Page 14 of Descent

Soon enough, the music has me tapping my toe and I’m side-eyeing the blonde waitress that hasn’t taken her eyes off me since I arrived. Definitely have no interest in that kind of indulgence tonight.

Not sure why.

But it’s nice to feel pretty.

“What would you know about being pretty, Ciro?” I mutter unconsciously, sipping another beer.

Even as I hear the words absently, the twitch of a smile tugs at my lips. It’s almost like I don’t know how to smile or something.

Like it’s a foreign concept to my lips.

Blondie bites her lip, sauntering past me as another song starts, some hard thumping pop-dance thing. I think about hitting on her or asking her to dance.

And suddenly I’m somewhere else in my head.

I know it’s New York, it’s late night and we’ve been at it for hours, hitting one club and another. Ciro bumps my shoulder, winking at me, flirting his ass off with some out-of-towners. Across the bar, another familiar face gives me a flat look, his eyebrows raising slightly like he’s seen this all a thousand times before. Like he’s there to keep us from burning the place down or something.

His name flickers on the periphery of my mind…

My brother. He’s my older brother and he’s?—

Beer shoots out of my nose, shattering the image, slapping me back to the brightly lit bar in Prague. Now.

The memory shreds, tattered, floating away like so much wet garbage in a river.

It leaves me cold, hollow. The girl’s still eyeing me, but she’s not…

She’s not the one I want.

Slapping some cash from my would-be assassin’s wallet down, I shove off the bar, ignoring the disappointed look on googly-eye’s face. Ignoring the signs of her glancing toward the back of the place, nodding her head.

I’m a block away when goosebumps rush down my back.

My feet surge into a trot, into a run without my urging. My flight reflexes have never failed me before, and pretty quick, I realize why.

I’ve got a tail. Someone to the left and back, another across the street. Through the gaps in the buildings I catch more movement, parallels mirroring me on both sides.

Shit. Double shit.

I lose count after five. And they’re not working together, at least not all of them. Different trajectories. Not quite in sync. But they’re all pros.

Everything’s a little blurry through the mist and the booze. Lights streak slightly to my eyes, kaleidoscoping as I run.

I let my feet carry me on, let my instincts make the turns, double back, wait, move on.

An hour later, I’m dying of thirst, my head is pounding. And these guys just won’t quit.

Two more slip by and I’m flagging, wearing thin.

Deep gray floods the horizon as I scurry from another hiding place. Right into a leather-clad assassin who’s just as surprised as I am.

Block, stop his hand from reaching his gun, slap the knife away, duck, drop back. Gotta stay inside his reach, keep him from using his longer reach to his advantage.

“You’re not doing very well,” Ciro snorts, crossing his arms and leaning against the dirty brick wall across from me.

“You’re doing even worse. At least I’m not dead yet,” I growl, hammering my elbow down on my dancing partner’s back. He stumbles to the side, giving me a strange look and lunging again.

“Wait…I thought that was the point?”

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