Page 71 of Shades of Silver City

She snaps out of her fog, giving me a weird look. Slowly, an amused expression replaces the distress that was there a moment prior. The corners of her lips tilt up ever so slightly.

“What?” I ask.

A chuckle bubbles out of her.

“Archer Acciai, you just swore at me,” she says in a sassy tone.

“It wasn’t at you,” I correct.

After a beat, I return her smile. Despite the grim nature of our conversation—of the shadows of our past haunting us—my body relaxes in relief.

Her eyes scan my face. They settle on my lips, and she blinks a few times, her own smile growing even wider.

“Why do you hate cursing so much anyway?” she asks.

After a second, I answer her with an unbridled honesty that catches me off guard. “My sister.” She tilts her head in curiosity, so I continue. “My ma died when we were young…” Tasia’s eyes fill with pity, crinkling at the corners. “She wasn’t much of a maternal figure for us. She was…often occupied.”

She worked the streets at night, often choosing to stay with her clients long after the job ended—preferring their fancy apartments to the rundown one she shared with her kids. One night, she left and didn’t come back. We thought she’d left us for good until the city showed up, telling us she’d died. Natural causes, they said.

It wasn’t looked into any further. And Sofia and I were too focused on staying alive to make any inquiries. Or maybe it was that we didn’t care, considering it was easy to believe Ma had simply left us finally.

“My sister, despite being only a few years older than me, raised me,” I continue.

Tasia plops onto the bed, swinging her feet off the edge, while I lean against the wall. I’m growing lighter by talking about Sofia with someone other than Godric.

Lighter, but also irritated with myself at how easily the words are pouring out.

“Are you still close with her?” she asks. “Your sister?”

Pressing my lips together, I shake my head. “She died. Over a decade ago.”

When I was sixteen and she was barely eighteen.

“We’ve both lost our families,” she mutters, shaking her head. “That’s a pain I understand.” A comfortable, sorrowful silence stretches out between us before she says, “You were lucky to have a sister who loved you, who took you in and cared for you.”

I don’t bother asking who raised her since I already checked out her background—Fantasia Foster, ironically, a foster child.

From what I read, accusations of abuse and neglect were leveled against a few of her former foster families, but nothing ever came of the reports. I can only imagine what she had to go through.

“Yeah,” I agree. “I was lucky. It wasn’t easy, but I was lucky. We could’ve easily ended up on the streets in the PD, but Sofia worked her ass off.”

She glances around my room. “Seems like you made out all right.”

“Seems like it.”

“If the trick to getting out of the city is to join a gang, guess I’m on the right track?” she says.

“You’re not part of the Nightcrawlers,” I tell her. If I can help it, she’ll stay far away from the others. My circle is trustworthy, but that trust only extends so far, and I don’t need Tasia getting caught up in the messes I so often clean up.

Her eyes flick to the skull tattoo on my hand, then back up to my face.

Twisting one of the rings around my finger, I glance at the photo on my dresser—the one of Sofia, Godric, and me.

Her line of sight follows. “That her?”

I nod.

“She’s stunning,” Tasia whispers.

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