Zara's Curse (Empire of Fangs) (3 page)

Zara waited a few moments so he didn’t think she was following him, and then she went back into the club.
 
She wished she had been more charming during her encounter with Micah.
 
He was so cool and nice.
 
She wished she had said something bold.
 
Wish, wish, wish
, she thought.
 
Lately her life seemed to be full of wishes.
 

 
She went down the stairs and back to the bar.
 
When she walked out into the cloud of fog, among the dancing Goths, she noticed that Abby and her new friend were gone. Once again, her friend had abandoned her for some random guy.

2.

This was par for the course. Abby would find a guy, then ditch Zara without so much as a goodbye.
 
Zara was pissed.
 
She went back to her barstool and took out her phone.
 
She dialed Abby’s cell.
 
It rang for a bit then went to voicemail.
 

“You’ve reached the fabulous Miss Winters and Lulu (dog yapping).
 
We can’t take your call right now because we’re too busy.
 
Leave a message.
 
Buh bye (more yapping).”

Zara set her phone down for a moment and shook her head at it.
 
She wondered how long before her tenuous friendship with Abby finally broke apart.
 
Maybe it just did.
 

Zara picked up her phone and texted:
I hope you’re okay.
 
If you are, thanks for leaving me here broke and alone.
 
Always a pleasure!

It was a bit harsh, but Zara didn’t care.
 
She wanted to sting her, even though she knew it was a pointless attack.
 
Abby’s thick hide of indifference towards anyone besides herself was all but impenetrable.
 
Somewhere she was looking at her phone, rolling her eyes, and saying “whatever.”

She slid the phone back in one of the pockets of her jeans and began to sulk at the bar.
 
After a few minutes, she spent her last ten dollars on another drink, drained it angrily, and then squirmed past the dancers and out of the club, apologizing as she went.
 

Outside, the rain had picked up and was now a heavy downpour.
 
Wonderful
… Zara thought.
 
Just my luck
.
 
Her place was about two miles away.
 
She began walking, cursing under her breath and hopelessly trying to shield herself from the rain with her hand.
 
Groups of bar hoppers passed her, laughing happily and giving each other piggy back rides until they crashed and rolled in hysterics on the sidewalks.
 
This made Zara feel even more lonely and deserted.
 

“Hey Zara!” A voice called from across the street.
 
She squinted into the blur of rain and saw the guy from the smoking patio, Micah, now wearing a long peacoat and standing next to a very shiny black and chromed-out scooter.
 
She waved back, smiling a bit too much, and he made a motion for her to come over.
 
She waited for a few cars to pass and began her little game of
Frogger.
 

When she reached Micah, he produced an umbrella from a leather side bag on his scooter and opened it.
 
She instinctually stood closer to him to get under it.
 
She looked up at him, at that boyish smile and messy spiky hair and weird silvery blue eyes.
 
She forced herself to snap out of it and act like a normal person.

“You’re not riding in this are you?”
 
She asked, waving her hand around to indicate the nasty weather.

“Of course, a little rain doesn’t scare me.
 
I’ve ridden through far worse,” he said.

“What kind is it?” Zara asked, looking down at the scooter.
 
She felt bad for using Abby’s tactic, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Oh, this is a Genuine Stella.
 
150cc engine, bored out, with a Clemmons tail pipe and…”
 
He looked like he was going to go on, but seeing Zara’s blank expression he stopped himself.
 
“But you can just call her Stella,” he said with a laugh.
 
His laugh was so infectious, Zara joined in.

“Well Stella is very beautiful. I’m a little jealous,” she realized it was a weird thing to say, but being this close to Micah made her nervous.
 

“Oh, well, you have no reason for that,” Micah said, closing the umbrella and tucking it away in the side bag. Zara hadn’t noticed, but the rain had stopped.
 
She was too busy wondering if she had just been complimented.
 
She became worried that he would say goodbye again and vanish from her life.
 
How silly she would feel standing there in the rain, watching him go again.
 

“Are you walking somewhere?” He asked with a note of concern.

“Well, yeah.
 
Um, my friend has done her famous vanishing act,” she tried to stay mad at Abby, but if she hadn’t taken off Zara might not have come out and caught Micah before he left.

“Well.
 
I could give you a ride home if you like,” he said, and Zara couldn’t help but notice he sounded a little hopeful.
 
Was it possible he was just playing coy?
 

“That would be killer,” I only live up in Capitol Hill.
 
On Humboldt Street.”
 
She was becoming nervous that she was about to have her arms around Micah’s waist.
 

