My phone buzzes again, and I force myself to check the notification.Prudence.
Costume acquired. sinner chic inbound.[A skull emoji. A knife.]
I swallow a smile.
“Seven,” I tell Casey-Not-Casey as I stand. “You need to leave by then. Try not to steal anything while I’m gone.”
“I don’t steal,” he says. “I claim.” His gaze takes my face first, then the rest, a slow audit. “And I wait for what’s mine.”
A shiver takes me. I turn and walk swiftly away after one final, uncertain nod.
The doors let the cold in as I step out into the blue hour. Campus bells mark the time—six-thirty—twice. I count the chimes even after they stop, because the numbers keep my sanity intact
One last night of freedom, I promise myself.
I’m not gone. I have tonight. It’s not forever.
Not yet.
It’s just long enough to remember I have a pulse before I sign my life away.
2
CAYCE
Twenty-four candleson a cake I didn’t ask for. Someone stuck a plastic shamrock in the frosting like a joke, and the back room smells like sugar and gun oil.
Tiernan lights the candles with a Zippo, grinning because he loves making a scene at my expense. “Make a wish, boss.”
“I’m not the boss.”
Yet.
I don’t say the last part out loud. I don’t need to. Tiernan’s my little brother. We both know exactly what our father has been training me for.
“Can’t we just forget the birthday part? Skip straight to Halloween?” I shift my weight from foot to foot, uneasy with the attention. I was unlucky enough to be born on All Hallow’s Eve, and I can never get away from some kind of stupid fucking celebration no matter how hard I try to avoid it.
Tonight I tried to disappear into the bar our family owns on the south side of Boston, but the family followed me here with this stupid cake, when all I want is a whiskey and to be left alone. That’s fine, though. I’ll eat a slice, and then I’ll leave, and everyone can fuck off until tomorrow.
Our uncle, Rafferty, stands off to my left, tie loosened, eyes taking inventory without moving. Our sister, Roisin, leans on the doorjamb, arms folded, blocking me from the rest of the crowd and saving me from the kind of hugs and back slaps I can’t stand in small rooms.
I count exits because it’s a habit that my father beat into me. Two. Back door to the alley, front hall to the bar. The window’s painted shut, because of course it is. The old radiator hisses like a warning. I set my back to the wall and let my shoulders drop the inch of relief they’ll give me.
“Speech,” Tiernan says, because he enjoys pain. His turn is coming, and payback’s a bitch. Elephants and Shannons have long fucking memories.
I blow out the candles and watch as the smoke curls and disappears. “To the boys who made it out of Blackvine Ridge,” I say, lifting the whiskey Roisin pressed into my hand. The room goes quiet, everyone remembering that…uncomfortable…time, or, if they hadn’t been here then, their own brand of Blackvine hell. “And to the ones who didn’t.”
We drink. The burn is clean as it flows down my throat. The memories I’m running from? Those don’t budge an inch, regardless of the alcohol I’m using to numb myself.
Grady Calhoun’s laugh lives somewhere behind my ribs where it can’t be touched. He’d have made something out of that plastic shamrock. A card trick. A weapon. A punchline. Something to distract us from the torture we went through every single day.
“Well. That’s enough of that, then.” Roisin claps her hands together, breaking the spell. Lifting the cake knife, she brandishes it and then slices cleanly into the cake. “I don’t know about you, but I’m famished.”
Conversation starts up, a low hum, as she begins passing plates around.
Rafferty clears his throat and edges closer. “Sit-down with Moretti’s people is Friday,” he says, his raspy voice like a gift wrapped in sandpaper. “I need you to be…steady.”
“Steady,” I echo. He means don’t make a mess. Don’t make a scene. He means I’m twenty-four, but he’d prefer me to be forty and boring. He means I need to walk a fine line between bearing the Shannon name with pride and defending against this city that swallows the men who wear it too loudly.
