Lost & Found

Fight ME

My fingers trembled, but I didn't understand where the nerves were coming from. This, afterall, had been my idea. I shivered in the little dress I'd stuffed myself into. Adelaide had allowed me to borrow it out of her closet as she watched me with worry in her eyes. She'd tried to talk me out of it, but I'd been insistant.

The Blackbourne team was going to go down tonight.

The light on the crosswalk changed from a red hand to a white walk symbol, and I stepped off of the curb. My dress sparkled in the lights of the cars as I made my way across town. I had tried to walk in the high heels that I'd spotted in Adelaide's closet but had nearly broken my ankle.

I turned down another corner just as a bit of mist started to fall from the sky. With a deep inhale, I confirmed that a storm was coming. A flash of a dark night, a monster laughing. The image was there and gone faster than I could try to process it, so I pushed it away and moved on.

When the bar came into view I had a vague sense of dejavu. I frowned, pausing on the street to straighten my shoulders and run my fingers through my artificially curled hair. Adelaide had taken her time to run her curling iron through it, and put light, delicate strokes of makeup on my face.

I felt like a doll.

Maybe that's what was messing with my head. The hair, the outfit, the whole scenario. It was so unlike me, and yet, I clearly remembered it being my idea.

Inside the bar I settled down a little. The owner, a man by the name of Eddie Fluet gave me an appraising look and winked.

"Good, much better than the last outfit you walked in here with."

He was gone, helping another customer before I was able to ask him what he'd meant. I took a minute while finding myself a barstool to think about the last time I'd even been in this bar. It had been a while. I mean, sure it was good feeding grounds at this bar as far as Adelaide was concerned but people here tended to be a little more rough than the other bars, and that bothered me personally, so I liked to stear clear unless I was desperate.

The outfit I'd worn had been a pair of shorts, and a nice tanktop. Not over the top, but definitely not as prude as he'd made it sound like. A bartender raised an eyebrow at me, and I went to ask for a water and a food menu, but what came out was a shot of some foriegn alchoholic beverage I didn't even remember learning the name of.

The guy raised an eyebrow at me. It was in this moment that I noticed his eyes. One blue, like the bottom of a pool, and the other was green like a leaf on a tree in the middle of summer. I blinked at him and he grinned warmly.

It was different from the usual smiles boys threw my way. His seemed genuine and caring, almost amused.

"You sure you can handle a drink like that? How about some coffee, I make a mean coffee."

I raised an eyebrow, "Doesn't that drink cost a lot more than coffee? Wouldn't you be losing money?"

He laughed, and poured a clear liquid into a shot glass with a dramatic finess. When the glass was full he managed to push it across the smooth bar and it came to a rest in front of me without spilling a drop.

"You down that, no coughing, no stopping, and you drink whatever the fuck you want for free all night."

He leaned his elbows against the counter, ignoring the other patrons in the bar. I was about to refuse, but some inner push had me grabbing the small glass cup and pressing it against my lips. I'd never had much to drink before, but I'd witnessed others coughing and sputtering after shots like the one I was currently holding.