an ordeal. The school had wanted to put me in counseling. Mom put me in martial arts, instead. To learn discipline and self-control, she said. Gideon’s parents had signed him up, as well, though he hadn’t stuck with it.

Gram, of course, had found the incident hilarious. “It worked, didn’t it?” A little too well, even; not only had Hannah never bothered Gideon again, for years she’d taken to running at the sight of us.

“Too bad you didn’t get to her before she kissed me at the water fountain.”

“Some battles, you have to fight yourself.”

Gideon looked pained. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d had to kiss her. She had terrible breath.”

I laughed. Around us, the music picked up again, and we settled in to people watch—which we were both much better at than dancing. Gideon’s girl sent one final, longing look in his direction, then turned and got up to dance with someone else. Her dark hair made a glossy wave down her back. She didn’t look again. I decided not to pester him about it. Leave it to Gideon to find the most impossibly gorgeous girl in the room and then shrug her aside. I hoped he’d find the courage to ask Brooke out some time this century, but it seemed unlikely. Tink had once threatened to do it for him, and he’d stopped speaking to her for a week.

I leaned back in my chair, gazing out into the crowd. I didn’t recognize most of the people around us, but a blond girl we’d met during our last visit to the Drought and Deluge stopped by the table to chat. Since I couldn’t remember her name, I nodded along to her conversation and let Gideon occupy her. After a while, I began to tune them out, letting my eyes wander. On the dance floor, the low lights skimmed across faces and the movement of bodies, catching at colors, here and there a slight shimmer—

A sudden awareness rippled through me, an internal alarm that made my body snap. Something was wrong, in a way I hadn’t felt since that foggy, unforgotten morning when I’d realized Gram had died.

Gideon and the nameless girl stopped talking and stared at me.

“Audrey?”

My Knowings didn’t often happen like this, but when they did, I paid attention. I paused. Focused. Listened. For just a second, the room around me went very still. I heard nothing, not even my own breath. Then, as the motion and noise and light rushed back, my frequencies abruptly cleared.

The knowledge was intense, visceral. Something about the way the light flickered. Something about that flash of color, that glimmer. I looked around the room dizzily. And then it struck me: where was Tink?

I knew it then. I should—

Go to her.

Find her.

Help her.

“Gideon—have you seen Tink?”

He shook his head. I heard him say my name, a question on his lips. I didn’t answer. I hadn’t noticed myself rise, but suddenly I was pushing through the crowd, searching. She couldn’t be that difficult to find. Short or not, a blond pixie in a bright red dress would stand out.

All at once, everything was sharp and clear: the bar, where a waitress in a tight T-shirt was snapping her gum; bouncers looking bored and scowling; the dark corners where smuggled-in beer was being drunk from plastic cups. All of this registered, settling in my senses.

And there, through the crowd: a flash of red departing.

“Tink!”

She rounded a corner. I saw the edge of her dress, a glimpse of blond hair, the light catching—and she was gone.

“Tink!”

I pushed forward. She’d vanished at the other end of the building, and the jostling, laughing throng stood between us. I moved through an obstacle course of limbs and tables and chairs. The music pulsed, a song that kept a frantic beat with my unsteady nerves. Urgency hummed in my veins. I had to reach her.

I heard a voice calling my name, but I didn’t stop. I stumbled against someone, muttered an apology, hurried onward. Dread clawed at me.

I rounded the corner where Tink had gone, and found nothing. Sudden stillness. An empty hallway arcing to the left. A light flickered overhead, across scuffed linoleum and faded green paint. Nearby, a janitor cart had been left unattended, mop handle jutting outward. There was a door marked employees only, but I dismissed that. Beyond, a neon sign with an arrow said exit. Tink had gone into the alley.

I ran.

This part of the Drought and Deluge was new to me, darker and dirtier. It was colored differently, like I’d crossed a threshold into a separate world. My footsteps sounded unnaturally loud, and there was a faint smell of bleach in the air. I pressed my hands to the exit door and stepped out into the alley.

Cool air rushed toward me.

The world was blue, shadowed and dim with the fall of night. It took me a moment to realize what I saw. At first there were only walls and pavement, the dark brick of the buildings adjacent to the club, and, somewhere nearby, the clamor of downtown traffic.

Then I saw them.

A man bent toward the ground, crouching, half-turned from me. I couldn’t see his face. But I saw the object his hands moved over: one small, slender foot, the knot of an ankle, the curve of a leg. Red fabric in his hands. Tink.

He stood, pulling Tink up with him. Her legs dangled over his arm. In the light spilling out from the open door, I could see the blood that rolled down over her feet, dripping to the ground beneath her. It wasn’t a lot of blood, but the sight of it sent a shock through me. I couldn’t tell how badly she was hurt. With her face tucked against his shoulder, I couldn’t see if she was awake.

The man turned. I didn’t recognize him. In my panicked state, I registered only disconnected features: tall frame, sandy hair, greenish eyes. I couldn’t guess his age—maybe somewhere past twenty. His shirt bore the logo of the Drought and Deluge. A troubled frown creased his brow, but smoothed as he looked at me.

“Friend of yours?” he asked, with just the slightest trace of an accent. His voice was calm, easy, but I didn’t trust it. Though a smile tugged at his lips, his eyes felt distant. “Or did the sweet night air draw you out here, as well?”

There was an edge to his words, a strange emphasis that I didn’t understand. Warily, I glanced beyond him. Save for the three of us, the alley was deserted. I wondered if anyone would hear me if I screamed.

Somehow, I found my voice. It trembled, but it was loud, echoing out into the darkness. “Let her go.”

He chuckled—a rich, low sound in the stillness around us. “I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong idea,” he said. His arms twitched, drawing Tink closer to him. Her head rested loosely against his shoulder, her hair still bright with glitter, but now I saw her face. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted, her face ashen. Worry gnawed at me. She seemed so small there, thin and fragile, and the night was very dark.

