Page 71 of Never Say Die
“You’re not.”
“Iam.”
“Guys, we made it,” Georgia said over her shoulder. She pointed to a diner built into a brick building between a bourbon bar and a clothing store. “See? Nothin’ fancy. Just a little café.”
Aiden took Shay’s hand again and followed Georgia through the arched doorway, scooting into a circular booth beneath the window. Maple, coffee grounds, and fryer oil wafted through Bun-Bun Café, and despite the worry brewing in his bones, his stomach rumbled.
They ordered breakfast to share—cornmeal pancakes, sausage and grits, sweet potato waffles, poached eggs, and fried green tomatoes. As they ate, circling conversation about corpses and music, unlucky tour stops and psychopath groupies, Aiden caught movement in the skinny hallway between the kitchen and the bathroom. Velvet fingers around the door. Faded teal hair and pitted eyes. His spoon clattered on the table.
“You okay?” Dylan asked.
Aiden forced a nod. “Yeah, just. . .”
“Just?” Shay prompted, stealing grits off Aiden’s plate.
Aiden nudged Shay, and said, “Nothing. I have to pee—move.”
I saw you, bitch.He touched Shay’s nape as he made for the hallway, ducking left into the unoccupied bathroom.I know you’re here.He searched the cramped space. Clean linoleum. Simple stalls. One mirror above a single sink, illuminated by abuzzing ceiling light. He peeked behind each stall—nothing—and stood before the mirror, searching his reflection for inconsistencies, for proof he was still asleep. He pinched his wrist.Awake. Dug at his cheek with a fingernail.Awake. Set his palms on the porcelain and stared into his eyes. Brown, like soil. Brown, like a Ramírez. The longer he stared, the lighter his eyes became, flickering like static on a busted television. He was there and he wasn’t. Broad shoulders dove inward. He unwillingly snapped his head to the side, listening to bone crack, and watched his jaw distort, color run from his skin, his reflection break and reach. Everything inside him wanted to scream, but he couldn’t. Panic bubbled, knotting in his intestines. He took a painful breath, lurching forward to smack his palm on the mirror.
Laura looked back at him. Her mouth had split, carved into a jester’s smile, caked in blackened blood, and her palm glistened red against his, fingers tipped in steepled claws. As he breathed, she breathed, her naked chest rising and falling, splatted like a sunrise. When he opened his mouth, she opened her own. Serrated teeth caught the miniscule light, too large for her small maw.
“Prophecy,” she said, and Cit snaked through her voice.
Aiden felt his mouth make the word.
Wake up, he thought. His eyes stung.Wake the fuck up.
The door swung open.
Aiden gasped. His hand fell, smacking the spotted faucet.
“Hey, man—whoa. You good?” Dylan listed his head, blinking suspiciously. His ponytail flopped to one side and he gestured to his nose. “You’ve got a bleeder.”
“Oh,” Aiden said, stupidly. He stared at his reflection—him, again—and wiped his nose. Blood streaked the side of his hand. “Yeah, this fuckin’ humidity does weird shit to my sinuses. I’ll be fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I’m good. Seriously.” He splashed his face, wiped droplets away with his shirt, and forged a smile, stepping around Dylan and into the hall.
Prophecy. The word resurfaced, spoken like a fairytale curse. Laura’s face, her teeth, the way she’d occupied his body and replaced his reflection—turned his skin into an unfamiliar coat, clinging tightly to his bones, suffocating all the hope he’d hoarded. Aiden stood on shaky legs and forced his clenched lungs to expand. Glanced at his bandmates, loitering around the booth, and fought the urge to crumble to his knees.
Shay, hungry. Aiden, falling apart.
They didn’t have time for either breaking point.
“C’mon, I booked a cemetery tour,” Georgia said, pointing toward the door.
It wasn’t real.
Aiden ignored Shay’s prying eyes. Saidnothingwhen Shay askedwhat is it?Called Laura a hallucination in the safety of his busy mind as the band and Pru boarded a red streetcar, exited on Anthony Street, and joined a midsummer walking tour.
It felt real.
He stepped over broken cobblestone, snapped a selfie with the band in front of a cast iron tomb, and pulled Shay away from the group, kissing him against a craggy grave to silence his thoughts.It couldn’t be real.Lips slackened and fangs framed his jaw.It had to be real.Shay lessened, somehow. Became an unsteady shadow of himself. All shallow breath and tentative hands, too-slow touches and hot skin. He was out of sorts the same way he’d been in Vegas, as if the strange, otherworldly glow he’d carried out of the sea had gone dim.
“You’re hungry,” Aiden whispered.
Shay quieted for a heartbeat. “You know when you start toget a cold? Fine one minute, gross the next? It’s like that. Imagine the shittiest comedown you’ve ever had butworse.”