“Hop on then Miss Zara, your chariot awaits.”
 
He patted the back of the seat, which was big and cushy. She took a deep breath, swung her leg over the seat, and put her feet on the back pegs.
 
“Hold on tight,” Micah said, and she took another deep breath.

3.

The downtown buildings raced by them.
 
Whatever Micah had done to the scooter had made it absurdly fast.
 
She had her arms around his waist, and had to fight the urge to rest her head on his back.
 
He wore some type of cologne that Zara found utterly enticing. She couldn’t help but think there had to be a catch.
 
Guys like this didn’t just swoop down on you and save the day.
 

They were almost to Zara’s apartment, when a cop flipped on his siren and pulled them over.
 

Micah pulled over and laughed.
 
“I was barely even giving it any gas,” he joked.
 
Zara laughed back but felt nervous.
 
She really didn’t know this guy.
 
He could be a bank robber or even worse for all she knew.
 
She really didn’t want to end up on an episode of
Cops
.
 
It would give way too much satisfaction to Abby’s mother Norah, who had often called Zara a delinquent behind her back.
 

The officer came up and pointed a flashlight right in Micah’s eyes.
 
For a moment, his eyes seemed to change color, becoming almost purple. Zara figured that she was seeing things from the kamikazes, and vowed never to insult a bartender’s pour again.
 

The police officer lowered the flashlight.
 
“You know how fast you were going? He asked.

Micah smiled up at the officer.
 
“I suppose very fast.
 
I appreciate the concern, but we are kinda in a rush here.
 
Maybe you can just overlook it this time.”
 
He said it in a flat tone, like he was talking to a child.

The officer blinked a few times, and then an odd expression crept across his face. He looked almost stoned. “Yes, of course,” he muttered tonelessly.
 
Well, you two have yourselves a good night,” and he walked stiffly back to his car.
 
In another moment, he had driven away.

Zara finally broke the silence.
 
“Okay, what was that all about?
 
Jedi mind trick?”

Micah found this incredible funny, and she could feel him rumble with laughter under his heavy coat.
 
He started the scooter back up.
 
“No, he just knows my father.
 
He’s very active in the community.”
 

Five minutes later they pulled up to the Glen Oak Arms, where Zara lived.
 
The apartment building was fully accessorized with peeling yellow paint, dead and dying plants in the ragged courtyard, and at least one drunk howling from an apartment at any given time.
 
Home sweet home, Zara thought.
 

Micah killed the engine and got off the scooter.
 
He lifted Zara off of it and put her on her feet.
 
He had picked her up like a feather, like he was moving a chess piece, and she wondered how he could be so strong and yet so thin.
 
Was everyone secretly on the roids’ or what?

He didn’t bother to look at her apartment building, his gaze seemed fixed on her.
 
“Can I call you sometime?” he asked sheepishly.

“Sure,” she said, a little too quickly, and waited for him to take his phone out.
 
He produced a black iPhone and looked at her.
 
It took her a minute to remember her number, but she eventually told him and he punched it in.
 

“I dunno if it’s really your thing, but this Monday I’m going with a few friends to an art exhibit at the Denver at museum.
 
If you would like to come—“

“Definitely,” Zara blurted out.
 
“That’s actually exactly my thing.
 
I’m a big art nerd.
 
I’m taking art and history at Metro College.”

“That’s awesome,” he said. “I’ve never been but it should be fun.”

 
She nodded.
 
She suddenly felt as if she might float away, like Charlie when he ate the forbidden candy in Wonka’s chocolate factory.
 
They were quiet for a moment, the silence broken only by the occasional sound of a passing car and the spray of water from under its tires.
 

“Till then,” Micah finally said. He got on his scooter, started it up, and tore off into the night and out of view.

Zara stood there for a bit in a daze.
 
She felt warm and happy.
 
Then the rain started back up, and she lazily drifted to her apartment door.

4.

The next morning Zara awoke and surprisingly enough wasn’t completely hung over.
 
She had a slight headache and felt a little groggy, but that was easily remedied by curling up on the couch with a 32 ounce bottle of mango Gatorade and watching her new favorite show about women who go crazy and kill their husbands.
 
She had no new messages on her phone, but she couldn’t help checking it every ten minutes.
 
She replayed the events of the night before in her head—the low point of being ditched, and the high point of meeting Micah.
 
She remembered thinking that it had been a very long night, but when she got home she saw it was only 10pm.
 
She had only been gone for an hour or so.
 
How was that possible, she wondered?
 
