Page 27

Phantom

I made my girl a rose bouquet. There was a small greenhouse in the garden, the roses inside luscious despite it being October, and I cut a dozen, tearing away their thorns. Nothing was allowed to hurt my beautiful doll, not even a thorn.

I hummed a love song under my breath when I spotted her in the ballet studio. She wore a black leotard, and I grinned. Not as sweet as pink, it made her look much naughtier. I wondered if she felt well enough for a quickie. Probably not. Maybe I could get my fix by eating her out again.

“Hey, baby,” I said with a grin, showing her the roses. “Beautiful flowers for my beautiful doll.”

I flinched at the look she gave me. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen on her face, so cold and unaffected, like she was a sculpture and not a person.

“Baby? What’s wrong?” I asked, looking around to see who had upset her so much. I’d fight them right now. Whoever hurt my girl would die.

“Nothing,” she said with a shrug. “I just got bored.”

I looked back at her. “Bored? Of dancing?”

“Of you,” she said, turning her back to me.

I saw her face in the mirror as she brought her arms high over her head and stretched to the side. She seemed impassive and disinterested, and my heart lurched in my chest. Even though my brain didn’t understand her yet, it was like my heart already knew. Like it had expected it all along.

“What… What did I do?” I asked, squeezing the roses so hard, the bouquet shook faintly.

She straightened, shrugging. “Well, you did everything I needed. I don’t want anything else from you.”

“I don’t understand.”

My broken parts screamed at me to leave, to spare myself the humiliation. After all, I’d known it all along: she was too good for me. Yet, I couldn’t just go. She told me she loved me.

“What’s there to understand?” she said, turning to face me.

Her movements were controlled, expression perfectly calm, her eyes cool with disdain. I flinched again, wishing I could hide from that scornful gaze.

“But… Just this morning…” I fumbled with my words, falling silent when she snorted with laughter.

“Look, it was fun and all, but I don’t have time and patience to pretend anymore,” she said with a huff of amusement. “It was a game, Phantom. You were this big, bad bodyguard. I wanted to see if I could bring you to your knees. And guess what? I did, and now the fun is over.”

She turned away again, stretching the other side of her body. I studied her, everything inside me rebelling at her words. I saw her last night. I felt how her body reacted, I heard her words and all the sounds she made. No one could pretend this well.

“You don’t mean that,” I said quietly, taking a lurching step closer on unsteady legs. “You… They told you to break up with me. It had to be something…”

She whipped around, her calm shattering. I fell silent, watching as her eyes narrowed, her face drawing tight in anger.

“Oh, I very much mean that,” she hissed, coming closer. “You want to know the truth? Fine! I read all about it. The magical abomination dicks. I read how every girl just dreams about fucking one, and guess what, I had my very own abomination on hand. So I led you on and got you to fuck me! And as a bonus, I can now brag about it and shock my parents! You didn’t want to be my little rebellion, remember? Well, you are! But that’s all you’re good for, and I don’t need you anymore! You’re fired.”

I felt it. Every little crack, every tear, every fissure. My heart, so freshly mended by her murmured I-love-yous, shattered again.

She was like all the women who wanted just my body, but not me. Except, she was worse, too. They didn’t pretend to like me, to accept me, to love me just for fun. She did, and even worse, she excelled at it. She had me fooled all along, from that moment I saved her life under her balcony.

I thought she was good, fragile, innocent, but it was all a mask. Barbara Ashford-Kingsley wasn’t a rare flower, a good person living among shit and corruption. She was the perfect reflection of her environment: cruel, egotistical, and vain.

“Say it to my face,” I demanded quietly, the flowers in my fist shaking with a rustle. “Tell me you don’t love me and want me to go, and I will.”

She took a deep breath to settle her anger. Her eyes bore into mine, the blue as cold as ice.

“I don’t love you. I never want to see you again.”

I stared at her, wishing for the barest flinch of her eyelid, a tremble of her lip, something. Proof that she was lying, or maybe that she was controlled by somebody else. But her face was hard, eyes flinty. After a few seconds, I took a lurching step back, then another. The roses fell out of my hand, scattering on the parquet.

I turned and ran, pressing a hand to my chest that tore open with the horrible pain of her rejection.

The next few days were a blur. I stole a bunch of rubbing alcohol from a vet clinic with the intention of drinking myself into a stupor. Normal alcohol, even if I drank lots of it, gave me a pleasant buzz at most. That was why I slammed shot after shot of the foul stuff, stopping only when I felt like puking. Once nausea passed, I had more shots, until I finally lost consciousness, and the pain ebbed away.

