Dead Girl: Chapter Two

I wouldn’t be able to count how many times Shadows – apparently that’s what we’ve started calling ourselves – made me laugh in the next few months. Tanker, a.k.a. Berk McKinley is, despite being a huge island of muscle, probably the softest guy I’ve known in over two hundred years. That’s saying a lot. Face, whose name is actually Donnie Lampkin, is all show. Sure, his sultry ego and dazzling smile has won over gosh knows how many women, but he’s told us often that he wants something serious but just hasn’t found it yet. I’ve learned that “Art” is just short for “Arthur,” which he doesn’t really mind. He just prefers his creative alternative since his cross-dresser wardrobe is a little more eccentric than what Arthur Kelvin’s mother would have suggested.

Skinner? He’s… well, he’s Skinner. Even Tanker, who has known him longer than any of us, doesn’t even know what his real name is. And as it turns out, Skinner isn’t really new to the whole gang scene. His dad was Baby-Face Bernie (whose name, surprisingly, is not actually Bernie) and he helped him run the scene up in what was left of New York. Drug trafficking, gun smuggling, you name it, they did it. Skinner was being serious when he said that they did heavy stuff. I mean, working in the drug business, it wasn’t a big surprise. Thankfully he doesn’t do anything like heroin. His daily dose of drug, along with Art’s, is a spike of electricity laced with a couple of sense-heightening steroids injected into the wrist or neck.

“C’mon, man,” Art held out the needle, which looked more like a broken light bulb, to me. It wasn’t the first time he shot up around me and wanted me to join. He does it frequently. “You’ll, like, smell the colors. It’s fantastic.”

I looked from the needle to Skinner, who sat dazed on the couch with a similar needle in his hand. The veins around the side of his neck pulse a pale blue and he let out a low sigh. I didn’t want to be like that, or like Art for that matter, and declined.

It was a while before I learned to trust them. To care. I told them my name. That it was Liana Catherine Gates, but I was always called Cat because it saved time. That I hated the colors pink and yellow, and bees terrified me. That it didn’t matter where I was, I had to sleep with a knife under my pillow, thanks to a near-rape in the early nineties. And as I learned about them, as I watched them come out of their own shells and learn to return that trust, I felt like I was slowly caving in on myself with every laugh. After watching everyone around you die, while you stand there in the middle of bombshells, floods, tear gas, fires… you get this sort of aching in your chest. It’s like when a body falls, a piece of myself falls with it. Every decade, every year, I lose a bit more of myself. I think now I’m just a hollow shell of who I once was. I’m the survivor, but I don’t think I want to be anymore.

The digital clock posted above the television set reads 8:17 a.m. I sit in the kitchen, the cold linoleum countertops chilling me through my long-sleeved nightshirt, sipping on a cup of water. I’m tired; waking up a little after midnight because of a fitful night’s sleep is taking its toll. Now, for the fourth time, I observe everything around me, wondering how I ever got here.

White carpet, soft like the fur of a rabbit, covers the floor of the living room. The whole area is open, with only a bar separating the living room and kitchen. The one bedroom is enclosed in thin panelled walls lined with marble while the study/office is in a glass cubicle. To my left, on the other side of the living room, dark purple curtains cover huge windows that show a beautiful skyline of the city of Atlanta. At least, it could be beautiful without all the smog. And to my right, the elegant, hardly used dining table sat with a fake arrangement of hydrangeas and daffodils. The kitchen is chic and perfect, and it shocks me every time how I got here.

A bullet in my head. That’s all it took.

I hear the bedroom door open and down the rest of my water. I put my glass in the sink and pull out a smooth mug from the cupboards. Before Skinner shuffles into the kitchen wearing nothing but his pajama drawstring sweats, I already have his coffee – two pinches of sugar, one cap of vanilla creamer – poured and sitting on the island countertop. Still in that daze of half-asleep, half-awake, he takes up the mug and leans back against the counter beside me as I fix myself some coffee.

“Good morning,” he says, his voice still laced with dreariness. He leans in towards me a bit. I give him a quick peck and a gentle “Good morning” before mixing my sugar and creamer.

He gives me a slow once-over. “You’re in my shirt,” he mumbles, pulling me against him.

“I was freezing,” I reply, snuggling into him and carefully sipping my coffee.

