Authors: J. N. Colon
Dark Goddess (28 page)
The city smelled like shit tonight. Gasoline and exhaust mingled with urine and rotting food. Burnt rubber from hot tires laced the toxic mixture. Or it could have been the burning crack drifting from the abandoned factory I was passing, a decrepit smokestack standing like a fractured bone against the pitch sky. Druggies were probably hiding in corners, smoking rocks, determined to suck it all down before someone else begged for a hit. The others were scrounging on the cold, dirty concrete, searching for scraps and putting anything in their pipes that resembled a crack rock, praying for that high they can’t ever hold onto.
Graffiti covered walls and overpasses in a multitude of colors, but it did nothing to mask the decay crawling over every edifice, bringing a sense of death to the air. Deep cracks ran the length of the road beneath my feet, spider webbing out. Most people would have fallen or stumbled. Not me. I knew the streets.
I took another drag of my cigarette, the cherry flaming red in the darkness before flicking it on the ground to burn out. My breath fogged in front of me, mixing with smoke in the icy night air of Bishop, a small city in upper Maryland. A cold wind lifted my long dark hair, bringing with it a heady, unmistakable scent. My eyes glanced toward a busted streetlight and saw the outline of a guy.
My heart didn’t even miss a beat. Why would it?
I zipped my leather jacket up to my neck, the click of the teeth echoing down the quiet street. Footsteps resonated on the pavement as the guy who assumed I couldn’t see him ambled closer.
“Hey baby,” he called out, blowing a cloud of smoke from his mouth. “What you doin’ on the streets all by yourself?”
I didn’t answer. I shoved my hands in my pockets and kept walking.
“Why don’t you come inside with me? I can get you set up with the other girls.”
He was only a few feet away when I stopped and gave him the finger. “Fuck off,” I hissed, my lips curling in disdain.
The guy blinked, confused before recognition spread across his face. “Oooh. My bad Kory. Didn’t know that was you.” Derrick licked a long dark finger and touched it to the tip of his White Owl to stop the run. “I shoulda’ recognized that mean mug.”
“Funny,” I sneered.
He smiled, flashing his white teeth. “You want a hit?”
“Nah man. I’m good.” I knew better than to smoke a blunt after a pimp. No telling what he does with his
girls
.
“All right then. See ya’ around.” He slipped back into the shadows—or at least he thought he did. I could still see him.
I continued down the street to my house. The small three bedroom bungalow was in serious need of repair. The blue shutters were chipping, one even hanging off, the door needed a paint job and so did the siding that resembled the color of dinge rather than white. Like every house on this street it was falling apart. But who the hell was going to fix it? Certainly not me.
An overpowering scent of stale cigarette smoke assaulted me when I stepped inside, wrinkling my nose on impact. You’d think as a smoker the smell wouldn’t bother me so much. Light from the outdated bubbled television playing the news flickered against the faded white walls.
“Another gruesome murder was discovered tonight in Bishop. Is it the usual gang related crime that has plagued the city? Or is there a new threat on our streets? The story tonight at eleven.”
People die every day. Whether it’s old age, drugs, a car accident, or murder—it eventually happens. No one is immortal.
I turned the channel, returning the remote to the chipped wooden coffee table that held a stagnant glass of water and an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. The worn out beige carpet barely created a barrier between the eroding wooden legs and the concrete beneath. A wood burning fireplace was across the small room with a splintering mantle that had definitely seen better days. A light blue threadbare couch was flush against the wall with a mismatched brown recliner adjacent currently occupied by my aunt. The kitchen was on the right just before a short hallway leading to our bedrooms and bathroom.
My eyes flickered to my sleeping aunt laid back in the recliner, an unlit cigarette dangling from her chapped lips. She might die in a house fire, I thought glibly, pulling it from her mouth and laying it on the table. Or a drug overdose.
A stab of remorse penetrated my chest. I shouldn’t think those things. I shouldn’t be so damn ungrateful. Her life might have been completely different if she never had the burden of a seven year old kid forced upon her.
My parents died in a car accident when I was seven and my aunt Maggie was my only living relative. When she took me in she was stunningly beautiful and full of life with a promising modeling career. It’s pretty hard to get modeling jobs when you’re forced to drag around a little brat so she quit. Then she had her accident. A broken leg and neck landed her in the hospital and in a shit load of pain killers. Once she was out of the hospital and her bones healed she couldn’t give up the high they brought.
Most of the money my parents left dwindled quickly after that. Their stuff was crammed into a storage unit and—while there could be valuables—I sure as hell wasn’t about to set foot in it any time soon. Maggie didn’t even know I still paid the small monthly bill otherwise she and her druggie friends would have pillaged the contents by now.
I sighed and gently spread a quilt with several cigarette burns on top of her. My grandparents adopted her from the Ukraine and it was highly apparent we weren’t blood related, especially standing next to each other. Maggie’s always been tall and willowy, but the effect of drugs over the years has thinned her frame considerably. Lackluster wheat colored hair curtained her delicate face and cerulean almond shaped eyes. Her pale skin was so light rivers of tiny blue veins were visible up close. A fragile quality surrounded her as if she was a piece of glass threatening to break at any moment.
