Slowly, I turned my head in his direction. “What?”
“How much?” he repeated, his eyes lingering on me. “I get off in thirty minutes.”
I hated the assumption that I could be bought. “Fuck you.”
Exiting the garage, I moved through the night, looking for another place to lay my head. The zombies were out roaming now, making finding a suitable spot more difficult. I made a few turns until I arrived in the area known as The Stroll, where scantily clad female sex workers peddled their wares. The women wouldn’t bother me; it was their pimps that gave me pause. But I felt safer in a busy area, so I decided to stay. Stashing my buckets in the bushes, so passersby wouldn’t use them for toilets, I found my myself an empty wall along the alleyway of a building and slid down it, preparing for a long night.
I was just dozing off when I heard my name being called. Not Beats. Not Stretch. Not Ringo. Not any of the names I, or others, had given to me. No, she’d called me by my real name.
“Rory.”
Knowing the voice well, I reluctantly lifted my head off the wall to find my sister Nikki walking toward me, looking like life had severely beaten her down. It was hard to believe she was only three years older than me and already sucking at adulthood. The dress that barely covered her assets told me all I needed to know about her current occupation. Before I could rise to my feet and shake some sense into her, Nikki sank down to her bare knees and wrapped her arms around my neck, burrowing her head into the hollows. It had been a long time, and we hadn’t left on the best terms. Actually, we’d left on the worst of them.
We didn’t speak. Just hugged. She was so thin—skin and bones. Growing up, that hadn’t been the norm for her. Nik had always had a thickness to her—a feature she’d hated with a passion, but I bet now wished for a little of it back.
“Ah, Rory,” she said, stroking the back of my neck. “I hate that it’s you.”
“Right back at ya, Nik.”
“I thought maybe things were going better for you.”
“Well, you thought wrong.”
“What about Patty?”
“What about her?”
“Didn’t you go back to her after we were separated?”
“No. She had other kids by then. I went back into the round robin rotation. Got spit out into the worst placements the county had to offer. Needless to say, my life went to shit.”
She pulled out of our hug and tucked an errant breast back into her dress without an ounce of embarrassment. “And you blame me, right?”
“I didn’t say that.”
I didn’t have to. We both knew I blamed her for everything bad that had ever befallen me. But still I loved her and worried about her.
“You’re working the streets now?”
“What was your first clue?”
“The tit peekabooing out of your dress.”
“Like you haven’t seen it before.”
I wasn’t sure if the words just slipped out of her mouth or it was somehow intentional, but it made for a supremely awkward moment of silence between us.
“Why are you out here?” I finally asked.
Her brows shot up. “I think you know why I’m out here. After what… happened, I wasn’t quite able to make the transition to law-abiding citizen. I tried for a hot minute. Moved to Seattle for a fresh start. Even got a legit job. You would’ve been so proud of me, scrubbing toilets with the best of them. But it turns out I couldn’t pay my rent on a hotel maid’s salary, so I started turning tricks again. And then I thought, ‘Hey, if I’m gonna be sucking dick anyway, might has well do it in the sun and not in the pouring rain.’ So here I am, back in the land of sunshine and dreams.”
She fashioned a gun with her fingers, aimed it at her head, and blew herself away. I winced at her brutal, unapologetic honesty. If ever there had been someone who owned her lot in life, it was my sister. Actually, foster sister. We were siblings in oath alone, brought together when I was five and she was eight. She took to me instantly, the two of us becoming so inseparable that social workers noted in our charts that placing us apart would be detrimental to our development. How were they to know that the very bond they were protecting would destroy me?
“So, here you are,” I repeated. “What’s your plan, then?”
“My plan? Were you not listening, Rory? That was the plan.”
“I’m talking more long term. Where do you see yourself in five years?”
