Page 1 of A Harmony of Procellarum

Chapter one

Tiny

NewYorkinthewinter is the most beautiful place on Earth. Snow falls in a slow descent to the ground and each flake is illuminated by the multitude of lights emanating from streetlamps and the warm glow of apartment windows. It blankets the cracked and weathered concrete, cushioning your boots as they leave a trail of footprints behind you. All of it telling a story of where you’ve been and where you’re headed.

When I was a child, I would spend eleven months out of the year counting down to December, my favorite month. It was the cheerfulness of the season, the spirit of giving, and the love and comfort of family. Not that I had much family. I was the only child of a single mother and I never really knew who my father was, but she worked hard. I never felt the loss of not having a man in my life to raise me because Marlena Charles was able to fill both shoes.

None of that affected me during my childhood and adolescence. If anything, it made me strive to be better than most children from conventional homes. I was the funniest, the happiest, the smartest, and always the most popular. I was class president, taught dance lessons, and tutored in my spare time. I filled every block of free time with an activity so I would never have to face exactly what it was I lacked.

Until there was no other choice.

My mom was a superwoman to me, someone larger than god itself, and maybe it was me putting her on such a high pedestal that made her fall so far. The year I turned sixteen, three things happened in quick succession. My mother lost her job, became an alcoholic, and we became homeless. I didn’t know about any of it until I saw the eviction notice sitting on our kitchen table one day after school. I blame it on filling up all my spare time and not being able to see the pain my mother was in. Not until it was too late.

I vowed that day to never neglect my family, whether it be the one I share blood with or the ones I choose. We packed up our meager belongings and sold off what little furniture we had, then we started living out of our rusted Station Wagon.

I began to lose that shiny exterior I had built for myself, the one that persevered regardless of my weight, my troubles, and my lack of experience with relationships. Soon I found myself a shell of the girl I used to be. Our first Christmas after becoming homeless rolled around and we were still living in that small vehicle, nearly freezing to death, when my mother surprised me again. She handed me a small box wrapped in newspaper and told me she had two gifts. The one I held in my hand and then something she had in her pocket.

I remember being so angry still, not even wanting any of what she was offering me, but I plastered a smile on my face and asked her what was in her pocket. Her mouth stretched wide into a brilliant smile. For the first time in a long while, I really took in her features. The eyes that were usually glossed over and unfocused were bright and clear. Her skin had a pink hue running along its surface and the bags under her eyes were losing their bruised coloring.

She pulled her fist out of her pocket and held it out in front of me, slowly uncurling each finger, gradually exposing a red chip in her palm. “What is that?” I asked.

“It’s my thirty days,” she said, dropping it in my lap. “Thirty days of being free of the decay that gripped my insides. Thirty days of unpacking the damage it left behind.” Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at me apologetically. “I’m so sorry, baby. I promise you, tomorrow I’m going to go hunt for a job and I’m getting us out of here.”

The woman hunted every day for a few weeks, and I will give her credit for that. Getting up before I had to go to school and going to every place in New York City, even the fast-food joints, begging for a job. But the thing about being homeless is you don’t have a place of residence and the risk of hiring such a person is too high, especially after the holidays, the slowest time of the year.

It was clearly left up to me, and even though I was a straight-A student and the world my oyster, I dropped out of school and stumbled across what was always meant to be my future.

The Temple.

During the day, those neon lights aren’t on, casting a beacon to any hot-blooded male. The street in front is quiet without the music pouring from the open door. To an unsuspecting, teenage girl, The Temple looked like a restaurant, and the now hiring sign on the front window was a rarity in the city. So I went in.

I was hired by Carl Sr. practically on the spot. He first asked me if I was eighteen. I had just turned sixteen, but if getting this much-needed job relied on being a certain age, you better believe I lied. He never questioned it, didn’t ask for ID, and when he asked if I had bar experience, I lied again. I mean, I kind of did. I could tell you every kind of liquor and the fucking bottle it came in, thanks to my mother. He told me I could start that night and to dress in something sexier than what I had on if I wanted any tips.

You better believe I wanted tips.

I remember leaving and thinking the restaurant was pretty dull for mid-day because the place was empty. But I shrugged it off and counted my lucky stars that I had found a job. My first shift started at eight that night to set up the bar, and again, I know that’s late for any restaurant, but I was a kid. I knew I could do sexy because my mother had a few outfits she wore on dates and I could take one without her noticing. She didn’t notice much those days, not with a bottle back firmly in her hand.

With a white lace dress that should’ve looked understatedly sexy was downright sinful over my curves, and when I worked that first shift, after getting over the shock of being inside a strip joint, I came back to our Station Wagon home two-thousand-dollars richer. Within six months, I was on stage, hauling in obscene amounts of money. I got us a motel room to live out of, or for my mother to pass out in, and continued to make bank.

I saved everything, and when I finally felt like we had enough money to rent our old apartment again, my mother suffered a stroke. Her hospital bills ate through most of my savings, but it pushed her to try sobriety a second time. With her head clearer and her focus back on her daughter, she began with the questions. I was never one to lie to her, so I told her exactly what I was doing and how long it had been since I dropped out of school.

She didn’t argue when I told her I would continue on that path. How could she? I was paying all our bills. She left me to my own devices and I to hers, which soon enough went back to the bottle. Eventually, we got our old apartment back, which wasn’t too much of a shock. It was empty because the place was more rundown than the motel we were staying in, but it was home to us.

The cold gust of wind brings me back to the present as large snowflakes collect along my shoulders. I’m standing in front of our apartment building and staring in through the glass door, willing my mother to still be on the wagon for what must be the twentieth time on her road to recovery.

When I left for Nevada, she handed me another red chip. Another thirty days to add to my growing collection of thirty-day chips. I love my mother, but we switched roles a long time ago. Back inside that rusted Station Wagon to be exact. I became the provider and she was the dependent. Nevada was an escape for me, a way to put a little distance between the stress that was mounting here, only I stumbled into something much darker than I ever imagined.

A shiver skates down my spine and I quickly look over my shoulder at the darkened street.He’s not here, I tell myself as I exhale my breath in a thick plume of white. Nor do I want him to be here.

My hand absently presses to the spot just under my chest. The injury has healed, but the ache remains as a reminder to never put my life on the line for anyone who doesn’t deserve it.He doesn’t deserve it.

With renewed determination, I pull my key out of my thick winter jacket and open the lobby door. I may be apprehensive about what I’ll find upstairs, but I’m more terrified of what I’ve left behind.

SQUALL

After ensuring Torrent was safe inside the walls of his very own hell, I came here to the address Raiden had texted me without context. Not that I needed it. In my heart—in my very soul—I knew who it belonged to. I told myself I was coming here to make sure she was safe, to see where she was living, and then I would walk away, never to bother her again.

Never to love her again.

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