accismus : (noun) the feigned disinterest or refusal of something earnestly desired; can be demonstrative of modesty, coyness, or irony
Overture
Taste Like Summer
.{*}.
July 18, 2012, 01:12AM
Eurydice Hall
Estate Grounds
"What do you believe in?"
Her neck ached, thrown back and craned at an awkward angle to stare directly up at the stars, the sight rendered sharp and innumerable by cloudless climes. The wide marble brim of the fountain basin was hard underneath her, the still waters a ripple of liquid ice around her ankles, spouts stoppered and silent for the night. She was lost in the void, adrift, comfortably numb- or, more likely, that was just the blood pooling at the back of her skull, making her lightheaded. Her world tipped upside-down. She could taste constellations underneath her tongue, sparkling like dewdrops in a spiderweb- could have swayed off her seat, and toppled over into the oceanic dark, falling into nothing, stars nicking her skin like chips of glass as she sank.
A faint sweetness lingered in the cold air; molten sugar from the confectionary at the gala clinging to their clothes, the lighter fragrance of the gardens in heady, full-bodied bloom, the body-warmed notes of vanilla in his cologne.
She heard him turn- fabric shifting, water swirling- to look at her.
"Where did that come from?"
"My mind." Her tone was innocence, mild as milk, the words underneath dry enough to desiccate. She pointed her toes like a dancer, dragging them through the fountain. "It occurs to me that I've never asked. It feels like I should."
He exhaled. It was the height of summer, but the air was so crystalline-cold- heat evaporating into the clear skies with the sunset- that his breath froze, briefly, into an opaque ephemeral plume, before melting like spun sugar into water.
"Truth, evidence, logic." He had taken her seriously, to no surprise. He always assumed that there was a point to the things she said, and she liked him for it, at least when it wasn't an inconvenience. "Empirically verifiable things. Facts. Figures." He paused. "What else am I supposed to believe in?"
Her head listed to one side, thoughts sloshing around in her skull like water in a goldfish bowl. She was thinking too little, and too much. Another irritating, liberating symptom of talking to him.
"I really hate that about you." She hadn't exactly given her mouth permission to speak. "You're so rigid. Your thinking is completely binary, all straight lines and right angles- it misses so much nuance. There's never any room for grey with you. It makes me want to strangle you."
She could feel his tension, thick as aged honey in the air.
"Hm. Well, I'm sorry if it offends you."
His lips were pressed together, mouth set concrete-hard as his gaze- she could tell without even looking.
She smiled. He was terribly obvious- and so endearingly sensitive sometimes, no matter how cold he preferred to seem.
She set out to soothe and distract the hurt; intentional or incidental, she could never let the sting of her barbs, linger for long. It was a weakness, but not a fatal one.
"What do you hate about me?"
"Excuse me?"
"There must be something," she said, her tone taking on a teasing note. "I have a lot of unpleasant qualities to choose from."
"Wh-what? No you don't-"
"No? Casually insulting someone without provocation doesn't count?"
"You weren't insulting me." He paused, selecting the right words. "You were- expressing an opinion. An unpleasant one, granted, but an honest one, and I'd still prefer that over any attempt at hollow-"
"You still haven't given me an answer."
He paused, again, and she knew she'd pierced through him in the way that he didn't seem to mind- even seemed to appreciate. She closed her eyes and listened to the trickle of water as he kicked up ripples that broke against her submerged ankles.
"You see everything clearly except for yourself. You refuse to even look, I think. Perhaps because you're afraid you might hate what you find. Or maybe the contrary. I'm not certain." He sighed quietly, muted frustration and exasperation singeing the edges. "And you make high-handed assumptions about how people should act towards you, or think about you. And if anyone thinks otherwise, they're automatically idiots. Just because you dislike yourself doesn't mean other people do. Or that they should."
She hummed, the sound of laughter running in the vibrations at the back of her throat, like a vein of gold. It was a penetrating critique, merciless in its execution, damning in its staging.
She adored him.
"You're so arrogant. Have you considered that maybe it's your perspective of me that's skewed?"
