Indelible Ink (18 page)

49

Deena at 18 the first time around

Harper smacked Deena on the back of the head as she walked past. “Get up. You’ve gotta be downstairs in ten.”

“I don’t want to train anymore,” Deena said, swinging her leg over the arm of the couch. “I’m tired.” She’d been up late the night before, watching movies. They’d managed to finally afford basic cable and Deena wasn’t about to waste a moment of it.

“This is your shit. You wanted to do this. If you piss off Marsh now, there’s no telling what will happen.” Harper went through this every morning since they started working for Marsh. Harper got up at five, gathered things together and pulled the covers off of Deena, screaming at her to get up. Deena would immediately bury her head under her pillows and sigh. Harper would try again every ten minutes until six or so. At that point, it was always time to fight dirty. “We could have just stayed at the diner.”

“Not after the robbery.”

“And whose fault was that?”

“You act like I have some kind of control over this. I don’t. It just happens,” Deena said. She’d found she could control it to a point. Her thoughts were a direction for the power, like a suggestion.

“Wah. Some of us have to make it without that crap. Let’s go. We have to be downstairs at this warehouse at six-thirty.” Harper set a bag on the table. “I packed your gym bag, extra clothes, a snack. You’re ready to go. I don’t know exactly what my role is going to be in all of this, but I’m thrilled to be your valet. To no end.”

“Seriously? You packed me a snack for our first day of work with the mobster? Christ, you’re not my mom,” Deena said. “I can do it myself.”

Harper flipped her off. “You know, screw you. You can do it yourself, but you don’t, do you?” She tossed the blue bag at Deena and took off toward the door. “This is all fun and games for you, isn’t it? You made this bed, but we both get to lie in it, don’t we?” She opened the door and started into the hallway.

“You’re so dramatic,” Deena called after her. She grabbed the bag and followed her sister. She had to take long strides to catch up.

Harper lowered her tone in the hall and Deena knew she was afraid one of the other tenants would hear. “We’re living in a Goddamn high-rise with murderers, thieves and other horrible people, learning to be just like them, and you think I’m being dramatic?”

Harper punched the handle to the stairwell door and knocked it open. She slung her own pack over her shoulder and started down the 576 steps to the main floor. Step after step, she picked up the pace, obviously trying to out-distance her sister and work out some of the anger that was brewing.

The two of them had been living inside each other’s personal space for the last several months. They went to the diner at the same time, they came home at the same time, worked out in the gym together, did laundry, slept and rode the bus together. Deena thought about that as she heard Harper’s feet pound on each step, louder and louder. Harper spun at each landing, barely touching it as she continued to the next set of stairs.

Deena had been threatening her sister as subtly as she could. She suggested Harper would be held accountable in some way for what Deena had done to Mike. That she would be implicated in what Deena had done to the stick-up men in the diner, or the killers in the woods. So far, it was enough to get Harper to keep running. There was some inherent guilt in Harper, but the shock of all of the events piling up on each other kept her running. Deena didn’t feel good about what she was doing to her sister, but the lure of the criminal life, the thought of working for Marsh, had a hold on Deena that she couldn’t break and she would do anything to make it happen.

Still, she wondered where that would leave her sister. What was Harper’s breaking point, and what would happen when she reached it?

Deena skipped the last two steps, passed Harper on the landing and slammed into the door, shoving it open and kept going to the street. They both turned on the sidewalk and moved down the alley. “What are we doing? Will they take us to Marsh’s office?”

“How the fuck should I know?” Harper asked. Deena knew her sister cussed more when she was nervous. “Let’s go to damn gym and find out.” She pointed down the alley. “All I know is Ramirez’ll blow a gasket if we’re late.”

Deena rubbed her arm and watched her sister disappear around the corner of the building. The gym where they worked out was not a fancy, upscale city gym where women went to do Pilates and ride exercise bikes. There was a woman who did the books and another who came in and cleaned a couple of times of week, but other than that, Deena and Harper were a rarity. Deena didn’t mind the smell so much after a while and Harper had finally learned to stop complaining about it, but the smell of sweaty, bleeding fetid men continued to make her nose visibly curl every time they entered the facility.

There were limited options for anyone who wanted to work out. They had heavy bags to pound, speed bags to punch and weights to lift. Some jump ropes and medicine balls rounded out the facilities.

