As soon as it happened, I ran straight back home. Now I'm climbing up the stairs of my club and I'm out of breath. I hear the bass line of one of the Editors' songs coming from inside. I pull the velvet curtain aside as the notes of Papillon spill around me. My gaze sweeps through the mass of moving bodies bathed in strobe lights.
I don't see him.
I walk up to the counter, I place one hand on the counter top and snort. If he's not on the dance floor, and I'm lucky enough that he's not in someone's bed, I'm going to find him in the hallway leading to the bathrooms. I turn the corner and I find him there, glued to a girl.
While he's pushing her against the wall I can't help but smile at the thought that, for once, I have a very good reason to interrupt him. - Sin? - I say.
He pulls away from the girl's lips and squints his eyes in annoyance as he turns his head to the other side. Then, he plants those white eyes on me and hisses, - What is it? -
- I have news for you. – I don't even glance at the girl, I just nod at her and add, – Confidential news. -
He stares at me for a moment, motionless. I don't even know if he's looking at me or where his brain has gone. Then, he nods. I don't know to whom since he's staring into the void behind me as usual. Then, he turns to the girl and cups her cheek, smiling at her. - Could you give me a moment? -
- I could give you a whole lifetime, - she whispers in his ear and then bites his lobe. I tap my foot on the ground without realizing it. Finally, he breaks away from her and passes me seriously.
- In the back, - he says, and I follow him.
The door behind me is not even closed yet and he's already turning around, quick like an animal. He crosses his arms to his chest, leaning against the wall. - So? - He lightly taps the bluetooth headset that's in his ear.
No beating around the bush, I forced him away from a possible fuck (a sure one, actually, judging by the look in the girl's eyes) and now I have to give him the news in a nutshell. - Zendaru. He was wounded during the attack this morning. -
- How badly? - He asks dryly, while pulling out his phone from his pocket and checking something on the display. He taps the headset again, refusing another call.
- Very badly. He was shot at close range in the chest, and as far as I could see, I think he was hit very close to his heart. Surely, he's got a punctured lung. Tears personally took him to the Confederation, pulling down the entrance gate. -
He's staring again at the usual spot behind me. He doesn't move. If I didn't know him very well, and if I wasn't covering the position I'm actually in, I'd probably be shitting my pants just for that look.
Then, he smiles eerily. - Finally some good news. -
The LED of his headset lights up again. Another quick look at the iPhone display and another refused call. He lives in symbiosis with that phone. Considering the network of lovers he has created in this dimension, his contact list must be more complete than the phone book of the whole province of Varese.
I see him searching for something in his phone. - Go to the thrift store down the street. Pass from the back door, knock four times and they will open for you even if the shop has already closed. Tell them that I sent you. Get one of those old, cheap phones, then go home and take one of those SIM cards that they gave us at our last concert. -
I nod as he recovers a post-it and a pen from the desk in the corner. Those SIM cards they threw from the stage as a promotion during the concert. Of course I remember them, he made me pick up fiftysome of them from the floor, one by one.
- Use one of those, they should have a couple of euros in them and they are not registered. Then go to the other side of the city, put the card in and turn the phone on only when you're already there. Finally, call this number. A guy named Daniel is going to answer. He's a doctor at the Confederation. Keep it short, it will be harder for them to locate you. Ask him how is Samirien doing. Then throw the phone away. And wear gloves at all times. Is everything clear? -
He passes me the sticky note with a mobile phone number elegantly written on it.
I nod.
- Great, – is all he says.
He passes me and, as he opens the door to leave, I'm hit by the loud music.
I'm thinking about all the things I have to do when the music hits me again. - Huh, Tom? - I turn. He smiles sharply. - Don't you dare interrupt me again, understood? -
I feel my right eyebrow flicker. - Got it. -
He smiles again, cheerfully this time. And he leaves.
****
I stare at the dark southern outskirts of the city as I listen to a few words whispered in secret through a phone that has definitely seen better times. I nod to myself, and I look in the distance at a dying lamppost, which is trying to flash back on and it's miserably failing.
- Okay. I'll tell him. - I'm the last one to hang up. I flip the phone closed, throw it in the dumpster next to me, and I turn around to retrace my steps. The barrel of a gun that is not mine tries to explain to my forehead that I'm not going anywhere. I swallow and slowly put my hands up. I didn't even hear him approach me, and now Tears is watching me from behind the butt of his gun.
The sound of a car in the distance, wind raising a bit of gravel in this car park and then again, silence.
- What are you waiting for? - I ask.