Until I woke up and did it again. Once the rubbing alcohol ran out, I tore into my extensive collection of luxurious liquors. I dulled my pain with single malt Scotch washed down with tequila aged in white oak barrels. Once those ran out, I drank homemade moonshine I’d had imported from Poland. It worked almost as well as the rubbing alcohol.

In the rare moments of clarity, I cussed and kicked the furniture, making a huge mess of my apartment. It was all right, though. She’d never see it. No one would, because I was done. No woman would ever cross the threshold of my place, because I was done hoping.

I wasn’t meant for relationships, and I should have never forgotten it. Women were either disgusted by me or scorned me, only valuing my body. I should have remembered that. Instead, I let stupid hope take over as soon as that cute bitch fluttered her lashes at me.

But was she even to blame for taking advantage when I was clearly a total moron? Ha! She probably laughed at me even now, telling her friends how she got the big, bad abomination to cry on top of her. And good for her. It was my fault for letting her fool me.

I should have never forgotten how impossible it was to love me.

A week passed like that, and then my liquor ran out. That was fine, too. I had other ways to dull the pain. Like crystal meth.

I called my dealer, who was thankfully still in business. I had been good for the past six years, since the Monster Security Agency required me to be clean, but I gave no fucks about my job anymore. Ash’takh promised to deliver my drugs in person, and I smoked cigarette after cigarette, my hands shaking as I waited for my salvation.

Except, when I opened the door to my dealer, it wasn’t Ash’takh. It was Nat.

“Fuck, you stink,” he said, pushing into the doorway when I tried to slam the door in his face.

“Go away,” I bit out through my teeth, trying to crush him with the door. “Get lost. I fucking hate you.”

But I was weak and shaky. I hadn’t eaten anything in the past week, just drank and drank, while Nat was a huge shehru who worked out five days a week and ate a ton. He pushed me inside my apartment and slithered in, his heavy snake body crushing a broken bottle with a crunch.

His silver scales shimmered faintly in the gloom. All the shades were drawn, just a few lights lit. I had a faint memory of breaking a few lightbulbs in a fit of rage. As Nat’s red eyes trained on me, I huffed and walked into the kitchen, stepping over all the debris strewn around: books, shattered bottles, cigarette butts, broken furniture. He followed, my stuff crunching under his steady onslaught.

“At least open the window,” he said, wrinkling his snaky nostrils when I lit another cigarette.

When I made no move to obey, he huffed and did it himself. Late October air poured in, making me shiver. I tightened my armor to keep the cold at bay. Some of the alcohol still lingered in my system, and I clung to its anesthetic effects.

Nat threw a bunch of envelopes on my filthy kitchen table. “You missed a week at work. Fatima says to grace her with a note the next time you want some impromptu leave.”

I shrugged, exhaling smoke through my nose hole. “Let her fire me. I don’t care.”

Nat nodded, studying me with that deliberative, non-judgmental air I so hated. I’d rather he told me off for missing work and being a pussy. But Nat was a strategist. He only did what worked, and he knew I would open up the soonest if he didn’t push.

Fucker.

“Fine,” I said, sitting down at the table. “Do you at least have my drugs?”

He took off his backpack, and I perked up. But instead of my sweet meth, Nat pulled out a huge takeaway box. He opened it and pushed empty bottles off the table to make room in front of me. Around three pounds of raw steak, still steaming with freshness, stared at me from the box.

“I fucking hate you,” I growled, giving him the most baleful look I could muster. “You’re a menace and a fucking bastard. Motherfucker!”

“That’s right. I fucked your mother and she loved it. Now eat.”

My jaw dropped. Nat grinned, showing me his sharp teeth, and I huffed. Fine. So he could speak my language. Big deal.

Since it would have been a travesty to let such good steak go to waste, I devoured it, not caring about my manners. Nat set about putting all the still intact bottles into a trash bag. I let him be, focusing on the food. Now that I started eating, I realized how hungry I was.

And even though it tasted amazing, the juicy meat bursting on my tongue with fresh blood, it also brought in a sense of awareness I’d deprived myself of in the last seven days. As sensations poured into me, my systems turning on now that food was available, the pain returned. I groaned and grabbed my chest with my bloody hand. My fucker of a heart was still in agony.

“That bad, huh?” Nat asked quietly, watching me from the other side of the table.

I shrugged, taking another big bite of steak while Nat opened my fridge, tutted at how empty it was, and put another box of meat inside. Fuck, he was a good friend, and it annoyed me so fucking much. I should have done a better job pissing him off in the past so he’d have fucked off for good.

When I was finally fed, I lurched up to my unsteady feet and washed my hands and face over the kitchen sink. Nat put a tall glass of water in front of me, and I drank it with grudging gratitude.

