Page 4 of Beasts of Shadows #1

Cannery Row, Monterey, CA

It was the sound of sirens that got everyone excited.

Azalea Munroe was ogling a pair of earrings she was probably planning to steal—just for the thrill—and rambling about her latest deadbeat conquest when the pitching wail of an ambulance made both of us jump.

Sirens weren’t unusual in Monterey. Tourists got themselves into trouble all the time. But this was different.

Azalea and I both jerked; Azalea dropping the earrings to the floor.

“Fuck me.” She clutched her chest.

I lifted my head toward the window, feeling cold, as though some supernatural entity was dancing down my spine, massaging my scalp.

Just as quickly, the prickles were gone, and all I knew was indifference.

Silently, I collected Azalea’s jewelry and replaced it on the counter with a slim smile at the clerk.

She’d watched us like a hawk since we walked in—Azalea looked like a tatted-up Selena, and I had my ethnic curls twisted into Brandy braids.

That was normal on the Row, regardless of how long we lived there or how expensive our street styles were.

I couldn’t possibly know what the wailing was about, but I suspected. There would be police cars soon. Maybe even an investigation.

I chewed on my ridiculously long sunshine-tinted nail, waiting for Azalea to join me.

“Let’s see if Audrey is ready.” She adjusted her mesh bag and moved toward the exit.

What started as a miserable, stormy morning had already lightened up to a pleasant, if not dizzyingly heated day.

We’d been out since ten, beginning with a shopping spree at Carmel-By-The-Sea that eventually led us back to our usual hunting grounds, three blocks from my parents’ 1903 Victorian.

Inherited from my very white, very racist maternal great-grandfather.

He was probably rolling in his grave anytime his spirit saw me living my best mixed life on his old fishmonger money.

More sirens raced out toward Lover’s Point. I docked my bucket hat low on my head to obscure my features, wishing I hadn’t left my sunnies in Audrey’s pack.

As if anyone was looking for me. As if I was being hunted.

When I’m brave enough to reflect on that day, I recall little after the stranger. I was on autopilot between leaving Cannery Row and getting burgers six hours later.

It was a late dinner, the splash of sunset painting the window beyond. I twisted a cheese-slick fry in my fingers, chomping down as Audrey vented.

Despite my earlier apprehension, I felt good. Sated.

“I should have gotten those Diesel jeans,” Audrey whined, sucking on her milkshake. “They would have been perfect for the first day of school.”

“Absolutely not. They totally hid your ass, and you have a great ass.”

Audrey blew a kiss across the table that Azalea giddily caught and pressed against her lips, making a V and wagging her tongue between it.

Audrey pumped her fists on the table while I released a chuckle.

That’s when Marisol Nayres burst in, her features stained with tears.

“Hey!” Audrey proclaimed, pulling her into a comforting hug. Audrey was the mother hen of our little group.

We all shifted to make room, Azalea catching my eye.

“Boy trouble?” She mouthed.

I shook my head, knowing it was nowhere near that simple.

“What’s wrong, babe?”

“It’s…Ravi,” Marisol managed between a pitch of fresh tears.

The couple beside us flagged down the server and asked to be moved.

I noted that more than the way my best friends cling together, Marisol’s eyes hollow and rimmed red from hours of sobbing.

It was easier, I think, to watch the strangers move away.

Easier than listening to Marisol struggle through her explanation of how the boy I’d been cuddling in my bed two nights ago had washed up on the rocks at Lover’s Point that afternoon.

Easier than listening to the twist of guilt in the pit of my stomach.

Because Marisol didn’t need to tell me how Ravi wandered into stormy waters that morning. How he was caught in a riptide and drowned. I already knew.

“Did he have a death wish?” Marisol continued. It was a rhetorical question aimed at the group, but the answer was “no.” Ravi was feeling great about everything when I talked to him after breakfast.

“The cops—,” here Marisol scoffed with dissatisfaction, “they think he was on drugs.”

“It would explain why he risked the water when he should have known better,” Audrey suggested.

“Ravi only ever fucked around with pot. We all know that,” Marisol hauled. “Pot doesn’t make you that dumb.”

No, I didn’t need the details about how the Nayres’ spent their afternoon identifying Ravi’s body, collecting his personal effects, and beginning funeral arrangements.

I already knew what would happen, because waking visions of his death had haunted me for the past three weeks.

Other local kids—Pacific Grove and Monterey alike—flocked around us as the news traveled. They offered condolences. Pretty soon, our crew took up three booths, with kids sharing their favorite memories.

I remained silent throughout.

It wasn’t until near ten when Marisol, with her head resting on my shoulder, sat up in alarm.

“Oh, I completely forgot,” she said, digging into her short-short coveralls. She freed a tiny box, passing it to me. “They found it in Ravi’s pocket. I was with him when he picked them out, so I know he wanted you to have them.”

I stared at the blue box with its gold-lined edges, still damp from its swim in the Pacific.

Azalea and Audrey were both watching with bated breath. Their eyes sent tentacles dancing across my worn conscience. So far, no one had brought up the elephant in the room. My relationship with Ravi and how serious things were getting.

I couldn’t bear to see their unearned sympathy.

The box creaked when I pulled back the top, the damp velvet stiff beneath my fingers. Nestled on a pale velvet prop was a pair of earrings. They were turtles, rimmed in silver with turquoise at the center.

“I know it’s not exactly the same as the one you lost,” Marisol continued, “but he thought you’d appreciate it.”

I lifted my attention to Marisol. She had a soft smile, probably expecting me to enjoy the gift. This conversation. Yet all I felt were the shadows of the underworld wrapping me in their embrace, whispering sinful seductions.

I plucked one of the studs out of the box, lifting it to my ear. Audrey, Azalea, and Marisol all smiled at me through their tears. Probably thinking, “What a sweet, final gift.”

But it wasn’t sweet. It was taunting. All I saw in those teal ovals was the certain awareness that I’d condemned myself to hell.

I didn’t deserve sweet. I didn’t deserve closure.

Not when I was the one who killed Ravi.