Dark Heart (Dark Heart 1)

Fuck you, I want to tell him. I nod.

Alesso’s eyes hold mine. “I’ll find out some more for you, try to talk to Tony.” Something tightens in my chest—because I hear the bullshit in Alesso’s tone.

“Give me a call, please.”

He nods. “Try to stay chill, brother.”

I get carefully out of the car, feeling a hundred years old as I walk toward the lobby. A few minutes later, the black car I called is waiting by the curb.* * *In the cab, I have a feeling like it’s slipping through my fingers. All control. All…everything.

I’m heavy, fuzzy, floating… It’s like my body is offline. I can’t really move it. I’m stuck going where it goes.

I would never say it, not to anybody, but I know this feeling by its real name: dissociation.

I shift my arm around because that hurts. The pain, it helps me focus. Pain in my shoulder. Pain everywhere else. I focus on the window, framing the route to…whatever this is.

The idea that my father, a drunk who can barely put one foot in front of the other, who some days can’t even walk home from the shoe store unescorted, is someone the FBI would want to work with is…impossible to believe.

And I don’t. I can’t believe it’s true. Sometimes rumors get started, and Tony’s crazy. Who knows if he even “got an order” at all. Maybe he only told Alesso he did.

I try to recall what Roberto said when he passed me outside the shoe store. How it began. It was just some offhanded comment about me being at his house. Then he congratulated me on Columbia. Then…he told me to take care of Mom. Could he really have dropped by the store because…

Right after Dad dropped me, in those first few seconds when the pain was so bad, he’d been furious. Raging. “I’m dead because of you!” He’d screamed. “Because you had to go catch his attention!”

His cheeks were red, his eyes were redder, but his face was pale and afraid.

It’s not my fault, whatever he meant. None of this is my fault because Dad isn’t working with the FBI. Tony is crazy. That’s the only explanation. It’s gotta be some rumor gone wild. Dad blames me for everything; it’s his MO because he’s got problems. It doesn’t mean something is real. Fuck what Alesso said about my dad laundering money. I don’t believe a word of that shit.

I run a finger over the thin piece of white tape on my forehead, thinking of Elise. What fucking luck that this shit goes down when I’m so sore I can barely move, when all I want is to climb into a soft bed with her.

The cab stops by a curb, and my heartbeat throbs through my head. Fuck, I must not have kept track of where we were.

“This is it,” the guy says, drumming on the wheel.

I pay him and step onto the dark sidewalk. Everything looks old and busted, so I guess that makes it perfect for Tony’s imagined drama—if anyone is even here. Two junked out cars line the curbside up ahead and garbage litters the sidewalk. The building to my right is covered in low-quality graffiti. The next one down is boarded shut.

This is a waste of time. Probably nobody’s here and I’ll be walking blocks and blocks to get another cab—if I even can. Maybe I walk all the way home. I run the fingers of my free hand underneath the sling, touching my sore arm. It’s amazing how much the damn thing hurts and it’s not even what’s the problem. It’s all pain from my collarbone.

Which one of these derelicts has the old theater inside? I haven’t been down here in years, but I’m pretty sure it’s the one up ahead that’s made of dark-looking brick. I walk slowly, telling myself it’s all okay. If I feel kinda panicky it’s just because I’m so damn tired and those pain pills are long gone. They said at the ER that being hurt can make your heart beat faster.

You got this.

Quick look around, check it out, and I can go back to the hotel. Figure out what kind of weird shit Tony’s doing. Probably a bad idea, but I decide to pull the sling off, stuff it in my pocket. Down this way, it’s probably better if I don’t look like an easy target.

I try to walk like my arm’s not sore, keep an eye on what’s in front of me and an ear on what’s behind me. That’s when I hear it: ghosts of words, like people murmuring somewhere nearby. I lengthen my strides, my heart pounding as I make it to the tall, dark brick building.

There are windows in its front wall, but they’re not eye-level. They’re five feet above my head, a row of squares. A few yards down, there’s a dark, steel kind of door that’s got a piece of plywood hanging off it. I think of pushing through, and something buzzy starts up in me.