Her eyes dropped to her phone as she turned the screen around. One glance at the address told me something was wrong. I felt it right away— that place wasn’t meant for casual errands.
“What are you going to that part of town for?”
“I told ya, pickin' something up.”
I pressed her again, “What can you be picking up from there?” My eyes flicked from the phone to her face as she shifted herself to face me and leaned in further.
“Are you going to start telling me about your work, moneybags?”
I paused. She had me in a corner there, “No.” I wasn’t going to start with her, not when we were literally sitting in a car that screamed secrets.
She leaned in closer as my eyes flicked over her features, “I thought so. So, in the nicest way, shut up and go.” Smiling as if she knew she’d won.
I scoffed, a dry sound that was more amusement than annoyance. So, I drove.
We moved from the polished heart of the city into its bones, where beauty decayed and people avoided eye contact. The kind of place I hadn’t walked through since I was a kid running errands for Danny.
And now I was pulling up to a run-down clothing shop straight out of a bad memory. My eyes scanned the door, the chipped signage, the grime-covered windows. The kind of place that didn’t sell what it advertised. Misfit didn’t flinch. She climbed out as if she’d done it a hundred times before. But I noticed the tension in her shoulders, the kind she tried to hide when bracing for something.
She stopped near the entrance and turned, her voice neutral. “Are you coming or waiting here?”
I hesitated, my eyes lingering over the street and then back to the shopfront before letting out a deep sigh. I killed the engine and stepped out of the car, wordless. Part of me needed to know what she was doing. She pushed open the shop door and slipped inside, and I followed.
The second that pathetic little bell jangled overhead, I knew I was in the wrong kind of place. The air inside was thick with a sort of stillness that wasn’t peaceful. It was tense. Heavy with years of whispers and backroom dealings. I recognised it instantly, the hush that meant something moved behind the walls.
Misfit weaved through racks of moth-eaten coats and tired denim like they weren’t even there. Her body language had shifted, focused and sharper now. Heading straight towards a woman tucked behind the counter. She clocked Misfit immediately, her bored expression vanishing like smoke. Her hair was a cropped, platinum blonde bob, the kind that looked like it had been bleached one too many times and flat-ironed within an inch of its life. The blunt ends framed her round face with rigid precision, though rebellious strands stuck out here and there, defying the style like tiny declarations of independence.
Her makeup was heavy. Not in a glamorous, intentional way, but more like she’d put it on in the dark, with a firm hand andno intention of taking it off anytime soon. Thick, black eyeliner winged out from her eyes, one side slightly higher than the other. Her foundation was a touch too pale, caked at the edges near her jawline, and her lipstick was a deep plum colour bleeding just a little past her lip line. It gave her a doll-like look, but one you’d find discarded in a dusty attic, half-forgotten and strange. Her fingers, tipped with chipped red nail polish, flicked lazily through a wrinkled celebrity gossip magazine, but her eyes told a different story. She had the kind of gaze that could size you up in under five seconds and file you neatly into a category you’d never get out of.
They barely glanced at me, a stranger in her den, before snapping back to Misfit. There was history there. Easy familiarity.
“Misfit!” She chirped, bright as anything, as if we were walking into a café rather than a place that practically reeked of backdoor favours. Misfit’s response was cool and direct.
“Hi, Myra, are they in?” The girl behind the counter shifted nervously.
“Mhm. But, er..." I saw the change ripple across Misfit’s body, the shift from confident to cautious. She didn’t show it on her face, not completely, but I knew that twitch in her posture.
“What is it?” Voice like a blade unsheathed.
Myra's expression turned to a grimace, eye shifting towards the door. The slight tightness in her grip on her mug, the way she sipped too long, buying time.
“Manic is down there. Just a warning, she isn’t happy.”
Whoever Manic was, I figured she wasn’t the kind of person you wanted to run into unprepared. That much was obvious from Misfit’s reaction. Her eyes shifted to me. A quick calculation, almost as if she’d forgotten I was even there until that moment, and now she was scrambling to figure out what to do with me. Too late, sweetheart. I wasn’t going anywhere.
Her voice dropped low enough that Myra had to lean in to catch it. I didn’t hear the full exchange, catching onto the quiet caution in Misfit’s voice when she asked what was going on. All I heard was something about money. But I didn’t need much more. It was always about money, drugs, or loyalty—usually it's everything rolled into one.
I watched her sigh, that long, weary kind that said she’d dealt with this before.
“Thanks for the heads up.” She had this whole other life, one I wasn’t a part of, one she hadn’t told me about.
Myra wished her luck, but the look in her eyes was clear. Misfit turned and placed her hand against the door in front of her, pushing it open, giving me a knowing nod to follow.
The moment I stepped through that door, I knew I shouldn’t have come in. Should have made up some shitty excuse about needing to call …someone. But I didn’t.
It was colder down here, not physically, but in that way certain rooms can make your chest tighten.
And then the sound hit—a woman’s voice, shrieking bloody fury, with words laced with a heat so raw it sliced through the thick air. I froze just as Misfit did. Her face twitched into something that might have been a smile, if it didn’t look so damn misplaced—a nervous reflex, feeling her regret emanating in waves.
