Boy. Fourteen. He sat on the edge of the building, rocking his feet, like a crazed lunatic. His eyes wide. Hungry. Caution was for chumps. Bored. So bloody bored. He came up here to feel like the king of the city. Velmora. It was a gothic landscape of old stone fortresses and castles intermingled with high rise skyscrapers. Gargoyles, statues, battlements. Designed for war. Existing for beauty.
Boy. Fourteen. Downed an orange soda, scrunched it with his fingers. Charged up. Tossed it into the dark night like a burning arrow.
Lena. Seventeen. She walked down the cobbled corner of the city. The Moira district. Unusually quiet. Pin dropping. Man snoring from an ajar window. Moira was like this sometimes. She had lived here in childhood. It was 11 PM and most were tucking into sleep and forgetting the trauma of day. Velmora was traumatic. Everyone had scars.
Lena. Seventeen. Kid genius. Left school at fifteen. Honours. Most hated valedictorian. Jealous assholes. They wanted her at university. Nah. She wasn’t going to be that kid. The fifteen year old mega-nerd freak. No alcohol. No drugs. No smokes. Total supervision by a warden - likely a religious nutter. Instead she worked for Mr Rickson at the bookstore in Harrow Square. School had been a constant go in her life, sometimes you just needed a break.
CLUNK! Lena jumped back. Orange soda. It hit the ground by her feet. She looked up. Legs swinging around; clearly unhinged. What a doofus! If that had hit her, that woulda bitchin hurt. She moved on lest another shot was fired.
Graffiti poetry. Written in neat cursive on the dark grey stone walls. Lena stopped to admire a passage. Written in cool blue. Just like her hair.
Dragon woah-man,
Laced up scale chucks,
Kick-ass bitch does what she does,
No damsel - never distressed,
Bitch man ain’t got none on her,
Hoodie up, blade out, ready.
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Not bad. Not bad. It was signed M.
Red light district. Smelt like old perfume and misery. Hollow eyes. Bad decisions. Lena moved quickly. No eye contact. No funny ideas. Pimps were hungry for new girls.
Lena. Thin. Tall. Long blue hair in a bun. Orange beanie covered. She had amber eyes. Sharp. Angled. Skin. Sallow. She thought she was nothing special, she didn’t care. Much. Nothing to write home about. Oversized hoodie. Baggy jeans. Block shoes.
Velmora. It was home. Lena never lived anywhere else. Velmora was an abusive boyfriend with a hot body. Reeling you back in. Velmora nights were punchy. People. Noise. Heat. Moira’s lie was revealed. Men and women. Rambunctious lot. Wilding around.
Mom had died in Velmora. Lena supposed she would too. They’d be resting in the underground crypts together. Skeletons had a society there doing whatever skeletons do. Not even the homeless would break into a crypt. That shit was scary.
No rom-coms before 1970. Lena saw every one with Mom. Tania’s ice creamery. Think again. Her stomach knotted up at the thought of penguins. Mom loved penguins. Plushies, trinkets, a surfboard - and Velmora was landlocked. It must have been tucked away in boxes in Dad’s apartment or Mr RIckson’s basement. Lena was going nowhere near that.
Mark.
Lena walked past the fenced kickball court. Big enough for twenty. Green cement. Large fly-trap lights buzzing above. Mark. Sweaty. Tall. Bronze skinned. Shirtless. He had abs now. Jesus. Mark was in the zone guarding another girl from taking the shot, when he noticed Lena. Letting his guard down, leaving the game, he ran over to see her.
“Hey! Big Leagues!” He said, smiling like a goofball.
Shit. Lena thought of turning, but he was already here with his fingers in the chain-link fence smiling like a damn golden retriever.
“I haven’t seen you in like 6 months… What are you doing back in Moira?”
“Needed to get something from Carey… Still lives with Dad…”
”Whatcha doing these days? Uni? Last year you said you were applying for VU? Smartie pants.”
“Don’t call me Smartie pants,” she said. Sharp. Annoyed. “I’m just working at a bookstore.”
“Woah… sorry… I didn’t mean anything by it… I just thought… Ya know… You’d be doing stuff… But being a librarian is cool though.”
“Bookstore. Not librarian.”
“I still think you’d do hella cool stuff…”
“Goodbye Mark,” she said, feeling her cheeks go red. Fuming.
Mark laughed and let out a nervous sigh. Damn. Childhood crushes sneaking up on ya.
Lena tried to shake it off. She walked across a bridge. Obviously he thought she was a try-hard loser. Peaked in high-school, now a minimum wage slave bookstore clerk. Man. He was cool. All sports and abs. He would never be into someone like her. Nope.
She hurried through this section. A gritty neighbourhood. Small flats stacked up with fire escapes. A boombox blasted rap with phrases like “beat a hoe if she holler” and “pop the police pow-pow-pow!”
“Hey baby girl! Come up and chill with us!” A group of men shouted from the fire escape.
Gross. Ignored. Eyes-forward. They called her a “dumb bitch”.
Mark would never say something like that. Men were vulgar. She hoped Mark wouldn’t become like that. Mark was nice. Stupid. But nice. If they dated, she imagined their convos being about sugar frosted cereal and bench presses. Sports. Snacks. Sex. Repeat. It didn’t sound so bad. Mom woulda liked Mark - she’d say that he was cute, but dumb as a post. Lena spent a lot of time in her head. Brainiac.
There were so many people around. Wilding. But why did she feel so fucking lonely. Hugging her pillow. Dreaming of him. Holding her tight. Never letting go. She needed to figure out the next steps in her life. She didn’t want to be left behind as a bookstore clerk, no matter how nice Mr Rickson, Ronnie, and Karl were. Her boss and co-workers. Mark said she’d do cool stuff. Nope. Maybe she was just Lena.
She made it into a tunnel. Dingy orange lights. Flickering. Empty. No.
There was a man in the distance. Big and stocky. He was carrying a fat TV screen with some effort. Trudging along. Why not call a Taxi? She had asked herself the same thing.
Hair. Standing up on her neck. She turned. A boy. Fourteen. He ran forward, their eyes meeting for a second, crazed, lunatic, CLUNK! He whacked the man in the head with a wrench. Ahhh! He screamed. The boy caught the TV screen. Wobbled. Then hurried away.
“Thief!” The man shouted before staggering. He felt woozy and fell. Lena had peed a bit. There was a CCTV camera in the corner. It blinked red.
Lena ran to the man, “Um… Sir… Are you alive?”
Mumbles. Gurgles. Blood seeping on the concrete like syrup.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Lena took off her hoodie and pressed it against the wound. Would he die? Would she die?
She tried to lift him, but he was too heavy.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnrkrURoc5N
“Help! Help!” She shouted. The tunnel echoed. Quiet. 14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaZ0DVjVg4R
She tied the arms of her hoodie around his head. Blood soaked her t-shirt and jeans. The CCTV blinking red. Eye contact.
She got up and ran away.
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