Blood money, blood money

How did you afford this ring that I love, honey?

Just another shift at the drug company

He doesn't think I'm that fucking dumb, does he?

It doesn't matter what you pull up to your home

We know what goes on inside

You call that ass your own, we call that silicone

Silly girl, with silly boys

Blood still stains when the sheets are washed

Sex don't sleep when the lights are off

Kids are still depressed when you dress them up

And syrup is still syrup in a sippy cup

He's still dead when you're done with the bottle

Of course, it's a corpse that you keep in the cradle

Kids are still depressed when you dress them up

Syrup is still syrup in a sippy cup

— "Sippy cup," Melanie Martinez

It was more the fear than anything, I think, that forced me to choke back the tears, force down the sobs, and yank myself back to reality before I could end up somewhere even worse than I already was. I was fucking terrified, so I did the logical thing — I clamped a hand over my mouth, furiously wiped my eyes (filling them with tears of blood in the process) and wrestled myself back under control.

It was more of an accomplishment than anything — the only other time I had been able to prevent myself from crying with such efficiency was several years ago, when . . .

No. I hadn't thought of him in years and I wouldn't be starting now. I had enough to think about without throwing him into the cosmic blender.

So I decided that the ease with which I gained control over myself (as if my own body was a bucking bronco I had been ordered to tame, I thought wryly) was a product of the rusty scissors, the old scalpels, the broken glass . . . I don't know. Think of whatever old sharp thing you want. I've probably done some form of self-training with it.

Old news.

Just like him.

So I opened my eyes back up — I couldn't afford to lose my sight again — and started thinking. Cutting hadn't worked, crying hadn't worked, drinking hadn't worked, killing hadn't worked, so I finally started to use my fucking brain. Funny how long it took me.

Don't get distracted, Solace, I reminded myself. If you do, they'll take over.

Okay. So, planning. I would have to be as pragmatic and objective here as possible. I knew damn well what would happen every time I let emotions cloud my judgment.

Thinking.

Finally.

I was still clenching the paper in my hand. It was more crumpled and ripped than ever, soaked and twisted with sweat and blood, but I could just make out the words, written in a hungover scribble, and I thought that if I could, there was a chance he could as well.

Not if he drank more than you did. Or if he's too distracted by the pain. Or if he dies.

Shut up, I reminded myself. You can do something about that . . . that last one, anyway.

Jake wasn't in any immediate danger of death; I had been able to sense that. It was why I hadn't bothered trying to heal him yet. Apparently, Drunk Will was not a very efficient killer. Unlike Sober Will.

But thoughts like that were the exact thing I had to avoid, so I pushed them aside. I didn't want to leave No Man's Land. not yet, anyways. But bandages, salve . . . I could do those here. I didn't think Jake needed stitches. His current unconscious condition was more due to the alcohol than the physical wounds, anyway.

Unless he's already awake, the morbid, doom-mongering part of my mind pointed out. And he's watching you through his eyelashes, possibly planning to kill you. Which you deserve.

Don't listen to that, Claire said firmly. He might be awake, but if he is, you can easily check. Heart rate, pain level . . . shit, you could even just look if his eyelids are fluttering. Thing is, Billy, I'm not really sure you want to.

"Do not call me Billy," I muttered, but I could feel a smile tugging at the corner of my mouth. Annoying nicknames . . . I had missed those. A lot. Jake was one of the few who still bothered to give me any.

Well, you won't get any from him if he dies, Gracie pointed out. So get moving.

Right. Moving.

My head still pounding, my legs still feeling like liquid, my hands and limbs still burning, I stood up and made my way over to one of the storage bins in the corner. The rest of the room might be completely unsanitary, but we like to keep our medical supplies usable, so we can, you know, use them.

Three cheers for violating six health codes instead of eight.

I dug out bandages, enough to cover the worst of the cuts, and a near-empty jar of salve. I would get more, more of everything, but my hands are still afflicted with Saint Vitus' Dance, and I don't trust myself not to do more harm than good.

