A man knocked shoulders with him, and Jac staggered on the front steps.
The man cursed. “You shouldn’t be here, kid.” It wasn’t clear if he meant “in the way” or “at this drug den.”
Either way, Jac didn’t need a stranger to tell him that. He mumbled something and darted aside, fiddling with the tape around his knuckles. The man opened the door, letting out the faint sounds of cheers.
The door closed. Once more, Jac waited in the darkness.
He took a deep breath.
Jac Mardlin knew a bad idea when he saw one. But rarely—hardly ever—had that stopped him from greeting it.
He followed the man inside, over the red paint along the threshold that marked the den as Torren-owned. It was dimly lit, and everything smelled of Rapture. The cheering he’d heard had come from the back room—the boxing pit.
He shuddered as he made his way down the hallway. He’d never tried Rapture. Unlike Lullaby, which quickly lulled you into a haze after injection, Rapture did the opposite—it was euphoria, designed for bright lights and loud rooms and lots of space. Jac’s eyes flickered to the den’s shadowed corners, expecting to find someone lost in slumber. He fiddled with the chain of his Creed necklace, which was tucked beneath his shirt.
This place is different, he reminded himself.I’m different.
As soon as he stepped into the back room, Jac’s shoulders relaxed, if only slightly. The odors of sweat, the sloshed beer on the floor, the shouts of the men in the ring—this he recognized, this he knew. Levi always hated it when he fought, but truthfully, Jac didn’t know what he would do without the fighting. No matter how broken and bloody he left the ring, he would always jump back in. It was his favorite bad idea.
Jac found the bookie hunched over a table in the corner. He was scrawny with wide-rimmed glasses, chewing on the ice in an otherwise empty glass. “Do you have any spots?” Jac asked.
The man’s eyes roamed over Jac’s frame, but showed no sign of recognizing him. Despite his wanted posters being in every city newspaper, Jac really did look different with his dark hair. “Do you have a name?”
“Todd Walsh.” It was the name of someone he used to know, someone who wouldn’t need that name now. He’d met him in a place sort of like this.
“There’s a slot in a half hour. Nine forty.”
Jac scanned the room, searching for the usual uniforms of Torren grunts: pin-striped suits, red ties, breast pockets bulging with switchblades and orbs. He spotted several at a table in the back, smoking cigars, watching the fight.
“You hear me?” the bookie grunted. “Nine forty? You want in or not?”
“Yeah,” Jac answered, distracted. As he turned his attention away from the suppliers, he noticed someone else—a girl. She wore an oversize black smoking jacket with a red rose tucked into its breast pocket. Jac might’ve thought she worked for the Torrens by that getup, if she wasn’t standing across the room from them.
If her gaze wasn’t trained onhim.
He adjusted his glasses—as if they offered much coverage to his identity—and nervously turned away.
“Stand by the entrance when it’s about time,” the bookie told him. “They’ll let you in.” He nodded at the group of Torren suppliers. Jac was about to ask for one of their names—anything to get him a means of introducing himself—but the competitor waiting behind him pushed him aside.
Jac turned around and coughed as he accidentally inhaled a cloud of Mistress, an Augustine drug that must’ve been snuck inside. He swatted it away, even if it wasn’t enough to give him a contact buzz. The woman who’d blown it laughed, high-pitched and too loud. “You’re going to fight?” She batted her eyelashes and reached toward him. “A shame to do any more damage to that handsome face.”
Jac was used to this. More than once, girls had scrutinized his features in the light of tired mornings after, and told him he was better looking each time they looked.
“But you don’t give people the chance to look twice, do you?” one girl had murmured, while Jac was already muttering an apology, collecting his clothes, and making his way out the door.
But he wasn’t used to it in a place like this. As the woman’s nails traced down his cheek, Jac ducked away, the touch overwhelming. His palms were sweating. He itched to have something in his hands, something to distract him.
He lit himself a cigarette. When he turned around to watch the fight, the girl from earlier stood in his way. Up close, he noticed her brown curls reached her waist, and she had a diamond piercing just below her lips, which were lined in cherry lipstick. She was tall—an inch taller than him, and at least several more in those boots. She was prettier than a Guillory Street heiress, she dressed like a casino crook, and she had a look in her deep green eyes like she was daydreaming—of glamour or murder, he couldn’t tell.
She smiled at him, and Jac’s stomach clenched. This night was full of bad ideas.
“You’ve never been here before,” she purred. “I’d remember that face.”
Jac ran a sheepish hand through his black hair. “You don’t look like a regular, either.”
“What do I look like?” She tossed her head to the side.
“Trouble.” He took a drag from his cigarette and tried to squeeze around her. He was here for a reason.
