Page 24 of Bite Back

DELILAH

We sneak through a back flap of the tent and pick our way to the edge of the stands.

Darkness cloaks the audience, and we settle in next to a couple silhouetted in fur coats.

A spotlight illuminates the center of the ring, where the ringmaster, elongated fangs glinting, gestures to the next act.

His crimson velvet cloak swooshes behind him with flourish.

He tips his silken top hat and glides to the side of the ring.

His voice booms over the loudspeaker as he announces the next act, punctuated by crackles of static.

Acrobats descend from the ceiling suspended on spider-thin cords of silk.

Their beaded costumes sparkle as they crisscross the beam of light, twirling and spinning.

They move with an uncanny grace that reveals their supernatural abilities.

I’m transfixed, my gaze hooked on the performers.

How do they manage that? Could I learn to do something like that with my new body?

Something about watching them makes me feel lighter, like I’m also soaring through the air.

I turn towards Asher, expecting to find him looking up at the show. But he’s looking right at me, smile cracked wide across his face.

“I like you like this.” He says the words like he’s savoring a meal. “Happy.”

I turn my gaze back to the show, trying to fit together the puzzle that is Asher. Does he want me? Does he hate me? Does he even know the answer?

After the show ends, we pick our way through the carnival grounds. The crowds have thinned out. A few dots of visitors flit across the patchy grass. The Ferris wheel swings in front of us, neon lights whirling and rusted metal creaking.

“Do you want to ride with me?”

I splutter my drink. An absolutely devilish grin lights up Asher’s face.

“With me?” He draws out the with and extends his arm with a flourish, as though he’s a gentleman escorting a lady to a ball. The gesture echoes Rod’s earlier, but where Rod’s was laced with mocking derision, I only detect friendly amusement in Asher’s eyes.

Two can play. I take his arm, my finger and palm trailing along the soft contours of his muscle. A shiver runs through him. Warmth pools in my core. So I do have an effect on him.

My arm rests atop his all the way to the ride.

The salt air chipped away at the white paint, revealing the rusting metal underneath.

The seats squeak as we climb on, swaying and shifting under our weight.

The wheel rattles and groans as we climb up, up, up.

The mist kissed bay glitters below us, moonlight sparkling and refracting off the lapping waves.

Beyond, the lights of the city wink in and out, skyscrapers disappearing into the gray fog.

Asher shifts beside me, and I’m keenly aware of every point our bodies press together. Beside me, Asher’s heartbeat picks up.

He turns, I turn, and we’re facing each other, our faces fractions of an inch apart.

He inhales, drinking me in, lips parted, like a prayer or a prophecy.

All the reasons we can’t, we shouldn’t, we won’t fall away, and all I’m left with is this.

Him and me. Us. Almost together. Our breath hovering between us, potential hanging in the air.

I move towards him, a question on my lips. He tilts toward me too, eyes blown wide, hair falling across his forehead.

A gull sounds, breaking the spell. He draws away, hand scraping his hair back. My eyes drift back over the bay, watching a ferry disappear into the misty abyss.

We descend from the Ferris wheel, and Asher buys a caramel apple, munching large bites of the candied confection as we leave the carnival grounds.

The streets are largely empty now, our footsteps echoing on the sidewalk pavement.

A few stray attendees stumble ahead of us. Laughter spills out into the night.

A crunch sounds beside me and I look up. The streetlights dance over Asher’s features, highlighting his strong brow bone and sharp beard. I’m captivated.

“Hey.” He quirks a smile at me. His hands smooth over his shirt and jeans.

“Hey.”

“I’ve been thinking.” He swallows, throat bobbing. “Wondering, really. Why you? Why does it have to be you who kills him, I mean?”

“Why not?” My retort comes abrupt and swift, like a punch to the gut.

My mind spirals. This is the moment he takes it all back. Where our tenuous truce falls apart. Where whatever we’ve been building collapses.

What happened to me is permanent. What’s brewing between us is temporary.

“Why not?” He picks up my volley. I’d meant it as nothing more than a throwaway jab. But his brow furrows. “I just mean does it matter how it ends, if it ends? And for that matter, if it does matter, why you? Doesn’t that make it vengeance, not justice? What do you get out of it?”

