Chapter 1: Wilted Words
My ‘apartment’ is a mess. If my mother ever saw it, she’d scold me, but it’s better she doesn’t know. The less aware of my real life she is, the happier she is. She doesn’t need to see the trail of half-finished songs, all warpsaed with love and crumpled under my hand after knowing it’s not real. A bouquet of flowers, barely clinging to life as they wilt and droop, fills the room with an odor that’s sweet, yet still a reminder of death.
I should take them out to the garbage. I should clean up. I should close my curtains tighter so the prying eyes of the neon lights don’t realize exactly how fragile I am.
Dolls aren’t allowed to be fragile in more than appearances. Those are the dolls that break. Breaking isn’t allowed. My mother depends on me, who knows how it would affect Liam’s temper (whether that is truly my problem or not is up for debate), Lacy may fall into her own grief by falling off the roof of a building into the unforgiving asphalt arms below. There is too much tied to me, strings that threaten to draw and quarter me despite how thin and frayed they look.
You’ll wilt. Genuine emotion. Spread your roots. Empty. You’re empty, Norman’s voice sings in my mind.
I’ve written his words down among my own so many times, but his keep shining through no matter how I try to ignore them.
My angel, be mine, my salvation. I hate you. Liam’s responses argue with Norman’s and pull me further from River’s ever-constant warnings rooted in sound logic.
They’ll use you until they break you. Throw you away.
Somewhere in my mind, my mother’s lullaby tries to soothe it all. Her humming voice, words poured in another language that my mouth slowly remembers. French, curling words that cling to lips and soften every harsh word with the promise of smiles and soft hands.
My phone buzzes elsewhere in the room, probably under a scrawled-on napkin with more words struck out and scratched through than remaining. My life feels like erasure poetry I once saw at a gallery or poetry reading. Blocks of black redacting different sections of the lines to spare whoever is reading from what they can’t tolerate.
Chapter 2: Blacked-Out Dreams
It’s all blacked out for me. My empty schedule for the last two nights, a self-imposed black stain on the page. My unfinished songs and the dreams I stopped reaching for to make a living, an answering ink puddle on the page. Every emotion I’m not allowed to have for the sake of sanity, every fake laugh and backstory, my mother hoping I get home safely, Lacy’s pain a black slash across it all, and my own fingers ripping through the page to try to ensure no one can see through the stains to the words I’m not allowed to give life to.
Picking myself up from the cool floor, I hum the same lullaby that’s in my head. The words twist in my mind until they’re no longer words, just notes holding the emotions I need. I cling to it rather than any sights as I walk through the city, trusting my feet to get me where I need to be.
I should have learned French. Perhaps I should have gone to auditions or at least studied songwriting, showed my creations to my mother’s boss, and hoped it led somewhere. Then I wouldn’t be pouring myself into dresses that feel like a second skin and heels that used to make me feel powerful, but now only promise cramped toes and tired ankles.
When a shadow calms the ever-present and too-intelligent eyes of the neon lights trying to trap me in their glow, I turn and see The Black Wire. I waver in my heels slightly—probably the mix of the dying flowers’ blooms and the half bottle of tequila I downed so I had something to pry me from the floor—and read the sign twice before I realize the B is more faded in the sign.
Lack Wire. Like I lack a spine in any way but the most literal. It’s been fading, beaten down by my own hopes while disks of bone are tugged at by the obligations tied to me. Men I don’t like who claim my time is theirs. My mother, who would happily ask me to give it up to have me home every night, to have her strength and turn back the clock to ‘save me’ from this work. Another string tied to every doll who’s asked me for advice and turned me into some kind of mentor even if I simply repeat what River’s said.
Who am I to other people, and does it matter if I can’t be that person to myself? Does the city at large see me as a reflection of their needs, whether I’m paid or not? If so, then who am I? By name, by personality, by description?
“The right drink kills thoughts,” I mumble. “Tequila with dying flowers isn’t the right one.”
I stumble into Black Wire, determined to tell Rowan about the fading B and how bad for business it will be. I make it to a booth near the bar, in the back, out of the limelight, and find myself sitting down. I don’t remember sitting. I still feel like I’m walking and wavering. So I drop my head to the table and watch Rowan.
He polishes the bar with quiet diligence, his glasses sliding down his nose. I’ve never noticed how fragile his glasses seem compared to him. Maybe we’re all fragile. Liam is made of glass painted to look like armor to protect all the things he’s forced to be. Rowan uses silence as his protection, but that is shattered the second he wants to be known. My makeup runs when things get too intense, and my heels break. Lacy used softness until it was pressed flat, and now she can only paint what-ifs and her last guilty thoughts.
