Poison Read online

  Poison

  I hated the girl.

  I hated every­thing about her, from her painfully thin body to her big, wounded eyes to her absolute eager­ness to do what­ever my father, Fletcher Lane, told her to.

  Most espe­cially, I hated the fact that Dad had decided to train her to be an assas­sin instead of me.

  The girl set a triple choco­late milk­shake down on the counter in front of me. “Here you go, Finn.”

  Her voice was soft, just like every­thing else about her. Soft brown hair, soft gray eyes, soft, small body. Even her clothes were soft and big and baggy and utterly for­get­table. She never raised her voice, she never inter­rupted a con­ver­sa­tion, she never did any­thing the least bit dan­ger­ous or naughty or risky. It was as if she was deter­mined to draw as lit­tle atten­tion to her­self as pos­si­ble and blend into the back­ground no mat­ter what.

  She annoyed the hell out of me.

  I didn’t even say thanks as I stuck a straw into the frothy con­coc­tion and started suck­ing down the milkshake.

  “Do you like it?” the girl asked, a bit of hope creep­ing into her voice. “I fol­lowed Fletcher’s recipe, but then I decided to add in even more choco­late to make it really rich and creamy.”

  The milk­shake was won­der­ful, absolutely won­der­ful, and even bet­ter than the ones that Dad made for me here at the Pork Pit. But I wasn’t about to tell her that. Most days, I didn’t even bother to speak to her.

  I grunted. “It’ll do, I suppose.”

  Behind the counter, Sophia Dev­er­aux gave me a sharp stare. Most peo­ple would have been intim­i­dated by the look, since the mus­cu­lar dwarf was as hard and blunt as the girl was soft. Sophia wore solid black from the bot­tom of her heavy boots to the T-shirt that cov­ered her chest to the leather col­lar that wrapped around her neck. Even her hair was black, and she’d painted her lips the same dark color. Sophia was the real deal—a Goth through and through. She made the wannabes at my high school look like kids play­ing dress-up, which, of course, they were.

  Sophia’s pointed look didn’t faze me in the least, since I knew that I had both Sophia and her older sis­ter, Jo-Jo, wrapped around my fin­ger. The dwarves had helped Dad raise me, and I knew that they thought of me as their own son. For some rea­son, though, both Sophia and Jo-Jo had taken an imme­di­ate lik­ing to the girl, fuss­ing over her just as much as they did over me. I didn’t know why. I didn’t think there was any­thing to like about Gin.

  Gin—that’s what the girl called her­self. Heh. We all knew that wasn’t her real name, but Dad had accepted it any­way. He’d even given her a last name too—Blanco. Gin Blanco. As if that wasn’t the cheesi­est thing that any­one had ever heard.

  But Dad hadn’t stopped there. He’d cre­ated a whole new iden­tity for the girl, claim­ing that she was some dis­tant cousin of his that he’d taken in after her fam­ily had died in a car wreck. She’d been with us sev­eral weeks now, and Dad had bought her clothes and fed her and even enrolled her in school with me. Since she was thir­teen and I was fif­teen, she wasn’t in my class, though. One small thing to be happy about.

  Since I was tired of look­ing at Gin, I swiveled around on my stool, still suck­ing on my milk­shake. It was Mon­day after­noon, and busi­ness was a lit­tle slow at the Pork Pit, Dad’s bar­be­cue restau­rant in down­town Ash­land. Only a few cus­tomers sat in the blue and pink vinyl booths in front of the store­front win­dows, although they were all eat­ing their bar­be­cue sand­wiches, baked beans, and thick, steak-cut fries with obvi­ous enthusiasm.

  A girl about my age put down her nap­kin, slid out of her booth, and started fol­low­ing the pink pig tracks on the floor to the women’s restroom. I smiled at her as she passed. She stopped a moment to look at me, and my grin widened. With my walnut-colored hair and green eyes, I was the spit­ting image of my dad and just as hand­some as he was. I winked at the girl, who gig­gled, ducked her head, and hur­ried on by.