He turned his head to consider her, candid and smooth as steel.
"No."
Her ribs shuddered with supressed laughter.
"Now that we're done insulting each other," he continued, the subtle-unfurling curl of his mouth permeated his voice, rare warmth clothed in wry amusement, "maybe we can switch to saying something positive?"
"Oh, fishing for compliments? I always suspected you were a narcissist."
"What- no! Don't be ridiculous! That is not what I intended at all, I only-"
Finally, she couldn't help bursting into laughter, clear and musical as it echoed out.
"I was teasing-! You're far too easy." She flexed her ankle in the water, stirring up a gentle current, curling her toes up and letting the droplets trickle off the bridge of her foot. "You're completely, unapologetically yourself. Cold- like dawn in springtime- bright and clear and cold, so much that it hurts, that it's physically painful to draw breath around you sometimes. You're so honest that it's almost unbearable. And an idealist, with a cynic's veneer. Those are my favourite things about you, I think."
He was silent, for a long moment.
"I'm not sure how to feel about that."
"You don't have to feel anything."
She had never expected him to understand what she was saying. She had also never intended for him to understand, either, which was a little unfair.
She was occupying her mental bandwidth by tracing out the constellation Cygnus, linking the stars through the beacon of Deneb, when he spoke again.
"What do you believe in?"
Bitterness dripped from between the seams of her lips.
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing."
"Nothing?" He sounded disbelieving.
"I don't believe in anything, or anyone."
"No one?" He pressed, like a thumb against a fresh bruise. She wanted to buckle underneath it, but she couldn't think of anything she had left to offer him.
Her mouth twisted into the parody of a smile.
Almost you, she wanted to say. Almost, but not quite.
"No. Sorry."
She meant it.
"And yet," he said, words moving with the unhurried inevitability of the clockwork of the stars above them, "you're still here. Still kind. Still moral. Principled. Even though you have no reason to be- if you really do believe in nothing."
The corner of her mouth kicked up, sardonic.
He was calling her a liar. He was calling her a good person.
"Oh, please," she breathed out, smooth as honey, undeniably fond despite herself. "What would you know?"
April 8, 2013, 6:20AM
Eurydice Hall
Estate Grounds
The air on the grounds was bracing, a shock of cold on bare skin that was expecting the gentle warmth of a burgeoning spring. It was like slipping into the waters of a cool lake; the world had not yet thawed, at least where mornings were concerned. The skies had been clear overnight, and the vast lawns glimmered with dew beneath the blush of dawn, breaking above the crown of the distant forest treeline like splintered bone- white, tarnished with smudges of red.
She loved this place, despite everything. It had hidden her, nurtured her, bolstered her, indulged her, protected her, granted her admittance to its deepest recesses and lost secrets, let her wander in its hallowed halls and lofty chambers. As best it could, it had loved her, its ghosts and history wrapping around her like fine layers of dust-silver gossamer, light as air but keeping her warm.
She would likely never see it again, because of what she was going to do. It would break her heart.
Barefoot, her steps darkened the grass, brushing the shimmering damp from the blades, chilling her. The axe was an anchor, worn-smooth wooden handle heavy in her palm, flat of the blade cold against her calf, its heft comforting. The edge had been freshly sharpened- a keen ripple of silver shaved away from the oxidised surface, the scent of fresh metal on her fingers.
By this hour, the tide of rising light would be spilling across the eastern façade of the house, setting the pale grey and honeycomb-gold limestone aglow; sunshine would be glinting in the gold leaf, catching in the carvings and elaborate architraves and fluting, sparking arrays of tall leaded windows like the facets of gemstones. She couldn't turn to look.
She halted in front of a lone tree- slender and strong, its branches garlanded with sprays of adipose-white blossoms, each daubed incarnadine at their centre and bleeding a watercolour tint of pink.
She adjusted her stance, gripping the axe with both hands, spaced securely apart.
The weight of it would do most of the work. All she had to do was aim, swing, and let momentum do the rest.
The first strike bought down a shower of cerise-lipped petals, like silk rain. The second bit deep enough to feel in her teeth. The third spat splinters.