Chapter 3: A Steady Pulse
Successful survivors are rare—they have to shoulder the burdens and turn their own obstacles, fears, and pasts into weapons, not armor. Anyone can survive with a knife and gun, but it takes someone more to live through the mental aftermath and nonstop thoughts.
I feel them crowding around me, the demands of others trying to drag me here or there, willing to pull me apart when, for the first time in my life, I simply don’t want to exist. I just want to climb under the table and sink into the darkness to escape the eyes of the people in the bar and the constant gaze of lights that make me perceptible to everyone around me constantly, always, in an unending circle where I tell myself it’ll just be a bit longer again and again until the words lose their meaning and—
“Freya.”
Slowly, I look up and see Rowan there, now blocking me from the rest of the bar as I pant. My hands tremble around my ears, and my knees press against my breasts with every ragged breath I take. His shadow stretches over me.
“Take a breath,” he insists.
I stare into his face but can’t really see it.
He moves closer, sliding into the booth with nearly inhuman grace, and takes my hand. “Do you feel my pulse in my wrist?”
I nod once.
“Focus on it,” he encourages.
It’s steady and even, regular, gentle. I sink into the feeling of it as it slowly fills my hand, my arm, then my chest. My toes seem to flex with each beat of his heart until something close to calm works on edging out the constant thoughts. One at a time, they settle. Like when I was little and my mom’s lullaby would quell one nightmare after another until I finally found a dream worth staying to enjoy.
Chapter 4: The Haven of Black Wire
“That’s it,” he says gently, still blocking me from the rest of the bar.
I hear someone break a glass, someone else laughing, the low music that plays over the speakers, even the buzz of a neon light and—
“It’s just us,” he continues. “Look at me, Freya.”
“You’re not supposed to use that name,” I whisper.
He nods. “I know. But I need you to listen, to focus.”
He moves my hand to his chest and gently eases closer. His heart just keeps thudding, so even, so sure.
“Anxiety can kill,” he whispers softly. “My father knew that. He knew none of us are meant to be alone. When we’re alone, we have nothing, we throw ourselves into life accepting it will skin us raw and that we will take it to keep on living.”
I tremble as his hand keeps spreading over mine, keeping my palm against his chest.
“I’m… I’m listening,” I whisper.
“So he worked to build The Black Wire. It’s thin, it’s fragile, but it’s for people like us who walk that line constantly and need a reminder that we have others, that instead of tethers and friendships ripping us apart, they can pull us together,” Rowan insists.
I slowly look up from our overlapping hands to his face. There’s nothing sharp or unforgiving about him right now. He’s warm and safe.
“My father, my parents, they came here with nothing but the promise of having something of their own and the belief that we could have more. You know how Danger City is,” he continues.
“It takes.”
“And will keep taking, by its citizens, by the obligations stacked on our shoulders, or something else. It would have been easy for my dad to let go of his dream of this place to focus on everything else, on just surviving day to day. He could have stopped. He could have simply put it all down when us kids were born, but he’s a stubborn old man. Then I started working here, knew it would be mine, and was content with that… until I met her.”
“Her?”
“Lila. She was a doll, much like you, who dreamed of more,” Rowan’s voice drops to a soft whisper. He strokes my forearm. “She didn’t want to be owned, would come here just to talk because this place was safe to her, but the city, as it always does, consumed her. I was ready to sell, to be done with Danger City and, most importantly, the bar that didn’t seem to do a thing.”
My eyes water, but my heart is slower, the thoughts less turbulent.
“But this is more than a bar. It’s my father’s legacy. It’s a haven for people who dream of more, dream of safety, and need it. I couldn’t save Lila from this… but I can save this place and give it to others,” his voice grows rough and heavy.
I pull myself closer to him and take a slow breath, nearly laying my head on his chest. How can he bear this weight constantly, this loss, and continue providing strength and the promise of warmth to those who are so unused to being seen without being used?
“I’m… Thank you, Rowan.”
He massages my shoulder. “I don’t know what you’re feeling, but feel it here and feel it with others. For my sake, if not your own.”
“I wouldn’t hurt a friend,” I promise, closing my eyes. “Thank you for sparing me more words than usual and less advice than…”
“You don’t need advice right now,” he says in a soft whisper. “You need something real and water, by my guess.”
