Page 72 of Dark Ink

The patter of the rain against my thin hood was welcome. It helped to block out all the swirling ideas of what exactly Rian did to Stewart. All the possibilities of how he “fixed” that problem. My mind, without the incessant drone of cold, bitter rain, was prone to imagine the worst: used needles in arms and dirty rags across lips and twitching fingers in quickly flooding ditches. It was all too easy after what I’d experienced, what I’d seen in the dean’s office, to paint Rian not as the gentle lover between my legs, but the twisted stalker a little too obsessed with his prey. Too willing to do whatever it took to have her.

I shivered and I was certain it wasn’t because of the water soaking through my flimsy jacket. I rested my cheek against the condensation-covered window of the bus and closed my eyes.

Rian wouldn’t hurt Stewart, I repeated once more in my mind. It was a mantra that was keeping me at least half sane. Rian knew how much my older brother meant to me and because he loved me, he wouldn’t hurt him. He wouldn’t.

The doors rattled open and I was back in the rain. Another homeless shelter without a Stewart Brady. Another soup kitchen that hadn’t served the man in the picture I held up with blue-tipped fingers. Another police station that hadn’t booked any John Doe junkies that night. The doors of the bus rattled shut and I was soaked through to the bone.

There was one place left to look. It should have been the first place I went. But I guess a tiny part of me still held out hope. A tiny part of me was still a foolish little girl.

Even the city buses didn’t go all the way. I rode in the dirtiest one I’d ever been on: brown paper bags littered the dusty corners, graffiti covered every available inch of the windows, the fluorescent bulbs twitched nervously on and off, on and off. Hooded faces huddled against slashed seats. Manic muttering came from the very back row. And eyes shifted threateningly at the smallest movement. It was a disgrace to even pay for such a bus and yet it still stopped more than ten blocks from my final destination.

It was probably my imagination, but I thought the door seemed to close a little hastily on me as I climbed down the sticky stairs, the wheels screeched a little impatiently as the driver shifted into gear, the bus lurched forward, ignoring a stop sign, a little too recklessly. If a massive hunk of steel and aluminium feared the neighbourhood I found myself in, alone and unarmed save a long-ago broken umbrella, what chance in hell did I stand?

As the rain dripped from the flopped over lip of my hood, I cursed Rian. Was this his idea of being there for me? Keeping me safe? Watching over me? He was the reason I was there, staring out at a mile of unlit street, potholes the size of canyons in the dark. Dogs snarling at chain-link fences. Babies wailing. Glass shattering. Professor Fucking Merrick was the reason, not Stewart.

I wouldn’t be anywhere near this place if it wasn’t for him. And where was he now? My protector. My defender. My lover. I was alone. More alone than ever, it seemed. Before Rian I was at least dry and warm. There was always a pillow to cry into at night. But here I was catching my death on a deserted sidewalk where my tears would be indistinguishable from the rain that cascaded down my cheeks.

Steeling my nerves, I began to walk. I kept my head down. I ignored any shouts from sunken porches with overflowing drainpipes. I checked constantly behind me. I turned down an emaciated little boy who offered an eighth of God knows what; it was no consolation that I wasn’t the only defenceless thing out there in the unlit night.

Finding the numbers on the houses proved to be the hardest part. I moved aside overgrown weeds on tilted mailboxes. I squinted in the dim light of flickering television sets past broken blinds at doors. I retraced my steps in the pouring rain more times than I could count. It was the group of unspeaking men huddled in the dark that clued me in that I was in the right place. I couldn’t make out their eyes as I stood at the rickety front gate, but I knew they were staring at me. If there were guards, there must be something worth guarding.

My fingers shook as I unclasped the little metal latch. Finding my voice was difficult as the men rose as one, towering over me where I stood at the base of several eroding wooden stairs.

“I’m looking for Nick,” I called out to them over the rain, drops splattering on my frozen lips. “Does he live here?”

They were mute. Unmoving.

“I, um, I did some work for him,” I tried. “I, um, I did some IDs.”

A flicker of movement. A pair of lips against an ear. A nod. A man slipped inside. The light illuminated crumpled up beer cans, a bottle of whiskey half filled with rainwater, and a length of rusted chain like a snake; I followed the end to one man’s balled fist.

Licking my lips I tasted the acidity of the rain, the saltiness of my fear. A moment or two later, the door opened. And remained open. The men parted. Not enough for me to feel comfortable, but just enough for me to slip through. I shuddered as callused knuckles brushed against my ass, as a foul-smelling mouth laughed and said, “Come back soon, love.”

The light in the low-ceiled living room wasn’t more than a bulb on a floor lamp with no shade, but coming from the dark I shielded my eyes as I stepped across the carpet which squelched like a bog underfoot.

“Your boyfriend’s not here,” came a ragged voice.

I blinked in a sight that startled me more than I could say: Nick, pale-faced and wincing, as he adjusted a broken leg on the couch. I sucked in a breath. He was little of the man I remembered from that night when he attacked Stewart in my apartment. The dangerous flash had sunk from his black eyes. No smile curled his thin lips. Amongst the sagging cushions he looked small and weak. The only thing I recognised was the roughly tattooed white knuckles, except now they gripped the edge of the couch frame instead of the handle of a spiked baseball bat.

“Why don’t you draw me?” Nick mumbled irritably. “It’ll last longer.”

He laughed weakly at his own joke, but soon grimaced as he coughed and curled over his clutched ribs. A deep laceration had bled through the butterfly bandages on his cheek; I didn’t think it was the sole reason for his lack of smile. All I could do was stare, my mind whirling as I stood there in the entryway to the living room.

“I’d kill him myself, you know,” Nick said in a low, tight voice, “if I didn’t know he’d do it himself soon enough.”

Again an attempt at laughter. Again quick regret as it disturbed his surely broken ribs.

“Who?” I asked in a hollow whisper, though I feared I already knew the answer.

Nick leaned his head back on the armrest, turned his face toward me, brow glistening in the harsh light of the exposed bulb.

“Your little professor, love.”

I shook my head. “I— I came here for my brother.”

Nick frowned. “Your brother?”

“Stewart,” I said. “Stewart Brady.”

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