  Nor­mally, my dad, Fletcher Lane, would have been here, sit­ting on a stool behind the cash reg­is­ter and read­ing a book in between help­ing Gin and Sophia dish up bar­be­cue. But Dad was off on one of his jobs tonight, killing peo­ple for money. As the assas­sin the Tin Man, it was some­thing that he was excep­tion­ally good at.

  And now, he was deter­mined to teach Gin every­thing that he knew.

  He’d told me about his plan last night, even though I’d seen it com­ing way before then. A few weeks ago, a man named Dou­glas, one of Dad’s dis­grun­tled clients, had stormed into the restau­rant and almost killed him. In fact, Dou­glas would have killed Dad and me too—if Gin hadn’t stabbed him to death with the knife that she was using to chop onions with at the time.

  For some rea­son, Dad thought that made Gin a prime can­di­date to become an assas­sin, just like him. Hell, he’d already given her a name—the Spi­der. Another fake, cheesy name to go along with her other one.

  It should have been me that he was plan­ning on training—I was his son, his flesh and blood. My mother had died when I was a kid, and it had always been just the two of us. I just didn’t under­stand what Dad saw in Gin that he didn’t see in me. What he thought that she had that I didn’t. I was older than her, smarter, stronger, tougher. I was already as good a shot as Dad was with his guns. I wanted to learn the rest of the busi­ness too, but Dad didn’t see it that way. He said that Gin would make the bet­ter assas­sin, that she had the patience for it, and I didn’t.

  That had hurt worse than any­thing else that he’d ever said to me.

  The milk­shake soured in my stom­ach, and I sud­denly felt like I’d been drink­ing poi­son instead of melted choco­late. Maybe I had been. I’d seen what Gin had done to Dou­glas with that knife. She’d stabbed Dou­glas over and over like he was a piñata that she was whack­ing all the candy out of. I wouldn’t put any­thing past her, not even off­ing me so she could have my dad all to herself.

  I turned back around to the counter that ran down the back wall of the restau­rant, sat my empty glass down, and pushed it away with one finger.

  “You must have liked it,” Gin said, still look­ing at me. “You drank all of it.”

  Instead of respond­ing to her, I got to my feet, grabbed my leather jacket off the stool next to me, and put it on. It was the sec­ond jacket that I’d bought in as many weeks. Gin had given my first one away to some home­less kid, just plucked it off the coat rack in the restau­rant like it was hers instead of mine. Some­thing else that she’d done to piss me off. That poi­so­nous feel­ing curled up in my stom­ach, burn­ing like acid.

  “What­ever,” I said. “I’m out of here.”

  “Where?” Sophia rasped in her harsh, bro­ken voice.

  I shrugged. “I’ve been invited to a party. I plan on going and hav­ing a good time.”

  Gin frowned. “The one that Fletcher told you last week that you couldn’t go to?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Fletcher’s not going to like that,” Gin said in that soft voice again, the one that made me grind my teeth together. “Espe­cially since it’s over in South­town. That’s why he told you that you couldn’t go in the first place. Because it’s dan­ger­ous over there.”

  Next to Gin, Sophia grunted her agreement.

  “I don’t care what Dad does or doesn’t like,” I growled. “Because he cer­tainly doesn’t give a damn about what I do or don’t like. For exam­ple, I didn’t like it when he brought you in here. I still don’t. But yet, here you are anyway.”

  Gin didn’t flinch at my words, but for a moment, the faintest flicker of hurt filled her eyes. For some rea­son, it made me feel like shit.

  “Finn,” Sophia growled, clearly want­ing me to apologize.