Or him. Perhaps I simply need him here to block out the majority of the world while I allow myself to rejoin it. Rowan’s steadfast and unmoving nature, protective and safe, always a shield against the world. Is that why he chooses to watch and bask in silence, so he can be what others need rather than applying his thoughts and feelings to situations that do not require his assistance?
Is that the best mercy allowed in the world?
I hold his dark gaze as he takes a slow breath. “How do you feel, Asami?”
“Better,” I whisper. “It’s quieter now.”
He gives me a glass, a napkin, and a pen without removing his hand from my shoulder. It’s one thing at a time, appearing as if from nowhere. “You are a person first, a doll second. I promise that should one thing go wrong, the world will not collapse under you. The wires you’ve spread to others are a safety net, not a noose.”
“Four dolls gone in a month—one a week. The shadows are eating again, just like Mars said,” River interrupts, sliding into the other booth.
Before I can process her words and River’s gentle squeeze, he’s let me go entirely. He frees himself of the booth and turns to River. “Liquor?”
“Yes,” she answers. “Thank you, Rowan.”
He inclines his head and walks away, leaving me to question what has happened. River doesn’t comment on it, leaving me in a limbo of suspended belief. I clear my throat and take a drink of the chilled water while River shifts in her seat. “Stay away from Liam.”
I meet her eyes.
“Whatever you feel is less important than the ability to feel it. Alive and in pain is better than being dead,” she hisses.
“I assume Lacy would disagree. Is she still in her room painting, sending her clients to us instead?” I argue.
River’s eyes cut through me. “Her grief is thanks to Liam, just as her mess is. You’d know if you’d visit her. A past client was there yesterday, a friend of her… beloved. I cannot forget Dom’s face, it’s everywhere, he’s all she talks about. How he shouldn’t have died so soon. If he wouldn’t have tried to help her, wouldn’t have pushed to share her work… The Maddox name is slapped on the watchdogs, being whispered by artists. Maddox cleaning house and we are trash.”
“We’re far from trash, and you know better than anyone,” I argue. “They would kill over us, kill to keep us for an hour longer to sate the addiction to softness and control. It’s you who taught me that.”
“And I also taught you what happens when they get what they want. Fat rich men are pampered house cats. They see a mouse and first enjoy the game. When they catch it, there’s nothing to do but kill it, realize it is hardly worth their time, and kick it away,” River hisses. “Maddox Industries is filled with men and women just like that.”
We stare at one another, and her eyes dart to the side where another doll sits. “If you don’t want to hear—”
“I have enough in my head, and you’re always one of the voices there,” I answer, downing as much water as my mouth and throat can handle.
River glances from me to Rowan, who delivers the drink. Her gaze holds, then she’s up and moving through the bar, shooting me glances that are meant to make a point. I try to dull them, will my skin to be more like armor than a warm safe embrace for a stranger who pays by the hour.
Chapter 5: A Doll’s Cold Wish
A person first, a doll second.
Were I a doll—a real doll—something unfeeling and cold, something without a brain, perhaps life would be easier. I wouldn’t find myself torn through between thoughts, options, and people. I would feel no pressure to change. It would hardly be in my nature. Like a robot, I would dress for my temporary owner, feel nothing, say all the right things, and sleep the second I was put on my back for longer than a few moments.
No noise. No pain. No questions.
Neon lights would only be flashes of color rather than searchlights tracing me for weaknesses. People’s touch—hard or soft, vicious or loving—would merely be a touch as a way to define the sensation across plastic skin.
I drink more water, welcome the chill. It’s pleasant to feel. It’s sweet to laugh. I trace the rim of the glass and softly sing my mother’s lullaby. Rowan will not always be here to chase my thoughts away, and I will not use him for that purpose. He too is a person first. Everyone is at some level, no matter how good they are at hiding it.
The door chimes, but I watch my glass, watch my pale finger moving frictionlessly around the top, bringing some melancholy tune to light. My lips fit to the words I begged my mother to translate over and over again. It’s not a song fitting for a lullaby, but it’s the one I know,
“Moi je n’étais rien.
Mais voilà qu’aujourd’hui.
Je suis le gardien
Du sommeil de ses nuits
Je l’aime à mourir.”
Voices echo around me, but I watch the water vibrate in my glass as I keep tracing slowly, my lips moving to the words even when the sound doesn’t make it to my lips until my table jumps. I gasp as the water spills across the surface, creating a river to the edge where Rowan was just standing, where River just left me.
