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A bad one, CiCi assumed. Macie never said mean things. And, well, maybe she was playing the nervous virgin. A little. “Bren’s got the nicest smile.” CiCi’s eyes, a luminous green against her caramel skin, met Macie’s in the narrow mirror. “If he walks me home, I’ll ask him up.”
“Now you’re talking.”
They walked back. It seemed louder than it had been, Macie thought. All the voices, the clattering dishes, the scraping chairs ground against her headache.
She told herself, with some bitterness, to ease off the next drink.
Someone blocked her path, just for a moment, as they passed the bar. Annoyed, she rounded, shoved at him, but he was already murmuring an apology and moving toward the door.
“Asshole,” she muttered, and at least had the chance to snarl as he glanced back, smiled at her before he stepped outside.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing—just a jerkhead.”
“Are you okay? I probably have a blocker if your head really hurts. I’ve got a little headache, too.”
“Always about you,” Macie mumbled, then tried to take a calming breath. Good friends, she reminded herself. Good times.
As she sat again, Travis took her hand the way he did, gave her a wink.
“We want to go to Nino’s,” she announced.
“We were just talking about going to Tortilla Flats. We’d need a reservation at Nino’s,” Travis reminded her.
“We don’t want Mexican crap. We want to go somewhere nice. Jesus, we’ll split the bill if the tab’s a BFD.”
Travis’s eyebrows drew together, digging a thin line between them, the way they did when she said something stupid. She hated when he did that.
“Nino’s is twelve blocks away. The Mexican place is practically around the corner.”
So angry her hands began to shake, she shoved her face toward his. “Are you in a fucking hurry? Why can’t we do something I want for a change?”
“We’re doing something you wanted right now.”
Their voices rose to shouts, clanging with the sharp voices all around them. As her head began to throb, CiCi glanced toward Bren.
He sat, teeth bared in a snarl, staring into his glass, muttering, muttering.
He wasn’t adorable. He was horrible, just like Travis. Ugly, ugly. He only wanted to fuck her. He’d rape her if she said no. He’d beat her, rape her, first chance. Macie knew. She knew and she’d laugh about it.
“Screw both of you,” CiCi said under her breath. “Screw all of you.”
“Stop looking at me like that,” Macie shouted. “You freak.”
Travis slammed his fist on the table. “Shut your fucking mouth.”
“I said stop!” Grabbing a fork from the table, Macie peeled off a scream. And stabbed the prongs through Travis’s eye.
He howled, the sound tearing through CiCi’s brain as he leaped up, fell on her friend.
And the bloodbath began.
•••
Lieutenant Eve Dallas stood in the carnage. Always something new, she thought. Always something just a little more terrible than even a cop could imagine.
Even for a veteran murder cop swimming in the bubbling stew of New York in the last quarter of the year 2060, there was always something worse.
