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My groan slices through it, painting the night gray.
I’ve been lucky since the night that lady stepped out into the alleyway and gave me her necklace. Lucky to the point where it’s practically my only personality trait. I was worried it had left me when I got caught in Atlantic City, but I chalked it up to being a stroke of misfortune. After all, I was lucky enough to make it back to the Coast with all the money I had left, and then secure a six-figure watch on the same night.
But maybe that was another stroke of misfortune too, because it led me to Raphael Visconti.
I’ve picked up pace without even realizing it. My lungs burn and my eyes prickle with tears I’m too stubborn to shed. As I brush my fingers over the rough bark of one tree and reach out for another, my foot catches on a root, rolling my ankle underneath me.
“Fuck,” I hiss out into the darkness.
How terribly unlucky of me.
Ankle screaming in agony, I hobble on. I don’t stop, not until the trees thin and a hazy orange glow cuts through the clearing. A few seconds later, a lone street lamp comes into view, and the ground hardens underneath my muddy stilettos. Now that I can see what I’m walking on, I pop off my heels and start a shaky descent down the steep hill, staying close to the edge of the winding road that leads back to the main town. When my feet get sore, I put my heels back on, which is a dubious improvement.
As the adrenaline coursing through my veins drops from a buzz to a quiet hum, it makes room for another feeling: unease.
Your sins will catch up with you eventually, Little P. They always do.
Nico’s words whisper at the back of my brain like a memory I’m trying to suppress. Maybe they had a deeper meaning, one even he wasn’t aware of. Maybe sinners don’t get to be lucky. Maybe, good luck happens to good people, and bad luck to bad people.
I haven’t been good since I was ten. Why should I be lucky? What have I done to receive good luck in this life, aside from swindle people and cheat them out of their money?
I’m so lost in the swamp of my own thoughts that I don’t realize I’ve missed the turn onto Main Street until a gust of salty air slaps me around the face.
I’m at the port. My teeth chatter as I sweep my gaze over the sudden clearing. Despite the time, it’s a hubbub of activity. In the foreground, trucks beep and reflective jackets wink in their headlights, and behind them, cargo ships bob and jerk over the rough waves of the Pacific.
My gaze drops to my shoes. They’re caked in slushy mud and I can’t feel my toes. The thought of trotting back up the cliff to my apartment makes me groan aloud, so I decide to rest against a stocky admin building for a few minutes.
I drop my head against the brickwork, emotion choking my throat as I watch men work. I’m not typically an emotional person, but I do tend to get a little teary when I’m tired.
I need someone to talk to.
I need a friend.
Fishing my burner from my purse, with frozen fingertips I dial the only number I know off the top of my head.
The line rings three times, then the voicemail clicks in.
“You have reached Sinners Anonymous, please leave your sin after the tone.”
I inhale a lungful of air; exhale it against the starless sky.
“Hey, me again. I know, I know. Two calls in less than twenty-four hours. Crazy, considering you haven’t heard from me in three years, right?”
I sniffle to nothing but static, blinking back tears. I open my mouth but close it again, realizing I don’t want my oldest and only friend to think I’m an idiot. Yeah, even if it’s only an automated hotline. Sighing, I stab End and drop my cell back in my purse.
“If this is karma for what I did to the Hurricane casino, then just give me a sign,” I mutter to the universe.
A sudden bright light passes over my face. I squint and cup a hand over my eyes, studying a large truck approaching the transit shed, its headlights on full-beam.
A beer-bellied trucker hops out of the cab and a port worker emerges from the transit shed, radio in one hand, clipboard in the other. Their conversation is peppered with confused glances at clipboards and lazy sips from insulated mugs.
Eventually, the worker claps the trucker on the shoulder and turns in my direction. The truck’s headlights glow like an aura behind him.
That’s the last thing I remember before the scalding heat and the deafening boom. The last thing I see before the night’s sky lights up orange, and then my world bleeds to black.
There’s my sign, I suppose.