She chalked it up to the alcohol and stopped compounding her headache with confusing questions.
 

Her father had been asleep when she got home the night before, and he was off to his other job before she got up.
 
He’d left a note that said: “Double shift.
 
Order pizza if ya want.
 
Left a twenty”. A twenty dollar bill was indeed clipped to the note.
 
This was about as much communication as they had anymore.
 
She was at school a lot, and he was working or asleep a lot.
 
She missed spending time with him, but ever since her mother had left them seven years ago, running off with her new boyfriend, this is how it had been.

Thinking of her dad, she renewed her vow that someday soon she would graduate from college, get a job that paid reasonable wages, and work as hard as she could to help him out.
 
Someday, she would get them both out of this dump.

She started to feel guilty about lying around, so she got up and set up her laptop on the kitchen table.
 
She cracked her knuckles and said aloud, “Okay, let’s do some history,” and proceeded to stare at a blinking cursor for what felt like an eternity.
 
She took out one of her textbook and opened it to the section they were on in class:
Eastern European History (1400-1600) AD
. The paper was to be her explanation of why the Hungarians and Ottomans could not get along, and to discuss what role the Roman Catholic Church played in the bitter conflict.
 

She had the sentence:
The Hungarian/Ottoman war had…
written when her phone suddenly buzzed from somewhere in the apartment.
 
She stood up and waited for it to give out another clue as to where it was. When it buzzed again, she ran over and dove on the couch, digging frantically in the cushions. She felt guilty for hoping it was Micah, hoping he might be violating that sacred guy-rule of waiting three days before showing any interest in a girl.
 
She had almost forgotten about Abby entirely.
 
But who could seriously blame her after the way Abby had acted?
 
In a way, Zara was done trying to rationalize her friendship with her.
 

She finally found the phone and saw the text was from neither Micah nor Abby, but her friend Twig, asking her if she wanted to go get some breakfast.
 
She looked at the time on her phone.
 
Two pm.
 
She was pretty hungry.
 
Sure why not
, she replied, and went to her bedroom to put on something besides pajamas.
 

Twenty minutes later she opened the door to see Twig standing there.
 
His blondish mustache was the only part of him that seemed to be groomed.
  
It was waxy and made two sharp points in the style once popular with swashbucklers and pirates.
 
He had on his oversized aviator glasses, and his dirty blonde hair sticking up in every direction.
 
He was wearing a t-shirt that read: “I’m with Slutty,” with an arrow that pointed in both directions, and a pair of black cargo shorts and black Doc Martens.
 
He looked like he might have fallen down a dirt hill on his way over.
 
He was leaning hard against the doorjamb when she opened the door, and she couldn’t tell if he was trying to hold a sexy pose, or if he was about to keel over.

“Good morning sunshine,” he croaked.
 
He had lost his voice.
 

“You are looking radiant as always,” Zara replied in a mock British voice, giving a little curtsey and sweeping her arm for him to enter.

“My god,” Twig said, gravely.
 
“Jager.
 
Never again.”
 
He wobbled over to the kitchen and looking in the fridge.
 
“Sweet god yes,” he said, before snatching up a Gatorade and gulping the entire thing down.
 

“Oh, just drink all my Gatorade,” Zara said. “You know I brew the stuff in the back room.”
 
She flopped on the couch—the sight of Twig reminding her of her own hangover.
 
She turned the TV down but kept her eyes on the gruesome reenactment, where a woman was tapping rat poison into her husband’s morning coffee.
 

“Sorry.
 
I went out with Crazy Jake last night,” Twig said.
 
“You know how he is. We did the Broadway crawl.
 
You should have come with.
 
I still don’t know why you hang out with Polly Prissy Pants. She is such a—”

“You don’t have to tell me, I know,” Zara interrupted. “I think I’m officially done with our birthday tradition.
 
She totally ditched me last night so she could go home with the bad guy from Karate Kid.”

Twig laughed.
 
He was a sucker for any 80’s movie reference.
 
“Where did you end up going?” he said, not at all surprised Abby had run off with some strange guy.

“The Church.”

“Oh, I see how it is.
 
You’re going over to the dark side?”

Zara put on her neon blue-framed sunglasses and said:
 
“Yes.
 
And now Lord Vader requires pancakes.
 
So less talky more leavey.”

“A’ight den.
 
Let’s roll shorty,” Twig replied with a smile, wobbling towards the door and flipping his car keys around in his hand.
 
Outside, they recoiled in unison from the harsh glare of the morning sun, holding their arms in front of their faces to block its piercing rays.