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SAINT NICK

Living in a shitty, run-down, ‘60s era motel has its little quirks. The walls are as thin as a paper bag. The bed is basically five handfuls of fiberglass padding stuffed into a torture device of uneven springs. The air conditioner only works for the first ten minutes after turning it on, and then it takes three hours for it to generate anything approaching non-tropical air. Now that it’s cold, the heat is even less predictable.

The worst part is the shower, though.

There’s one minuscule window on weekdays, between three and four in the morning, where the possibility of getting water just north of lukewarm is very nearly guaranteed. I stopped adhering to anything resembling a traditional circadian rhythm the second I was shoved into this dump, so I make it a point to be awake at this time every night. It’s the quietest time of day here, all the whores having gotten their payment and either fucked off to their hidey holes or nested down into the rooms. The fights taper off around two, and the junkies are all passed out by now.

It’s with this rare feeling of calm that I step into the shower.

I make a note of my shower gel running low as I bang the lid-side against my palm a few times. Back at home, I’d listento music in the shower. Something fast and hard and worth dancing to. This time of year, I’d pull out the fun, festive stuff. Old school carols and obscure singles. They took my phone, and my playlists, when they tossed me in here. I don’t even bother humming. I just run the sudsy washcloth over my hips—bony, I’ve lost too much weight in this hellhole—and go through the motions of washing the stench of this place from my skin.

There’s zero fucking joy here. I do what I can, but it’s mostly due to boredom that I tore half the pages from the bible in the bedside drawer and, with some creative folding and tenacious fingernails, ripped them into various symmetrical snowflake shapes. I’ve already read the thing from front to back three times, anyway. I spent most of my day stringing the snowflakes across the room. My little indulgence in the holiday spirit.

It’s Christmas Eve, after all.

I wash my hair mechanically, the shitty two-in-one shampoo-conditioner combo making it stringy and dry like straw. I guess I used to think my Christmases were shitty. The only gifts my father ever graced me with were statements showing the shiny new total of my trust fund. But that was never a gift. It was half bribe, half threat, and complete manipulation. He always did enjoy having it to hold over me, even though I couldn’t possibly care less.

Of course, those were the days of high-end conditioners, shower dancing, and basic fucking freedom, so what the hell did I know?

The water starts turning cold halfway through rinsing my hair, which I’m willing to accept as a Christmas present from the universe. Usually, the hot water runs out before I can even finish lathering.

I step out with a shiver, briskly running the threadbare, motel-branded towel over my arms and chest. I give my hair atight wring and wind the towel around my body, sprinting my way toward the blankets on the bed.

Two feet off the tile, I skid to a stop.

Pretty Nick is perched on the foot of the bed, elbows resting on his knees, gloved hands deftly unloading a clip from a black pistol.

My blood turns to ice, and it’s only half because of the chill against my damp skin.

There’s a long, dark spatter of blood across his white t-shirt.

He doesn’t look up at me, even though I see his blue eyes give my feet a brief glance. Instead, he tucks the clip into his pocket and empties the chamber, catching the casing in his palm.

I take a step back. “What are you doing here?” The question comes out both hard and soft—indignant and apprehensive. I haven’t seen him in five days, and the last visit had been hurried and curt. A plastic grocery store bag with tampons, crappy microwave meals, and a Kit-Kat bar thrown carelessly into my lap before he swept back through the door, locking it behind him.

Now, his eyes are fixed on the wall as he tucks the gun into a black backpack at his feet. The shitty TV in the corner that only gets two channels has been playing Carol of the Bells on a loop since midnight, which isn’t the worst Christmas song by any metric, but still is like having an ice pick stabbed into my temple.

“Boss man sent me here,” is his low, bland reply. “Need a place to lie low until morning.”

I tighten the grip on my towel, heartbeat ratcheting up. “Why?” When he just looks up at me, face emotionless, I swallow. “Did you kill someone?”

He answers without reservation. “Yes.”

My mouth scrunches into a tight purse as I process this, glancing at his hands as he slowly shucks his gloves. I think Imean to ask him why, but what comes out is, “Did they deserve it?”

Something about the question makes a coldness settle over his features, and when his blue eyes meet mine, they’re sharp enough to pierce. “What the fuck do you know about what’s deserved or not?” He pushes to his feet, and it doesn’t matter that I lift my chin defiantly.

I still stumble back two steps at his approach.

“Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t,” he says, voice hard as he bears down on me. “Doesn’t matter to me. I take care of me and mine, and if that means burying a bullet into some junkie’s skull, then that’s what I do.”

“Merry Christmas, right?”

He grins, and without warning, his hand shoots out to grab my towel, yanking it.

I struggle against his grip, yanking it back with a panicked motion. “You can’t touch me,” I insist, voice pitched high and alarmed. “I belong to Daniel and the Kings!”