It leads me to Liam as life tends to do. Based on his heavy breathing, his stance, his wild, drunken eyes focused on me, he plans to shatter whatever calm has been gifted to me. I turn in my seat, torn between soothing him as I’m so used to doing and backing against the wall.
Chapter 6: The Weight of Freedom
The simple choices divide me. I see myself crawling backwards. I hear myself saying that he just needs to sit and have some water, to find his balance again. The war is a stalemate that leaves me sitting there, watching him, doing nothing and saying nothing.
“You don’t need this life!” Liam yells, hitting the table. “Why don’t you see that? Why won’t you see me! I’ll give you everything. All I want is to provide for you, to keep you. Be mine, just stay mine!”
“L-Liam—”
“You know when I lie. You know when I need you. You’ve been hiding from me. Are you trying—trying to get used to life without me?” He demands, equal parts hurt and fury. Hurt and the desire to make me feel what he does. “You can’t. I won’t be gone. I’m not just a client, Asami, and you know it.”
A hand rests next to Liam on the table. He doesn’t notice it. I’m not sure if he hears Rowan’s ever-calm, yet firm voice. “This is not the place to have this conversation.”
“The customer is always right, and I’m more than a customer. She’ll say it. She’ll prove it. Just ask her!” Liam snarls.
“You’re causing a scene. How will that help her? How will that help you?”
Again with questions. Rowan weaponizes them, turns them into something that can’t be ignored as easily as a comment or well-placed phrase.
“Answer me!” Liam demands, his voice more ragged, softer, but still sharp and pointed at me, weaponized. “Give up this life. You don’t even want it! I know that! You leave slower every time. I’ll give you everything. I’ll give your mother everything, Asami. Let me—”
“I’m not yours to save!” It’s supposed to be a yell, a sharp, firm tone, but it breaks over the weight of my own exhaustion, gets cut and softened on my teeth as it leaves my mouth. “I’m not. I’m not asking to be saved. There is no monster for you—”
“There are monsters everywhere,” Liam says, nearly pleading despite the fury curling in his eyes. “They watch the streetlights and neon to find their next meal, and you dance in the lights and in the rain as if inviting them. Let me stop that. Let me save you, let me. Let me do that, Asami.”
He could. He could sweep me up into his arms. He could make sure my mom never has to worry about where we’ll get her next round of meds. I would never have to fake another moan or orgasm. I would never have to walk along the streets to meet a stranger while hoping it won’t be the last I see.
Drunk, yes. Liam is hopelessly drunk, but he’s also not saying anything new. He found me while wasted, is still telling me I should be his rather than mocking any affection he might hold for me and putting distance between his heart and me.
It’s stupid. People rarely say what they mean when they’re sober, but when they’re drunk, words are building blocks to create a fantasy that only exists in the mind, so removed from reality that it doesn’t hold weight.
“Please,” he insists. “I know you’re considering it. I know you want it. You deserve better than this life. You don’t have to struggle. There’s no art in it. There’s nothing—”
“It’s… It’s my life,” I say softly. “I’m tired of repeating myself, Liam. Nothing’s changed.”
“Bullshit. You know that’s bullshit,” he says.
He tries to get closer to me, but Rowan shifts, shielding me from Liam. Liam looks at him and demands that he move, but Rowan stands firm. He offers no explanation. He doesn’t need one.
“Come with me. I haven’t seen you in days, and we had an agreement. Give me all night. Let me prove the sun doesn’t have to ruin us. I got you a garden, gave you the zone. You know I’m right for you. You know we’re best together. I understand, and you understand. How often does that happen here, Asami?” Liam continues. “Come with me. Just tell him to move, take my hand and—”
“And what?”
“I want you out of this life. I want it to be a choice to stay, not a need,” he insists. Every second his voice grows wilder. He’s a tiger tired of being caged, one who’s found a way out, and he’ll take it, whether it involves bloodshed, murder, or sacrifice.
This isn’t a man to be dealt with gently, easily, or softly.
He certainly isn’t a man to leave with. River has said that obsession and love are important things not to get twisted. Obsession is sharp and damaging. It takes more than it gives, and in the best of times, it could lead to a hostage form of love bred from necessity rather than genuine emotion.
Chapter 7: Love or Obsession
Love is soft and malleable. It’s protective and always puts another first no matter the danger, the warning, or the futility. Obsession only wishes it could be so selfless and pretends to be, while dripping with blood and pain.
