“That is… wow.” She laughs, not a stitch of humor to the sound. “I don’t know what I did to deserve this, but I must be the worst person in the world to have stumbled upon you.”
I don’t respond to that, watching her posture change, outrage washing away all restraint. She yanks her coat open, a little black dress greeting me beneath. She pats herself down, reaching into her bra and yanking out a stack of bills. More singles. She counts them, flicking through the money so heatedly I’m expecting her to rip a few.
Shaking her head, she tosses the cash on the bar in front of me. “Twenty-nine dollars. Oh, and…” She reaches into the bag on her shoulder, pulling out a small zippered pouch. She holds it upside down above the bar, a few coins spilling out of it. She scowls. “Like, sixty-six cents.”
“Look at that,” I say, snatching up the money—even the change—and shoving it in my pocket, not bothering to put it in my wallet this time. “Only seventy dollars and thirty-four cents to go.”
She storms away, nearly knocking over the stool as she goes, charging through the bar and disappearing outside into the cold night. I turn in my seat again, facing Blondie, not surprised to see she’s watching me warily, no doubt trying to make sense of that exchange in her drunken state.
“Where were we?” I brush a curl from Blondie’s face, my fingertips grazing her warm cheek, making the blush return. “Oh, right… my scar.”
I launch into a story about a doomed afternoon in Central Park with my family, how we witnessed a mob hit and became collateral damage in the process. Leave no witnesses behind. I survived, vowing vengeance on those that attacked us. I’ve got her eating out of the palm of my hand, more hero than villain in her mind, as I place a hand on her knee and slowly run it up her thigh. I’m about to take it further when the door bursts open. Coldness sweeps through the bar, footsteps loud as they stomp my way, even though the woman is in her bare feet for some reason. She’s fucking crazy.
Scarlet shoves in beside me again, holding a black leather wallet. She flips it open, the driver’s license of some middle-aged white guy greeting me from the plastic window inside. She raids it for cash, counting out loud.
“Twenty… thirty… forty… fifty… fifty-five… sixty… sixty, uh, seven.” She groans. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
“Did you just pickpocket someone else to pay me?”
She shoves the money my way. “Save your self-righteous pandering for the floozy over there. I’m three-dollars short.”
“And thirty-four cents,” I point out, taking the cash.
“And thirty-four cents,” she mocks. “Unbelievable.”
“I’ll give it to you,” I say. “The few dollars you’re missing.”
“Really?”
“It’ll cost a hundred dollars for every day it takes you to pay me back, of course, but sure…”
She groans. “Of course.”
Her gaze scans the bar, settling on the bartender as he heads our general direction. It’s the same one from every other time. He gave me a bottle of rum as soon as I sat down again. He’s learning.
I watch as Scarlet’s expression shifts, a flit of a smile on her lips. She shoves the stool further away to get closer to the bar, reaching up on her tiptoes to lean across it, gathering his attention. He approaches, looking at me warily, like he’s assessing whether or not she’s with me right now, before focusing his attention on her. There’s a glint in his eyes, apparently deciding she’s fair game.
He smiles. “Hey, Morgan.”
She arches an eyebrow, her face lighting up. “You remember.”
Her voice changes when she says that, growing sweeter. She’s exaggerating every syllable, blatantly flirting.
I wonder if she’d be doing that if she knew he was the one who ratted her out to me.
“Of course,” he says. “What can I get for you?”
“Well, uh, actually…” Her smile grows sheepish as she gently bites down on her bottom lip, a moment of silence passing before she whispers, “I was kind of hoping you’d do me a favor. It’s totally okay if you can’t, I completely understand, and I really hate to ask…”
“What do you need?”
“To borrow four dollars,” she says. “Like I said, you can tell me no, but it’s just that, you know, it’s been a long night, and…”
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” he says, pulling a wad of crumpled cash from his pocket. Tips. He wades through it, handing over four singles. He doesn’t question it, just dishes out what she asks for.
She takes the money, beaming at the guy. “Oh my god, you’re my hero. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
Heat rushes up his neck, flushing his face as he laughs a bit. “It’s just a couple bucks, no big deal.”
He wanders off to help another customer. The second he turns the other direction, Scarlet’s smile dims. She shoves the money at me. “Now that guy is a gentleman.”
I grab it. “He’s a doormat. A pussy. A parasite.”
“Says the asshole who just bled me dry.”
“I didn’t,” I say, looking her in the eyes, my voice low. “I could’ve, though. I could’ve slit your throat and took your life instead… could’ve turned that red room just a little bit redder while your little cop friend took you from behind, if you would’ve preferred it that way.”
The color drains from Scarlet’s cheeks as the spark dims in her eyes. It’s fleeting, a flash of emptiness, like she’s nothing more than a shell of a human. Cold. I don’t have to wrap my hands around her throat to kill her, no… those words take the life right out of her.
She knows I watched them.
Seems they were too preoccupied to notice my presence as I lurked around that night. And the look that passes across her face right now? She wore it then, too. She wore it as he fucked her. Not a stitch of enjoyment. Not a stitch of anything. It was as if a switch got flipped inside of her, shutting off her humanity, turning her into a puppet with strings. He fucked her, yeah, but he didn’t fuck her. Whatever made up who she is vanished the moment the man put his filthy hands on her.
The look is short-lived, though, life rushing right back into her. Her nostrils flare, hands clenching into tight fists, like maybe she wants to hit me, like maybe she’s considering clocking me right in the eye for having the nerve to witness something she wanted to go unseen. She shoves closer, brazenly pressing up against me, her voice barely a whisper as she says, “You probably should’ve killed me.”
“And why’s that, Scarlet?”
She hesitates, like she doesn’t know how to answer my question, and turns to leave as she says, “You wouldn’t understand.”
I snatch ahold of her arm, keeping her there.
I’m not done.
Her eyes shoot daggers my way, her hands still balled into fists as she tries to yank away, but my grip is firm. Heat radiates off of her, like anger is literally burning up her core, an explosion imminent. It might be fun to watch her go kaboom.
“Let go of me,” she says, her gaze on my hand. “Now.”
“Sit down,” I tell her as I nod to the empty stool, loosening my hold on her arm.
She pulls away. “Why the hell would I do that?”
“Because I told you to.”
She scoffs, dramatically rolling her eyes. It strikes me as wrong. Childish. The woman has a spark in her, a fire running wild, but that kind of immaturity seems beneath someone with brass balls of her caliber. Sure, I don’t know her, so maybe she really is just a brat. I’ve met my fair share of those since coming to New York. Hell, I’ve fucked my fair share of them. But my intuition tells me something different.
Besides, I’ve seen her innocent act. She plays people like they’re a piano and she’s Chopin, pounding away at their keys, and the ignorant fools don’t even hear her music. I hear it, though. It’s pretty goddamn loud to my ears, the kind of music that resonates with the deepest, darkest parts of the soul… or whatever bit of it you might have left. Her own little Funeral March. Dun, dun, da-dun…