Crescendo (Beautiful Monsters Book 1) Read online

  I scan the faded print in the dim light cast from a nearby streetlamp while my hand slips into my pocket and withdraws a flimsy book of matches that managed to survive the excitement tonight. My fingers shake when I strike one, holding up the flame as close to my face as I dare. The heat it gives off licks at my skin. Orange and amber paint my vision, spilling across the pavement at my feet. It’s beautiful. It’s terrifying. If I drop this flame into the barrel of newspapers, the fire will spread and become out of control.

  Holding it like this creates a precarious balance, similar to the skill required to guide a bow along a narrow row of strings in search of just the right tune. The perfect note. Fire contains a symphony of its own. The crackling embers build to their own silent, destructive crescendo.

  “Hey!” The voice startles me so badly that I jump. The match slips from my fingers and strikes the topmost newspaper. Almost in slow motion, it starts to burn—bright yellow flames at first, then a brilliant orange that dances its way across a headline proclaiming that construction on a new city park would begin next fall.

  “Jesus Christ!” A wad of gray fabric smothers the ember’s music, mid-song. The flames hiss as they’re beaten down to nothing but embers clinging to a ruined hunk of smoking paper.

  Vinny’s man is a full three minutes quicker than he’d been last time. I can’t hide the sigh of disappointment that shoots out, tainting the air gray, as I turn to face him, fully prepared to obey the subtle command of, “Let’s get you inside, miss.”

  But I don’t expect the hand that grips my wrist. Vinny’s men never touch me—one of the many rules pertaining to the care of his property. Whoever he is, his fingers are calloused and rough with grime and dirt. Unmanicured. Unpolished. Unsanitized.

  My brain counts the surmounting flaws while my eyes take him in. He’s not wearing a suit; just a gray hoodie and jeans, another gross violation. Vinny once beat a man to death for wearing jeans on the job. Unpro-fucking-fessional! he’d snarled in between the blows of his pistol-turned-bludgeoning weapon.

  “Aren’t you a little too old to be playing with matches?” I flinch. His voice lacks a distinct accent. Vinny prefers “imported” men to do his dirty work, rather than Americans. I don’t know how to process it. Any of it.

  My eyes linger on his face, or what little of it I can make out in the dark. His hair is too long. A line of dark stubble covers his strong chin. It’s impossible to make out his eye color, but I guess something light. Blue? Green, maybe?

  He towers over me. Almost as tall as Vinny, but with none of that imposing bulk. This man is almost lean in build, but his grip is firm. I can’t pull my hand away easily, not that I try to. Those thugs in the alley had smelled like alcohol and felt like sandpaper. This man smells like...

  A sudden breeze glances off the brick walls, displacing his scent before I can decipher it fully. Cigarette smoke. Musk. Cologne?

  “You a mute or something?” he asks. He sounds harsh on the surface, but there’s an almost amusing note hidden between the words like a soprano almost smothered amongst altos.

  Alarm floods my veins. I should scream for one of Vinny’s men. Paranoia is one of Vinny’s dominant traits, and his money allows him to indulge in it to the fullest. From what little information I’ve guessed in a few short months, he even posted some of his stooges on the rooftops. A few more worked as cab drivers who pretended to be blind to any passenger but his own men.

  I wait, holding my breath. Seconds tick by while the stranger still speaks—but no one comes.

  “Be more careful,” he says while letting go of my wrist. “It’s no fun getting busted for arson—”

  “I wasn’t playing with matches.” The voice sounds like me, but it isn’t a scream. It isn’t a plea for Vinny or one of his goons to come running. It was a whisper, almost, as if I didn’t want to be heard above the barrage of honking horns drifting from the main street.

  “Oh really? Do you prefer the term ‘playing with fire,’ then?”

  I frown at that. “I prefer playing with...light.” My tongue wrestles to convey the words in English. Vinny loathes my accent despite his preference for it in workers. This man doesn’t seem fazed by it.

  “With light, huh? You a pyro or something?”

  “P-Pyro?”

  “Pyromaniac. You know, arsonist.” He jerks his chin to the smoldering newspaper. “You like settin’ fires or something?”

  Piromaníaca? I shake my head. The question doesn’t make sense. Who would enjoy setting something on fire? Though...I can’t deny the shiver that runs through me at the thought of Vinny’s suite, high above the city, doused in flames. How would my room look, consumed by the inferno?

  My facial expression must change because the man laughs, the sound grating against the backdrop of city noise. “You escape from a mental hospital or something?”

  “Something like that,” I hear myself reply. Escape. My mind gets stuck on that word and won’t move on. “Yeah, sure. Something like that.”

  “Hmph.” The man shifts, tucking his hands into the pocket of his sweatshirt. That simple motion puts everything violently back into perspective. This man is way too close, and I move to stand on the opposite side of the barrels.

