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‘If you come out right now,’ she said, her voice trembling, ‘I promise to treat you with dignity and respect. I know I’m holding this weapon, but I don’t really think I could ever use it, especially not to hurt a cute little mouse, and honestly, the only reason I’m talking right now is because I’m terrified so I’m gonna keep g—’ She cut herself off with a squeal as the rodent — whether it was a mouse or rat was impossible to say — shot out from the box like a bullet from a gun.
‘That settles it,’ Sophia said, heart racing. ‘I need to get a kitty.’
There weren’t many advantages to living in a dilapidated, derelict, disgusting former bar.
Sure, there was no rent. That was a big, important bonus.
Other than that, though, not having to check with the landlord about getting a pet cat was about the only other perk.
Sophia sighed. Five years. She’d been living in this place for five years. Ever since she’d accidentally stumbled on this space in one of her urban exploring missions, she’d known that she wouldn’t be able to do much better, so she’d stayed put.
Over time, she’d gotten the place just how she liked it. With a little ingenuity, she’d managed to open up a couple of little gaps in the boards over the windows, which meant that a little natural light came in. She’s cleared space behind the bar for her sleeping bag, and she’d even set up her ‘office’ inside the men’s bathroom.
She didn’t want to think about who was still paying for the water for this place. Sophia lived in constant terror of one day flushing the toilet and nothing but creaky sounds coming out. So far, though, she seemed to be getting away with it.
Sophia was still holding the sewing needle out in front of her and felt her phone buzz in her pocket. She might be homeless — technically — but she couldn’t exist without her phone. Even if she had bought it with a fake name to make her as untraceable as possible.
She sat down on a moldy old leather couch in a dank corner of the bar. The harsh white light from her phone’s screen lit her face — she must have looked like a kid playing ghosts on Halloween.
‘Come on, come on, Clever Monsters, please, please, please.’ Her eager eyes scanned the list of unread emails, but after checking and double-checking, she sighed. ‘Nope. Not today.’
She’d been waiting for a confirmation email from Clever Monsters for a week now. She’d pitched her services to them for a big, big job, and she was desperate to hear back. Obviously, there was a little more time to wait.
‘Oh well, might as well get back to fixing Teddy.’
Before she’d been rudely interrupted by the squeaking, snuffling sounds of her new rodent pal, Sophia had been hard at work practicing her craft. She headed back into the office (AKA the men’s bathroom) and sat at her desk. ‘Nothing quite like a gorgeous view of the urinals from your office,’ she said for the millionth time as she studied Teddy’s bedraggled, matted body.
The two of them had been through a lot together. Since she’d run away from her mom, her dad, her brother — and her old life — ten years ago, Teddy had been the only constant thing in her life. When her rucksack had been stolen from a homeless shelter in the Bronx, Teddy had been in her locker. When she’d received the first commission for her business, she’d celebrated with Teddy and Teddy alone. Every time she’d fallen in the mud, got splashed by cars or caught in the rain, Teddy was always, always there.
‘Sorry, old friend,’ she said, ‘this is going to hurt me a lot more than it’s going to hurt you.’
Earning money while technically homeless had not been easy. When she’d left home, she didn’t have any qualifications or prospects for the future. That, combined with no support network, meant that she’d struggled for years to make enough cash to fill her belly. The one thing she did have was passion.
Restoring soft toys was half art, half science. There was a method that restorers followed that didn’t change much from toy to toy, but the details were a matter of judgment and skill. It had taken Sophia months to save up for the tools she’d need to get started as a restorer. At first, when she didn’t have any clients, she’d hung up posters in toy stores. She’d waited and waited for that first call to come through.
Sophia looked up at her collection. There were twenty or so stuffies that she was currently working on, arranged neatly on a series of shelves she’d put up in the corner of the bathroom. On the top shelf — labeled family — were her own stuffies. Special friends she’d collected over the years. Most of them, she kept in perfect condition, but she’d never managed to pluck up the courage to clean Teddy. He was so precious that she was terrified about him getting shredded in a laundromat or having his color sapped by a water wash.
So, he’d gotten grubbier and grubbier, tattier and tattier, until she’d finally decided to try and make him shine again.
‘I’m gonna bring back your happy,’ she said, as she brandished the seam scissors at her innocent bear. Once she started snipping, there was no going back. She held the trembling implement, and then, just as she was about to snip, she heard a different noise — a chewing, biting, metallic cut. She froze.
Sophia knew exactly what that noise was — it was the sound of someone shearing the padlock from her front door.
*
He’d waited ten damn years for this. Ten long, hard, depressing years. Wolf Hardcastle had been out in the sticks for so long he’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be back in his Motorcycle Club’s territory.
He breathed in deep.
There it was. The smell of New York City. Plastic. Gum. Sweet soda. And just a hint of something… fecal.
Yep. The city sure did stink of shit. But it felt so exciting to be here that he was happy to put up with the smell.
‘I can’t believe you lost the damn key to your own bar.’ That was Baron. He used to be the Sergeant-at-arms of the club, but he’d just stepped down from the role. Still, he hadn’t mellowed. Not yet anyway. Luckily, he’d agreed to come help him break into the place and survey what kind of work needed to be done before it could be reopened.
‘It was ten years ago. I didn’t think I’d ever see the inside of this place again.’
It was true. For ten years, his club — The Drifters — had been living in hiding, far out in the wilderness of New York State. Finally, after dealing a major blow to The Death Division — their biggest rivals in the city — they were reclaiming their turf.
