“Yeah, but your reaction just now…” Her voice trailed off and she bit her lip nervously.
I forced myself to smile. A real smile, not something fake. “It just caught me off guard like they do sometimes. I hadn’t been thinking about visions, just how hungry I am.”
Frankie nodded. “So it wasn’t anything?”
I shook my head and glanced at the daisies. They actually lessened the knot of panic in my gut. “Nope.” I looked back at my friend and grinned. “And don’t worry; you still look hot.”
She smiled and fluffed her hair. “Of course I do.” She grabbed up the container of beef and broccoli. “Let’s eat.”
I picked up the container of lo mein I’d been so hungry for just minutes before. But now, my appetite was gone. The truth was that vision hadn’t been nothing. It was something.
Something very bad.
“Nightshade
-
Any of several plants of the genus Solanum, such as the bittersweet nightshade, most of which have a poisonous juice.”
Dex
All through my typical breakfast of bacon, eggs, and coffee I thought about what Storm said. I did need a plan. Seeing Piper’s reaction to the peanut oil had given me an idea, but I wasn’t sure if it would work or not so I pulled out my laptop and typed the word
nightshade
into Google.
I smiled as I read. It was possible to die from ingesting the poisonous berry, and it could cause adverse effects like dizziness, trouble breathing, and nausea. If I acted fast I could somehow get it into her system and then say she was having complications from the anaphylaxis.
Brilliant.
Now that I had a plan, all I needed was a way to get the deadly nightshade. I could probably find it online, but that would take forever to get here and I needed it fast.
There was one way…
It was in a place I never planned to go again. A place I was all too happy to be rid of.
I guess the old saying that history sometimes repeats itself was true. To get what I wanted I was going to have to go back… back to where I came from.
Back to the streets.
* * *
I hadn’t been to this part of town since I died. The streets seemed dirtier, lonelier, and colder than ever. Probably because I’d been spending all my time in a spacious, heated townhouse cleaned by my butler.
I shoved my hands deeper into my coat, wondering what I was thinking to wear such a nice leather coat. I was hoping maybe my ripped jeans and Converse sneakers would be enough to not mark me as some rich kid looking for some fun in the wrong part of town. Maybe to the watchful eyes of the people that lay in wait in the shadows, I would look like one of them who got lucky enough to steal a nice coat.
The streets here were familiar to me, but I didn’t feel like I was coming home, because even though I once lived on the streets, they weren’t my home. I hadn’t had a real home in years.
I looked at the sidewalks, which had patches of ice every couple feet. In this part of town no one bothered to lay salt. The city had long ago given up.
It seemed there was a different set of rules on this street and the few that ran beside it. The people here weren’t governed by the same laws everyone else lived by. Here it was eat or be eaten, live or die, steal or be stolen from. Yes, the police still patrolled here, the city still wanted to claim they were doing all they could to keep every street in Fairbanks safe, but the truth was even they had given up.
I passed a few places where I used to spend a lot of my time. The narrow alley between two rundown apartment buildings looked exactly the same with the shell of an old rusted out car sitting on blocks. It reminded me of all the nights that I’d climb into the front seat and use the frame to block the snow and what I could of the icy air.
There were a few people hunched around a large barrel with flames glowing out the top. I heard a few laughs and the sound of something hitting the side as they threw it into the fire to keep it going. I ducked my head and kept walking, not wanting them to see me stare. That was considered a challenge in these parts.
I walked past a small convenience store where I used to loiter, picking pockets of the unfortunate people who had to be in this part of town and hadn’t thought to get gas before they came. It smelled the same—burnt coffee and stale cigarettes with a hint of gasoline.
I saw some people I knew, people who weren’t quite my friends but might’ve wondered what happened to me when I disappeared and never came back. Not that they would’ve cared. They knew I was always looking for the next big score, my ticket out of here, and maybe they assumed I found it. That or I died trying. By now, my minimal stash of clothes and personal items had been found and raided, probably fought over and won.
The truth was I hadn’t thought once about anything I left behind. I didn’t miss it here and having to come back only reminded me why I so desperately wanted out.
I came to an abandoned brick building, a building probably considered condemned by the city. For the people here on the street, it was a refuge. A refuge from the harsh temperatures Alaska was famous for.
I flicked my gaze around the sidewalk in front of the building and looked across the street. No one seemed to care what I was doing so I ducked into the building through two loosened boards that were hammered over a broken window.
It was dark on the very bottom floor of the building, completely stripped of whatever it used to be. Bare concrete floors, empty cracked, yellowed walls, and crumpled trash made up the inside of this refuge. It wasn’t much, but there weren’t many windows so most of the snow and wind didn’t make it in. There was a room in the center that was pretty much what most of us considered a suite because it blocked out all the elements and housed a small heater that ran on batteries. But most of us were never permitted entrance.
