Chapter Thirteen

The covers that used to lie crumpled at the foot of the bed had been moved to the couch in the middle of the night. Sparks had probably come in sometime while they were sleeping and took it. He had told them the night before that he’d be at the apartment in the morning by the time they woke up but didn’t give any other details. The slinky b*****d.

Fay was cold when she woke up. The summer air wafting through the window was probably enough to set something on fire, but the air conditioning had been blasting throughout the room the entire night, turning the bed’s metal frame into an icicle. The first thing she noticed when her eyes fluttered open was that her right hand was tingling and faint. She couldn’t even feel that it was still attached to her until she turned on her side and saw that Aries had been resting his shoulder on it all night. He was still sleeping, and she felt his light breaths on her hand. She pulled her arm out from under him knowing it would wake him up. His eyelid twitched, but still he pretended that he was asleep. Fay smiled seeing his face. She could appreciate his authoritativeness when he was awake, but while he was sleeping, he was just a normal human being. She had to be reminded of that from time to time. The static made his black hair stick to the pillow, so she helped it back to resemble the gelled, spiked look it had when he was awake and did it himself. He was mumbling to himself, sleeping in the shirt that he always wore with the symbol of the Spartans gang sewed onto the back. He would always wear his jacket over it, but Fay liked him with just the shirt. The jacket was so stiff and made holding him uncomfortable.

Aries’ eyes opened, and Fay kissed his forehead hoping to elicit a smile from him. He managed a small upward curl of his lips, but shut his eyes again right after.

“Morning, babe,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

Aries made a motion that would have resembled shaking his head if he wasn’t lying down. “Morning. Is Sparks here?”

“I think he’s in the living room.”

Aries smiled, bringing his hand up to stroke Fay’s hair. The cheap purple colour was rubbing off a little on his fingers, but she was going to get it redone soon anyway. He whispered, “How are you doing?”

She laughed a bit. “I’m fine. Worried about Comet.”

“He’s tough. He can take care of himself.”

“What about you?” Fay kissed the bridge of his nose. “This is the first time you’ve slept in forever.”

“I’ve had to take care of some stuff. I promise I’m gonna spend more time in bed with you.”

“Yeah, you’d better,” she laughed. He leaned up on his arm and pecked her lips, then started to sit up.

His black jacket was draped over the nightstand next to the bed. In one motion, he grabbed the sleeve and swung it over his shoulder. She smiled at how much of a professional he turned into once his feet touched the floor. On the back of his jacket was a more detailed version of the Spartans’ symbol�"a skull wearing a war helmet. Not all Spartans wore that jacket, but the ones that did were given a reputation on sight. He extended his hand towards her and she grumbled over her laughing, “But I have to do my hair and makeup and stuff.”

“You look beautiful.” Aries smirked. “Besides, you’re the princess of the Spartans. A prince has to have his princess.”

Fay grinned and reached up to his hand. He helped her out of bed and she tried her best to flatten her hair using the mirror on the wall opposite to the bed.

Her Spartans jacket was crumpled up on the floor. Aries bent down and grabbed it to hand to her. She responded with a toothy smirk and wrapped it around herself over the white tank top that she slept in. It had been a while since she left the apartment without the insignia of the Spartans gang emblazoned on her back, a special pair of butterfly wings on either side of the skull as per her request. She thought the idea of a jacket was stupid when she first wore it, but it had since evolved into a safeguard. There was a special kind of fear that surrounded the skull and helmet. In Hillborough, she needed as many safeguards as she could get.

She slipped on a pair of black jeans, feeling the blade nestled against the side of her leg inside a special holster in her pants. It was something that she had designed herself, wanting to have some sort of cool signature that ended up being a secret between her and Aries. She had grown used to that thing. She wouldn’t feel safe unless that piece of metal was pressed against her leg so that if need be, she could buck her knee quickly enough to make the knife cut through the fabric and pop out. Meanwhile, Aries always held a gun in his hand just to make himself look like a badass. She thought it was cute.

Fay and Aries lived in a small condominium not out of necessity, but out of choice. Aries was the son of the gang’s leader, who was an ex-millionaire. They could have lived anywhere they wanted, but a small, dingy building just felt like home. Aries’ father had told him to move every few weeks, but the two never thought it was necessary. Something they both had in common was that they grew attached to homes. Coming down the stairs to the main room, their eyes connected with Sparks, who was sitting on the couch.

He was a newcomer to the gang. Sparks was a pharmacist in his early twenties and the brother of a policeman. He was a lanky, skinny person with an overly large head and a tiny chest that made it look like he hadn’t finished growing. He would almost certainly be useless in any street scenario, but a part of the Spartans’ success was their ability to collect people down on their luck with connections to the cops, courts, or city. Sparks’ sister didn’t know anything about his being fired from work or how he managed to maintain a steady income from the gang.

“Sparks,” Aries said.

Sparks stood, making the blanket on his lap fall to the ground. “Morning,” he said.