- I'm thinking, - he says. Then, he frowns and tilts his gun a little. He's pondering while holding his gun in position. - I'm trying to figure out if this would make us even or not. -
I raise both eyebrows and breathe in. - I fear that if you ask him, he might say yes, - I answer him.
He stares at me for a moment, then puts away his Beretta. - I think that sometimes even he has no idea of what he's talking about. -
I sigh and I put my hands in my pockets. - Or do you think he could hurt Electra? - I ask, and then I start following him.
He raises only an index without turning towards me. - You're in a minefield, porcupine. -
Porcupine, that's what he calls me, because of my hairstyle, I suppose. Tears must have some personal rule that requires him to keep himself away from other human beings and give people nicknames. He can go as far as calling you by your last name, but he'll basically never use your name.
I pull along his side. - What are you going to do? - I ask.
- Daniel, right? - He answers my question with another question. I don't answer. - Daniel, - he confirms to himself.
- Wanna come to the Darkness? My treat, - I offer.
He stops. Pulls something out from behind his back. It's a gun, and he hands it to me.
- You don't want me to come to your club, porcupine. -
I take the gun wondering why he gave it to me. It's a H&K USP, like Sin's. At a first glance, I classify it as the Tactical one, then I correct myself: it's a 9mm, so it's an Expert.
- What does it mean? - I ask.
- Just give it to him, he knows very well what it means, - he answers me.
When I look up again, I find myself alone in a deserted parking lot once again.
*****
When I leave the emergency room, he's entering the waiting room. He throws me a sideways glance as he usually does, and I look back at him as I head towards the exit. He's telling me not to ask him why he's there again, and I certainly won't. This is one of those mutual moral favors that we do to each other.
- How long will the surgery last? - He asks me, sitting down.
I turn and look at him. - I don't know, Tears. I suppose a couple of hours, but it depends on what they find once they open him. - He nods and lights a cigarette. I sigh. – Tears... -
- Fuck off. Weren't you going out? Well, I need a smoke. See ya. -
I would like to remind him that this is a public space, the waiting room of a clinic, but my phone rings. I check the display, it's Samuel. I answer. - Shelv. -
- I'm leaving Akrem headquarters this very moment. -
- Is she with you? - I ask.
- Obviously. Are the passes ready? - He asks, and I hear footsteps in the background.
- You'll find them at the border along with the rest of the documents. -
- Perfect. - Then, he lowers his voice and starts whispering. - Although I believe Clizia is going to pass anyway, with or without these documents. She's going to headbutt the border down if they won't let her pass through instantly. -
I could almost smile, because I can perfectly picture her doing just that, but ultimately I don't. - What did you tell her? -
- Exactly what you told me, which is also all I know. His son is seriously injured and he's having surgery this very moment. -
I nod. - Well, contact me the moment you pass the border. -
- Yes, General. - He hangs up as I raise one eyebrow. Calling me by my degree is a mere joke on his part.
While I put my phone away in my breast pocket, I notice Tears looking at me.
- Clizia? - He asks.
I nod.
Then I leave.
****
Four hours, damn it, four fucking hours.
My ass has taken the shape of this fucking chair when Nadja finally comes out of the O.R.
Enough time passed for Shelv to come back and Clizia to arrive from another dimension, and even that dickhead Sam's got here, which is is why I decided to finish my pack of cigarettes out of here. I had time to come back too, smoke another whole pack, and only then the light above the O.R. finally turned off. The only one coming out of there, though, is Nadja, and I don't like it.
She takes off the mask and she sighs. She looks devastated and she probably is.
- How did it go? - I throw the question in her face, like that. No beating around the bush, okay? If I have to look for another partner, I want to know it straight away, so I can curse, drag myself in some fucking bar and drink until morning. Even if it's morning already; from the window in the waiting room I've already seen that red light announcing the arrival of dawn.
It just means that I'll drink till noon.
She falls on a chair next to mine, I sit back down and I wait. Had she been a man, I would've already taken her by the shoulders and slapped her a few times, but not only she's a woman, she's Nadja, she patched me up a thousand times, and not just me. So I wait for her to pull herself together.
- I'm not sure, Tears. We've been within a hair's breadth of loosing him twice in there. -
- Well, it's a good thing he's got long hair then. -
She glares at me.
Okay, I make crappy jokes in these cases, got a problem with that?
She sighs. - In theory, everything went as it should have, but not only he lost a lot of blood, he's just been in surgery for four hours straight, and his heart was already strained by that bullet trauma. Luckily, his heart was only brushed, otherwise, even if I'd managed to instantly find a donor, I couldn't have done much. -
I nod. - So, what now? -
- We wait, and we keep him monitored. -
Shit. I hate to wait.
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