  For a moment, I opened my mouth, intend­ing to do just that—to force out a gruff Sorry. I knew that Gin had been through some­thing hor­ri­ble, some­thing that had forced her to live on the streets. Hell, I’d seen the spi­der rune scars that had been branded into her palms—a small cir­cle sur­rounded by eight thin rays, one on either hand. But I just didn’t under­stand how or why her prob­lems had become Dad’s problems—and now, mine too.

  “It’s okay, Sophia,” Gin said. “Let him go.”

  Then, she turned away, grabbed a knife, and started slic­ing a tomato. That was all that she did. She didn’t yell or scream at me, and she didn’t give me another wounded look. She just turned around and went about her busi­ness like I wasn’t even there, like I didn’t even mat­ter to her or any­one else

  She had no right to do that—no fuck­ing right at all. This was my dad’s restau­rant, not hers. He was my dad, not hers. But here she was, slowly tak­ing over, tak­ing away, every­thing that was mine.

  That poi­so­nous acid flooded my veins again, burn­ing even hot­ter than before. I wasn’t going to apol­o­gize to her. Not now, not for anything—ever.

  I stalked across the floor, opened the door, and left the restau­rant with­out look­ing back.

  #

  I’d had too much to drink. Or maybe just enough. It was hard to tell. Every­thing seemed soft and hazy in the dark.

  The party had been held in an aban­doned build­ing over in South­town, the part of Ash­land that was home to the vam­pire hook­ers, pimps, and home­less bums. There’d been lots of loud music, lots of girls, and lots of booze. Every­thing else was a bit of a blur. Now, I was walk­ing back to the Pork Pit, plan­ning to use my key to let myself into the restau­rant so I could sleep in one of the
booths for the night. Dad would give me hell in the morn­ing for dis­obey­ing him, but going to the party had been worth it.

  Get­ting away from Gin for the night had been worth it.

  A group of us had left the aban­doned build­ing together, but one by one, my friends had peeled off, going their respec­tive ways, until now, it was just me. I wasn’t too wor­ried, though. I was only about ten blocks from the Pork Pit now. I could make it ten more blocks before I passed out—

  One minute, I was stum­bling down the street, try­ing not to trip over the cracks in the side­walk. The next, I was pinned up against the side of a build­ing by two guys, with another guy stand­ing in front of me, hold­ing out a knife. I still wasn’t too wor­ried, though. Mug­gings were as com­mon as sun­sets in Ash­land, espe­cially down here in Southtown.

  “Hey, hey,” I said, giv­ing them a crooked smile. “There’s no need to be rough about things. Take my wal­let if you want, although I’ve got to warn you, there’s not much in there.”

  “Don’t worry, pretty boy,” the guy with the knife said. “We will. And we’ll take your blood too. Every last drop of it.”

  He smiled, reveal­ing two dark, tobacco-stained fangs in his mouth. Ah, hell. They were vam­pires. Hun­gry ones too, from the way they were eye­ing me.

  Sud­denly, I was extremely worried.

  If I’d been sober, I prob­a­bly could have fought back, bro­ken free from the two vam­pires who were hold­ing me, and then run like hell. But I wasn’t sober and the third guy had a knife. The odds were not in my favor. Still, I started strug­gling any­way, but my limbs felt slow and heavy, like I was try­ing to fight through water. The vam­pires just laughed at me and tight­ened their grips. Damn. If I got out of this in one piece, I was never drink­ing again. Well, not for a month, at the very least.

  “Hold him still,” the guy with the knife said.

  One of the other vam­pires forced my head back against the cold brick, expos­ing my neck. The vam­pire with the knife licked his lips and leaned for­ward. I winced, wait­ing for the pain that I was sure to feel from his vicious bite.

  “Uh.”

  For some rea­son, instead of tear­ing into my neck with his teeth, the vam­pire let out a low grunt instead and slumped for­ward, his body press­ing against mine.

  “Blake?” one of the other vam­pires said, look­ing at his buddy. “What the hell are you doing? Quit fuck­ing around. The rest of us want a taste too.”