When gravity and sharpened metal overcame living wood, the tears were cold on her face, and her mouth ached with the shape of a vicious, pyrrhic victory.
Inside, she brewed tea. Her palms were raw and close to bleeding with friction heat, and there was still morning dew and a few stray petals on her skin. She propped the axe against her chair, sipped her rose tea, and waited.
The ensuing storm was so predictable, and yet so much worse than usual.
"What did you do?!"
Saccharine as sugar-posy, shrieking with enough bleach-white rage to wake the dead, she didn't wait for an answer. She never did. The onslaught crashed over her with barely a pause for breath, and she sat quietly, braced against the torrent.
The moment that she set her empty teacup aside and stood, a hand caught her across the cheek. Silence filled the aftermath, the sound of her seething breaths crackling through the dead air like static.
"Did it hurt?"
She choked on incredulity. "What?!"
"Your hand, when you slapped me." She worked her jaw slightly, dispelling the needle-point sting. "Did it hurt? It felt like it might."
"What do you care about hurting me? Why did you do that?! Why would you-"
"Did it hurt," she continued blandly- she wouldn't appreciate the interruption, but it was beginning to feel as though they had long since passed that line, "when you cut off pieces of yourself to get his approval? When you carved yourself up, throwing away the pieces he didn't like? There was that old programme you used to watch reruns of, every Saturday afternoon- the musical dessert show. One day, you just stopped. Do you ever miss it?"
Her mouth tightened, unpleasantly, lips blanching, and then there were hands on her shoulders, gripping firm, disciplining, smothering- pressing down, reminding her of her place.
They were the same height, she realised.
"I," she said, "have made certain sacrifices, as required by my position. He taught me that, and you-"
"Is there anything left of you, behind the title? Did he even let you be a person? Or are you just your position?"
"He-"
"Was a monster," she stated. "He scraped everything out of you and left a breathing shell behind, and you can't even see it. Would you like to know what he was really like?"
And then she was talking- churning out facts and events like inked paper fresh from the printer, still warm to the touch, sheaf after sheaf- and couldn't stop, disconnected. The truth tumbled out of her, unflinching.
Until she felt herself being shoved, hard, disgust and rage cutting in her with the blunt cut of fingernails. The small of her back hit the edge of the table, chairs shifting, tea service rattling.
The axe clattered to her feet.
"Shut up! Stop lying, you- you spoiled, resentful, jealous little- fantasist! You're disgusting-"
She closed her eyes, impassive. The place where she should have felt disappointment simply felt slaked.
She was still shouting, insults and accusations punched from her lungs and spat into the air, more caustic than usual, gnawing at her.
The axe was at her feet. She could feel the handle against the length of her bare foot.
She felt her hand wrap into her hair, and fist, wrenching at the roots as though she intended to scalp her- before being thrown aside in contempt, catching herself on the table with one hand. She kept her eyes closed.
The axe was still at her feet.
Her hysteria was rising to fever-pitch, self-righteous and mired with self-serving lies and blind assumptions and the axe was still at her feet-
"You don't deserve the air in your lungs! You're a- a disease on this family, you always have been! My ancestors would be ashamed of you, and of everything you are, you don't deserve to have their blood in your veins, you parasitic-"
Her eyes snapped open.
She snatched up the axe, and swung.
August 15, 2016, 12:57PM
Downtown Los Angeles
Skyscraper Rooftop
Californian summers were ruthless. Sun-burnished heat gripped the city by the throat, crushing and vivid as fever-dream delirium. The height of midday was a bullet to the brain, a butter knife to the retina, blunt and brutal; the air thick was enough to cut a slice and plate it up, dense and unsatisfied as empty calories and angry rock songs. Curving concave above the city, the vault of the skies was unbearably vibrant- a deep, fantasy shade of saturated blue. The glossy steel and glass cityscape gleamed as though vitrified, shadows deepened to the colour of the ocean at night, the pale stone and concrete of the sidewalks brightened to blinding.
It was a beautiful day to die.
Not exactly a beautiful day for killing, however.