No, it belonged to a guy who staked his claim on this street years ago. He was essentially the boss around here. Nothing happened without him knowing about it, and the bigger deals that would bring in the most cash were always run by him. If you tried to run a big deal without him knowing he killed you, plain and simple.
I’d run a few deals, earned a few dollars, but mostly I tried to stay out of his way. He was the kind of guy who lived by his own rules and expected you to live by them too. When one of his rules inconvenienced him, he changed it and that left the other person out in the cold. Literally.
But he was the guy who would get me what I wanted. And he would get it now.
As I approached the room in the center of the building, someone came out to meet me. A very big someone. I knew he would. Joey Malone, AKA The Bouncer was the boss’s right-hand man. He did exactly what his name implied—bounced people that weren’t supposed to be around.
“Who the hell are you?” he said, narrowing his eyes.
I pulled my hands slowly out of my pockets and dropped them to my sides. “I heard this was the place to come when you needed something fast,” I said.
“Yeah? Where’d you hear that?”
I shrugged, keeping my cool. “Around.”
“I’ve never seen you
around,
” The Bouncer said.
“That’s because you wouldn’t see me unless I wanted you to,” I replied, injecting enough attitude for him to know I wasn’t a stranger to the streets and he wouldn’t intimidate me.
He made a grunting sound and said, “Wait here.”
I stood there, appearing casual but really ready for any kind of fight. I just hoped this new body had reflexes and skills like my old one did because if not, Mr. Burns might not like the condition in which this body is returned to him.
The Bouncer appeared and gestured for me to follow him. He led me into the room we all used to covet. Now, as I looked around, all I saw was a place in the middle of the ghetto that was no better than the rooms I’d just walked through, except maybe it was warmer.
The little heater was running and there were two metal chairs set up in the center. Off to the right there was a bare mattress pushed up against the wall with a blanket that was rumpled and dirty.
“What’s a guy like you doing in this part of town?” the boss asked, looking me over.
I guess my beat-up jeans and Converse sneakers weren’t enough to give the new me a street approved look. “I want something. I heard you can get it.”
The boss lifted an eyebrow and proceeded to light a cigarette. “Yeah? What do you want?”
“Nightshade,” I said, trying not to make a face at the smoke. Smoking was one thing I never did. It was nasty.
He coughed a little and then squinted up at me through the smoke. “Nightshade?”
“Yeah.” I didn’t bother to define it further. He knew full well it was a poison. Insulting his knowledge of lethal substances would only tell him I didn’t belong on the streets. But I did. He might usually deal the hard stuff, but I knew he could get this. Anyone who could get kilos of cocaine could get me a little bag of nightshade.
“What do you want that for?”
“Does it matter?” I retorted.
“Are you a narc?” he asked, and I wanted to laugh. He thought I was a narc? I was the furthest thing from a tattletale he would ever see.
“If I was a narc I wouldn’t be trying to get nightshade from you,” I replied, flat.
“I don’t have any.”
I reached into my pocket, noting how The Bouncer stiffened, expecting me to pull out a weapon, and pulled out a fat wad of cash. “I got something here that says you do.”
The boss ground out his cigarette on the floor and then stood. I counted out quite a few crisp hundred-dollar bills and held them out. “How about you suddenly find some?”
He took the money and it disappeared in his pocket. “I’ll be back.” He stepped around me. “Watch him, Joey.”
We stood in the tiny room, with the battery-operated heater working overtime, for endless minutes that dragged into an hour. During that time a girl with greasy dark hair came into the room and collapsed onto the mattress. I recognized her. We hung out a couple times in the alley and one time I got her some food. She was young, probably no more than sixteen, and the streets hadn’t been kind. She was the kind of person that the streets would eat for dinner if she didn’t find a way to survive. I tried to convince her to go back home once, months ago. A few weeks later I didn’t see her around anymore and I thought maybe she’d listened.
I guess she hadn’t.
And now, from the way The Bouncer acted like seeing her here was nothing new, I’d guess her way of surviving was getting involved with the boss.
I must’ve stared at her too long because she turned her head to look at me. “What?” she demanded.
I looked away.
The Bouncer shoved me in the shoulder. “Eye’s off,” he warned.
After that I just stared at the floor.
The boss finally came back with a little bag in his hand and he held it out to me. “You didn’t get this here.”
I took it, nodding, and barely glanced at the dark berries in the sack. I shoved it into my pocket and left. I breathed a sigh of relief when I was out of the room and walking away. From out in the hall, I heard the raised voice of the boss and then a sharp slap followed by a light cry.
My steps faltered before picking back up again.
Then I heard the scrape of a chair, a loud bang, and another cry.
Sounded like the price of being at the top was pretty heavy. She should’ve gone home like I told her to. Now she wouldn’t go anywhere without the boss’s permission.