She laughs pissed and heads toward the kitchen. “This place is a fucking sty, Jax. We need to get our shit together. Scotch’s almost out of food and he needs a bath. We’re out of detergent. There’s?—”
“Can’t you just stay here and handle it?” I cut in.
She stops. “Excuse me?”
“You’re living here now, aren’t you?”
“That makes me your maid?”
“That’s not what I?—”
“I have a business to run, like you.”
“Fuck. Never mind. Didn’t mean it like that.”
“You absolutely meant it like that.”
She storms toward the bathroom. “You can fix all this with a snap of your fingers, you know!” she blurts before slamming the door.
Well, that went well.I grab my cigarettes and head for the window.
When she comes back out, she’s already dressed with her bag slung over her shoulder. “You pissed ‘cause it’s Ashfall?”
My brow pulls together. “Shit.”I actually forgot.
“You got things ready?” she asks.
“Matt’s taking cover this year, you know how he is—says it’s good for business.”
“I’d say a holiday where everyone dresses in black and drinks ashbrew until they forget their own name is pretty fucking good for the bar business,” she says, deadpan. “But what do I know?”
She grabs her keys.
“Where are you going?”
“Work. See you tonight.”
She steps close, presses a quick, hard kiss to my mouth. “Oh,” she adds lightly. “Left another pair of panties by the bed, in case you need a hit.”
My hand’s already reaching, but she’s gone, out the door before I can get a word out. Before I can tell her not to, before I can admit that since last night, there’s been this thing inside me, just walking back and forth, wearing a fucking groove in my guts.
Every sound is too loud, every scent too strong, every heartbeat around me too close. I want to call her back, to tell her to stay, to lock the fucking door and stop me from doing what I know I’m going to do. But I don’t, because under my skin, the tar shifts, hungry. And the worst part? I know exactly what it’s hungry for.
A voice I haven’t heard in a while forces its way into my head.OBEY OR SHE WILL PAY.
* * *
The keg hisses as I pour another ashbrew.Shit. This is bad.
The bar is a fucking nightmare, packed wall-to-wall with bodies drowning in black. Black denim, black lace, black boots,eyeliner smeared under eyes like war paint. Some assholes even draw streaks down their cheeks like they’re mourning something, but most of them are just here to get obliterated.
The Drip lives up to its name tonight. Ashbrew is sloshing everywhere—onto the counter, onto hands, onto shirts. That’s the rule, you wear black because by midnight you’ll be covered in it anyway.
Some people swear Ashfall started as a memorial, something about the mine collapse, that moment of origin of the pit. No one knows for sure and no one cares. Now it’s just tradition: drink until you forget, dress for the stain, and don’t ask what’s under the ground.
I want to run to the nearest tunnel and hide. This overstimulation is the fucking curse of the moon: I can hear every single heartbeat in this place, a chorus of meatbags thumping away; I can smell every single gland, their sweat, fear, and worse, their cheap fucking cologne; I can taste their blood in my mouth, a phantom copper tang. Now, somehow I’m supposed to wipe down this counter, pour them another drink, and live my fucking life like a normal bartender.
Sisk’s laugh rings out, sharp and bright. Lou must’ve said something good, because they’re both doubled over now, lost in their own world.