Clicking the last components into place, she snapped the collapsible rifle stand open- the dark metal mercifully cool from being sealed in the confines of its case- and settled into position on the brink of the roof. She ignored the steady irradiation of her flesh under the glare of the high sun, sweat gathering in the creases of her skin, hands swiped clean.
The sight of the scope swung.
The District Courthouse was an impressive building. Constructed from cloud-grey granite and virginal marble, the edifice of neoclassical masonry and gothic stained-glass presided over the boulevard- a temple of secular purpose. At the spire of its central dome, a figure cast in gold pierced in the blazing sunshine, scales aloft in one hand and sword low in the other. The façade was dominated by a deep Palladian breezeway, roof supported by massive rounded columns of smoothed stone, providing a plunge of deliciously chilled shade and entry to the main foyer.
A sweeping flight of steps spilled from the mouth of the courthouse like an artificial waterfall. The expanse was strewn with clusters of reporters, made torpid by the violent heat, waiting to swarm. Attendance was higher than usual, scavengers scenting carrion, every outlet wanting a cut of the meat. The sensational trial taking place within was unlikely to leave any of them hungry.
She waited. She counted her breaths, keeping time by her pulse.
It was a risk, to snipe a moving target in a crowd- especially from such a great distance. A clean kill was unlikely even under favourable weather conditions. Any gunman had to be breathtakingly arrogant to attempt it, and justifiably arrogant to have the palest chance at success.
She blinked. Her lashes brushed against the scope.
Her grip on the rifle was comfortable. The metal was snug against the hollow of her shoulder and the palm of her hand, moulded as though cast in wax. She preferred blades- subtle and sharp with a deft, solid weight that felt natural- but she certainly wasn't unskilled with firearms.
The courthouse steps rippled with a flurry of activity.
A streamlined sports car pulled up the curb. In the same instant, the reporters surged upstream. A figure- the prosecutor- came into view, flanked by an escort of uniformed court bailiffs.
The journalists rapidly converged, brandishing cameras and microphones and a mouthful of shouted questions.
Seconds. She had seconds.
Bailiffs pinned back the incoming tide, creating a perimeter between the media and the prosecutor. With the press of bodies several torsos thick, the prosecutor was forced to slow, and offer a curt statement for the public.
Crosshairs alighted upon their target.
Through the scope, the platinum blond hair caught and threw off light like water.
She exhaled. Her breath glanced off the metal of the gun.
Her finger curled around the trigger.
Crack.
The gunshot was crisp- unlike the full-body, obnoxious bang of movie gunfire- a low-decibel snap of displaced air and metal exploding from a long, slender barrel. The echo wouldn't even reach the streets below.
She gazed through the rifle sight patiently.
A brief delay- and the bullet struck with a fine spray of blood. The impact was rendered mute by the distance.
On the steps of the courthouse, the crowd split apart like fruit under a knife.
The prosecutor cut through briskly, and stepped into their waiting car.
On the rooftop, the sniper straightened. Detaching the scope from her rifle, she glanced through the lens for confirmation.
A flawless shot at one thousand, six hundred and thirty-two feet.
The other sniper was neutralised.
She still didn't much like guns.
Setting the sight aside, she plucked out her earplugs, dropping them back into their plastic carton, and began unloading and disassembling the rifle, field-stripping it with practiced, efficient movements, replacing the parts in the case. She could taste the bruise-hot sunshine soaked in her skin, the blood breaking in her mouth, the salt clinging to her lips. Her pulse thrummed behind her softened, aching eyes.
Several minutes later and several city blocks away, her phone burst to life with the crash of a grunge-rock guitar and gravelly vocals.
Gait lilting with surprise, she retrieved the cherry-lacquer device from her linen shorts, low-heeled sandals snapping crisply on the pavement, blending with the miasma of molasses-thick LA traffic.
"Chéri," she answered casually, combing her fringe back with a single finger, "hi."
"Ah, schatzi, finally!" The voice purred, but the velvet low tenor was ruptured by an undercurrent of genuine joy, bright as the strum of an acoustic guitar. "We haven't talked in a while. I was beginning to feel neglected, you know."