In the workout area, Deena found the usual assortment of men who hung around with seemingly nothing to do but lift weights and run laps. Six of them this time, which was about average. The sisters had been using the facility for a while and had never seen the place crowded, but it was also never empty.

Once both sisters were in the room and had placed their bags on the floor, Ramirez entered, his face twisted in its usual scowl. A man they’d never met followed Ramirez.

“Good morning, girls. Nice of you to show up,” Ramirez said.

A searing pain erupted on Deena’s arm and she saw the line, like a shadow, sweep down her arm. “Hey.” She was immediately on guard and wary of the new person.

This is Mr. Danny Englewood,” Ramirez said. He pointed to the disheveled man who had moved closer to the main door. “Until approximately twenty-four hours ago, Danny was in prison upstate.”

Harper looked at her sister and then back at the wiry Mr. Englewood. “What was he in prison for?”

“Don’t ask, because you really don’t want to know.”

Englewood smiled, revealing a crooked line of yellowed teeth with a number of gaps. His eyes were red and bloodshot. He walked with a confident swagger and Deena assumed he was high on something. He seemed very pleased with himself.

“Danny’s the kind of man you’re going to be working with here in the organization. I just thought you’d like to start meeting your coworkers now, rather than later. Just so you know what you’re getting into,” Ramirez seemed pleased with himself.

Englewood dropped his jacket on a chair and began unbuttoning his thin white shirt to slowly reveal the tattoos that littered his upper chest and torso. Images of eagles and skulls were interspersed with the American flag and a fiery pair of eyes near his neck. There wasn’t a space anywhere from his chin down that wasn’t overlaid by the ink work. Deena thought about the little spot of blackness on her arm that had put them in this situation and she worried that Mr. Englewood might be some kind of strange sorcerer like herself. She looked closer to see if any of his artwork moved like hers did.

“Like what you see little girl?” Englewood caught her staring. “You’ll get your chance soon enough.” He started toward them with a disturbing confidence. “Ramirez here told me all about you girls. He says you like to party.”

The girls looked over at Ramirez. He was smiling wide and had a number of the men in the room gathering behind him near the door. It seemed everyone in the room was smiling except Deena and Harper.

Deena’s body tensed and she felt a cramp forming in her stomach to go along with the pain in her arm. Deena didn’t answer, but something inside her started assessing the distance to objects around her that she could use as weapons. There was a scale in her mind that was slowly dipping down toward violence. And she was beginning to look forward to it. Just as the violence in the woods and at the diner had thrilled her, the anticipation of it here was overwhelming her brain.

“Oh. I think you’ll find out that I like to party, too. I’m a regular party guy,” Englewood said. He was slowly circling the girls and getting closer as he did.

Harper held up her hands. “Look, we’re not…”

She didn’t get to finish as Englewood lunged forward and punched her in the jaw.

Harper stumbled backward and tipped over, falling to floor, only to be caught by Englewood. He grabbed her by the shirt and pulled her so close that Harper had to be able to smell his breath. “Enough Goddamn talking. I’ve had nothing but talking for the last ten years. I’m done with talking.”

There was a cheer from the men assembled to watch.

Deena reached for Englewood but was blocked by a young boxer named Dane who grabbed her from behind. He had a tight grip on her waist and dragged her backward while another man quickly grabbed one of her arms.

It was hard for Deena to focus, as blind rage brought the familiar shadow across her body. She could see that the blow had really jarred her sister and she was only standing because Englewood was holding her up. She feebly tried to raise her arms but just couldn’t muster the strength.

“OK, we get it. You’re in charge here and you don’t like us,” Deena told Ramirez. “But we’ve made a deal with Marsh. He wants us to work for him. He made a deal with us.”

“Jesus Christ. We don’t need to do this,” Harper mumbled. “Marsh asked us to be here. He told us that we were here to work.” She was on the verge of tears, but was still too shocked to cry.

“Yeah? Marsh asked me to be here, too. Seems he’s not convinced you’re an asset,” Ramirez said. “He put me in charge of you to do whatever I thought was necessary. I decided that you’re no good to him if you can’t handle yourselves. You’d be pretty worthless to him, wouldn’t you say? Your careers as ruthless criminals would be wildly short lived. And that’s not a good thing.”

“We don’t have to do this,” Deena’s voice pierced the encroaching blackness.

Ramirez’s response came like a whisper from the void. “Oh, we do. We most certainly do have to do this.”

