Page 27 of Tar City
“Yes.”
I stare at him. “That’s insane.”
He shrugs. “Ronny drives me.”
“Ronny,” I echo. “Your chauffeur has a name.”
“Why wouldn’t he?” Jax says. “He’s known me since I was two.”
I shake my head. “I’ve never even been in a car with AC.”
He looks like he wants to say something to that, then the train shifts again. There’s a sudden shove and the crowd presses in. Someone bumps me hard, and my foot slips as the train lurches and I pitch sideways. Jax catches me instantly—this time with both hands, one on my waist, one around my wrist, pulling me tight into his chest so fast it knocks the breath out of me. The world becomes his heartbeat slamming against mine.
“You okay?” he asks, voice lower now.
“Yes,” I breathe—except it sounds nothing like a yes.
We stay like that for a beat too long, then he adjusts his grip slightly and the movement sends a sharp, unexpected reaction up my arm. I pull back just enough to meet his eyes and I notice that he’s already looking at me. For one impossible moment, nothing exists beyond his eyes. I don’t know how long it lastsbecause next thing I know the train screeches to a stop at our station.
I swallow. “We should… go.”
“Yeah.”
Before he lets go, his thumb drags once—slowly—down the inside of my wrist. A tiny absolutely devastating touch.
Nine
NOW | JAX
The pain hits like a crack of lightning inside my skull. “Fuuuuuck.” I slam both palms into my head, fingers digging into my hair like I can physically hold my skull together. The magic spikes behind my eyes and something on the bar counter shatters.If I stay here, I’ll rip the entire place apart. Scotch included.
This is why the whole damn city locks up on full moons. Bars, shops, streets—dead quiet. They call it tradition now. A harmless superstition, but it wasn’t always like this. The truth is uglier: I’m the reason it started. They just don’t know who they’re hiding from.
I stumble toward the door, half-blind, half-feral, pushing into the freezing night air. The cold slams into me, cutting through the worst of the heat, but not enough to stop the burn under my skin. The moon is high—too full, too bright.
Last full moon, I woke up in an alley covered in someone else’s vomit.Not fucking happening again. I move fast, not toward anything—just away. Away from the bar, the windows I could break, the dog I could accidentally crush by breathing wrong.
Tar City is nothing but alleys, and every one of them feels like it’s waiting for me to slip. The magic lunges again, and I grab the wall to steady myself—but the brick cracks under my hand.
“Shit.”
I look up instinctively. The moon hangs over the rooftops like it’s watching me choke on myself. My breath fogs white—and then I feel it: The ink rising. The skin over my abdomen tightens, burning from the inside out. A shape pushes beneath the surface—the start of lines, marks, symbols I’ve spent years trying to hide. Not tattoos, they’re just cover-ups.The Markings.That’s what Murtaugh called them the first night they showed up—lines the tar magic uses to carve itself into me.
They only reveal themselves during a full moon, but once they're there, they're there for good. Most people can’t tell where my real tattoos end and the Markings begin. Except her. Sisk always sees them, always touches them, and her mouth grazing the Markings?My fucking undoing and this city’s salvation.Sometimes she can quiet the tar before it takes hold. Sometimes she becomes the only thing standing between me and whatever the Pit wants.
My breath fogs again. I try to think of something else—anything else—but she crowds my head instantly. Her scent. Her thighs. Her bruises. The hunger slams into me, vicious and sudden. I double over. “No—no, no?—”
A deep animal sound rips up my throat. The street concrete shudders slightly under my feet and the lamppost above me flickers. A car alarm across the block screams to life and dies instantly.
I hear the Tar Pit calling. A thrum that slips under the city noise and curls around my thoughts. A voice made of pressure and memory.A demand.The Pit is hungry; it wants to be fed. “No,” I grit out.
I force myself to move, stumbling deeper into the narrow streets. I need somewhere—anywhere—with no glass, no metal, no lives. The headache is splitting me open from the inside. My vision is starting to shift.
A streetlight overhead bursts, showering the alley in darkness. That’s my cue to disappear further. I shove past a chain-link fence—and a man standing there raises a hand like he’s going to stop me. “You can’t enter?—”
He looks at me—at my eyes, my posture, the way I'm barely holding myself together, and lowers his hand slowly.
A trash can beside us rolls and tips over, crashing against the wall—loud enough to echo through the alley. He jumps back and I disappear into the tunnel.
