Until it all fell apart.
She’d always hated that wonton puta, but now she despised her with a passion that went beyond words. She felt it in every pore of her being. Pure, undiluted hate. She’d taken everything from her, left her without a job, without a team, without a focus. Here she was, freelancing once more. In limbo. That space between life and death, heaven and hell. A place she knew well, a place she recognised, but a place she’d vowed never to return to.
And it was all because of her.
She lay back on the bed and spread her arms wide, gazing up at the yellowing paint on the ceiling. She wasn’t going to get away with it. That miserable wench Acid Vanilla was going to die. And in the most painful and protracted way possible.
Three
Spook Horowitz pressed her forehead against the window of the number 113 bus as it crept its way along Park Road. The damp chill of the glass went some way to easing her pounding head, but the grey skies and the sea of sombre faces passing by (walking faster than the damn bus), only exacerbated the agitation in her soul. It had been another long shift at Soho Comics for Sasha Mulberry, the name she’d been using ever since Spook Horowitz was declared dead on that terrible island. Memories of what happened that terrifying weekend still made her chest tight and her skin cold. So as much as she could, she didn’t think about it. Instead she busied herself with other distractions. Gaming, coding, comics. The new job helped. Going home after her shift finished, not so much.
As the bus continued to crawl alongside the sprawling greenery of Regents Park, she wondered if maybe it was time to cut her losses, move away. The last year or so had been the most messed-up period of her life so far. She’d been shot at (many times), tied up, thrown out of a plane, had a price put on her head, killed someone.
Shit… She’d actually killed someone.
The concept still sent her head spinning, and she was about to ask herself the question – how the hell had she gone from a mild-mannered, unassuming IT nerd to a killer? – but she already knew the answer. It was because of her. Acid Vanilla. Spook’s saviour but also her curse.
As the months had elapsed since their time on the island, Spook had noticed a distinct and undesirable change in her housemate. It was as if all the drive and verve had left her, leaving nothing but a shadow of black misery. She hardly left her room now, and if she did it was only to use the bathroom (not to wash, she hadn’t done that in weeks) or to shuffle downstairs, returning to the darkness of her bedroom a few minutes later with bottles clinking in her arms.
It was no secret Acid struggled with her mental health, and Spook had tried to give her leeway, but this was different. She was becoming withdrawn and nasty with it. She hadn’t threatened Spook exactly, but she’d come close.
As the bus made its way across St John’s Wood Road, away from the torturously slow traffic of the centre, Spook told herself that tonight was the night. She had to bite the bullet (seize the bull by the horns might have been a less emotive metaphor) and have it out with Acid once and for all. If nothing else, she needed to find out where her head was at, whether she was still caught up in her obsession with her ex-boss and colleagues. Her mission of vengeance had once seemed righteous, but lately had become a stick for her to beat herself with. Spook was worried about her friend. But how did you help someone who didn’t want help? Or who wouldn’t accept it even if they did?
Spook reached up and pressed the bell, making her way to the front of the bus as it came to a stop at Queen’s Grove. From here it was a ten-minute walk along Marlborough Place to the small terraced house that she and Acid had been renting under assumed names for the last twelve months. Of course, it began to rain the second Spook stepped off the bus, so she walked at pace, head down, no stopping to look in any of the travel agent windows en route, as had been her habit recently, dreaming of another (better?) life. She got to the house in under eight minutes, a record, and once through the front door secured all three locks and slid the chain across. Coat off and straight into the kitchen, she didn’t need to wonder whether Acid was home, the dull thud of bass and the twang of discordant guitars coming through the floorboards told her she was in her room. Same as always. She played her music all night and all day. It grated, but at least for Spook it proved she hadn’t completely given up on life. Music was an outlet for Acid, so she didn’t complain. Plus she’d invested in some heavy-duty earplugs recently.
She clicked on the kettle and threw a teabag into her mug, the one that said C = Ek (P) on the side – a whimsical reference to cryptography and the simple formula that states ciphertext is the result of encrypting a plaintext with a specific key. Acid had sneered at it when Spook had shown her, mumbling something about ‘hacker geeks’, but it was good-natured, friendly teasing. Spook missed those interactions. Hell, right now she’d do anything for one of Acid’s pointed sighs, one of her histrionic eye-rolls.
Tea made, she took the drink through into the front room (you would never call it a lounge; despite their time here, the house had few trappings associated with comfort or domesticity) and slumped down on the couch. Like always, the