Englewood grabbed Harper’s shirt with both hands and ripped it, revealing the girl’s black sports bra underneath. The men cheered again.

“Stop.” Deena’s voice shook within her chest. She closed her eyes and thought about the spikes that had protruded from her knuckles in the past. She waited a moment as she felt her arm become thick, filling with darkness. Immediately, the man holding her arm screamed a high-pitched cry. They both looked down to see thorny protrusions had emerged from her arms and into his hands, the largest of them came out the other side of his wrist. He tried to pull away, but was stuck fast. Deena took a swing and connected with his nose, causing an audible crack. She released him from the spikes and he fell on the floor.

Deena was still held around the waist by Dane, who squeezed her tighter and lifted her off the ground in an effort to gain control. The other four spectators weren’t laughing, and they moved in to help Dane. Ramirez stayed where he was, seemingly confident that the men would handle her, and Englewood stayed with Harper.

It was hard for Deena to get any sort of angle to grab Dane, as he continued to squeeze from behind. She twisted and turned, but his grip was too strong. Her breath was getting short as she struggled to take in more air. The ends of her fingernails became sharp black claws. She plunged them into Dane’s arms and dragged them up from the wrist to the elbow. The cuts tore a gouge that flayed the skin and immediately dripped blood. Dane let go.

Free to move again, Deena stepped toward Englewood and Harper, but was blocked by the remaining four, who encircled her. Deena was about to warn them of a dire fate if they didn’t let her pass, but decided not to. She didn’t have the capacity for coherent language and they were grown adults. Stupid ass adults.

There wasn’t much of a fight. The men had size and strength, but Deena had energy in her body that crept out like murderous shadows. There was no grace to Deena’s fighting; she’d never had much call to practice. She attacked like some feral animal cornered and afraid for its life. The men’s size worked against them, as they couldn’t get out of each other’s way fast enough to react to her slashes and kicks. They were all down in a matter of minutes.

“Whoa. OK. We need to dial this back. It got out of hand real quick,” Ramirez said. He held up his hands to try to calm Deena. “This wasn’t supposed to go quite this far. We were just going to get a little rough and teach you a lesson.” He looked over at Englewood, but distanced himself from the man, slowly taking steps away.

Harper was pinned beneath Englewood, who had barely noticed what was going on around him. He was tearing at Harper’s sweatpants and nuzzling his face into her neck, nearly salivating as he went about his work. Harper’s shirt lay in tatters and her black sports bra shined in the harsh gym lighting.

Ramirez tried to get Englewood’s attention, but stayed away from him. “Christ, Englewood. Stop.” Deena ended his plea by swinging her arm in his direction. She didn’t look at him, only thought of a meat cleaver as her arm made an arc across his body.

Ramirez’s scream finally got Englewood’s attention. He turned to see that he was the only one unscathed in the room. He staggered to his feet and took a moment to quickly button his pants back up. “What’s this? What the hell is this?” His eyes were glassy as he tried to focus on Deena.

“What
is
this? What
is
it?” Deena growled. She took steady strides toward Englewood. “You started it. You tell me.”

A switchblade appeared in Englewood’s hand, produced slickly from his back pocket. “I don’t know what you…” Deena punched him in the jaw before he could finish. He staggered back, swinging the blade in front of him to prevent Deena from a quick follow up blow. “Look bitch. I am here to teach you a lesson.” The knife settled between the two of them. “
That’s
what’s goin’ on here.” His words were wet with the blood that was dripping from his lips.”

“Get the fuck away from my sister,” Deena said. She saw what she thought was a shadow pass over her whole body and it spurred her on. She thought of a handcuff and a line of the blackness shot out of her and wrapped itself around Englewood’s wrist, immobilizing the knife he was holding. He struggled as Deena pulled him closer with the dark restraint. Realizing he couldn’t use the knife, Englewood swung at Deena with his free hand.

“I think today’s lesson is about over. Don’t you?” Deena asked. She thought about the knife drawer at home and immediately, her fingers elongated with Shadow Energy and flattened into the likenesses of the sharp and serrated things that she kept in her kitchen: steak knives, a paring knife, bread knives and other sharp cutlery.

As soon as he was close enough, Deena sliced Englewood. She’d considered letting his wrist free, just to give him a chance, but didn’t. He hadn’t given Harper such a chance. Deena brought her razor-sharp fingers across his chest, cutting through the fabric and leaving rows of deep gashes.