She kicked up her heel and kept walking. "Well, I've had a particularly busy week- thanks to a certain individual who shall remain nameless for his own protection."
She was rewarded with a warm, rich noise masquerading as carefree dismissal. "You'll thank me later."
"You will thank you later-"
"Anyway," he interjected breezily, "are you free today? I somehow managed to steal a prime piece of real estate by the waterside- I can have lunch waiting, if you care to join me, as well as a few case studies to argue our way through. I'll even give you first refusal of for versus against. What do you say?"
"And to what do I owe this sudden generosity?" Her lips curled into a coy smile. "Trying to bribe me? Maybe you're worried I'll abandon you for a better offer-"
"Please," he replied, mock-affronted, "what better offer? You adore me. We both know you have a type."
She smirked, humming contemplatively, eyes lifted heavenwards. "Blonds?"
Full, unaffected laughter crackled from the receiver. She had to smile back at it.
"Is that a yes I'm hearing?"
"You, chéri, tend to hear whatever you like." She shifted the strap of her backpack across one golden shoulder, conscious of the hard ridges pressing at her back, jutting through the sturdy waterproof fabric. "I need to drop something off first. If you're nice to me, I might pick up ice cream on my way over."
"Aha! I knew you couldn't resist me!"
His voice almost- almost- washed the acrid phantom taste of bile from the back of her throat.
"Oh, also, I've been thinking of some names for the band, so we need to go through them together."
"You do realise that the band currently consists of just you."
"Not for long," he declared blithely, and she wished he could see her withering expression. "You'll get that call-back, lose the bet, become my legendary co-frontwoman, and the world of music will be internally grateful to me for baiting you into it-"
"Not a chance," she shot back. "Even if you coerce me into joining, I'll hide behind the drum-kit at the back. Or at least play bass. No one cares about the bassist."
He scoffed. "Cliff Barton."
"Also the primary songwriter, doesn't count. Exceptions prove the rule."
"Gene Simmons."
"Co-vocalist."
"Keanu Reeves?"
"It's Keanu Reeves."
"Pete Wentz."
"Low blow! And primary lyricist, don't try me, chéri."
"Paul McCartney!"
"Co-vocals, again-"
"Like you won't be writing and singing half our songs, anyway!" He said, exasperated. "Come on, you know you want to. Musical chemistry like ours can't go to waste, ja? They'll love us. We'll go multi-platinum overnight!"
She paused at a crowded crosswalk, waiting for the lights to change, wryly predicting, "And someone will hypersexualise me within a week or say something unthinkingly sexist in an interview, and you'll say something cutting back to them with a smile-"
"And you'll protect me from the inevitable fangirls who don't appreciate the concept of personal space-"
"And we'll defend each other from the inevitable ridiculous press coverage and protect each other's privacy-"
"And stay up late in our apartment, writing music until the early hours- I'll come up with the melody, you'll put lyrics to it- see? Now you're getting into it! Doesn't it sound perfect, schatzi?"
The traffic light flicked to green.
She tried not to sound too wistful.
"Sounds like a dream, chéri."
June 19, 2017, 08:07PM
Olympus Tower
Apartment 1221
With the encroaching sunset, the heavy heat was finally dissolving into something cooler- like layers of wool and down reduced to a single sheet of linen.
The apartment was bathed in golden light, gentler than the glare of midday, pouring through the glass of the panoramic window and setting the sterile space aglow; the vista of the city glittered as though encrusted with gemstones in the sunset (like dew in blades of grass from a place of a lifetime ago), rendered hazy through the veil of smog. The rays struck deep into the colour of her hair, filtering through her dark lashes. She teased a few chords from the strings of her acoustic guitar, fingers stained metallic from hours of practicing.
She paused abruptly- placing the plectrum between her teeth and raking her tresses back with one hand- reaching for the notebook on the coffee table. Scrawling out a few lyrics and corrections to the motif, she tossed the pencil aside- it clinked against an abandoned glass, tepid water shuddering with the impact- and ran through the reworked hook.
