Page 37 of Bent Heavens

“What?” Liv demanded.

“What is with you?” he asked.

Liv ground her teeth and resumed walking. The car crept alongside her.

“That’s creepy, you know,” she said. “That’s stalking.”

“Get in. I’ll drive you.”

“Even creepier.”

“I’m the one who should be worried! You’re acting like you’re going to knife someone!”

“I am.” She stopped, and the car stopped, too, chuckling exhaust. She breathed it in on purpose, craving the toxic taste. It was too much and she coughed, leaning over with the force of it, and when she rose, wiping her mouth, she was weaker. Her muscles still ached from the skinner interrogation, and she was tired of pretending they didn’t.

“You don’t even know where I’m going,” she mumbled.

“To the knife grinder, obviously. Get in—you can tell me.”

He pushed open the passenger door. She gave him a lengthy warning glare, but he was the least threatening boy she’d ever met, and besides, what did it matter? She almost wished he did try something, so she could bite off his finger.

“The vet clinic. By the Best Western. My mom works there. She’ll drive me home.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He got the car moving again. The interior smelled like its own foreign land, as strangers’ cars always did, and though it rated only a notch below her own clunker, as well as Doug’s, it was, like Bruno, exceedingly clean. Not so much as a gum wrapper obscured an inch of the sun-roasted upholstery. Liv futzed irritably with the air-conditioning until she sensed Bruno beginning to enjoy her futile effort. She turned her face to the wind. Inside a car was, at least, out of the sun.

“Fuck,” she sighed.

“You’re a barrel of monkeys today.”

“I didn’t ask for this ride.”

“Will you take ten chill pills?”

Liv took a deep breath. She’d been so heated minutes ago she’d been lucky she hadn’t punched a fist through the station wagon window. Here Bruno was doing her a favor, and she was being a bitch about it.

“What’s a knife grinder, anyway?” she asked.

“It’s an old-fashioned job where you sharpen knives. There’s a song in Oliver! that mentions it.”

“So you got your wish. You’re in the play.”

“You really have it out for Baldwin, don’t you?”

“Aren’t you skipping out on practice?”

“It’s called rehearsal, Fleming. And no, they were done with my scenes.”

“Then why were you still there?”

“I don’t know. Just to hang out?”

“Seriously? You have nothing better to do?”

“What are you doing that’s so important?”

The car slunk into a shadow the exact shape of the Armory.