Page 36 of Lies He Told Me (Bratva Crime Syndicate 1)

Even if he looked at me in a way that I can’t remember being looked at for a long time by anyone like him. Like I was actually a person, a living, breathing, worthy-of-human-attention person—not invisible, not some pathetic stain too low for notice—but a person.

And not just any kind of person, but awoman.

Still, I have to tell myself again:no, it isn’t worth it.

I force myself up and away. No point sitting here mooning over some guy I’ll never see again.

And to be clear—I willnotsee him again.

Oh, I bet it wouldn’t be that hard to find, a rich, around-the-town man like him. But I don’t want to find him. Not now, not ever. It’s the only way to stay sane when I go back to my shit heap of a life.

By the time I reach Tent City, I’ve set it all aside, that whole chunk of the day—the scent of marinara, the violent flash of rainbow hair, Mr. Gavril Vaknin, and the searing demand in his mocha eyes.

I get to the fire and see my friend. “Teddy!”

Well he’s not actually at the fire. More like on his way out, a swish of multicolored hemp fabric and a new clump of Mardi Gras beads hanging around his neck.

He pauses with a bit of sway, managing to look happy as can be and a bit apologetic at the same time. “You just missed me,” he mumbles.

Chowder trots up to me, his black marble eyes looking unusually subdued.

I crouch down to give his head a good scratching. “Doesn’t look like it.”

“I just mean …” He waggles a step forward. “I know you’re not into the drugs …” He tosses me a glance. “Sorry about before, too.”

It takes me a second to understand that he’s saying he’s high on heroin. But I put all the pieces together once he says it: the glassy stare, the vacant smile, the droop of his fingers. I sigh. I don’t do drugs of any kind and normally I wouldn’t go near anyone who does them. But out here, it’s the only way some people can find a few hours of happiness. It’s hard to fault Teddy for it, even if I’d never make the same choices.

“It’s fine,” I tell him. “On both accounts.”

Teddy visibly brightens. “You mean it? If you wanted, maybe …” He waves to his tent. “You know how I love your art.”

I give him a warm smile. “Sure, I’ll be right over.”

From any other guy, a tent invitation would be sketchy, on par with signing a line reading ‘Initial Here if You Want to be Assaulted.’ But I’ve been in Teddy’s knickknack-crammed tent a handful of times and he’s not so much as batted an eyelid, let alone tried anything.

Back in my tent, it takes me a few minutes to pick out which art I’ll bring over. They’re all special to me for one reason or another, like a mother trying to decide which of her children she loves most.

I go back and forth between a few of them, touching them to make sure they know they’re all loved.

But in the end, the newest gets the honors. Teddy isn’t picky, anyway; he just likes the colors. Lucky for him, I do too.

As I go over to Teddy’s tie-dyed, Sharpie-markered tent (I can still remember the night Teddy and a jubilant group woke me up in the middle of the night and, to the tune of, Bob Marley, persuaded me to help decorate it), I feel a superstitious twinge.

Teddy hasn’t turned on the reggae. And if there’s one thing Teddy is known for, it’s that healwaysturns on the reggae as soon as he’s back in his homely little hovel.

But right now, his tent is quiet—too quiet.

No warm thump through his tinny little boombox.

No quiet, contented mutters to himself as he finishes setting up.

Nothing.

I shake it off—the twinge, the burgeoning shivers. It’s nothing, right? I’m being weird, just a little shaken from my rainbow-haired assault earlier in the day.

But still, that silence, as if the very air itself is holding its breath.

“Teddy?” I call towards his tent where it sits in the darkness. My words echo, and I’m annoyed at my own nervous tone.

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