Page 643 of Flirting with Darkness

“Well, at least you know your way around a bar. I’m glad he picked someone with some sense, because we need help with the upcoming six-moon festival.” She points to a row of bottles behind me. “Weigh those, and write down the ounces. So we know if Daze is being honest with their shot count,” she says. I blink. I never did that back at our bar, but then, it was just me and my dad and my sister. And it’s not like anyone of us would have stolen shots or sold them for cash money that didn’t make it into the register. That’d be taking food off of our own table, and while Dad’s been known to do it, both Emi and I would never. Stupid, really. But I guess the girls who work here don’t have the same incentive to stay honest.

I drag out the scale and start weighing bottles.

“What happens if the numbers are off?” I ask and she smirks.

“Somebody gets the boot. But with you here, do we really need an extra body or two around? You’re Hade’s favorite now. And given how he looks at you, I’m guessing it’s gonna last.” She pauses, checking me out up and down several times over. “Maybe. You need to dress nicer if you’re gonna keep a prince like him.”

I swallow. That pierces me right at the heart of my insecurities. Emi was always the beautiful one, and compared to girls like her, I was always… Whatever, I’ll go look through my closet later, before Hadrion comes back. Pick something… ‘nicer’, I guess.

Live gives me a long look and smiles as another customer bellies up to the bar and slaps down a ten.

“I’ll help you,” she says, before she turns to him. “Your usual?” She’s already reaching for a beer when there’s motion at the shadowed entrance, and a familiar head of baby blonde hair has me stopping in my tracks.

My eyes widen.

She looks so, so out of place. And that’s without the enormous bruise on her temple. Her clothes are plain and cheap and scruffy, her ponytail disheveled and askew. What’s most shocking is that it’s no different from what I would’ve looked like not days ago — better than, even. And yet to me, in this moment, she’s never looked more pitiable, more pathetic. More insignificant.

Live might think my current fashion choices are plain by her standards, but damn, when a girl from lowtown wanders into the wrong district…

“How’d that cat get in here?” Live scowls, and then pushes past me, but my attention is elsewhere.

Emi, having turned to face the bar, lifts her head, and in the space of a beat her gaze has met mine. Across the club, we stare at one another in a shared moment of stunned recognition. Like something right out of the third act of a Shakespearean drama, a second beat passes, this one still.

Emily’s face twists into an mask of rage, and she storms toward the bar. My heart skips up into to my throat, elevator-slamming my pulse straight to the roof.

“You little BITCH!”

Emi’s voice has no chill, sheer seething fury cracking her voice mid-shriek as she barrels toward me. She’s at the bar before I can blink, reaching across it to grab me by the front of my blouse. Her fingers brush the fabric, dangerously close, as I swing back with a gasp.

“Oh, fuck no,” Live says, reaching under the bar. One of the two bouncers from the doorway is already moving toward us, hell to pay all over his face.

Emi swipes for me again, ineffective as it might be. The frenzy has wrenched her usually pretty face into something brutal and hideous.

“You think you can just run off on me and Dad!?” she spits, grabbing onto the edge of the bar, about to haul herself over it and — do what, hit me? I back up and bump into the glasses behind me on the shelf, making them clink.

“Stand down, bitch,” Live says. She draws out a huge shotgun that dwarfs her frame, and points it directly at my sister.

“No!” I cry out, and despite everything I’ve been pondering since I last saw her, I throw myself between the weapon and my sister. Before I can say anything additional, my throat goes tight, and it takes a moment for me to realize Emi grabbed the chain of my necklace from behind as I slid in between her and Live.

“Give! It! To! Me!” she shrieks, punctuating each syllable with a sharp yank. Live’s eyes widen as I’m wrenched backwards, Emi’s other hand clawing viciously at my face. Oxygen is cut off from my lungs and I gasp, rasping for air.

“Got it.”

The low voice of the bouncer, Braith, is suddenly rumbling very close to my ear. The pressure on my neck goes slack, and my back hits the corner of the bar. Noise is everywhere — Emi’s screaming, patrons yelling. I slump down to my knees, hitting the rubber mats behind the bar as my hands lift to my throat. There’s a line of fire burning a ring around my neck, and I feel like I’m still choking for breath.

Live is at my side in an instant.

“Braith has her, are you okay? Shit, I’m glad I didn’t have to shoot her. The kick on Betsy there is a real sumbitch, and my shoulder’s still screwed up from… anyway.”

She’s shaking her head as I glance up at her.

“Where’s she?” My throat doesn’t want to work, but I force the words out. “That girl — my sister.”

“I mean, Braith’s throwing her out right now —” Live stops mid-sentence as I get to my feet, forcing my body to move despite it not wanting to. In all honesty, it probably knows what’s best for me more than I do. Sure enough, Emi is being dragged out by Braith, practically by her hair. She’s screaming at him and trying to slap him, but he’s so much taller than her, all of her flailing is for naught. Slowly, inch by inch, he’s getting her toward the exit. She’ll be outside in less than a minute.

Grabbing the edge of the bar, I vault myself over it and hit the ground, pain sparking up my legs from my heels. I run for her, snatching Braith by the sleeve before he can muscle her out onto the street like a common drunk.

“Wait,” I barely have breath, but he hears me and turns, surprised. It’s enough of an opportunity for his serpentine charge to give him the slip. She reaches for me again, howling like a banshee, tears streaking her mascara down her flushed cheeks.

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