Kiss Me in the Dark Anthology - Monica James Page 0,61
was up to, or who made the fatal mistake of pissing off the bastard, and I don’t give a shit, either. It’s barely even dawn. The sky’s the color of an old, angry bruise as I hit the gas pedal, swerving through the light traffic, but the sun’s still officially another twenty minutes away from breaching the horizon. I should be in fucking bed right now. I shouldn’t be on my way to go trepanning into someone’s cranium before I’ve even had chance to force down some breakfast.
I sit ramrod straight in the driver’s seat, trying not to think. When I think, I remember that I was out until the early hours of the morning myself, fucking a random stranger, while Lacey raided the liquor cabinet and used a bottle of Jim Beam to try and kill herself. It’s a miracle she didn’t need her stomach pumped. And why? Why would she do such a thing?
How the fuck would I know? I haven’t asked. Lacey’s business is her own.
It’s not that I don’t care; I find myself caring way more than I should. But the demons that stalk the hallways of Lacey’s troubled mind are insidious and evil. They’re monsters I am well acquainted with. Their language is one of hate and fear, and they crouch on her shoulder, whispering into her ear non-stop. They’re very skilled at commanding her attention. The moment I start prying into Lacey’s shit, those vile demons will have her shut down in a hot fucking minute.
I can’t prod and poke at the cracks in the girl’s mind. It’s messed up and it’s going to do more damage than good in the short term, but Lacey has to take the first step by herself. She has to get so sick of the poison and the toxicity those demons ooze that she has to shut them down herself. It’s going to take strength, and courage, and a sheer force of will like no other. Worryingly, from what I’ve seen, I suspect she might not have it in her…
Hah.
So much for not thinking.
Thinking’s all I’m capable of. I run a gambit of emotion as I draw closer and closer to my destination. My mind’s alive and buzzing with concern over the breakable young woman Michael carried out of my bathroom forty-five minutes ago when I hit the off-ramp and take my exit, barreling straight toward the Tulalip Indian Reservation.
Holy hell, Charlie. What kind of fucked up shit have you gotten yourself into this time?
Charlie usually stays away from the reservations. Years ago, he upset a Puyallup Elder during a game of poker, following which a number of his business ventures went tits up. Ever since then, the boss has been convinced that the Elder put a curse on him. A thousand times, I’ve tried to convince him that the guy did no such thing, but Charlie is deaf to logic and reason at the best of times. He remains uncharacteristically superstitious where the tribes are concerned and does everything in his power to avoid them at all costs, which means something seriously fucked up must have happened to warrant this course of action.
The co-ordinates I punched into my cell’s GPS lead my right through the reservation gates and onto Tulalip land. They guide me right past the visitor’s center and the tribe’s ancestry and historical museum, past a collection of immaculate doublewides—recently painted, with potted plants dotted and seasonal flowers blooming like crazy in freshly dug beds in front of them. I follow the gently pulsing blue dot on my phone’s screen until I find myself descending a narrow blacktop road all the way down to the beach.
The blacktop turns to dirt, and I can go no further. The road ends at a small lookout point atop of bluff. Below, fifty feet down the craggy rockface, a swathe of black, volcanic sand reaches out toward the distant, steel-grey sea. And there are tents. Tents everywhere, of every color of the rainbow. They’re not Tulalip tipis. They’re something else entirely.
It looks like a goddamn circus has washed up on the beach.
I get out of the car, scowling at the confusion of color and noise.
“Excuse me? Sir?”
Behind me, a tall guy with copper skin and short, closely cropped hair the color of jet jogs down the path. Dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, it doesn’t look like he was just out for a run. He smiles, flashing very white teeth, but his eyes are alight with suspicion. “Wow.”