SILVER: Acheron (A River of Pain) (The SILVER Series) (21 page)

Silver turns to glare him. “That’s not fair.”

He knows it’s not, but she’s giving him emotional whiplash and he’s running out of patience.

“El, if you don’t want this, why’d you kiss me back?”

Her ability to suppress the flood is faltering. “I don’t trust myself with you, Luka. You make everything … different.”

“Better?”

Silver rolls her eyes. “Nice to see your ego’s just as healthy as it ever was.”

“When it comes to you? Hardly. You’ve been making me feel like a fool for twenty years.”

“Now who’s overreacting?”

“That’s not an exaggeration, Silver, it’s the truth. I never know where I stand with you.”

“That’s such bullshit, Luka. You’re my best friend.”

“Except for when I’m more than that?”

Silence.

Silver doesn’t know how to respond, but she doesn’t have to; Luka’s not finished.

“And when I’m not—when you don’t need the comforting shoulder or the little confidence boost—what am I supposed to do then? Just stick around in the wings? Waiting for the next big scene I get to share with you. Hoping that, maybe, one day, I’ll get to fuck you instead of just getting fucked
by
you.”

“Jesus Christ …”

“Guess what? I’m not doing that anymore.”

“Luka …”

“No, Silver. This is it. If you push me away now, you’d better be damn sure that’s what you want, because I’m done with this.”

Silence.

There might be a tear in his eye, but through the distortion of her own welling tears Silver isn’t sure, and he’s not done scolding her yet.

“I’m done being your back-up. I’m done being second best,” he hesitates. “I’m done with you.”

“Okay,” Silver whispers, trying not to sound like she’s choking. “If that’s the way you want it.”  

“Don’t do that. Don’t make this my choice. I think I made
my
choice pretty clear back there on the couch. If you wanna know what
I
want, all you have to do is look in a mirror. Figuring out what the fuck it is that
you
want would take a whole team of neuroscientists from now until the sun burns out.”

Silver doesn’t fight that. “I’m complicated. You’ve always known that.”

“Difficult, more like.”

“Stop acting as if that’s such a big turn off. It’s the challenge you’re attracted to, not me.”

“Can’t it be both?”

“So you fuck me, and then what? I join the ranks of all the other girls who’ve been Caesared by you?”

“Caesared?”

“Veni, vidi, vici—I came, I saw, I conquered. Or, in your case, you saw, you conquered, and you came. Your history with women is so well documented, does it really surprise you there’s a term for it? You’re like a homeless fish seeking shelter for the night.”

“Make sense, please.”

“If it’s wet, you’ve been in it.”

“Oh, that’s nice. That’s really what you think of me?”

Silver shrugs. “Your reputation speaks for itself.”

“You’re pushing me away on the strength of a rumor?”

“No, I’m using anecdotal evidence to support my belief that you’re not as hurt by this as you proclaim.”

“I was a kid, Silver. Kids fool around.”

Silver ignores his persistent denial. “You’ll get over it, is what I’m trying to say.”

“Don’t speak for me.”

Unable to make eye contact, Silver realizes Luka’s shirt is still scrunched up in her hand, her palm nervously clammy against the cool fabric.

“There’ll be other girls.” She holds the shirt out to him. “Better girls than me, I promise.”

Under the guise of reaching for his shirt, Luka invades her personal space and wraps his hand around hers, holding her fingers to his chest. So close she can feel his heart beating, she doesn’t object when he rests his forehead against hers and brushes the back of his hand over her cheek.

“I love you,” he whispers.

Silence.

A hesitation.

Nuzzling her face against his, smearing her tears on his skin, Silver presses a kiss to his cheek.

Her mind’s made up.

“Goodbye, Luka.”

The Snap

For the next month, Silver vows to fend for herself.

She doesn’t answer any of Luka’s pages, or Maydevine’s, and tries to avoid human contact as much as possible. Still reeling from her last Dodger misadventure, she struggles to find any form of employment that doesn’t involve some type of violence.

Unfortunately, in the Fringe District, you’ve a better chance of reinstatement than finding a legitimate occupation, and it’s not long before Silver is hurting financially as well as nutritionally. She’s been rationing the food and watching the bank balance carefully. Today, she finally hit zero, and all she has to show for it is an empty bottle of firewater and a headache.