Fay kissed the air in his direction coming into the room. Aries nodded in affirmation and sat down on the couch nearest to the doorway, keeping his gun concealed in his jacket just so that he wouldn’t overwhelm the newcomer. Fay sat on the armrest and rested her elbow on his shoulder, letting her legs lie across his lap.

“Did you find out about Comet?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Sparks said, suddenly avoiding eye contact and shifting his weight from left to right nervously. “It’s thirteen years in prison.”

“For assault?” Aries’ voice grew louder with each word. “It was ten last I heard.”

“I’m just saying what I know.”

Fay put her hand on Aries’ chest to try and calm him down. He wasn’t yelling, but his face was starting to flush with red. “Judge Raymond took our bribes.”

“It wasn’t her. It was a lawyer,” Sparks said. “He’s a newcomer. He blew it up and put it in the papers. If Raymond denied the evidence, she would’ve lost her job. Johnson cut down the sentence as much as he could.”

“Who’s the lawyer?” Aries demanded.

Sparks waited a while before answering the way an executioner pauses before turning an electric chair on. “A freelance attorney named Edward Montgomery. Been in the game for a year.”

“Ed?” Fay asked. She realized how loudly she said that and recoiled a bit. The word felt hot on her tongue, but she hid it well. Aries stared at her with a raised eyebrow, and she decided that she should elaborate. “I used to know him. He was the one that landed me in prison.”

“Comet was pretty well-known.” Sparks said. “Putting someone like him away is going to get Montgomery’s face plastered all over the news. Soon, people are going to start talking.”

Aries shook his head. “He’s straight out of law school, isn’t he? He sounds like a zealot. He’s not going to take bribes. We’ll get him on our side another way. Or in the ground. Fay, know where he lives?”

It took hearing her name for Fay to recognize words again. Hearing a name like his after a year had a way of reducing the world to white noise. She picked up the hand that had been resting limply on Aries’ shoulder and pet down his arm. “Huh?” She realized that her pretending not to hear wasn’t too convincing. “Oh, I don’t know. He’s moved since I last saw him.”

“If you knew him, you could find out, couldn’t you?”

Her head impulsively shook at the thought of seeing him again. Aries evidently picked up on it.

“Come on, baby,” he said before she moved another muscle, “The guy locked you up. Don’t let him get away with that.”

She spit out, “I know where he used to live. His mother still lives there.”

Aries smirked and put a gentle, metal-scented hand on her wrist. “That’s my girl.”

“Baby, I don’t really want to go back there,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” Aries said. “Sparks and I will go. You just give us the address and leave it to us.”

“And leave the mom alive, will you?” Fay added, as a request disguised as an afterthought. “She’s done a lot for me. I owe her that much.”

Aries seemed like he hesitated a little. “Anything for you, baby.”

Fay gave him a little smile, and Aries reciprocated with one half the size of hers but with twice the sentiment. The two had started to get up and head back to their room when Sparks started stepping towards them. His hand started to reach out for Aries but decided halfway that he didn’t want to touch him. Instead, Sparks cleared his throat by knocking on his chest with his fist and looked distinctly to Aries, not to Fay, “Aries, could I talk to you in private?”

With a glare at him that suddenly grew two shades more intense, Aries’ hand went up to Fay’s leg, using her like an armrest. His voice suddenly became softer and lower until it sounded like a purr. “Whatever you want to say to me, you can say in front of Fay. I trust her with everything.”

Fay winked at him, curious, but not willing to drop the persona she kept in front of the other gang members, which was involuntary and effortless most days but not first thing in the morning. Sparks�"wide-eyed and dazed from the surprise�"shook his head for a moment, noticeably debating what to say with himself before locking eyes with them both and taking a breath. “How do we know we can trust her? What has she done to earn the gang’s trust?”

“She’s given me her love,” Aries said, looking up at her with the widest smile he was willing to form in front of other gang members. She was about to lean down and kiss him before Sparks continued.

He was running his mouth. That had always been a problem for him. “Aries, with respect, some of the guys have been talking recently about her. We don’t like that she’s running things as your partner now. I mean, the rest of us worked hard to earn our place in the gang, paying our dues and everything. But suddenly, you find this washed-up, homeless druggie on the side of the street and now she’s your princess? Look, I get that she’s easy to look at, but she should be dancing in a club somewhere, not�""

His hands scrambled to his pocket to reach for whatever weapon he had, but Aries’ gun was already in his hand. Fay was silent as Sparks’ body dropped to the ground, the life leaving his face with the crack of a gunshot and a splash of bright red. She couldn’t move. All she could do was stare ahead at the body crumpling like paper onto the ground until it was a puddle of blood and flesh. Aries stood up, nearly in time with Sparks’ body falling, and put a gentle hand on her face.

“You’re the love of my life. I fell in love with you the moment I saw you because we have the same look in our eyes. There’s cunning and bravery and determination in there. Give it a little more time and you’ll have these b******s worshipping at your feet. I swear to you.”

“You’re my prince,” she said. His smile loosened her muscles enough that her lips could accept his kiss.