He gives a throaty chuckle. “If you had just stayed in bed, I could have fixed that.”

Skinner and I… it’s hard to explain. I’ve known him for a good six months. I’ve gambled, fought, literally died for him. Our relationship is not a secret to the other guys. In fact, they always say that it’s “about time Skinner found himself a playmate.” When this had first started out, I felt so embarrassed until Skinner kissed my temple and told me that I was better than a couple of sex jokes. I toughened up and learned to joke around with the guys other than taking their jibes seriously. I started thinking: I’ve been alone and – ahem – inactive for a good century or two. I deserve a little Me Time.

Now, I admit, he wasn’t my first choice. Face didn’t just charm mob ladies into giving him information. In the beginning, the flirting went both ways. He poked, I giggled, so on and so forth. It wasn’t until I realized that he was a little too simple for my tastes that I really started leaning towards Skinner. And then it just kind of… clicked. I know, I know. The simple, naïve girl falls for the mysterious, dark, brooding older man. What can I say? I’m a sucker for clichés.

And I’m, like, a good three hundred and something years older than him. Talk about cougar.

For a second, I’m wrapped up in the thought of hold old I actually was, and that I will forever be contained in the body of a seventeen year old girl. A five foot – four inch teenage girl with unevenly cut hair and a chest that was too big for her petite height (a sarcastic thanks to you, mom). I start wondering if I was going to outlive these guys, like I had everyone else. Then I start worrying, and I guess I tense up because Skinner sets his coffee down and wraps his arms around me. Setting his chin on the top of my head, I curve into him, fitting like a missing puzzle piece with my back against his chest.

“You got up pretty early.”

“You sound worried.”

He lets out a sigh, his breath warming the top of my head. “I was cold.”

“Well, a big part of that is because you never put your shirt back on.”

Skinner moves his chin off my head and presses his lips against the soft skin on my neck. He mumbles something I don’t catch.

“Hm?” Distracted, I lean into him, sure that he’s always going to hold me up. It’s hard to focus with the scruff of his beard tickling my neck.

“I don’t think you should go today.”

Blinking, I make sure I heard him correctly before gently breaking out of his arms. He looks at the countertop, leaning back against it, and crosses his arms over his chest. He glances up at me, waiting for an argument.

“We’ve been planning this for weeks. You guys wouldn’t even know about it if it wasn’t for me.”

“Liana…” he starts, and I think he’s deliberately making his voice gruffer and deeper to get me distracted. My name rolls of his tongue, the sound so inviting. I shake my head.

“No. No way. You’re taking me. You need me.”

And he knows it, too. I’m always the first one in. Granted, the first time I entered a mobster private homes and faced the rain of machine gun fire was terrifying. But I woke up, like I do every other time, usually in the basement or out back, unlock the doors, and let the others in. I’m the distraction. I’m the secret weapon. I tell Skinner so, and he looks at the floor. Taking a deep breath, he prepares his side of the argument.

“Haven’t you ever thought that this thing – your coming back to life – will run out?”

I groan and roll my eyes. “Not this again.”

“Yes, this again.” Skinner pushes off the counter and holds me at my elbows. “Listen, hey, look at me,” he grabs my chin and lifts my face up. “Liana, this thing, however great or useful it is, isn’t going to last forever.”

“Skinner, I walked with MLK. I went to Woodstock and met Jimi Hendrix. I have died hundreds of times before. What makes you think that I’m not gonna wake up now?”

For a second he doesn’t answer. Then he lets go of me and takes a step back. I’d rather him be up next to me, arguing, then standing back and looking at me like he is now. Like he doesn’t know what to do with me. My heart clutches in my chest, and I cross my arms and look away.

“I’m going.” I state, plain and simple. “Whether you like it or not.”

Skinner frowns, and leans in to give me a soft kiss. It’s over in a second, and he tastes like vanilla and coffee. The taste lingers on my lips as he steps back.

“Get dressed.” He turns and walks back to the bedroom. "We leave in an hour.”

I know, I know... but I had to put a love-interest in somewhere! And I'm having this really weird Keanu Reeves obsession at the moment and can't help myself as I make Cat and Skinner get together. Sorry for the shortness of this chapter. I wanted to leave it on a sort of cliff-hanger and plan on making the next one a little longer.