Afterlight by Rebecca Lim

chance.’
    ‘Sorry for what?’ Nadja replied, genuine confusion on her pale, pinched face. ‘She’s
got my number. Tell her to use it. Now go. Just go. ’
    Jordan and I spun for the door, but not before Roman’s voice sounded out angrily,
‘Stop! I said stop , you little bastards.’
    He crashed into something, swearing and kicking it out of the way as Jordan and I
began careening in earnest through the forest of abandoned chairs and tables towards
the door.
    ‘Hurry!’ Jordan rasped. ‘Almost there.’
    But I couldn’t help looking back over my shoulder. As I watched, Nadja shot out around
the front of the bar, moving to head off her boss before he could reach us. My head
was pounding. The cold and flu tablets I’d taken this morning had finally worn off.
Even the slow stirring of air from the fan was beginning to hurt my skin. I slowed
for a moment, clutching at a bentwood chairback, dizzy.
    ‘Soph!’ Jordan urged, tugging on my arm.
    Behind us, Roman began to shout at Nadja in a language I didn’t understand. There
was a scuffling sound, a woman’s cry, and then Roman was right on top of us, his
hand on Jordan’s shoulder. As he swung Jordan around, pulling us both off balance,
I caught sight of Nadja kneeling on the floor tiles near the bar, her long hair covering
her face.
    ‘You little shits !’ Roman snarled as Jordan pushed me into the space behind him,
the door close at my back. ‘You don’t just walk into my place and take stuff off
the premises without consulting with me first.’
    Roman snatched the bundle of plastic out from under Jordan’s arm, shoving him hard
into me for good measure, before digging around in the bag and pulling out a guy-sized
black T-shirt with a Death’s head design on it, entwined with silver daggers and
red roses. Gran and I called the look gay-designer-pirate . Everybody who dressed
like that drank two doors down, at Deezy’s .
    As the T-shirt slid free of the plastic, a greeting card, a cheap ballpoint pen and
a loose blue envelope fluttered to the ground. I bent, intending to retrieve them,
but Roman wagged a chunky finger at me.
    ‘Uh uh.’ He swept the card up off the ground, frowning over the cartoony Thank you! message on the outside, then the words scrawled across the inside in big, loopy handwriting.
    Upside down, Jordan and I read:
    To Carter K – for services rendered.
    Always, M x
    ‘You Carter?’ He looked up, addressing Jordan belligerently. ‘Lots of people been
looking for Monny’s little friend. Didn’t think you was real.’
    Jordan shook his head. ‘Just the courier,’ he mumbled. ‘Pick up, drop off. Owed someone
who owes someone a favour. Don’t know nothing.’
    At the periphery of my sight I saw Nadja’s head come up sharply at Jordan’s words.
Roman’s gaze narrowed on me, mashed into the door by Jordan’s weight and barely breathing.
    ‘I know you,’ Roman said, frowning, dark eyes raking my face.
    ‘Don’t know you,’ I replied, shaking my head, my fat ponytail bouncing on one shoulder.
‘Never been here before, never seen you before, I swear.’
    ‘But I seen you ,’ Roman said, dropping the card and T-shirt as he shoved Jordan out
of the way. He gave me a slow top-to-toe once-over that made my skin crawl. ‘Yeah.
You’re that skinny bitch they’re calling the North Fitzroy Nostradamus , The Saviour
of Sancerre Street . Say you saved all those people because you can see the future .’
    He mimed talking marks in the air, his laughter unamused.
    ‘You got the wrong person,’ I whispered.
    ‘She’s just my girlfriend,’ Jordan interjected, and it sounded so real tripping off
his tongue that, even now, I ached for it to be true. ‘We’re not even here, okay?’
    Roman ignored him, placing a hard finger under my chin and lifting it so that I couldn’t
look away. I had at least a couple of inches on him, but his menacing presence, his
virulent cloud of aftershave, seemed to fill my entire world.
    ‘The