Page 7 of Little Blue

“No.” He doesn’t even quake under my glare. Little shit.

“Sure thing, Pakhan.”

“Everything, Misha.” I don’t have to feed a threat into the words. He understands it’s there.

With a nod not lacking amusement from my friend, and right-hand man, I head back to my office. I’ll study Little Blue on the security footage from the first moment she entered my casino, to the moment she fled the doors.

I’ll study her movements, her expressions, the people she speaks with and how she engages with them. By Monday, I’ll know her name, age, medical history, and family lineage. I’ll know where she works, and if she has a boyfriend I’ll need to—deal with.

The thought sparks something neurotically unpleasant. It scorches, unfamiliar and unwelcome.

I rub my palm over my chest, where the burn is most intense.

Then I return to my thoughts with force. I’ll know what she does with her spare time, the food she keeps in her cupboards, and if she prefers coffee to tea. I’ll know everything there is to know about the woman with the sad blue eyes. Then, in the way I’ve always suspected, and maybe even feared I would—like my father when he fell for my mother, I’ll take her.

Three

Irelynn

I haven’t been able to shove the handsome stranger with danger in his eyes from my mind since I fled him Saturday night. I also haven’t told anyone about him. Not even Rae.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I’ve told Lucy.

I tell Lucy everything. He listens raptly to every word, those big Halloween-yellow eyes drinking me in as I do.

“There’s just something about him that haunts me. He’s like a—” I pause, and Lucy tips his head to the side. He’s listening to me. He’s also watching, waiting, as I scoop half the tin of gourmet kitty chow into his blue bowl. It’s adorably stamped with black kitty paw prints. A dollar store special. I decide, “A wraith! Yeah, he’s like a wraith. He’s been haunting my nightmares.”

Lucy lets out a long meow, as though to tell me to shut up about the wraith-man and get on with feeding him.

I lower the bowl to the floor, dragging my hand along his silky-smooth back to the very tip of his tail. “You eat better than me, ya know?”

The only answer Lucy deigns to give me is a rumbling purr as he stuffs his face with his favorite saucy salmon chow.

Lucy pushes into the scratch I give to that place where back meets tail, before I stand and set to the task of feeding myself. Two eggs, scrambled. A crack of black pepper and just a hint of salt. As the eggs cook, I slap peanut butter and jam between two slices of bread. I shove the sandwich into a baggie and slide it into my oversized, very well-used, cross-body satchel.

I watch Lucy stretch before he prowls across the small space where a very small, square table sits accompanied by a single chair, to my bed. I’d scored the table and chair from the dump bin a few months ago. It had needed a very serious clean, and one of the legs had been loose. But it hadn’t been anything I couldn’t fix with a little elbow grease and a multi-bit screwdriver. A small, six drawer dresser stands at the foot of my bed. I bought it for thirty bucks when the old lady two floors up passed, and Kenneth, the junk-lord, sold her belongings to clear the place for the next tenant. The drawer on the bottom fell apart every time I pulled it out, so I was careful not to use it.

Next to my bed sits another junk-lord buy. The nightstand surface is swollen with cup rings and topped by a thrift shop lamp. But it has two drawers, and storage is storage.

Lucy makes a rumbling meow as a bird, likely a magpie, swoops in front of my only window. His tail gives a twitch that makes me smile as he leaps from my bed to the cat tree—a splurge—that perches right in front of my window. I placed it there so Lucy can catch some rays while I’m at work. I just know he spends his days daydreaming about the birds he’d like to maim. Thankfully, those are just kitty fantasies. The birds are safe.

At least from my fur-ball.

I’d never chance letting Lucy roam the great outdoors of New York City. One day, we’ll get a bigger place. Until then, I just ignore the growing yellow stain of water damage in the far corner. I’ve reported it three times, and clearly, it’s a slow leak that Junk Lord Kenneth has little interest in concerning himself with.

Shoveling the eggs into my mouth, I hurry to the bathroom. Stripping from my jammies—an oversized t-shirt and panties—I step into the lukewarm spray. Clenching my teeth against a shiver, I hurry to wash my hair and body. The hot water tank that services the apartment is on the fritz more times than not. What I would give for a hot shower. Even better, a bath.

I haven’t had a bath since I was fifteen, and Mom and Dad were alive. The house I’d moved into after Mom and Dad were gone had only one bathroom, and although there was a tub in that bathroom, I’d never been permitted to use it. To conserve the water bill, a timer set to five minutes sat on the back of the toilet for every shower. Using the bathroom for any more than ten minutes resulted in a tongue lashing. Doing so was inconsiderate, considering it was the only bathroom in a house with multiple residents.

After I’d left my foster home, it had taken some time to find a shelter. Time I’d spent walking around in the hopes of finding somewhere warm and safe-ish to sleep. Because it’s never safe to sleep on the streets. Never.

Once I’d found the shelters, things got a little better. It was through one of the ladies who worked at the shelter that I got my very first job at the bowling alley. I’d been paid under the table until I’d been able to sort myself out enough to receive a legal pay-check. The guilt I’d felt leaving that job had been massive. They’d given me a chance when no one else would. Still, even though I’d sobbed as I handed in my resignation, Holly had pulled me in for a big hug and told me she was proud of me.

That hug had been my first hug since Dad’s parting hug—the hug he gave me the morning I last saw him before I left for school. Before he took the pills and fell asleep with an armful of Mom’s clothes.

If I closed my eyes, I could still feel the squeeze of his arms around me. I could still smell waffles…

Emotion thick in my throat, I push all thoughts of my past from my mind. It’s probably not a healthy way of coping, but it’s been working for me just fine. It keeps me from doing what Dad did, and just quitting.

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