golden wings melt like blue slushies // JJ Maybank

-and so the balance shifts-

Icarus stood still. She felt like a deer in the headlights that flicked off as the man with the gun and the money and the unwashed hair and bad moustache stumbled out, cursing at something or other.

He kicked a soggy couch cushion. "Fucking kids, 'm gonna tell rafe bout his bitchass sis-"

Icarus could see the moment he clocked her standing to the edge of his property in sweater and patterned tights with puffy eyes. She could tell because he went silent and squinted at her.

Then he lit a stick of something that certainly wasn't a cigarette and sucked in a puff. "You a hallucination or somthin?"

"No," Icarus scoffed.

He squinted at her, eyes red. "Kay."

Then he turned away and stumbled up to his porch, breathing smoke into the chilly air that was seeping into her bones and sending chills up her spine. He cocked his head, "why're ya here?"

Icarus didn't say anything.

"You friends ditched ya, didn't they?" he drawled, hair shining. "Fuckfaces."

Icarus figured it probably wasn't smart to tell this strange drug dealer that she was in fact alone in the middle of the bush on his property without a phone she assumed was somewhere in the van.

So she just glared at him and pulled her sleeves down over her hands again, like that would change anything. "No."

"Right," he scoffed back at her.

Icarus watched him watch her. Not in a gross way, more of a still wondering if she was a drug induced hallucination way. She felt the tension in the empty hazy space of sunset colours and recognised it as a prey and predator situation immediately.

She felt like they were a rabbit and a fox sizing each other up, but she couldn't find the deep-set fear in the bottom of her stomach that was usually there.

It was then that she realised why. She was the fox.

"Whadayya doin' here little lady?" He said. There was an uncertainty in his eyes Icarus could see from a mile away as he puffed his chest out. He was a bit like an ugly peacock, when she thought about it. "Come for payback, hey?"

Icarus marched up to him and held her hand out, not letting her gaze drop or flicker to the side. "I need to use your phone."

"Kay," he said, and trudged up to his house, if you could call it that.

Icarus waited a beat and then sighed and followed him, stepping over an empty kegger and what looked like a hamster graze. She rubbed her eyes that were prickling with the sleep she wanted. "Where are you going?"

"M not giving ya my phone, I don't trust ya," he said, and kicked the flyscreen door open. His foot went through it, and he had to yank it out and then continue in. "You can use a burner."

Icarus stood in the doorway, wrinkling her nose at the clothes piled up and grease-stained rags that littered the patchy carpet. "You don't trust me? And why would that be?"

She wanted to make him say it, but obviously he wasn't going to. And it probably wasn't very smart to be pushing this guy's buttons, but something told her she wasn't in danger.

She didn't know what, but her gut said the worst that would happen here was going to come from the mould that would grow on her if she stayed still for too long. And Icarus trusted her gut.

"Fuck off," he growled. "Why you even here?"

"To break your kneecaps," Icarus muttered as he slumped down on a couch she could only see the corner of from where she was. The man rifled through yet another grey duffel bag and took out a little black phone and three bags of cocaine.