Page 45 of Tar City
“You don’t know ballet,” I snap.
“I don’t need to,” he shoots back. “There’s no way anyone does that better than you did.”
I shut the box. “Stop.”
“What?”
“You need to stop.” My voice shakes. “No more surprises. No more gifts. No more food. No more car trips.”
Ronny slips out of the car, closing the door quietly behind him.
Jax moves closer, his fingers brushing my cheek, seeing the tears before I do.
“Sisk. I’m sorry. I thought you’d like it.”
“Please, Jax,” I say, my voice breaking now. “Take me home.”
He swallows. “Okay. If that’s what you want.”
“It is.”
I turn toward the window so he won’t see me fall apart. The drive is too long to hold it in, but I manage to.
He drops me off at my building, and I make it to the rooftop before my knees give out. I sink onto the gravel, tears carving down my face, sugar smearing on my lips because I couldn’t make myself throw the cake away.Stupid, amazing cake.But that’s not why I’m crying. The entire day barrels through me at once—every hope, every mistake, every almost. It isn’t not getting into the academy that scares me. It’s the opposite. It’s that I might actually get in, and leaving might mean walking away from the boy I shouldn’t want, but I do. Really, stupidly, recklessly do.
Fifteen
NOW | JAX
The door slams hard as the lights flicker—black, white, black—before dying down to that dim, hazy glow they always have.
The tar stirs and I feel a pressure inside my own skull. A voice that isn’t mine, slithering through the tar in my veins. It’s primal, guttural, the sound of oil bubbling in a hot pan.
DON’T FORGET… IF YOU DON’T OBEY…
I stop breathing.
…SHE WILL PAY.
“Touch her and I’ll burn this whole fucking city to the ground,” I snarl, but the words are useless. The voice isn’t listening.
The tar can’t fucking touch me. It’s already seen every trick I’ve pulled on myself, every scar I’ve carved just to feel something. It knows I’m a lost cause.So it goes for her.She’s the one soft spot left, and the tar knows that’s the only goddamn way to make me obey now.
I take three steps toward the mirror behind the bar and stop. A fucking monster looks back at me, a creature so soaked in blood and tar I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. My shirt is stiff with it. My hands are painted with it. I wipe mypalms on my jeans, but nothing comes off. Not the blood. Not the dark power. Not the memory of her bleeding out in my arms, and my throat closes up like a fist.
I grab the closest bottle, uncork it, and take a brutal swallow that burns all the way down. The whiskey does nothing to wash away the image of her, so I shove myself down the hallway and into the bathroom. I watch as her blood circles the drain, and I whisper to the tar inside me—the magic that never sleeps, never forgives: “She will dance again. I don’t care what I have to do.” It hums back—pleased, as if it’s been waiting for me to finally break.
* * *
A nurse glances up as I slip past the automatic door. She sees the exhaustion on my face and looks away instead of stopping me.Smart.
I find her room number on the board. 309.
I knock once, don’t wait for shit, and just push in. Sisk is lying on the bed, wearing a thin hospital gown, swallowed by white sheets. Her leg is hidden, but I can see the brace bulging under the blanket—evidence of damage I can’t take back. She looks small. Fragile. Broken.
The door behind me opens and my father walks in. He doesn’t look at me and goes straight for her chart, all business.
“Did you fix her?”