I shakily crossed the room again, dropping to my knees beside Jake's body. His skin was still pale where it wasn't covered with blood, and his breathing was still shallow, but it seemed to have evened out a bit. Good.

My hands were shaking so badly that instead of spreading salve, I was really just finger-painting with his blood. But it was better than nothing, I told myself, and I didn't think I was making it any worse.

Putting on bandages was a nightmare — the roll was fresh, and in the course of trying to unwrap it and tear a piece off, I dropped it eight times, finally succeeded in ripping off a piece, got it stuck together, failed to shake it off my fingers, finally gave up and stuck it to my shirt, and ended up soaking the whole roll with blood.

I thought about getting back up and digging out another roll, but everything in me rebelled at the thought of standing up and getting moving yet again, and repeating the whole process . . .

Getting back up. Shit, I'd kind of have to do that, wouldn't I? I couldn't stay . . . I remembered the first morning, when I had gone to wake up Kayla and Austin right before the sun had risen.

Before the pine sap had turned bad . . .

The air had been intoxicating, really. Why? It was just honeysuckle and pine trees. They were fucking plants. It wasn't like they had any magical properties. But they had been so good, because — because . . .

Yeah, okay. It was the goddamn infirmary. My "workplace" (emphasis on the quotation marks) which was really more of a prison.

It's not a bad prison, though . . . one of the voices I couldn't quite identify whispered nervously. I mean, if it is a prison, it's comfortable — well, maybe not really, but it could be less comfortable . . .

"Jesus Christ in a fucking crackhouse, what kind of argument is that?" I muttered hoarsely. "Yeah, no, it was okay that the alley freak groped the twelve-year-old girl, because he didn't rape her. 'It could have been a lot worse,' give me a fucking break."

For once in my life, I wasn't kidding myself. The infirmary could have been a lot worse, but prison is still prison with a nice couch.

Shit, the prisoners of Alcatraz got dessert, live music, and special meals on holidays. Where the hell was all of that for us? Why weren't we there? Why was I the one who hadn't slept properly in days when Al Capone was allowed a perfectly reasonable amount of sleep?

Where was my fucking five-day work week?

But Alcatraz was long gone, nothing but a museum, and we were still here.

So.

I couldn't stay here. I liked to breathe properly. Put it on my fucking bill, waiter, and don't keep the change. I need to put some gas in my car.

All right then, I thought calmly, you'll need to grab a harpy pass.

The harpy passes weren't common knowledge; if they were, then the Hermes cabin would be making copies and selling them like hotcakes for ten dollars each. So we — by which I mean the medics, who were the only ones who knew about them and were allowed to use them — kept them on the down-low, and every camper we paid a late-night visit to figured the harpies just recognized us as the ones who had permission to be out late, visiting other cabins.

I realized with a jolt that I hadn't even looked at what I'd written. I wasn't thinking when I was writing it. If I was, I would have lied. And I kind of wanted one person to hear the real Will Solace, not the fake version I was forced to present to everyone. Even if I had no idea who the real Will Solace was.

I grabbed the paper from where I had left it on the floor. I'd done my best to keep it out of the worst of the blood puddles — it would be unreadable enough as it was — but the floor was covered with glass, and it sliced my fingers when I picked up the paper.

Biting back a hiss of pain, I shook off the glass slivers and uncrumpled the paper, hands still trembling. I scanned the words — okay, the blurred scribbles of a drunk kid. But what it said . . .

I was right. About all of it.

Exhaling with relief, I crumpled the paper back up, and examined Jake, berating the best place to put it. I finally decided on a spot close to his hand, where he would most likely notice it, that had the added bonus of not being particularly blood-soaked or full of broken glass.

There, I thought, not trusting my voice at the moment. Now one person knows who I am.

That was enough.

I stood shakily back up, wiping blood and slivers of glass off on my pants. I was reminded of the night on the bridge, rubbing char and gravel off my palms. Christ, had that really only been a couple nights ago? It felt like years. It felt like a fever dream, if I was being completely honest.

