BETRAYING ME BUT I’M STILL PRAYING—
It could have been the crowd cheering, raising their hands to catch the confetti, but there was no confetti and the cheers were screams. All around me.
“GET DOWN you idiot!”
Someone yanked my hair again, and an arm caught mine and was pulling me over the counter. Glass rained down, and I didn’t understand it was glass until I felt the heat of my bloodwhere it struck.
THAT YOU WILL TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT—
I landed hard, and the impact of my skull against something metal shook my vision.
Bottles burst around us, and Mila was screaming, but I hardly heard her. She pressed into me, shielding her head with bleeding hands. All I could hear were the hungry dogs—the high-pitched roar of the machine guns just beyond the bar that concealed us.
STAY WITH ME TIL THE MORNING—IT WILL BE ALRIGHT—
Something heavy landed in front of us, and didn’t bounce and didn’t shatter, just fell flat. I squinted, allowing myself only a moment because I knew what it was and I thought maybe seeing it would bring that moment of sobriety when I’d realize it wasn’t real. None of it was real. But that moment never came; instead, the vacant face of a stranger in a red jacket stared at me with eyes that wouldn’t close on their own ever again. The bullet went through the middle of his forehead, and I thought that there ought to be more blood than there was. There had to be more blood because the glass flying around us moments ago cut me worse than the bullet that ended his life, and that made no sense.
OH OH BABY OH, TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT—
And then the music was gone, and all that remained were the whistles, the deafeningkrak-krak-krakrakrakrak-krak.
And then, silence.
I don’t know if I lost consciousness, but the next thing I knew was Mila using me for leverage and scrambling up. She didn’t bother to see if I was okay, and why would she? She’d saved my life. What more did I want?
Selfish, Katya. Mama didn’t raise you to be so selfish.
The room swayed.
I watched her in a daze as she circled the counter, threw open a wooden latch, and took off for the front doors. This seemed like a good idea, so I did the same.
My heels scraped against the glass, and my ankles buckled, almost sending me to the ground, but I fell against the door and not the floor. The door couldn’t hurt me. The door was a way out, and that’s where I wanted to go. Out. I needed to get out.
I inspected my hand and it bled, but I still held that return ticket. I needed my coat. Can’t forget my coat.
And then everything became fuzzy again, and people were yelling. A lot. Or wailing? Suddenly, there was a different music whine and I hated its song. Red lights flashing. Cold.
I blinked, and I was in the snow across the street from a fleet of police cars and shouting men. The‘Elit’neon blue sign above the entrance blinked in and out.
The cold shuddered through me so savagely that it couldn’t have been anything else that brought me back to the world.
Oddly, I clutched the collar of my coat in one fist, and one lonely heel in the other. My snow boots were on. Maybe I wasn’t such a dumb girl after all.
I stumbled and pulled the fur over me, legs so numb that I could hardly feel the uneven, icy ground. I made it a block, and then a car pulled up beside me, and an old man with a cigarette threw the door open.
“What are you, crazy? Get in!” he spat. Maybe taxi drivers didn’t have any other way of speaking that didn’t involve flying saliva.
I ensured that the car did indeed have the yellow checkered pattern of a taxi on the side and got in. He didn’t chargeme when he dropped me off, and I thought I remembered answering questions about what happened back there, but that was doubtful because I wasn’t quite sure what happened. I walked up the unending stairs to the sixth floor, checked my pockets for the key, and went inside. It still smelled like homemade cooking, and especially like honeycake because that’d been the last thing served. It was quiet, very quiet.
I was so tired. Still in my ruined, blood-stained Versace, still in my snow boots. Still—
I slapped my chest, looking for the necklace. It was on, and I slowly let out a breath of relief.
My cheek hit the pillow, but I wouldn’t get to sleep until the early morning.
It wouldn’t be alright like the music promised.
13