His river of questions washes over me. I try to pick through my tangled thoughts, to find the words that capture the truth of it all.

“I don’t know if I’m doing ‘the right thing,’” I draw quotes with my fingers, “in the philosophy class sort of way. But I know what feels right to me. Justice would mean a police report, a trial, a jury.” I tick them off on my hand.

All the trappings of so-called legitimacy. “Why were you assigned this case?”

The question answers itself. Because the system failed.

It failed all those women. But I won’t fail myself.

“How is this better than a mob?” he asks.

I gesture broadly, scooping the night air between my arms. “Do you see people lining up? It’s just you and me.”

“But why you and not me? This is what I do.”

Because it happened to me. And I need to make sure it never happens to anyone else again.

Because of the pain screaming inside me, threatening to spill over.

Because as long as society fails to believe women, we can’t have justice. But we have tooth and nail. Because if men can’t do the right thing because it’s right, maybe we can make them do it because we’re not afraid to be wrong in the name of revenge.

Because if I can’t have justice, I’ll take the closest substitute I can get.

I don’t say all that. I’ll say it later someday maybe. If he sticks around, if he’ll understand.

I keep it simple. “He’s taken so much from me. It only feels right that how he dies gives something back to me too, even if it’s only the satisfaction of knowing I did it myself.”

“That…makes sense.” His words wrap around me like a hug.

He understands.

The train sways gently on our ride back into the city, rocking, lulling me towards sleep. The blue pleather seat cradles me. My eyes flutter shut, and my head bobs, drifting towards the solid warmth beside me.

Asher. My eyes spring open and I jerk awake. I’ve been sleeping against Asher.

“Sorry.”

Asher regards me with a smirk. “It’s okay, you’re cute when you drool.”

My hand shoots to my mouth, and, sure enough, I encounter telltale damp. I wipe off the evidence and then run my hands over my head, smoothing the stray hairs. My cheeks heat.

He purses his lips, the edges curling up. “Seriously, you’re all good.” He pats his shoulder. “The pillow is open.”

I swallow down a gulp. I shake my head. I shift in my seat, drawing my spine straight.

“Fair enough.”

My eyes measure the distance between my body and his, only fractions of an inch between us. Goosebumps prickle my arms. My gaze sweeps the car around us, taking in the rows of empty seats.

We’re alone. Together. The train car clatters and rattles. The urge to fill the silence seizes me. I need to snap the tension. I tilt my head up towards Asher, his eyes fixed in the distance.

“What are you thinking about?”

Another smile, slow, feline, devastating, curls across his lips.

“You.”

My brain short circuits. “Me?”

“You. Tell me about yourself.”

“How very job-interview of you.” I throw the joke out like armor, like a shield I can use to deflect, to defend myself.

He raises an eyebrow. “Well, if we are in fact…partners.” The word sounds like a caress in his mouth. “Why shouldn’t you have a job interview?”

I splutter. “Because we already made a deal?” Venom drips from my voice.

“And I want to know who I made a deal with.” He makes it sound so reasonable.

Damn it.

Sometimes I like being wrong though. “That sounds like a you problem.”

His nostrils flare slightly. “Definitely a me problem.” He pauses, inhaling, exhaling. “Look, I just want to know a little about you. Whatever you want to share. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

“I don’t have to do anything at all.”

“True.” He says it with a matter-of-factness that takes me aback.

I relent. “I was born in New Jersey. I grew up visiting the city, dreaming of living here. I liked the business, the excitement. My town was mostly humans, but I liked the idea of going somewhere where there was more. Where no one had to hide in the shadows. Where something might actually happen.”

“What’d your family think of all that?”

“My mom and dad were fine with it as long as I promised I’d come home and visit from college.”

“Were?”

“They died along with my sister, junior year of high school. Car accident. I never made it to college.”

A look crosses Asher’s face. Maybe he’s picturing his own family. “But you made it to New York.”

He’s right. I made it.

But as the train rumbles back to Manhattan, I can’t help but wonder if it was worth it.