The inexplicable chills and heat that raced up and down my spine like lightning helped with that, not to mention the fact that I was completely soaked in sweat. Guess attempted murder is hard work.

Even with my internal clock completely fucked, I was pretty sure it was still nighttime. I hadn't been asleep that long, despite drinking entirely too much alcohol — maybe it was the godly side of things. I wasn't sure, but I had a feeling they could drink as much as they wanted. I hoped that was the case, so that Jake would wake up soon, but, really, I didn't know.

Forcing myself to walk was a little easier this time, now that I had practice, but practice didn't change the fact that my legs felt like Jell-O. Which, I realized, looking back, was probably more of a blessing than anything. My lower legs had been sliced to shit, and even if the lacerations weren't particularly deep, walking on them would hurt like a son of a bitch.

I blindly grabbed a harpy pass out of the bin on the shelf in the corner and wrapped it around my upper arm. With any luck, the harpies would ignore the fact that a camper was leaving camp premises without permission.

I clutched the doorknob for a moment, breathing hard. Chances were, everyone in the infirmary was still asleep, but something out there felt . . . not right. The entire camp was a fucking prison — a concentration camp — but the back room with the million names that I had been to tired to come up with was my safe spot. The one clearing in the thicket of thorn bushes. But the rest of the camp, especially the rest of the infirmary . . .

That was a lions' den. Anything could happen. And I didn't have to be the son of the prophecy god to know that the second I walked out there, my head would sink past the floor, my legs would turn to jelly, and I would be back on the bridge, desperately straining to reach the other side while everything collapsed around me.

But I couldn't stay here forever; it was get the hell out of here or die alone in this bloody isolation chamber.

Forcing myself to turn the doorknob took a superhuman effort; my own body was combating me now, shaking so badly that it was borderline impossible to get a firm grip on anything. But I took a deep, shuddering breath, forced my hand down, and wrenched the door open so forcefully that bits of wood and plaster rained down on me.

I shook the slivers out of my hair, hyperventilating now, sure that they were glass and that any second, I would feel the warm blood beginning to trickle down my forehead and the back of my neck . . .

No. I would not think like that. I didn't have time — I couldn't afford —

JUST MOVE!

The thought burst into my head, and then I was off, shaking like a leaf in a hurricane, but moving quickly, not running, because that might have woken someone up, I had to stay quiet —

I was no longer hyperventilating; I was holding my breath, because I couldn't afford to smell that sickly-sweet yet spicy pine smell; it was everywhere in this camp, seeping under doors, filling the air like some noxious, intoxicating yet poisonous gas —

No breathing. Not until I was long gone.

I fumbled the infirmary door open, my lungs now burning, my throat scraped raw and burning, and dragged myself out into the night.

All at once, my mind was washed out with the peaceful sound of crickets chirping, owls hooting, and leaves rusting. For a few moments, I was still, spellbound by my unusual peacefulness. I was never this calm . . . I was always charged as an electric wire, although I hid it quite effectively.

Then the smell caught up with me.

I still wasn't breathing, but that meant nothing to the drug, and now my eyes were burning and my stomach churning.

Fuck.

So run! Gracie screamed. Get the fuck out of here!

Yes, she was right. The time had come to make like a hockey player and get the puck out of here, to make like a library and book.

Still unsteady on my legs, I started sprinting, my chest burning. Thank fucking god the Big House wasn't too far from the border in any direction; probably to make it easier for new campers (prisoners) to find.

I was nearly to the border now, and I could see the town through the trees; lights glistening like an aerial view of the earth.

A second later, I made it through the border, and collapsed to the ground, chest burning, gasping for air. Out; I was out.

I was out.

I knew what lay out here, especially at night: muggers, drunks, drug dealers, all lurking in the dark alleyways.

I wasn't really surprised to find I didn't care. It made sense, after everything; I understood them far better than I ever thought I would.

And really, what was the difference between a medic and a drug dealer? We both gave people pills and bottles to take away the pain . . .

"I know the difference," I said, although I wasn't out of hearing range if anyone in the cabins were awake. "I don't grow out my little nail, and I don't decorate it with decals."

