Shark of Spades

Arrogance Is For The Roses

Whoever runs the underground casinos and other joints in the depths  of the city went to a lot of trouble to keep it hidden, and I would very much like it to stay that way. So instead of being flashy or something,  I keep to the designated exit, following memorized twists and turns down dark hallways, careful not to look into shady alcoves, until I came out at the abandoned subway station. From there, I took the stairs up  to the surface, letting my eyes adjust to the grey skies that awaited me.

Arrogance is for the roses, the people who were moreso  innocent than the rest of us and wielded their thorns like badges of honor. From what I've observed, I've come up with this rule: arrogance  gets you dead, fast. So instead of walking home like I owned the  streets, I took spontaneous turns, picking them at random, always sure to create a new path so that I couldn't be followed. An enemy of an enemy doesn't make a friend, not unless you're blind or stupid. The enemy of an enemy just makes someone who's more desperate to gain an advantage, and is thus more likely to rip you off or put a gun against your head, and as I don't want to feel the cold steel of the barrel digging into my  jaw or burning into my skull, I prefer to stay a solo player.

The world may be Jack's stage, but it's my game, I thought to myself. And I always win at games.

By the time I arrived at my apartment complex, it was drizzling, as though the sky had taken an ocean through a divine cheese grater and was  content to let the shavings fall down on me. Although the thought of cheese graters made me hungry, I didn't hurry in. It was stupid, waiting out here for someone to line me up in their sights and pull the trigger or write down my address, but I couldn't help it. I'd always loved storms.

The thunder rumbled outside, the low tone morphing with the shrieking wind whipping sound around, lightning illinating the room, illuminating the tree branch hurtling towards the window,  illuminating the moment of contact, the shattering of glass, the red droplets joining the rain...

I shook my head and turned the key in my door, ducking inside. Memories were not made to be relived during the day. That's why they called them nightmares. After double  bolting the door and sliding the chain, I hung up my rain-slicked trench coat, slipped out of my mens' boots, and stepped into the kichen,  slipping an apron over my black dress shirt. I reluctantly removed my  glasses, setting them on the counter within easy reach in case my land lord came knocking, or someone from the darker side of the city.

Wielding a frying pan in one hand and a small handful of minced onions in the other, I started up dinner, leaving the pan on the stove briefly while I  went to change. I would never consider changing into more feminine clothing at any time; the danger level was simply too high. Instead, I traded my dress shirt and black dress pants for black sweat pants and a  black guys' tank top, making sure to pull on an extra-large black  sweatshirt over. If even one person found out that I wasn't a man, I was dead, or as good as.

They - the government - had rounded up all the girls between ages eight and eighteen and had put them into camps, the reason being the overpopulation of the world after astronomical occurrences of teen pregnancies. Besides rapid increase in population  density, abortions rates were skyrocketing, causing all sorts of political and religious conflicts. Apparently, the government thought that if they could contain the girls during the time of raging hormones, that they'd have less of a tendency to end up pregnant or have unlawful  contact with men. Since then, there had been laws, such as the Abstinence Until Marriage law, one of the fairly more recent ones to pass. There had been a lot of controversy over that one in particular, but I knew what the government was doing. They were setting up a nation where flirting was synonymous to death, where any relationships were  controlled, where emotions wouldn't overpower the system.

I was eighteen now, almost nineteen, and I only had to last a few more weeks before I could finally walk the streets regardless of my gender.  However, with the way things were turning, I wasn't sure that would be wise. It was becoming more and more dangerous to be a female of any age, not to mention that I'd blow my cover. Sure, I could move around like I'd always done, but I had myself a nice setup here. I had a paying job  (gambling), a house (a small apartment that made me claustrophobic), connections (to mediocre criminals and fugitives), and a reputation  (which had taken a lot of clean kills and card games to prove and maintain), not to mention information because of my reputation. I was connected, in the loop; if I left now, I'd have to start all over. I could hold out for a few more weeks, I kept telling myself.

I went back to the kitchen and ate my dinner alone. I washed my dishes alone. I went to sleep alone.

In  every one of my simple actions, I missed the warmth of the one who  should have been beside me. I didn't want to admit it, but I missed him.

Stop thinking about him. He'll get you killed, I thought.

Then, What won't get me killed?