House of Flame and Shadow Bonus Chapter - Bryce & Danika

Bryce

The thumping bass from the shitty old boom box reached Bryce a full two levels below the apartment. The sweet, musky scent of mirthroot hit her when she reached the next landing. And by the time Bryce unlocked the door and stepped inside, she was already dancing.

"There's my favorite person!" Danika shouted, saluting Bryce with a rolled cigarette of mirthroot. A pile of it lay on the coffee table before her, Danika's feet bare inches away. Bryce's roommate gestured magnanimously to the spread of drugs.

"Where the fuck did you even get that much mirthroot?" Bryce toed off her heels, scrunching her chafed, aching toes a few times to work some life back into them. Then she reached under her dress and snapped her bra free. She whipped it around her head once for good effect, then sent it soaring across the living area. It landed in a sweaty heap on the threshold of her bedroom. Fuck, it was hot out. And it was hot in here.

Even with the air-conditioning on, a light sweat coated Danika's face. It probably didn't help that she wore her familiar leather jacket, with Through love, all is possible scrawled across the back, despite the summer heat.

Danika took a long drag of mirthroot, exhaling through her nostrils before saying, "I confiscated it from some asshole tourists who thought it'd be cool to get wasted in the Oracle's Park and see if they picked up on her psychic vibes or whatever." She rolled her eyes. "Gave them a formal warning and took their drugs."

Bryce chuckled, plopping onto the sagging couch beside her best friend. "You're a real role model."

Danika passed her the smoldering cigarette. "Oh yeah. Crescent City's finest."

Bryce inhaled deeply, every taut muscle in her body relaxing at the taste of the smoke in her mouth.

On the crappy, too-small TV across the living room, the evening news blathered on, barely audible above the thump of the music on the boom box. The blackout last week, blah, blah, blah--

"Where's everyone else?" Bryce asked, exhaling slowly before passing the mirthroot back to Danika. She'd gotten Danika's message half an hour ago: a short video showing the pile of mirthroot-- which had then been on the kitchen counter-- with music blasting in the background, accompanied by the words Hurry home quick, honey.

So Bryce had, locking up the gallery in record time. So fast that she'd forgotten her dirty dance clothes from the class she'd taken at lunchtime. So fast that poor Syrinx had only gotten in one cuddle before she'd been out the door with promises to bring him a big treat tomorrow.

"Working," Danika replied at last, smoke rippling from her lips. "Being the role model that I am, I took the evening off to enjoy the spoils." She wriggled her toes, each one coated in chipped purple nail polish, at the mirthroot. "Bronson made me promise to leave some for him, so don't make me a liar."

Bryce took another hit. "If we smoke all of that, I think we'll die, Danika."

"Nah," Danika said, smirking as Bryce slowly released a sweet cloud. "But you might still be high in two days."

Bryce's phone chirped, and she grabbed it from the coffee table to find that an email from Jesiba had popped up. Bryce skimmed its contents, then winced. She'd just put her phone down, intending to ignore the message for as long as possible, when Danika said, rising to her feet, "Maybe three days."

Bryce laughed, the room starting to slow and spin with a familiar haziness. She set the mirthroot down in the lopsided ceramic ashtray-- a gem from their half-assed college pottery class-- and leaned back on the stained cushions to savor the chill creeping over her.