“You should sober up,” I whisper. “You’re always more when drunk.”
“Because I don’t listen to your damn rules! I don’t protect us both from—”
“If you don’t protect me from your emotions, then how…”
Do I want to be protected from his emotions? Do I want him to pull them all back inside and pretend I don’t matter? To see other dolls? My throat tightens, and I can’t finish my sentence. I know how he’d protect me from others. He’d build me a sanctuary and place me there with my mother. He’d linger with me, bring me gardens, take me out in public, make me his in every way. I wouldn’t be a trophy with him. A victory, sure, but never a trophy.
I can’t see him forgetting me. No, he’d crawl into my bed at night simply to hold me and know I’m there. To feel something soft, yet real, in his world so filled with biting snakes that swear it’s kindness and efficiency. How many times has he emptied himself of every thought and detail that he can simply to get relief from it, simply to hear me tell him that he’s not one of them, that he’s not like that.
Do I even know him or only find myself craving the side of him that’s as broken as I feel?
We do understand each other. We do, and it’s impossible to ignore because I know he understands why I have to say no just like I understand why he has to keep pushing. He wants me safe, he wants me happy, he wants me alive, but I want to be sane. I want to be free. I don’t see the exchange of my freedom for happiness as a win. He sees a long life as a victory none could reject.
He wants me because I’m free, because I’m honest, because I’m unowned. The same reasons I love myself.
Again, he tries to push through Rowan. “I know you want me. Come with me. Stay with me, Asami.”
“I have the right to remove you,” Rowan says.
It’s a reminder for me, not for Liam. One word, and Rowan would drag Liam from The Black Wire without thinking twice. He’d help me escape because that is what Rowan does. He protects those that society feeds to the darkest elements of Danger City.
Chapter 8: Tangled Wires
How do I choose between a man unhinged for me and me alone and the comfort of the normal I’ve crafted?
One of the wires that Rowan mentioned tightens around my throat as Liam’s eyes darken and his lips turn down. He swallows. “You have to choose eventually, Asami. Asking me to hold on and wait for you, being honest with me, crying with me, almost kissing me, then turning me away and disappearing… it’s cruel. I can’t keep ripping my heart out and offering it to you just to stuff it back in my chest.”
I move closer. I want to soothe him. I want to run my hands over his chest, to calm him, to be the reason he settles into a sleep that refreshes his mind, not his body. Does that mean I’m putting him first rather than myself?
Is this love or obsession?
Do I need a hobby to channel it all, or will I end up like Lacy, in a messy apartment, muttering to my paintings, trying to keep something alive at least for myself since it no longer exists in this world? Is that what I’ll become when Liam finally moves on? When he cuts the cord between us, will it take a chunk of flesh or my sanity entirely?
“Tomorrow night,” Rowan says in the wake of my silence. “Come back tomorrow night, Mr. Maddox. Come here sober, and she’ll be here.”
I nod slowly.
Liam shoves at Rowan, looks at me, then realizes how many are watching him. He swallows. “Look at your phone. Be here tomorrow. Five hours.”
“Five,” I whisper.
“At least five. No one after me,” he emphasizes.
I incline my head. I tell myself it’s to end this confrontation, but the temptation of seeing him in the morning is a tantalizing reward for both of us. Liam watches me a moment longer, agony and hope darting across his eyes with anger blooming between them, winning, and steering him away from me.
Rowan doesn’t move. Not when Liam walks away. Not when Liam is out the door, not even when others go back to their conversations and drinks.
“You don’t have to be here,” Rowan informs.
I open my phone and see messages from Liam.
| Liam: Are you okay? Please check in. You haven’t cancelled last minute before. Liam: Asami, I’m not going to force you to meet me, just tell me you’re alive! Liam: I miss sleeping in your arms and dreaming of you. We should go to dinner together, perhaps a play in the corner of town. Liam: One word, please. Any word. Something that tells me I don’t need to hunt you down? Liam: What did I do wrong! I’ve calmed my emotions, tried to pack them away. I’ve lied to you when you asked for it. I’ve held you when you fought me. I’ve obeyed your command not to kiss you! Just answer me. I need to know. Liam: If I find your body, I’ll burn the world to torture your killer. The death of an angel demands a righteous revenge. |
“Asami?” Rowan asks.
It’s stupid to call his messages affection, but it’s equally stupid to beg for a doll’s attention. My lips tremble, but the words fall out anyway. “I’ll be here tomorrow.”
