Underwater

Part 1

It’s dark in the club.

That’s good. I’m not likely to be recognized. Not for who I am – nobody in this town knows me, anyway. But for what I am – that, I’d rather no one figured out for the moment. Most people can’t tell just by looking, don’t even know something like me exists, but most people isn’t everyone. I want to be careful.

I skim over the crowd with my eyes. I seem to be the only one in here tonight. We’re good at recognizing each other, even in the dark. Not because we have great vision – I can’t see any better than a normal human. It’s the smell. No matter how long we’ve been passing, we always carry a faint scent of home. Salty, I guess you’d call it.

I walk up to the bar and lean against it. Casual. Like I definitely belong there. That’s what I go for in bars. It usually works.

“What can I get you, honey?” The bartender is an old guy, late fifties I’d say. Or maybe sixties. What do I know? Anything over forty just kind of looks old to me.

I flash him a smile. “Scotch. Rocks.” Nobody thinks you’re seventeen when you order that.

“You lookin’ for the top shelf, or…?”

The raised eyebrow is my opening. “Anything decent is fine. But speaking of what I’m looking for…” I twirl a piece of dark hair around my finger. “You haven’t seen a girl in here, looks a little like me, have you?”

 I always hold my breath when I wait for the answer. For that moment, between when I ask and when they answer, I have hope. Those breathless moments are what I live for.

 His eyes are sympathetic, but he shakes his head as he pours my drink. “Sorry, sweetie. Not that I recall.”

The breath leaves me in a whoosh, like it always does. My hand shake a little as I put a ten dollar bill on the bar next to where he left my drink. It isn’t my last, but I’m going to run out of them eventually.

He nods as he picks it up. He’s already walking toward the other end of the bar when he looks over his shoulder and asks, “Who is she, anyway? The girl you’re looking for?”

 I normally don’t answer that question, but today I feel something different. For a second I can’t figure out why, and then I remember. “She’s my twin sister,” I say softly, twisting the silver band around my middle finger. One of the pair of rings we got from our father four years ago today. Our thirteenth birthday.

 The bartender pauses. “You know, I’m only in here on the weekends. Why don’t you try asking Jimmy? He’ll be in in about half an hour. He’s here all week. Maybe he’s seen her.”

 I watch his back as he shuffles off. There was plenty of time to drink my scotch, if I wanted to, which I don’t. The stuff tastes horrible. But I learned weeks ago that bars and clubs are the best places to look for Lusi. That’s how I managed to follow her trail so far. I’d found the towns she’s been hiding out in a few times, but she always seemed to slip away before I got there.

 “You’re lucky.”

 I turn towards the sound of the voice, and see that it came from a man who’s sitting on the stool next to me, on my left. Cute, but not my type. Definitely more Lusi’s type. She’s the one who’s into bad boys. She would’ve liked the leather jacket. Not that she’d tell me what she was into. But I’ve gotten a pretty good idea over the last couple of months.

 “Oh, yeah? How’s that?”

 “Because Jimmy’s not coming in tonight.”

 It’s like a punch in the gut. It’s stupid, I know – I have no idea if Lusi has even been in this town, let alone this bar, and I have no reason to think Jimmy has seen her, even if she has. But after the first bartender suggested it, I’ve latched onto the idea that there might still be hope for tonight. It sucks having that hope dashed.