Vengeful

“I’ve heard a little about your talent, but I’d love to know more.” She reached out and brought her fingers to rest against his arm. It was such a simple gesture, almost kind, right up until her palm flared red. The shine flashed along his skin, and she pulled back, considering her hand. “Hm,” she said, as if she hadn’t just tried to ruin him. “How do you do it?”

“I don’t do anything,” said Jonathan bitterly. “It just happens. Someone tries to hurt me—hell, I try to hurt myself—and it’s there. Shielding me.”

“Well, bully for you,” said June, leaning back on the counter.

Marcella made a small, displeased hum. “I don’t see how that helps me.”

Jonathan stared into his glass. “I can share it.”

Marcella’s blue eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

Jonathan shook his head. This was how the shine mocked him. How he knew it wasn’t a gift at all, but a curse, a shallow cut, not deep enough to kill, but more than enough to hurt. He’d just wanted to protect Claire, and he’d failed. Now, when he finally could, it was too late. She was already gone.

“Jonathan,” pressed Marcella.

“I can shield someone else,” he admitted, “so long as I can see them.”

“Mr. Royce.” Her voice was warm and sleek and laced with smoke.

The brunette hopped up on a stool. “Johnny boy,” she said, and there was something about her accent, familiar, as if they’d met before, but he was sure he’d never seen her face.

“If Caprese sent you . . .” he muttered.

“Caprese,” said the dark-haired woman, turning the name over in her mouth. “He’s the one that killed your wife, right?”

Jonathan said nothing.

“And yet,” she continued, “Jack Caprese is still alive. Flourishing, I’ve heard. While you’re here in this shithole of a club, wasting away.”

“Oy,” chirped the other woman. “I like this place.”

“Who are you?” asked Jonathan.

“June,” said the brunette.

“Marcella,” said the black-haired beauty. “But when it comes to people like us, the real question isn’t who, is it? It’s what.”

The woman pressed a single gold nail against the bar and, as Jonathan watched, her finger glowed red, and the wood beneath began to warp and rot, wearing a hole straight through. The brunette—June—slid a coaster over the damage, only she wasn’t the brunette anymore. She was Chris, the Palisades bartender, even though Chris was still on the other side of the counter, back turned while he polished a highball glass. By the time he turned back, so had she.

Jonathan’s mouth went dry.

They had powers, like his shine. But the shine was a gift. The shine was a curse. The shine was his. There weren’t supposed to be others with him, here in this hell.

“What do you want?” he asked, voice barely a whisper.

“That,” said the beautiful woman, “is what I was just about to ask you.”

Jonathan stared down into his club soda. He wanted his life back. But he had no life, not anymore. He wanted death, but he’d been deprived of that, too.

That night, after Caprese’s men were all dead, and Jonathan wasn’t, when the room was silent and dark and the world was empty, he had put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger, and that should have been the end of it, but it wasn’t, because the shine was there again, like it or not, and that made him think of Claire, and how pissed she’d be, him throwing away a second shot. And thinking of Claire made him want to get high again, to float out to sea.

But the shine wouldn’t let him.

Jonathan had told himself that he wouldn’t try again.

He wouldn’t let her down.

But it was like a whole new kind of drug, using that shine. A fearsome reminder that he was still alive.

I said, give me your fucking money.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll fucking shoot you.”

Jonathan tipped his head back, looked at the sky. “So shoot.”

Half the time, they didn’t have the balls to fire. This one did. Not that it made any difference. The gun went off and the air glinted around Jonathan, like flint striking stone, that shine, like Claire’s arms around him, telling him it wasn’t his time, wasn’t his turn. The bullet ricocheted, flung into the dark.

“The fuck?” said the kid.

“Quit while you’re ahead,” warned Jonathan, right before the kid emptied the magazine at Jonathan’s head. Seven shots, and six of them rebounded uselessly into the dark, sparkling off bricks, asphalt, shattering a window. But the last bullet snapped back and hit the kid in the knee, and he went down screaming.

Jonathan sighed, and stepped over the writhing form, checking his watch.

He was late for work.