Page 209 of Tar City
I turn toward her and her eyes widen. “Jax…”
My vision catches her heartbeat in her neck, a frantic little pulse.
The tar shifts under mine with a hungry roll.
“Get away from me,” I snap.
She doesn’t move.
“Jax—”
“Move.”
Before she can say anything else, the bar door swings open. Matt steps out, half annoyed, half concerned. “Hey, we need you inside, it’s getting?—”
He doesn’t get to finish. One second he’s in the doorway, the next my hand is around his throat. I don’t even remember crossing the space. I lift him with one hand and his feet dangle. The tar leaks from my palm, thick and black, sliding down his collar.
Someone screams. Sisk. She’s the one screaming. “JAX STOP!”
Matt’s feet kick in the air. I feel his throat squirming under my fingers, his pulse hammering against my palm. The brick behind him cracks, splinters flying off as his back slams into it.
The streetlight above us pops and the whole block goes dark.
“Let him go!” Sisk screams. She takes a step toward me, then stops herself, turning and running back inside instead.
My grip tightens and the tar pulses.FEED.
Inside the bar, I can hear Sisk yelling for help but it doesn’t fully register. It’s all just noise under the pounding in my head.
More heartbeats.
Lou freezes. “Oh no.”
Murtaugh stares. “Jax this is just your neurological dissociation triggered by?—”
“SHUT UP!” Lou yells.
Viper steps forward. “Jax! Drop him!”
The tar crawls up my arm, hot and hungry, and the sensation is a sickening comfort. Matt’s face is turning purple, a satisfying flush that sings to the violence humming in my bones. I want to feel them crack. The tar purrs, a deep vibration in my throat that tastes of ozone and satisfaction. It likes the fear is rolling off him in waves. I lean in, my own mouth watering in anticipation.
White-hot fire erupts in my calf and I look down. Scotch’s jaws are locked on my leg as he growls. Reflected in his wide, dark eyes, a red-eyed monster with my face stares back. Ending him would be so easy. A thought. A twitch of power.
All I see is him.Scotch. Scotch. Scotch.Memories slam into me, a fucking freight train of images. Him chewing on my boot when I first brought him home. Him sleeping at the foot of my bed, a warm, breathing lump. Sisk’s hand in mine as we picked him out, her laugh when he licked her face. The first time we said his name together.Scotch.The word is a fucking anchor in the storm of tar and hunger.
Control snaps in for a split second, giving me a single, clear moment of me. Then another. Slowly, the tar recoils. It retracts up my palm and vanishes inside, leaving me cold and shaking.
Matt drops to the pavement, coughing and gasping for air. Everyone is staring, afraid. Sisk goes to Scotch, calming himdown, but her eyes never leave mine. I look at my hand and then I look at Matt wheezing on the ground, at the guy who’s got my back, who I’d take a bullet for. Then I look at Scotch, his head is tilted, his ears are up and he looks at me, confused and worried.
I almost killed my two best friends in the span of seconds, and the only thing cutting through the ringing in my ears is the tar’s command:KILL. BLOOD. FEED.Running is the only choice left, so I turn and flee.
Sixty-Two
THEN | SISK
The train moves, and in the window, I see a girl who looks like she’s seen a ghost.That’s me.It’s been two years since I ran from Tar City. Two years of telling myself I was too busy to come back, like a job is a good reason to abandon your family.
Millie’s letters are all cheerful, all lies.What else is she going to write?I mail her checks every month, a coward’s payment. Each one is supposed to be a little piece of my freedom, a little eraser for the past, but the guilt is still there, a rock in my chest. And the closer this train gets to home, the heavier that rock gets, until I can barely breathe.
