12
Marcella
Chicago, Illinois
Glen Woods (c. Route 94)
October 31st, 2014
Time: 6:50 AM
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Ingibiorgʼs Fine Arts Society was a large Victorian house on the side of the Twelfth Night, and when Marcella ran towards the back entrance, her ribcage d*mn near snapped open. The wind pulverized her lungs, the pavement attacked her with dented edges, and as she ran, the grit of the street around her came at her with full force. Fire shrieking as it slapped the ground. The adrenaline thundered through her veins, pushing her limbs into full gear, and as it did, she burned.
Her pelvis was crunching underneath her, scathing with pain, and in the haze, smoke billowed above her. Swallowing the edge of Ferris Street with a desperate need. Whipping through the black wind and rounding the corner, Marcella panted and ran to Ciro with heavy pants and desperate sighs.
"You hot-wired my car!" Marcella blurted.
Ciro slammed the door of the Toyota open, jeering it to the right. With the distinct aroma of the fish market, and several bottles of that vintage merchantʼs sangria floating around the truck, Marcella ran towards the open passenger seat with bated breath.
"I hot-wired the car you hot-wired, muñequita," Ciro told her. "You need to start talking, Marcella, because I have priors and the boss is up my *ss, and I hot-wired the car you hot-wired!"
A beat.
"Do you have it?" she asked.
She stared at the moon with sore eyes and a Dahmer-esque fear of mortality, and as she squirmed under its grip, prayers rolled off her mouth: pleading prayers, prayers of sacrifice, prayers of relentlessness, prayers of no mercy, of no compassion. There was a fever that raked through her skin, a fever that was blotched with numb tears and alcoholic need, and as she ghosted around the edge of the Twelfth Nightʼs tenements, the apartment that connected Shakespeareʼs bar with Ingibiorgʼs Fine Arts Society, she let out a choked cry.
She was going to die here.
"Do you have it?"
"Yes, Marcella, yes."
The moon stared right back at her. Winking with the promise of a thousand needles being etched deeply inside her abdomen, overshadowing the complex of cookie cutter apartments and stringy cocaine dens that dotted the Chicagoan skyline. Blood stained her pants, thick as it oozed out of her, and with the scars and eloquently inscribed among her flesh, she felt like she was suffocating. Her body wasnʼt healing.
It was fighting against her.
She was going to die here.
Slapping her hands against her sides, Marcella pursed her lips and furrowed her eyebrows together, impatient. Her body was sweaty, her skin was all mangy, her mind was fuzzy, and her friend Ciro...
...was being a royal pain in the *ss.
Ciro frowned at her.
"Well?" Marcella asked, impatient.
"Oh," Ciro muttered. "Right."
He fiddled a vial of a fuchsia liquid. Pink, like a budding roseʼs petals. It was a vial of fae blood, a rare Panamanian black market item that glowed against his dirty palms, one from the short supply her mother managed to smuggle from Havana to Natchez, and as he twirled the liquid in his palm, Marcella reached for it –
– and Ciro ripped it from her grasp.
"Are you serious?"
"Crotchless p*nties," Ciro said simply.
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