Called By the Dark

Jammy catches on instantly and nods. They jab a couple more things on the holographic playlist, then move to the short staircase to descend toward me.

Then, just over the driving beat of the song, I hear a distinctive noise that fills me with sudden primal terror, my body reacting first before my mind can catch up.

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!

I freeze. Jammy and I lock gazes, theirs as wide-eyed as mine feels.

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!Closer now.

I flinch, reaching up to shield my head. Again, another primal response my body coordinates before I can logically understand what I’m hearing.

Jammy jumps down and grabs my arms. “Duck, dammit!”

They push me down, and together, we use the pathetic cover of some overturned chairs to reach one of the side entrances at the end of a short hallway between the DJ booth and the bar. All around me, people are falling over, screaming. I don’t even know where the shooting is coming from.

Every second could be my last.

“Where’s Cue?” I ask desperately, straining to see the bar.

“I don’t know,” Jammy says tearfully. “I don’t see her anywhere.”

My heart clenches. Cue, who at five-two has the heart of someone twice her size, scrappy with a spiky blond pixie cut, was the first friend I made when I moved to downtown Draco City. She introduced me to Jammy, and in no time, they both became family. There’s no way I can leave without at least trying to find her.

She’d do the same for me.

“Wait here,” I tell Jammy. “I’m going to go look for her.”

Jammy clutches my hand, tears spilling down their cheeks. “No, don’t go! It’s too dangerous!”

I cup their face. “Just stay right here, okay, Jammy? Don’t get up, don’t make a sound. I’ll come back. I promise. But I have to look for Cue. You know I have to.”

Finally, they nod, lips trembling.

I slither on my belly out of the corridor and behind a table. The gunfire seems a little distant now, as if it’s coming from the dressing room or beyond—like Marcel’s office.

Who’d you owe money to, you piece of shit? I wonder desperately as I crawl between tables and bodies toward the bar. What did you bring down on our heads?

I can’t look at all the bodies, but there are so many, and blood flows like a small lake inside the lounge. A girl lies motionless on the stage, but I can’t tell if she’s dead or alive. Patrons, servers, and dancers alike are sprawled all around. I hear some groans, but some of them are disturbingly still.

My body freezes. I’m just too terrified to move.

You have to. You have to. She could be in trouble. Or hurt. Just get her, get back to Jammy, and then get out.

I hug the wall and stay as low as possible until I reach the edge of the black lacquered bar, shot to hell but still standing. But my heart sinks at the sight of a pair of feet that come into view, the rest of the body out of sight. Small feet splayed wide. One red heel is on the right foot. The left foot is bare, but an intricate mandala tattoo on top of the foot is visible.

Cue’s mandala tattoo.

Ignoring the broken glass cutting into my skin, I crawl behind the bar, and it’s all I can do to contain a scream of anguish.

My first friend, my roommate, the girl who never starts a fight but always finishes them, and usually on someone else’s behalf, lies on her back staring up at the ceiling through half-lidded, fixed eyes. I’m close enough to hear the achingly slow gurgles of shallow breathing her body is doing out of reflex, but as I gaze into her face, weeping silently, both my bloody hands clamped over my mouth, I know those eyes aren’t seeing anything. The noise is just a death rattle, the last physical act of her body as it dies, like the activity in her brain already has.

Cue is gone.

It feels like I sit there for a year, staring at her body, but it might have been just a few seconds. Jammy needs you, an inner voice reminds me, so I pull myself back across the broken glass toward where I left them.

Another horrible sight meets my gaze as I get closer, and I no longer feel the stinging in my flesh.

A man with a scarred face and dressed in a perfectly tailored suit stands above Jammy, the muzzle of the wicked-looking automatic rifle in his hand pointing down at their skull. Jammy lies on the floor, trying to turn their body away but keeping their eyes on the gunman at the same time.