“What did you do to her?” I gripped the edge of the door, trying to ignore the way my hands shook.

“I came out for a smoke,” he said. “She’s terribly lucky I did.”

Then Leon was at my side. “Audrey,” he said, and touched my shoulder.

I’d never been so glad to hear his voice. “It’s Tink,” I whispered.

“Hey, I’m just here to help,” the man said, shifting back as Leon took a step toward him. For a moment, they looked at each other without speaking. My lungs felt heavy, my breathing labored. Everything around me was gritty, but clear. I smelled garbage and blood and something acrid like burned plastic.

The man moved forward and transferred Tink into Leon’s arms. I watched her slide between them as though she were weightless, her blood inking both of their shirts. Her head rolled back, but she was only unconscious. In the light from the Drought and Deluge, I saw the untroubled rise and fall of her chest.

“Is she all right?” I asked. I hadn’t moved. Something about the alley felt off: a quality to the darkness, as though the night had grown edges.

The man gave me a long, measuring look, and a slow smile spread across his face. “Don’t fret, angel,” he said as he strode past me. “She seems … mostly intact.”

“Get out of here,” Leon growled.

With a shrug, the man vanished into the corridor behind us.

Leon turned toward me, Tink cradled in his arms. I rushed forward, trying to remember what I’d been taught in martial arts about first aid. Airway, I thought. Airway came first. But she seemed to be breathing easily enough.

“I’ll take care of her,” Leon was saying. “Go back inside. Find Gideon. Have him take you directly home. Are you listening? Directly home.”

I shook my head, hardly hearing him. “I’m staying. Or— should we go to the ER?”

“You’re going home,” he repeated, his voice quiet but unyielding. “Don’t fight me on this.”

Incredulous, I stared up at him. “Don’t fight you? My friend is unconscious, bleeding in an alley, and you expect me to just abandon her?”

“Do you want to stand here arguing, or do you want me to help her?”

I balled my hands into fists. “I …”

“She’s going to be fine. I’m going to take care of her. But I need you to go. Home.”

Anger warred with concern. I hated the idea of leaving her— but I didn’t know how to help; I didn’t know what to do. I felt shaken, dazed. My Knowing had faded. The urgency and alarm that had drawn me outside was now only an echo, but the apprehension remained, a touch of fear crawling up and down my skin, a quiet terror that Tink wasn’t all right, that something horrible had happened to her, was still happening. I hesitated, looking down at the darkness that gathered beneath my feet.

“Go,” Leon said.

My resolve broke. With a final glance at Tink, I turned away and headed back into the club.

***

Gideon offered to stay with me until Leon arrived with news, but I wanted to be alone. I wanted to think. I’d tried to explain what had happened—my Knowing, the alley, the blood on Tink’s ankles—but I wasn’t even certain myself.

“You think someone hurt her?” Gideon asked, idling in my driveway.

“I don’t know,” I admitted, remembering the strange man with the Drought and Deluge shirt; something hadn’t seemed quite right about him. “She wasn’t gone very long.”

“And you’re sure you don’t want me to hang out?”

“I’m sure. I’ll call you later.”

Inside, in the big emptiness of my house, I listened to the silence.

The experience had shaken me in a way I couldn’t put into words. I still felt unease in my stomach, a flutter of nausea. I turned on the lights in the kitchen and stood in the yellow glare.

I didn’t know what had happened.

Tink had been dancing with me, moving in the crowd, all energy and motion. And then she’d been gone.

Or rather: I’d left her.

I shook away the thought and sat, waiting for Leon. It was too early for my mother to come home, and I thought of her out there, in the blur of night and traffic and whatever lay beneath the swirl of city lights.

Once again, Leon didn’t bother with the door. He just appeared in front of me in the kitchen, face somber, arms crossed. I blinked up at him. Though he assured me Tink was all right, my eyes drifted to the stain on his arm where her blood had dried on his shirt.

“Did she say what happened?” I asked, shifting my gaze. The sight of blood wasn’t uncommon in my household, but that stain bothered me. Twin smears, small but vivid. I swallowed thickly.

Leon’s words drew my attention back to him. “Nothing happened,” he said. “She fainted.” His tone was cool, clipped, and for a moment I simply looked at him, confused.

“She…fainted,” I repeated.

“That’s what she told me. She says she doesn’t remember much.”

“And what, she just spontaneously started bleeding?”

“There was broken glass in the alley. I think she cut herself when she fell.”

Wounds on her ankles, I thought. A slash of red. A chill ran through me. “No,” I answered, shaking my head. “Something happened out there. I felt—something.”

He snorted. “Felt the need to run out into an alley at night without telling anyone where you were going.”

Trust Leon to turn this around on me. “Tink was in trouble.”

“Then you should’ve found me.” He paused, and for the briefest of moments, something I couldn’t name crossed his face. It might have been concern, or doubt, or maybe just weariness; I wasn’t certain. Then it was gone. His eyes narrowed. “You don’t go there. Ever again.”

That got my hackles up. I knew I should just let it go. I should thank him for helping Tink, at the very least. I owed him that much. Instead, I met him glare for glare and demanded, “Don’t you ever get tired of issuing commands?”

He didn’t hesitate. “More than you know.”

“Then maybe you should stop.”

“And maybe you should start thinking. What if she had been in trouble? What could you have done?” I opened my mouth to protest, but he continued before I could speak. His expression was grim, his eyes dark and focused. “We don’t always get to choose what happens to us, Audrey. Life isn’t a game just because you treat it like one.”

His tone sent a shiver down me. There was definitely more going on here than he would admit. “You told me she fainted,” I pointed out. “You said nothing happened.”