I was at the other end of the spectrum. My hair was dark as soot and hung midway down my back. My soft face held round, dark brown eyes, a straight nose and full lips. I was barely 5’3” and where Maggie was frail and thin, I was curvier with taut muscles beneath my perpetually tanned skin.
She looks so much older than she should, I thought, running a finger across her lined forehead. She’s only thirty five yet looks forty five. Drugs.
I sat on the threadbare couch and pulled her purse into my lap, pill bottles clanking together. Hydrocodone, oxycodone, two kinds of Xanax, and Ambien. I’ll take a little of each, I thought, pouring a few blue Xanax into my palm.
Maggie unexpectedly stirred, coughing.
Shit. My suddenly pounding heart was the only thing that didn’t freeze. I wasn’t afraid of a guy in a dark alley, but my aunt catching me stealing her drugs—well that was a different story.
But her head just lolled to the side at an uncomfortable angle and she continued sleeping.
My breathing resumed as well as my theft. I’m not really doing anything bad. I’m actually helping her. The fewer pills she has the less chance she has of hurting herself. At least that’s what I tell myself to get rid of those itchy guilty feelings.
On the short way to my room I caught my reflection in a mirror hanging in the hall, my dark eyes glinting in the dim light, igniting the inexplicable gold flecks in them like embers of a fire.
I stretched out on my bed, my laptop warm against my thighs as I downloaded music. And not that lame shit played on the radio. Most of that is repetitive, mind-numbing crap that only fuels the masses’ addiction to conformity and superficiality.
I’m antiestablishment in case you haven’t already figured that out. You won’t find any Taylor Swift posters in my room. Or Justin Bieber. I
do
have one of Marlon Brando when he was young and hot and one of Leonardo DiCaprio post Titanic. Way post. He still looked like a baby faced kitten then. He’s got some substance now and scruff.
My tiny room is painted the darkest shade of purple without completely going black. Please. I’m not goth or emo. A full bed was pushed up against the wall with a small worn dresser purchased at a garage sale across from it. My closet was on the left and the door on the right.
I took a drag of my cigarette while listening to a rock song bordering on death metal, deciding if I liked it enough to keep. The music was good, but the lead singer did a little of that screaming thing every so often. I really hate too much of that.
I shrugged. I’ll keep it and listen to it when I pissed off.
I stopped the song and clicked download. Once the music ceased a noise echoed down the hall, the slightest creaking coming from Maggie’s room. I froze, evened my breathing, and perked up my ears.
Creak…creak… creak
… like some was creeping around in there. Maggie doesn’t creep even when she’s high.
My jaw clenched and blood turned hot. Someone was in the house.
I snatched the bat I kept beside my bed and loped toward the door, gently easing it open without a sound. Tension wove through my muscles and all five senses were heightened as I soundlessly stalked down the hall on the balls of my feet. When I made it to Maggie’s room I inaudibly pushed the door open and saw him hunched over the dresser, digging through her jewelry box. Even in the blanket of darkness I recognized the thieving asshole.
Anger burned my chest and I fought the urge to crack him over the head. Instead I closed the distance between us to a foot and nudged him in the leg with the tip of the bat. “What you doing Tom?”
Maggie’s loser ex-boyfriend nearly jumped out his skin. “Kory! W-What are you doing here?” His greasy black hair stuck to his sweaty forehead, framing his bloodshot eyes. He wiped a pair of grimy hands on a blue uniform shirt. He perpetually smelled like a nauseating mixture of gasoline, motor oil, and alcohol. “I thought you had that thing on Wednesday nights.”
That thing he was referring to was community service I was slammed with after getting caught in the wrong place at the wrong time—well not really but that’s what I claimed. I finished that weeks ago.
“You wouldn’t be stealing from my aunt, would you?” My voice held a dangerous edge.
Tom shook his head, fear staining his blue eyes. He had several inches and pounds on me, but he was personally aware of the damage I could cause especially with a bat in my hand.
“I was just looking for something of mine I left here.” He nervously shuffled from foot to foot, his gaze searching for a way around me. “Didn’t find it though. Maybe I didn’t leave it here after all. I guess I’ll go now.”
Before he could move an inch I pressed the bat to his chest. “Empty your pockets.”
With one sigh of defeat he pulled out three gold necklaces and my aunt’s antique gold pocket watch and laid them on the dresser. “That’s everything.”
I stopped him again and shook my head. “Don’t lie. I see that bulge in your jacket pocket.”
His sweaty face turned incredulous. “I don’t got anything else.”
My blood boiled and eyes narrowed. It was late. I was tired. And my patience was too thin.
Quick as lightning I wacked the bat against his side, making him stumbled with a howl of pain. “Shit Kory! You broke my ribs.”
“I did not.” Bruised yes. Cracked maybe. Definitely not broken. I do have some control.
Tom gingerly reached in his jacket with trembling fingers and pulled out a velvet ring box I knew held my grandmother’s engagement ring. “That’s all!”
“Now get out of my house,” I growled, stepping aside. “And if I catch you sneaking in again you’ll find out what broken ribs really feel like.”
Tom gave me a wide berth as he hobbled by, mumbling something that sounded like ‘crazy bitch’ and ‘you’ll get yours one day’.
My fist clenched against the effort it took not to punch him in the face.
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