Sapphire Bones

Manhattan

Updated: May 5, 2019

Corvo

"Do you have any from Ohio?" Damien nearly yelled over the other noise in the restaurant. But I couldn't call it a restaurant – more of a club with snack peanuts on every table. He leaned on the counter between two women in matching leather skirts, zippers down the middle directly between their legs. "Rhinegeist?" He asked after the bartender answered with a nod, throwing a towel over his suit vest covered shoulder.

"We've got Truth and Cougar," the bartender said, a flashy smile backed behind his voice. Damien beamed and ordered for both himself and me, and returned to Ethel and I shortly after with two bottles in his hand, and another drink in the other. A bourbon-y, red velvet colored drink with an olive floating on top between two toothpicks stuck in the pit.

"Two crafts and a Manhattan for the lady," Damien grinned and set the drinks down on our table.

"Aren't you still underage?" I went to grab Ethel's drink but she grabbed my wrist before I could reach it, and squeezed hard into my flesh. Her fingernails dug between the tendons underneath the skin. It took every ounce of my dignity to keep a hard face despite the pressure underneath her talons.

"Per Lycan Law, brother, I'm a legal adult and Lycans don't follow human law," Ethel said, popping her tongue at the end. With her free hand, she took the tall glass in her grasp, fingers around the stem. She took a big swig from it and popped the olive into her mouth mockingly.

"Fine," I ripped my hand from her bear-like grip and wrapped it around my own bottle. "So what is this?"

"Cougar," Damien said while drinking from his bottle. "It's a craft from Cincinnati, Ohio. I figured you needed to try something other than upstate alcohol." I lifted the cold glass to my lips and tipped it so the chilled beer came out in a thick wave of bitter and oat. I swallowed hard and set the bottle down while I swished the remaining beer around in my cheeks before tossing it down the back of my throat like the rest.

Around us people from all different backgrounds and parts of New York gathered in groups of three to ten. Smiles adorned the crowd, some with lipstick stains on their necks and cheeks, and others chapped and in need of company. Music boomed underneath our feet, the metallic black tiles clattering from the hard bass sounding from the speakers. Bright lights of all colors. Purples and blues flashed, engraining into my vision, even while I blinked. The blackness was splashed with colors, bright ones that blinded me while my eyes were closed. They danced around the club in brilliant flashes.

"You had to pick this place?" I almost had to yell at my sister who stood next to me at the standing table. Her heels picked her up so that the top of her head hit my shoulders but she still had to strain her neck to meet my gaze. "There are quieter restaurants around here, and this place doesn't even serve food!" I pointed with my whole hand to the depressive bowl of peanuts on our table. A small metal bowl covered in peanut dust and shells.

"I wasn't planning on eating here," she said. "This is for drinks and releasing some of the stress from our fucked-up lives." Ethel lifted her glass to the middle of the table. "To our shitty family, and may we neverbetray each other again." Her cut glare my way burned my peripheral vision but I clinked my bottle to her glass all the same. I wasn't in the mood to fight with her, but to repair what little relationship I had left with her before something else came along and set ablaze to the thin string between us tethered by loose knots threatening to come undone.

"Then where are we eating?" Damien growled from across the table. "You promised us food and so far I haven't seen any." His hunger set in faster after realizing we weren't eating anytime soon, and Ethel's gaze flipped almost immediately in response to his tone.