“So,” he said, taking his place opposite me. “I see you’re in a bad shape.”

It was the understatement of the year. I laughed hoarsely, my throat protesting. It was scratchy from all the smoke and the stinky air I’d breathed for a week.

“She broke me, Nat,” I said, looking away. “She said she loved me, and the next day, she took it back. Told me I was only good for fucking.”

He nodded without saying anything, and I groaned, throwing up my hands.

“Well, what else do you want me to say? I asked her to move in with me, Nat, and she said yes! But two hours later, she was like, no thank you, get out of my sight. How am I even supposed to trust women? Bitches, all of them.”

“Your pain is valid and understandable,” he said calmly, making me cuss viciously. I hated him so fucking much. “But have you considered that change in her behavior was very abrupt? Could there have been circumstances present you weren’t aware of?”

I snorted. “Nice try. The only circumstance I wasn’t aware of was the fact I’m a fucking moron, but I know better now. I’m gonna drink myself to death or be a celibate monk.”

Nat snorted, taking my glass to pour me more water. My stomach churned and growled, doing its best to handle actual nutrition after a week of poison.

“What I’m trying to say, Scarab, is that she hit you in your biggest insecurity. And I’m not excusing that, she did a shitty thing, but tell me—if she rejected you because you smoke or because you steal all the time, or maybe because of your stupid sense of humor, would you have been so crushed?”

I shifted uncomfortably. “I mean, I guess. But it wouldn’t have been a dealbreaker. I could give up smoking for her. Or stop stealing. No biggie. She just needed to ask, and I would have changed my behavior. Or, well, hidden it better.”

“See?” Nat nodded. “You would have stayed and negotiated. You would have gone to the bottom of it and found out what her real problem was. But since she hit you where it hurts the most, you got scared and ran.”

“I did not get scared!” I roared, pushing away from the table so fast, my chair toppled. “She used me and laughed in my face! She told me to go! So I fucking did!”

He nodded placidly, completely ignoring my outburst. I clenched my jaw, picked up my chair, and sat down with a huff. We stared at each other over the table until Nat threw an envelope at me.

“From Clarissa Ashford’s lawyer,” he said, explaining.

I gave the letter a baleful look. I’d rather set it on fire than read it, but curiosity got the better of me. Because what business did they have writing me now? I was done.

Tearing the envelope open, I quickly scanned the letter, barking out an incredulous laugh when I understood what it meant.

“This is precious,” I cackled, handing it to Nat. “She wants me to pay fifty grand for breaching our contract. Apparently, I cussed on the job.”

My mood soured at once when I considered how Clarissa Ashford could have found out. I only cussed with one person—Barbara. That meant my bitchy doll had not only trampled all over my heart, she also went and snitched on me to her mommy.

“Fuck, I want to kill that bitch,” I growled, my fury and pain rising all over again.

Nat looked up, unmoved. “Who? Clarissa Ashford?”

“No! Her fucking daughter. She told on me!”

He shook his head, pointing at the letter. “It says here you were recorded breaching the contract while on the assignment. Apparently, they have sound files they will present in court if you refuse to pay the fine. It might be a bluff, though. A court case means negative publicity.”

I snatched the letter out of his hand and read it through, carefully this time. Yes, it said I was recorded on one instance. So—what? Barbara recorded me? When? I would have noticed. I only cussed with her when we were pretty close, then intimate. So, what else? Someone else recorded me? Or maybe there were devices in the house I didn’t know about?

“What are you thinking?” Nat asked, interrupting my frantic train of thought.

I didn’t want to say it. My hope, which I thought had died a grisly death, raised its head and sniffed the roses. Or, more accurately, the stink of my filthy place but—same thing. Yet could I even hope again? It would be dumb. Stupid. I’d already suffered enough.

But then, what else was there?

“Nat, what if they forced her to break up with me?” I asked slowly, refusing to look at him for fear of seeing pity on his face. Pity for my na?ve, stupid hope. “What if… If we were somehow recorded and they found out I fucked her… And… And what if they threatened her? Like, her mother already did that, threatened to have her committed in some rich folk asylum if she didn’t behave. So… It’s not impossible, right?”

“I think you’d need to find out,” Nat said, his face perfectly impassive and judgment-free when I looked up.

“How?” I asked, crumpling the letter in frustration. “She said she doesn’t want to see me anymore.”

He grinned. “Scarab, your code name is the Phantom. You can be fucking invisible if you want.”

I clenched my jaw, looking back at the letter. Most likely, it was nothing. Just me being an idiot and making up wild theories to lessen my horrible pain.

But then, it could be something, too.