Without purpose, Silver flounders. In the Hunter Division, every day was scheduled right down to the last minute. She thrives in a structured environment; it’s the way she was raised. Lacking that, the extra time on her hands is just more opportunity for her to become tragically derailed.

Disposing of the empty bottle—the evidence of her most recent derailment—into a sewer hole, Silver returns home empty handed. Weary, and emotionally exhausted, she has no energy left to react when she enters the apartment and finds Alice stark naked in the bedroom. Fresh out of the shower, her pale skin has a glow of warmth, and she’s not at all self-conscious.

This woman has zero boundaries.

Almost two months of eating well has given her back some of her womanly shape. Her hips are less angular and skeletal, and her breasts appear fuller now. Facing Silver full-frontal, Alice takes time bunching her hair up into a pony tail. Lingering in Silver’s sight line for as long as she can, her anatomy gradually responds to the attention of Silver’s eyes.

“Cold?” Silver presumes.

Alice answers with a smile, “No.”

Able to smell the alcohol on her from eight feet away, the smile slowly fades, and concern begins to seep into its place. Battling double-vision, Silver scrunches up her eyes and suppresses the urge to fall down onto the bed and sleep for a hundred years.

Alice smells like fruit.

Apples, maybe?

Cucumber?

Wait, that’s a vegetable.

Mmm, food. Silver finds herself very easily distracted, and doesn’t completely realize how close Alice is until they’re touching. Alice presses her hands up against Silver’s cheeks and she leans in, as if for a kiss. Hovering a hair’s breadth away, she runs the tip of her tongue slowly across Silver’s slightly parted lips. Perhaps, just for a split second, her tongue ventures in between … but it’s so fleeting. Silver has no chance to respond to it, if it happened at all.

Pulling back, “Don’t drink that shit. It’ll kill you,” Alice warns.

Silver cocks an eyebrow at her. “If you’re gonna make liquor off limits, I’ll let you pull the trigger right now.”

“Firewater’s not liquor, it’s almost pure ethanol.”

“The best kind of liquor, then,” Silver smiles.

Without warning, Alice slaps her.

Hard.

That seems to smack some sense into her, and by the time her woozy, off-balance self hits the bed, any trace of the couldn’t-care-less smile is gone. She rolls over onto her back, waiting for the world to stop whirling like a fairground ride.

The next sensation she’s aware of is Alice straddling her, still naked—still angry—now pinning her to the bed.

“You know how they distill firewater here? They use old car radiators. You get a bad batch with a little bit of antifreeze in there—some of that sweet tasting, barely noticeable ethylene glycol in the mix—and … well, hello, kidney failure.”

For the first time since Silver’s known her, the childlike tone to Alice’s voice is absent. Her face is embolic serious, her violet eyes big and bright and drilling into Silver’s brain.

“You know this because … ?”

“Just trust me, okay? No more firewater.”

Between Alice’s legs, something vibrates.

Silver’s pager.

Alice perks up instantly. “A job?”

Without asking for permission, she fumbles around Silver’s crotch looking for the pager.

“Hey, watch it, gropey.” Silver wriggles out from underneath her. “I take care of my own business, thanks.”

With her back to Alice, she checks the message.

Maydevine.

THE CRUMB SHACK.

I’LL WAIT THIRTY MINUTES.

TIME’S TICKING, KID.

Coincidence? Probably not. He’s likely been watching her dwindling balance, patiently waiting for her to hit rock bottom so that he could make his move.

Behind her, Alice lounges on the bed, still casually baring all.

“What is it this time? Another drug dealer? Weapons? An arsonist?” She rolls over to Silver, biting on a fingernail. “Is it that guy who’s been setting all those fires in South Town? The one with the mohawk? I know where to find him, you know. He smells like burning rubber.”

“No, that’s not him. That’s just the Old World garbage underneath the Fringe District, threatening to suck us all in.”

Alice slithers around on the bed, dangling her face over the edge beside Silver.     

“Good thing Maydevine finally has something for you, cuz there’s no meat left.”

Silver shakes her head, confident that Alice is mistaken. “There’s two meal’s worth, at least.”