Menace (Scarlet Scars #1)(94)

I shove past people, moving as fast as my feet will go. It’s not safe here. I need to get off of the street. I need to get out of Brooklyn, but the subway isn’t an option right now. Markel is probably already sounding the alarms. They’ll be watching, swarming the area, trying to smoke me out.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I run a few blocks, cutting down some alleys, heading the direction of Coney Island. I know these streets well. I’ve run them before. I’ve hidden in the abandoned buildings in the neighborhood.

But Kassian knows that.

He knows all of my old haunts.

It’s the first place he’ll check.

So f*ck it, I instead swing right into a busy coffee shop. It’s not a Starbucks, but close to it, some mass-produced franchise full of hipsters wearing bow ties and suspenders. I get in line, nervously looking around, making sure the coast stays clear, not really caring to actually order anything.

I don’t even like coffee.

Yeah, yeah, I know. There’s something wrong with me.

“I’ll have whatever she ordered,” I say when it’s my turn, motioning to the girl who went before me, some young blonde that reminds me a bit of Melody. I dig some cash from my pocket, paying the astronomical fee for the drink.

“Name?” the cashier asks, grabbing a cup and a marker.

“Scarlet,” I tell him.

I wait some more then, waiting for my drink, still looking around, observing everybody.

I zero in on a guy working alone at a small table near the door, his gaze fixed to his laptop, stickers covering the front of it. Bands, I’m guessing. Music. He’s wearing a black t-shirt with a drummer on it. Scattered along the table are papers, a cell phone sitting on top of a closed textbook.

“Scarlet?” a barista calls, shoving a caramel-colored frozen drink up onto the pass. Guess that’s mine. I snatch it up, sticking in a straw, as I head for the door.

“What’s your favorite Avenged Sevenfold song?” I ask, pausing beside the guy alone at the table, trying to turn on the charm and act interested.

He looks up at the sound of my voice as I lean over, against the table, all up in his space. “Nightmare.”

“No shit?” I smirk, straw against my lips. “That’s mine, too!”

He grins at my response and seems to be at a momentary loss, which is for the best, because I don’t even know who Avenged Sevenfold is. I just saw the sticker on his laptop and rolled with it. Poor guy. I grab the cell phone while he’s distracted, trying to come up with something witty to say, slipping it up the sleeve of my hoodie before pushing away from the table and walking out.

I go another block, passing an apartment building just as someone is leaving. Darting over, I grab the door before it closes, slipping inside as I take a sip of the drink.

I expect it to be bitter and gross, but it’s actually light and sweet. Huh. I pull out the stolen cell phone as I lean back against the wall near the mailboxes, pressing a button, breathing a sigh of relief when it comes to life. No security code needed.

So, okay, I don’t exactly have any friends.

I used to call George in a pinch, but I don’t foresee him coming back to life to help me.

I’ve turned to Gabe before, but seeing how I just assaulted him, he’s out of the question.

So that leaves me with one person. Lorenzo.

Other than 911, it’s really the only number I know.

Or, well, I hope I know it. I memorized it, weeks ago, when I tried to call him to pay back the money I stole, but my memory’s a bit shaky, so...

I dial it, bringing the phone to my ear, as sirens wail in the distance, flying by. The phone rings and rings and rings, and I’m about to give up, when the line finally clicks and a voice greets me. “Gambini.”

I pause. It’s not Gambini. Not technically. Seven answers. It catches me off guard.

“Hey, Seven... it’s, uh, Morgan.”

“Morgan,” he says. “Everything okay?”

Nope. “Yep.”

“That’s good,” he says. “Did you need something?”

Yep. “Nope.”

He’s quiet for a second before saying, “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I don’t know that I’d say anything’s wrong...”

“But?”

“I kind of got myself into a bit of a pickle. Not sure how to get back out.”

“A bit of a pickle, huh? Where are you?”

“Coney Island,” I say. “There’s this apartment building right on west 17th. Big ugly brick one. I’m kind of, you know, hanging out.”

“Hiding out, you mean?”

“Pretty much.”

He laughs. “So Brooklyn, huh?”

“Yep.”

“I’ll be there in twenty.”

He hangs up before I can say anything to him, but I respond anyway. “Thank God.”



I got stuck on a Ferris wheel once.

I think I was five or six at the time.

Something shorted, the operator screwed up, and there I was, stuck in a bucket thirty feet in the sky. Instead of being scared, though, I found it almost calming, being so high up, where nobody could reach me and nothing could touch me.

I still feel that way most of the time.

Like right now, as I sit here, legs stretched out along gray asphalt shingles on the sloped roof of the house in Queens, surrounded by the kind of quiet suburban neighborhood where carpool and playdates are things that exist, I feel okay.