I started giggling at that, and as I stood up, brushing my leg off yet again, my laughter grew.

I looked around, taking in my surroundings for the first time. I was on top of a hill, a few scraggly pine trees scattered around. The smell out here meant nothing; I don't even think I noticed it.

Down below, I could see the city spread out below me, lit up like a thousand fireflies. The sky was a beautiful marble pattern of swirling black and dark gray, and I could see the cars moving below, even see little people walking on the sidewalks.

Still laughing like a maniac, I causally shoved my hands into my pockets and began walking toward the lights.

The city was even more alive in the night than in the day, which I hadn't expected.

People behaved as they would in daylight hours, talking on the phone, meeting up with friends in restaurants, heading to and from work. The only difference was, everything was dark.

Everyone seemed to be veering away from me; not that I could blame them. I was covered in blood, my clothes tattered, skin covered with marks, hair matted with sweat and blood, and to top it all off, I was laughing like I had just killed everyone on the mainland and Long Island was next.

The funny thing was, no one even seemed to look at me. They just casually gave me a wide berth and continued talking on their cell phones or scrolling through Instagram or whatever the hell else people do. This was New York City; psychopaths were a dime a dozen. I was just the latest on a list of people to avoid if you come across them in a dark alley.

I was just another one of them.

I expected to find the thought terrifying and humiliating, but instead, all I felt was a sense of release. My dad might have been the god of poetry, but even he couldn't find words to express what a relief it was to finally find the hole in the Great Gameboard Of Life that was willing to accept my own oddly shaped peg. I'd been trying for far too long to cram it into one of the circles or the squares or the triangles.

Why?

Because that was what I had been taught to do.

What we were all taught to do.

But my teachers were dead, and the city lights were on, and the color was blinding.

"What the fuck, friends and neighbors," I whispered, a smile tugging at my mouth. "We are in."

The voices didn't like that.

I'd promised them I would do better — which I would. I did! But not good enough for them, apparently.

Blood was in the water, and they were not pleased about it

All of a sudden, all of the pine and disinfectant and alcohol I thought I'd already thrown up stabbed at the back of my throat, burning in my stomach like acid.

Shit.

I had to get rid of that crap before it managed to swallow me.

I hung a sharp right and scrambled into the nearest alleyway, not even stopping to think that it might not be the smartest course of action. I might have cared if I'd thought of it, which was an accomplishment — or it would have been, but I didn't know if I had.

As soon as I felt the familiar darkness wrapping its ice-cold arms around me, I dropped to my knees. I swiftly wiped all the blood I could off of my right hand before forcing it down my throat and pressing the area behind my tongue.

The effect was immediate and disgusting. I lurched forward, vomiting onto the filthy pavement so forcefully that it felt as if fire was coursing up and down my throat. I coughed and gagged until I'd managed to spit out every last trace of the sour, bitter fluid.

For a moment, I allowed myself to collapse forward onto the wet asphalt, breathing labored and eyes burning. The soaking wet ground crumbled little bits of gravel into my palms, grinding them deep into the heels of my hands. I felt a flash of panic; the gravel on the bridge had done exactly the same thing. But it was okay; this was an alley, not a bridge.

Still, though . . . not the wisest resting place.

You get one minute, I told myself. One minute, and then you're out of here.

But before I could count, before I could do anything, there was a burst of raucous laughter ahead of me. I couldn't summon the energy to lift my head and look who it was, which was also not the best idea . . . Well, I thought grimly, this is how I die.

"Oh, man, you really got wrecked!" a voice was shouting, laughing almost as much as I had been. They sounded like they were doubled over, enjoying a nice chortle at a hungover thirteen-year-old's expense.

"Ah, fuck — Gross!" More laughter, and it was now right beside my head — it sounded as though the person, whoever they were, had stepped in the pine sap's revenge. Good, I thought savagely.

"Man, and I thought my mom was shitfaced — Here." A gloved hand clamped down on the back of my shirt and roughly hauled me to my feet. The dark veil fell away, and I could now see my possible murderer — or most likely not, what kind of murderer helps up their victim?