  He reached out and shook Blake, who flopped back and crum­pled into a heap on the sidewalk.

  “What the hell?” the third guy said.

  I wasn’t pay­ing atten­tion to them any­more. Instead, I was look­ing at the slen­der fig­ure in front of me—Gin Blanco.

  She looked rather ridicu­lous, stand­ing there in the dark in her baggy jeans and fleece jacket, her hair pulled back into a pony­tail, a bloody knife clutched in her right hand and a clean one in her left. I rec­og­nized the sil­ver­stone knives. They were two that Dad had given her to start prac­tic­ing with—and she’d just used one of them to save my life.

  “Leave him alone,” Gin said in a voice that was as hard as the brick build­ing above our heads.

  And sud­denly, I saw what Dad did in her—the fierce deter­mi­na­tion, the strong will, the unwa­ver­ing loy­alty. Even though I’d treated her like shit tonight, like shit every night since Dad had taken her in, Gin had still cared enough to fol­low me home from the party just to make sure that I got back to the Pork Pit okay.

  I knew it as instinc­tively as I knew that I would never treat her bad again—ever.

  The two vam­pires looked at each other, then at their fallen buddy, and then back at Gin. They let go of me and launched them­selves at her. Gin was wait­ing for them. She knifed the first guy in the chest, dri­ving the blade into his heart. He went down with­out another sound. But the other guy was quicker than she was. He man­aged to drive her to the ground and started grap­pling with her, try­ing to knock the knives out of her hands. But Gin fought him back just as hard, try­ing to stab him to death before he took the weapons away from her.

  My head a lit­tle clearer, I stum­bled for­ward, dug my hands into the vampire’s shirt, and pulled him off her. I forced the guy to my left and rammed his head into the brick wall. He moaned and flailed at me with his arms, so I heaved him back and then shoved him for­ward. Again and again, until his head was a bloody, pulpy mass of flesh. Then, I let go. He didn’t get back up.

  In a minute, it was over. Gin and I stood there, breath­ing heavy, as the vam­pires’ bod­ies cooled at our feet. I looked up and down the street and lis­tened, but I didn’t see or hear any­one. Good. The street being deserted had got­ten me into this mess in the first place, and now, it was going to me out of it. Mur­ders were just as com­mon as mug­gings in South­town, and I knew that the cops wouldn’t search too hard for the vam­pires’ killers.

  Then, I looked over at Gin, with all sorts of ques­tions in my green eyes.

  “I fol­lowed you to the party,” she said. “And hid out­side until you came out of the building.”

  It was close to mid­night now, and I’d been at the party for sev­eral hours. I couldn’t believe that she’d spent all that time just wait­ing for me to stum­ble out­side. I cer­tainly wouldn’t have had the patience for that sort of thing—or been thought­ful enough to do it in the first place. Maybe Dad was right about Gin. Maybe he was right about a lot of things.

  “Why?”

  She frowned, like the answer should be obvi­ous. “Fletcher wouldn’t like it if any­thing hap­pened to you. And I wouldn’t either.”

  And just like that, all the poi­so­nous jeal­ousy that I’d felt toward her van­ished. She was try­ing so hard—to please Dad, to please me. The least that I could do was meet her halfway, espe­cially since she’d just saved my life. Maybe some of Jo-Jo’s Air ele­men­tal magic was rub­bing off on me, but I had a funny feel­ing that this wouldn’t be the last time that Gin got me out of a tough spot. I only hoped that I could do the same for her someday.

  “Come on, Gin,” I said, hold­ing out my hand to her. “Let’s go home.”

  She wiped off her bloody knives on one of the vampire’s shirts and slid them back up the sleeves of her jacket. Gin scrubbed her hands clean too before slip­ping her left one in mine. Her fin­gers felt small and warm and strong in my own.

  We stepped over the vam­pires’ bod­ies, and together, we headed for the Pork Pit.

 

 

  Jennifer Estep, Poison

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