  “Sorry for bothering you,” I say, which is as polite a brush-off as I can manage. The smart thing to do would be to return to the hotel without having to be escorted back—but for some reason, I can’t move from this spot. The book of matches is still in my hand, and my heart races with the urge to light another. Just one more.

  “Oh yeah, I have some damn nerve getting on a high horse,” the man grunts. Rather than leave, he takes a step closer to the barrels between us, and the motion reveals that he’s carrying something on his back: a backpack. He opens it up and withdraws a round, cylindrical object. I don’t know what it is until he gives it a shake. The can rattles like Vinny’s shaving cream, or...

  “S-Spray paint?” My voice is still a whisper, but the man nods. I think he might even wink, but it’s too dim here to be sure.

  “Brick walls always look a little better covered in a layer of chemicals, don’t ya think?”

  I nod, though I don’t know why. Spray paint paired with brick walls typically infers some kind of graffiti. Vandalism. I glance down at his hands again, and what I’d first mistaken for dirt and grime takes on another identity.

  “You paint?”

  “Well now, that’s one way to put it. Come on—” He jerks his head toward the opposite end of the alley from the way leading to the hotel. “I could use your expert opinion, little Pyro Girl.”

  I freeze solid, digging my heels into the pavement. “You should go.” I’ve been so stupid. Vinny’s man will be here in exactly thirty seconds...twenty-eight seconds. Every bone in my body warns me to walk away before the hound dogs come running, but I can’t. My brief minutes of freedom were intruded on. It just isn’t fair. He’ll have to leave first. “Please.”

  “Awful strange request to be left alone in an alley with matches, Pyro Girl,” the man says. I realize, for the first time, that he’s concerned. The line of his gaze travels from the matchbook clenched in my first and down to the barrel of newspaper. “What kind of law-abiding citizen would I be if I did that, huh?”

  “Some people are coming,” I blurt out, staring down at my clenched left hand. My words come unguarded without Vinny there to filter them, and apparently, the truth is a reckless addiction. “If you’re here when they show up, they’re going to put a bullet in your head.”

  “Oh, is that so?” The man seems to mull it over, but shock isn’t one of the emotions that cross his shrouded features. In the end, he laughs. “Well then, that will be one hell of a way to end my night. Come on.” He holds out a hand to reinforce the words that seem like a command on the surface. But they aren’t. A request? A question.

  For five precious seconds, I eye his hand. It’s entirely possible this graffiti artist that smells like cigarettes and stale body odor means to lure
me down the alley for some nefarious purpose. Would God really be so cruel as to throw me into the frying pan twice in one night? Could he really be so merciful?

  My time is almost up, but I don’t hear footsteps. Vinny’s man is a second late, and I seize the moment by nudging the stranger’s palm with one outstretched finger. Handshakes. Hand holding—those embraces most people take for granted. I can’t remember how to initiate them properly. Amused by my attempt, the man laughs. Then he flexes his fingers and captures my entire wrist in a firm grip.

  “Come on, Pyro.”

  I try not to balk when he steers me down the narrow alley and then toward an even narrower strip between two buildings. Like a snake, the man weaves in and out through the tight spaces, bracing his back against the wall. Left with no choice, I copy him, sucking in my waist.

  Eventually, we reach another alley. Then, another—but we seem to be moving in circles. I bet we’re only a block or so away from the hotel, but for some reason, he prefers to take the backstreets. I’m sure the thought should terrify me. Instead, it intrigues me.

  “So...do you like art?”

  “Huh?” I frown at the question.

  “Art.” The man chuckles. “Though, I suppose I should have asked that question before dragging you off to see my mural, huh?”

  It seems like a rhetorical question, so I don’t answer. It isn’t until he glances back at me that I remember what he’d initially asked. “So...art. You like it?”

  I shrug and then nod. Up this close, the stranger doesn’t seem so threatening. He may be tall, but he’s nearly as thin as I am. There’s a gracefulness to the way he walks, like a dancer, almost—nothing like Vinny’s hostile, jerky movements that make me suspect that he’s always anticipating the moment someone might put a bullet in his head. This man...or maybe he’s more like a boy, his eyes are close-set and definitely blue. There’s a line of stubble along his chin, but I wouldn’t peg him as any older than nineteen—maybe two or three years younger than me.

  “Is this a stupid question?” he asks suddenly, his mouth cracking to display two rows of slightly crooked teeth. I think he’s smiling. For some reason, I try to smile back.

  “Yes. I like art...yes.” My mind may have stupidly forgotten the timer on my freedom, but my body hasn’t. My skin burns beneath the stranger’s fingers, almost as if threatening to betray me. He’ll know. He’ll know.

  I yank my hand back, twisting it out of his grip. This time, he lets me. “So, art,” he says quickly as if trying to postpone the moment I’ll turn on my heel and run away. For some reason, it does. Talking is too addictive. Too tempting. Words hold less power here, outside of Vinny’s fortress. It’s way too easy to let them slip. “What kind?”