For a moment, the apartment brimmed with cresting music and falling sunlight, and everything was beautiful.
Her phone lit up on the glass-topped coffee table, thrumming with intermittent vibrations and hard-cresting synthetic drumbeats and husky, mordant vocals.
"Ah. That time already?"
She slid a hand down the fretboard of the guitar, hearing the strings shriek quietly with the friction, and set it aside by its polished rosewood neck. She noted the illuminated caller identification: DNA. Quite a neat double-edged acronym, she thought.
She watched the smartphone ring with an air reminiscent of watching an ant struggle in a pool, drifting in helpless circles as its legs wriggled desperately.
One vibration- two- three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Then- eight- nine- a hand snatched it up, thumb swiping across the screen.
"You're being annoyingly persistent," she said, accepting the call and answering before she could decide why. "I thought you would have given up by now."
She heard a sharp intake of breath from the other end of the line.
"Please- please don't hang up-"
She took vindictive pleasure in doing just that. Terminating the call, she tossed her darkened, inert phone back onto the coffee table with a clatter.
She had just settled back into position with her guitar when her phone lit up again, humming across the thick glass.
After a moment, she picked it up again.
"What?!"
"Amaryllis, please don't hang up!"
It gave her pause.
She had used that name.
How did she know to use that name.
And her voice- always so acerbic, incessantly piquant with high emotion even as she chastised others for their lack of finesse and restraint- that sullen, volatile little hypocrite- was raw with desperation.
"Are you dying?"
"I- excuse me?" The reply was soft, daintily confused, as impeccably faux-genteel as the childhood elocution lessons.
"Are you dying?" She repeated, each word delicately stressed and flawlessly enunciated. "I assume you must need one of my kidneys, or half of my liver, or my bone marrow. Why else would you drive the estate to bankruptcy with these international calls? Unless this is about money."
It was unlikely, but not impossible. Perhaps she had realised, despite the many baseless criticisms and accusations she had levelled at her, that she would never let the family estate come to ruin if it was within her power to prevent it.
"I wanted to talk. To have a conversation," she said, saturated with hurt.
She remained unmoved. "You have never wanted to have a conversation in your life, least of all with me. You make speeches and expect deference."
A short silence answered, connection crackling.
"Am I- really such a monster of a sister for you to think that?"
The question was that of a lost child, and it made her want to spit venom.
"Please don't flatter yourself with that title."
There was another pause. Increasingly bored, she put the call on speaker and placed her phone back onto the coffee table, taking her guitar from where it was propped up on the cushions, against the back of the sofa. The pads of her fingers found the chords in the strings.
"Can we talk?" The tinny voice issued from her phone.
"Nothing's stopping you," she said, brushing across the strings just enough to make them shiver out a soft trembling note, "seeing as I haven't hung up yet."
"I meant in person. It needs to be face to face. Can you come to the house? As soon as possible?"
She felt herself go blank with incredulity.
"you mean, can I drop my entire life in California, where I have been living for the last four years, to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on a last-minute plane ticket halfway across the world, for a conversation that I'm not convinced is even worth having, because you want to talk in person? No," she said, hard as black ice, "strangely enough, I happen to have an existence that isn't subject to your whims."
"I- I understand that you're busy. I do. I heard about that play, I looked you up, but I thought that you might like-"
"You had someone look me up. You wouldn't know where to start."
"I-" The staccato stutter of an unspoken lie spilled out, tripping over itself with hesitation. "I- I had someone look you up, yes. I- didn't know where you would go. Or what you would do. So I hired someone. Discretely."
The admission was surprising. It was almost halfway towards acknowledging a flaw or inadequacy.
Maybe she really was dying.
"What about after the play, then? Will you come?"
"No. I have plans."
She didn't need to know that such plans would bring her within an hour's flight of London.
"Then before-"
"I don't have the time to spare you."
It was pointedly worded.
She waited- for the defensive, egocentric denunciations of her being ungrateful and uncooperative, for the chime of the call being terminated.
"Then, I will come to you."
Her thoughts stalled.
"What."