It was a teenage girl about my age, with skin so dark she seemed almost invisible in the night. The whites of her eyes seemed to glow against it. Her hair was a wild, curly mess that fell — or rather, tumbled — to her shoulder. She was wearing battered sweatpants, an open rain jacket over a needlessly colorful shirt, old hiking boots, and black gloves, the fingers of which seemed to have been roughly hacked off. She was either the youngest biker chick ever or a color-blind tourist.

She had been grinning broadly, but as soon as she saw my face, her smile promptly vanished. "You — you're just — Oh, shit!"

"Oh shit is right," I said grimly, rubbing the gravel out of my palms. Fuck. How many times would I be wiping my hands off on my shirt tonight?

She shook her head, looking more miserable and resigned than bewildered. "No, it's just . . . didn't expect to see a kid, that's all."

I wasn't sure whether I should be laughing from pure insanity, or punching the girl in the face and running away, or just laying back down and pretending none of this ever happened.

I settled for rolling my eyes. "But we're like the same age."

She looked to one side and then the other, visibly uncomfortable. It might have had something to do with the fact that I looked like a serial killer. "I know . . . I just kind of expect to see older people. At least, that's what it usually is. I've never seen you before — it's always the ones I know. And they don't look like . . . that." She gestured to my battered, bloody body. "I mean, no offense —"

"It's okay." I stared down at my battered Converse. "I know how I look."

"Right, well . . ." She was silent for a moment, mentally fanning out her excuses for getting the fuck out of Dodge before this ended worse than a Steven King story. Not that I could blame her; I was doing the same.

It was clear neither of us wanted to speak, although, despite the fact that we each believed we were about to be dragged into an abandoned warehouse and murdered, it wasn't really a bad silence. I was almost reminded of the quiet I had shared with Nico back in the infirmary . . .

Fuck. Now I was thinking about the infirmary, and back at camp . . .

I curled my hand into a fist, clenching it so tight I felt the scabbed-over slices split back open, and warm blood began to trickle over my fingers. I didn't want to think about that, it would do me no good . . .

But it was too late, I'd thought it, and now I was here, staring at the walls of a damp alley, my teeth clenched, my eyes burning. Shit . . .

"Hey hey hey, it's okay! It's okay." The girl reached over and wrapped her hands around my fist. My immediate impulse was to yank it back and slam it into her jaw, most likely knocking it out of alignment in the process. But she was wearing ill-fitting clothes that no sane teenager would wear, and she was hanging out in an alley in the middle of the night . . . she definitely didn't have the money to pay for surgery. I could heal it, but that would take time and energy, and besides, it would be easier just to keep my fists to myself.

So I watched as she gently massaged my clenched fist into an open hand, softly muttering comforting words under her breath. I knew there would be hell to pay later, but for now, I was content to stand here with the possible murderer, watching her gently pull apart my fist.

She winced as she finally saw the bloody crescents my nails had cut into my palm, not to mention the numerous jagged slices from the glass. "Holy shit, what happened to you?"

"Long fucking story," I snapped, jerking my hand back. That was enough; that was all I was allowed. I was already shaking with fear as it was, and my tattered clothes weren't helping with that.

She backed off, both hands in the air. "Sorry, I didn't mean — that was stupid. I know what happened."

"I doubt you know the specifics," I said wryly, "but I'm guessing you have a general idea." Of course she does; I'd be damned if she didn't have a few slashes of her own. Or maybe that was just my cabin talking.

She bit her lip indecisively, examining my face for a moment. Then she took hold of my wrist, doing her best to avoid any slash marks. "Come on."

"Follow this stranger girl I just met and don't even know the name of into a dark alleyway? Sure, sounds fun."

She tilted her head, considering it, and grinned crookedly. "Right. I'm Rowan O'Connor. I'm thirteen years old, and this is usually where I live . . . with my mom." Her face darkened slightly on the last part, then her sardonic yet sweet grin returned. "All right, your turn."

