The gruff voice startled me out of the vision, and I peered down along the beach, picking out the silhouettes of two men heading my way from the marina. They looked a bit unsteady on their feet.
“How’d they take it?” the other dude asked, passing a bottle of booze to his friend. He spoke with a lisp, but that could’ve been the booze talking.
“How ya think? Fired my ass on the spot.”
I relaxed. Just a couple of dockworkers blowing off steam. I was about to head back inside Luna’s when the response from the other guy set my teeth on edge.
“You shittin’ me?” he slurred.
That voice… The lisp… How do I know this guy?
“Nah. Fuck ‘em, though, right?” Jobless polished off the last of the booze, then chucked the empty bottle into the Bay. “You’re lookin’ at a free man now, T.”
“Guess you ain’t buyin’ the next round, then.” The “T” dude laughed, the rasp of it skittering across my skin like cockroaches.
“Not this weekend, anyway.” Jobless gave T a fist bump, then headed up toward street level alone.
Less than ten feet from where I stood, the cockroach paused at the water’s edge, reaching into his pocket for a pack of smokes. He shook one out and jammed it between his lips. Flicked the lighter. Sucked until the end crackled and glowed.
A wheezing cough rattled his lungs.
Recognition slammed into my chest like a fist.
So you’re an all talk, no action kind of bitch?
You got some ass on you, girl.
Nice try, little cunt…
It washim. The asshole who’d jumped me outside Black Ruby, threatening to do all sorts of nasty things to me. He would’ve done the same to Bean, too, if he’d gotten the chance.
Instead, he’d left her to die in my arms.
And I’d turned her into… God, there wasn’t even a word for it. My stomach churned just thinking about it. I couldn’t close my eyes without hearing her sweet voice—grape jelly grape—corrupted now by all the thoughts that haunted me.
You did this to me, witch.
It was his fault. This piece-of-shit excuse for a human standing in front of me, cigarette dangling from his greasy lips, limp dick in his hand as he pissed into the Bay.
The man was drunk.
Alone.
Defenseless.
Inside me, the blackness sparked, roaring to life with a new intensity. Instead of resisting it, I welcomed it, letting it fuel me, letting it fill me up like a battery getting an overdue recharge.
My entire body buzzed.
“Hey,” I called out, stepping over the railroad tie, outside the neutral boundary of Luna’s. “Can I bum one of those smokes?”
Cockroach flinched at my words and whipped around to face me, nearly pissing on himself in the process.
He narrowed his eyes, but clearly he didn’t recognize me, which pissed me off even more. I could live another hundred years and I wouldn’t forget the face of the man who’d terrorized me and Bean. But to him I was just another faceless, nameless dock rat washing up on the shore.
“You looking for company, sweetheart?” He grabbed his dick and winked, stroking himself. “Look, I already whipped it out for you.”
“Wow. You come prepared.” I stepped forward, meeting him at the water’s edge.