"For whenever you have a spare moment," she continued firmly, gathering herself like momentum. "Fifteen minutes is all I need. I will come to California- to the play, if you would like- if there's no other time you can see me. We can talk afterwards. Or during the intermission, if that is what I must do."
It was unsettling, and deeply suspicious, how accommodating she was being. Despite the imperious beginnings- she pressed the backs of her fingers across the length her mouth, suddenly and uncomfortably uncertain.
She spoke before she could second-guess herself.
"Send me the name of your hotel and room number when get to LA. I'll send you a backstage pass."
She exhaled gustily, breath crackling against the receiver. "Of course. You won't regret-"
"Oh, I'm sure I will."
She swiped a finger across the screen to end the call before she could reply.
July 8, 2017, 12:58AM
Wright and Co. Law Offices
Loft Apartment
Phoenix woke in a sweltering tangle of linens, opening his eyes to the shifting light and murmur of a television screen seeping through the open doorway, rippling moonlight blue and pooling shallowly on the floor like an overflowing sink.
He flung back the mussed sheets and peeled himself out of bed, lethargic with the treacle-thick heat. Scrubbing the residue of sleep from his face with the back of his hand, he padded barefoot into the living room. A cool breeze from one of the open windows caught his overheated skin like the edge of a clean butter-knife, carrying the distant current of the city's perpetually seething traffic.
He expected to find her with a disk in the player, watching an episode of The Steel Samurai, or one of the old Jack Hammer movies. It had become a pattern, these past few sleepless weeks.
He hadn't expected to find her watching the local news.
Phoenix halted behind the sofa, leaning against its backrest on his elbows, watching the screen over her shoulder. Maya didn't react. Her bare legs were crossed underneath her, dark hair loosed from its traditional topknot and beads into a glossy sheet to the base of her spine, the thin strap of her tank top sliding off one shoulder.
The screen flickered, splashing light across them. Behind the breaking news banner was live footage, spliced from and cutting between three different cameras. The angles and limited light from the streetlamps and neon alternating police strobes made it difficult to tell, but Phoenix would hazard a guess that it was on a street somewhere Downtown, outside a bar or a lounge. Cordon tape was strung across the sidewalk, fluttering in the breeze, uniformed officers standing in silent challenge to any overzealous members of the media circus skulking beyond the borders.
The headline blared out silently, bold ink-black upon stark white.
‖ BREAKING NEWS: BRUTAL MURDER AT THE ECLIPSE ‖
The volume was set to a low murmur, the anchor's report filtering into the quiet.
"- identity of the victim is currently unknown. Sources suggest that she may be the older sister of one of the play's principal actors. The suspect, who has not been named at this time, has been detained by the police on suspicion of murder. While details remain scarce, there seems to be little doubt that there will be an arraignment issued by the DA's Office by early morning-"
"They say she's sixteen." Maya suddenly spoke quietly, through her fingers. The screen's reflection caught in her quartz-brown irises, bright and eerie, like a luminescent film over her pupils. "A year younger than I was, when I…"
Phoenix exhaled, slow and quiet.
"You want the case?" He asked softly.
Maya hesitated, absently nipping at her cuticles with her teeth.
"We're picking Pearly up from the station tomorrow."
"You go." The solution was simple, as far as Phoenix was concerned. "Pick her up, spend a few hours showing her around the city- it's her first time in LA, right? Properly, I mean. She basically grew up confined to the mountains, so I bet there's plenty stuff you'll want to show her. I'll go down to the detention centre first thing in the morning, investigate the scene if I can, then meet you back at the office for lunch."
She huffed out a breath. "You're making it sound easy, Nick."
"Isn't it?" Phoenix leaned forwards, lacing his fingers together. "Maya," he said, insistent, "do you want the case?"
Her head twitched in the direction of his voice. Then, she swivelled around fully, tresses slipping over narrow shoulders, meeting his eyes- heated with that fierce yet uncertain fire, a potent blend of determination and faint desperation.
"I want this case, Nick."
The please was unspoken, and unnecessary.
Phoenix nodded, firmly. "Okay. Then we take the case."