Page 16 of Gemini
Unlike the last room, this one was crowded with people talking loudly over the music. Smoke hung in the air and the stench of weed hit me from a group in the corner taking turns with a pipe. A few at the bar looked my way as I passed. I heard my name being hollered but I didn’t so much as glance around. A sliding metal door was open to one side, and I could see out in the night. Several sports cars and a few bikes were parked in the courtyard with people hanging around. I made for the door when a big man in a sports jersey stopped me.
“Yo, Dom.” Kris nodded. “Didn’t think you’d be down tonight.”
“Where’s Lez?” I signed.
He tilted his head behind him toward the courtyard. “You know. Where he usually is.”
Right.
I patted him on the shoulder and slipped past him into the heat.
I passed the cars and bikes and wrenched open another door opposite the courtyard into a tall building and slid into the dark without hesitation.
Low orange light cast into the hallway from an open doorway. Here, the music was less loud but only barely. I could smell the sweet scent of a vape mingled with weed. I rounded into the room and found more people sitting around drinking, but my focus went over to where a large projector screen hung on the wall and several people were huddled around watching.
Lez sat in the center of a low back couch. A girl clung to his arm on one side, her head resting on his shoulder, while two others sat close, giggling, clearly off their rocker on something. Joint in his mouth, Lez hardly seemed to notice them as hisfocus was on the screen. Controller in his hand, he was playing Grand Theft Auto again, racing down streets.
Christ, as if he didn’t have enough of GTA in his own fucking life.
One of the girls laughed as she looked around, then went silent once she saw me. Even in the low light I saw her face flush, eyes wide, looking a little nervous.
I didn’t use to be this intimidating. Can’t imagine what changed.
Steering around the couch, I stood in front of the screen right in Leslie’s way.
The rest of the girls went silent. The others around us didn’t so much as utter a remark. Only Lez, after he took the joint out of his mouth, had anything to say.
“Down in front, motherfucker.”
He smirked, but I didn’t smile back. I could see it in his eyes he was already tipsy or extremely high or both. I signed. “We have to talk.”
He grunted, putting his controller in one of the girl’s hands before attempting to take another hit from his joint. I leaned in and smacked it out of his mouth.
“Dom, what the fuck—”
I signed at him again.
“Alright. Alright, god damn.”
As he attempted to get up, he staggered. Thankfully, the girl clinging to him helped him stay on his feet.
“He’s a little hammered.” She chuckled, nearly staggering herself. I recognized her as the girl I’d seen him with before. Ares. She had on some black minidress under her leather jacket, her black hair straight down her back. And she had fangs, what I assumed were her real teeth surgically changed. Her eyes were bright green but were clearly contacts. Besides that, I thought her features reminded me of Lena, slender with round hips,warm light-brown skin, and a couple of tattoos around her collarbone. But this girl couldn’t hold a damn candle to Lena.
“What’s up?” Lez said as he just stood there like he was actually going to hear our conversation over everything, let alone remember it in the morning.
I could practically feel my temple throbbing.
Without thinking, I grabbed his arm and started to lead him out. Ares let him go as he stumbled.
“Hey, be careful!” she called.
I forced him out of the room and down the hall. When we slipped into an empty room still being renovated, he tugged his arm away.
“What the fuck are you on?”
My hands flew as I tried to explain. “We got trouble.”
Lez’s eyes narrowed as he finally seemed to perk up. “What kind of trouble?”
