finally.
“What about me?”
“You’re not part of the Family, not the way everyone wants. How’d you bust out?”
So I explained about it not being a matter of busting out, unless you counted the TRG, and why I was on the run to avoid Fangborn and the TRG now.
She stared at me, I think trying to figure out if I was telling the truth. “Get the fuck out. I had no idea.”
I shrugged again. “As you said, it’s a complicated history we have. Most Fangborn don’t know about it.”
“Most Fangborn should.”
“Yeah, fine, but it seems that, first, Fangborn aren’t much for self-awareness—they roll with the impulse to fight evil. And second , getting a history sorted out has always been secondary to rolling with it.”
“Doesn’t leave a lot of room for us dissenters, does it?” For a moment, I felt a kinship with her. I recognized the loneliness of her self-imposed isolation.
“No, not a lot,” I said.
She gave me a funny look, but we all have our secrets.
I was uncomfortable with the discussion. I never thought of myself as any kind of dissenter, only an unwilling outsider. Realizing, only now that I’d sat down and relaxed, that I needed to use the bathroom, I stood up. I found the most likely direction of th e toile ts, and made the “same again over here” circle-over-th e-tabl e gesture. The bartender nodded. “Be right back,” I told Vee.
I didn’t know if she’d be there when I got back, but I had to take the chance. It had been a long day.
If the ladies’ room had been darker, or less dirty, I might have gone to sleep, but brightly lit and unclean don’t make for a soothing combination, even when I was ready to fall asleep on my feet.
I stopped to wash my hands on the way out, after briefly debating the value of doing so with only cold water and no paper towel.
I looked into the mirror. A thought pounding in my mind, my proximity sense warning me:
There were strangers in the bar.
Well, duh. Of course, there are strangers. That’s one of the principal virtues of a bar …
There are strangers in the bar looking for me .
The ladies’ room was a dead end, no windows, down a hall with no other exits. Only way was back out past them.
No sense in waiting, no sense in subtlety—
A voice in my ear, with no one around. “Zoe, wait!”
“What Sean?”
“Um, isn’t there a better plan?”
“Like what?”
“Uhhh … anything?”
I shook my head. “No time.”
I barreled down the hall, stopping short of the beaded curtain that led to the bar. Nothing going down yet, but that didn’t mean—
Vee was gone.
Maybe she’d left before, ditching me and my problems, or maybe some oracular something told her it would be better to skedaddle. Maybe she’d called in the bad guys herself, and her story was horseshit? In any case, I was on my own.
Best thing to do: Throw money on the bar—no use getting the bartender pissed and calling the cops or pulling out his own piece—walk straight out the door, and lose myself, fast as possible. Hold my phone up to my ear to look like I’d had an emergency call, and there’d be no reason for me to stop and talk.
I tucked my phone between my ear and shoulder, put a frown on my face, and moved determinedly toward the bar. Reaching into my bag, as soon as I touched my wallet, I remembered.
My luck has ever been epically shitty. This time, my memory was, too.
I was out of cash. Used the last twenty at the other bar, this afternoon. Had never made it to the ATM today.
Plan B.
I pulled out a credit card and went up to the bar, beckoning.
“My friend didn’t happen to …”
“Didn’t pay, no.”
I handed him my credit card, and he swiped it. Seemed to take forever.
I tried to compose myself, which was getting harder and harder . Warning bells were going off in my head, and I felt a rumble of the Call. I used everything I could to tamp it down, and to my surprise, I felt it decrease a little.
But it was as if the
“What about me?”
“You’re not part of the Family, not the way everyone wants. How’d you bust out?”
So I explained about it not being a matter of busting out, unless you counted the TRG, and why I was on the run to avoid Fangborn and the TRG now.
She stared at me, I think trying to figure out if I was telling the truth. “Get the fuck out. I had no idea.”
I shrugged again. “As you said, it’s a complicated history we have. Most Fangborn don’t know about it.”
“Most Fangborn should.”
“Yeah, fine, but it seems that, first, Fangborn aren’t much for self-awareness—they roll with the impulse to fight evil. And second , getting a history sorted out has always been secondary to rolling with it.”
“Doesn’t leave a lot of room for us dissenters, does it?” For a moment, I felt a kinship with her. I recognized the loneliness of her self-imposed isolation.
“No, not a lot,” I said.
She gave me a funny look, but we all have our secrets.
I was uncomfortable with the discussion. I never thought of myself as any kind of dissenter, only an unwilling outsider. Realizing, only now that I’d sat down and relaxed, that I needed to use the bathroom, I stood up. I found the most likely direction of th e toile ts, and made the “same again over here” circle-over-th e-tabl e gesture. The bartender nodded. “Be right back,” I told Vee.
I didn’t know if she’d be there when I got back, but I had to take the chance. It had been a long day.
If the ladies’ room had been darker, or less dirty, I might have gone to sleep, but brightly lit and unclean don’t make for a soothing combination, even when I was ready to fall asleep on my feet.
I stopped to wash my hands on the way out, after briefly debating the value of doing so with only cold water and no paper towel.
I looked into the mirror. A thought pounding in my mind, my proximity sense warning me:
There were strangers in the bar.
Well, duh. Of course, there are strangers. That’s one of the principal virtues of a bar …
There are strangers in the bar looking for me .
The ladies’ room was a dead end, no windows, down a hall with no other exits. Only way was back out past them.
No sense in waiting, no sense in subtlety—
A voice in my ear, with no one around. “Zoe, wait!”
“What Sean?”
“Um, isn’t there a better plan?”
“Like what?”
“Uhhh … anything?”
I shook my head. “No time.”
I barreled down the hall, stopping short of the beaded curtain that led to the bar. Nothing going down yet, but that didn’t mean—
Vee was gone.
Maybe she’d left before, ditching me and my problems, or maybe some oracular something told her it would be better to skedaddle. Maybe she’d called in the bad guys herself, and her story was horseshit? In any case, I was on my own.
Best thing to do: Throw money on the bar—no use getting the bartender pissed and calling the cops or pulling out his own piece—walk straight out the door, and lose myself, fast as possible. Hold my phone up to my ear to look like I’d had an emergency call, and there’d be no reason for me to stop and talk.
I tucked my phone between my ear and shoulder, put a frown on my face, and moved determinedly toward the bar. Reaching into my bag, as soon as I touched my wallet, I remembered.
My luck has ever been epically shitty. This time, my memory was, too.
I was out of cash. Used the last twenty at the other bar, this afternoon. Had never made it to the ATM today.
Plan B.
I pulled out a credit card and went up to the bar, beckoning.
“My friend didn’t happen to …”
“Didn’t pay, no.”
I handed him my credit card, and he swiped it. Seemed to take forever.
I tried to compose myself, which was getting harder and harder . Warning bells were going off in my head, and I felt a rumble of the Call. I used everything I could to tamp it down, and to my surprise, I felt it decrease a little.
But it was as if the
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