Just fake. Everything about it was fake.

Fake, fucking fake, fake, fake.

“Let me give you a good time,” she continued, trying to convince him with another bat of her eyelashes.

He rolled his eyes and kicked open the door.

“You can try,” he replied, as she walked through the door.

She could try, but he knew already she’d fail.

Like all the others.

*

Always he dreamed of wading into that river, but in his nightmares, the water was red and tasted like blood.

Kate was always floating a distance away, her blonde hair swaying in all directions.

And always, no matter how hard and fast he swam, he never reached her. She kept drifting away into the red waters, in a river that never seemed to end, and he would exhaust himself, swimming until he couldn’t move at all, until his limbs ached and his vision spotted.

And always he felt that knife-like pain, a sadness that coiled itself around his heart and squeezed until there was nothing there. It was debilitating, this sadness, and it swallowed him whole.

Waking up was usually the hardest part, because he woke up feeling absolutely nothing at all.

Eight

Emma

I stayed on the couch most of the next day sleeping. Sundays were usually spent grocery shopping and having a catch up at my grandmother’s house. Not today. In hindsight, I must have looked quite pathetic cradling myself in the corner of the sofa, eyes wide open, wondering whether I was in a dream or whether I too had been strangled on the way home.

Why let me go, I wondered. Sure, I didn’t see anything, but he never asked me what I heard. And had he asked, would I have answered? I’m not sure what would have happened to me if I’d told him that bit of information.

These were criminals, very dangerous criminals. Not the kind you want to mess with or even sit next to at a charity event. You couldn’t smile at them. You couldn’t look at them. You couldn’t do a damn thing without risking being a target, and yet somehow I’d managed to escape them. And not just them per say, but the king of them.

Marcus Borden, aka the bloody king of New Raven, aka the one you couldn’t escape hearing about, was everywhere, in every corner of the city, out the lips of every resident, taking up space in some way or another. He owned multiple successful businesses, including the club I’d just been to. I just never expected him or any of his men to actually be there when I was.

However, despite the long list of businesses he owned, it was the port where he controlled shipments in and out of New Raven that was his crowning achievement. Ringleader Borden was the bread and butter, the one with the connections, the one calling the shots. After suspicions he was drug trafficking, the cops tried at him many times in the past few years – and you always heard about it in the newspapers – but he was deemed untouchable. There was never an ounce of evidence against him. Didn’t matter how many warrants with reasonable grounds to search him were conducted, they never found anything.

I’d seen his face in the papers every once in a while, but I had never been in such close proximity to him than last night. A poor girl like me had no place in his part of town. I’d felt grossly out of place at Owls too. Lara, a long-time friend of mine, had married a rich man and relocated to a penthouse in the heart of the city’s most wealthy estates. She was the one that dragged me out there. She was the one that convinced me I needed a break from all the hours I was working at the diner, that I needed to clear my head and enjoy some loud music and good company.

My supposed “good company” abandoned me in the middle of the club to dance with some douchebag who wasn’t her husband, leaving me to fend for myself against at least a dozen men with wandering hands. Close proximity with so many people I didn’t know had me feeling the normal anxiety I had in social situations I was uncomfortable in. I escaped to the nearest exit that happened to be the alleyway leading to the parking lot across the street. I only wanted a few minutes to myself to cool off. It was stuffy in there. I’d managed to go unnoticed and untouched; I wasn’t anything particularly impressive to look at, not among the rich girls with their plastic faces and fake tits, anyway.

I remember the crisp breeze I felt when I stepped out into the open air, loving the feeling of space and quiet. I had walked maybe four steps just as the door opened again, and I heard the screaming of a man and another threatening to shoot him. Frightened, I hid behind the last of the four bins fixed alongside the wall. It was pitch-black and there was no way I could reach out for help without being noticed. I didn’t attempt to take a look at what was going on. I was too scared of getting caught. I knew growing up in a rough neighbourhood that there are things a woman should not involve herself in, and a man getting attacked by a couple of men while you were unarmed was one of those things.

He was dragged a short distance away from where I hid.

“Please,” I heard him beg. “Give me another chance. I’ve got the money and I’ll pay up. I swear I’ll pay up!” He repeated this hysterically, but he wasn’t being listened to.

There was a short exchange of words from one man to another. “Finish it off,” said a deep voice. Then a large gasp erupted and I heard the sound of a man choking violently.

I closed my eyes and put my hands over my ears. I felt like a child hiding in the corner believing all was okay if I pretended it was. I pressed my lips together, afraid to even breathe. I waited for what felt like minutes when a hand grabbed at my arm and roughly stood me up.

“Who the fuck are you?”

Before I could even respond, I was slammed against the brick wall and pain erupted from the back of my shoulders as it scratched the rough surface. The pain stunned me speechless, as though my brain had shut off. I couldn’t see much of the man in front of me except that he had long hair.

“Take her to Borden, Hawke,” said another voice from someone nearby. “She’s seen everything.”

I shook my head at the memory, trying to lure it out of my thoughts. I was alive. I was okay. Why think about it anymore? I’d survived bad shit in my short life, this was just another one of those times.

Yes, now calm the hell down.

To distract myself, I grabbed the remote control on the coffee table and turned on the television. I sat up and rested both feet down on the carpet and rubbed my hand over my sore stomach. I idly stared at the news and weather forecast, and slowly it lulled me into a light sleep.