I felt a genuine grin pull up one side of my mouth. "I'm also thirteen. I'm not homeless, exactly, but the place I'm from . . . long story. I don't want them knowing I'm here. And my name's —"

"Uh," Rowan interrupted, "if you don't tell me your name, I'll never have to tell anyone I saw you."

Now I was really smiling — this alley girl was already becoming one of my favorite people in the world. Which probably meant that she was tricking me by luring me into a dark alleyway, where she would violently dismember me, but at the moment, I didn't care. "Fair enough. Lead on."

The alley got worse the farther we got in, as alleys tend to do. The sides of the building loomed above us, smeared with graffiti, vomit, blood, and something that looked like semen — I remembered Olive's corpse, and shuddered.

The shiver wasn't lost on Rowan. She glanced over at me. "Yeah, I know. You get used to it."

It wasn't just the thought of Olive's corpse that was eating me up inside; I used to see exactly the same thing whenever he came crawling back.

But he was back there, and I was here, and he couldn't do anything to me.

"It wasn't that . . ." I shook my head. "Bad memory."

She nodded. "Yeah, I get that one. That's why none of us spend our time up here — we try not to, anyway." She absentmindedly let go of my wrist, apparently satisfied that I wasn't going to run off. She kicked at a tattered box on the ground."Creepers, you know," she muttered. "Drug dealers. Their clients. We have plenty of those, obviously, but . . . it's best not to get mixed up with guys who compete to see how far they can shoot their jizz."

I actually snickered at that one, and for a second I wondered if she had someone like him in her life. "Wow. I don't want to say that sounds like something I would do, but . . ."

"Weirdo." She swatted my shoulder. "All right, pretending I didn't hear that . . . We turn here."

I blinked and looked around. We weren't quite at the end of the alley, but we were close. I could see even less than before. "Turn where?"

She smiled mischievously and nodded toward a rain-soaked manhole cover. "Down."

"You live . . ." She waited patiently while the gears in my head turned. "Like, in an abandoned sewer, or something?"

"Or something." She knelt on the filthy ground and firmly gripped one of the handles. "Can you get the other one? I can do it myself, but it's easier if you have two people."

I bent down and grabbed the other handle. It was covered with some gross multicolored shit that smeared my hands and left my fingers sticking together, but I didn't complain.

Together, we pulled off the cover, awkwardly hauling it partly to the side. All I could see beneath it were the first few rungs of a ladder and a whole bunch of nothing.

I held up my hands and examined them. I flexed my fingers, and they stuck together for several seconds before reluctantly peeling apart, thing strings still connecting them. "Shit, what is this crap?"

Rowan grimaced. "Uh, it's either some weird flavor of unicorn ice cream, or those creeps have been dying their spunk again."

"Again?" She nodded wordlessly. "Okay, I'm not going to ask about that. So, I'm assuming we're going in there . . ."

"Yep," Rowan said with a sigh. "You don't have to, not if you don't want — and I can very clearly see why you wouldn't — but you obviously need some help, and — correct me if I'm wrong — you don't have anywhere better to go back to."

Wow. Her creepily accurate guess punched me in the gut. Was this really where I was now? Following homeless girls I'd never met before into sewers or abandoned subway tunnels or whatever the hell this ladder led to?

The short answer was yes. Yes I was.

The long answer was more . . . complicated. But it would have required several days to puzzle out completely, time I simply did not have.

So . . . I guess I was following her.

"I'll go," I said hesitantly, "but I've got to be back — leaving — before sunrise."

"Fair enough." Rowan swung her legs over the side of the whole, gripping the top rung on the ladder with her fingerless gloves. No wonder she wore them; those handles were fucking disgusting. "Just follow me, and for fuck's sake don't step on my face."

I hesitated. "Do you ever find yourself climbing into a manhole cover following a street girl you've never met," I asked, "and wish you'd just stayed in bed?"

"Stop stalling." Her voice echoed up the narrow chute. She had climbed well out of sight, but I could still hear her footsteps on the railings.

Ignoring every ounce of common sense screaming at me to turn and run, I climbed in after her.