  “Music,” I say on command. I couldn’t stay silent, even if I’d wanted to; the answer is ingrained in my soul.

  He laughs again and continues to tug me down the alleyway, one slow step at a time. He’s savoring this adventure. I’m anticipating its violent ending. Almost two whole minutes, now...

  “Music. Oh, God. Which bastion of modern music do you subscribe to? Composer Swift or Maestro Bieber?”

  I shake my head, not recognizing the references. “Bach,” I say. “Yo Yo Ma.”

  “Ah...a true musician. Singer or player?”

  “Cello.”

  He nods as if the answer was obvious all along. “So, you make music as well as fire with those magic fingers, little Pyro?”

  I don’t answer. My love of music is like an old wound that can never fully heal. Some days I think it’s starting to close up, the rent flesh knitting together again. Other days Vinny likes to cut it open and rub salt into the festering gap. Afterward, he’ll always kiss the bleeding sore and murmur, “All better.”

  Like tonight. Tonight was his peace offering. His gift. My torture. Pain mingles with hope and shame, and it’s suddenly harder to breathe.

  “You all right?” The stranger asks, cocking his head.

  I flinch. Even my facial expressions are suddenly out of my control. I fight to return my mouth to its worn, “charming” smile. Vinny’s man can’t be far now, but I’d hear him coming, at least. I won’t let the man in front of me pay for my stupidity. “I’m fine...”

  “Save the pouting for when you see this piece of shit, okay? It’s just up ahead.”

  We travel ten more steps, though once again, I can’t help feeling like we didn’t go very far at all. I can still hear the same sounds I had when I left the hotel—the same concierge yelling for a taxi and the same cadence of honking horns.

  Abruptly, the man stops, and I almost run into him. “Voila,” he says, gesturing to yet another brick wall. “Boom, there it is.”

  “Wow.” I take a step forward, transfixed by what’s in front of me. Right there, in the middle of neatly laid bricks, is a whole new world slapped onto the impromptu canvas. A man watches me from amid it all, larger than life, his glowing red eyes transfixed on my body as if he can peer right through my flesh and into my very soul. Vinny wouldn’t call this art. Vulgar, he’d say before rattling off something demeaning in Italian. Tailored suits and well-made cigars—that was where his appreciation of the word ended.

  “Is that supposed to be the Devil?” I blurt out while some inner part of me laughs at the notion. The devil lives in a high rise. He wears suits with custom cufflinks and sips imported champagne from glass flutes.

  However, if I still believed in the fantasized version of Lucifer, this mural would depict him well: a dark shadow lurking in the bowels of the city...watching. Always watching.

  “Something like that,” the stranger says. “Though...a little more abstract. He’s missing something. Here—” I flinch when something cold presses into my fingers. They curl around it automatically, and I glance down to find that I’m holding a can of spray paint. “Maybe you can help.”

  “I...I can’t.” I try to give the can back, but he backs away, holding up both hands. “I’ll mess it up.” My voice cracks. In a world of “perfection,” mistakes are harshly punished. “I can’t—”

  “Put those magic fingers to use,” the stranger insists.

  I swallow hard at that taunt. Magic fingers. “I had an audition today,” I say to the wall. I don’t know why the words rush out, but it’s easy to say them when the man beside me says nothing in return. He doesn’t try to shut me up. He doesn’t prod me to go on...

  I’m silent for four precious seconds. Then the truth spills free, and it’s like a dam breaking. “It was an audition for an orchestra—not a big one,” it feels important to clarify that when he lets out a sharp breath. He’s impressed, though I don’t know if it’s by the words I say or by how quickly I say them. “Not a big one. But they wanted me. They offered me a job to play in the Strings, second chair. Second chair. It’snotabigdealbut—”

  “That’s awesome, Pyro Girl,” he says quietly. Awesome. I lock that word away, somewhere deep inside myself where I hope Vinny won’t be able to find it.

  “I can’t take it though. I can’t take it, I have...” My throat aches beneath the bigger truths that won’t come out so easily. I have Vinny at my shoulder, whispering in my ear. You don’t need to make a living, Mi Bella. I’ll take care of you. He let me audition as a pittance. The fact that he wouldn’t allow me to accept my prize was just another game we’ve played since we were children. Vinny comes second to none. No one. Nothing. “I have...previous commitments.”

  My voice breaks—a weakness that wouldn’t go unpunished in Vinny’s presence. My stranger notices. Even worse, he notices and merely sighs. “That fucking sucks, Pyro Girl.”

  “Yes,” I hear myself croak. My hand trembles and the can still in my grip rattles. “It f-fucking does.”

  “Wow. Fun night.” The stranger whistles under his breath and then waves his hand toward the wall. “Looks like I’ve picked the best person to take on the devil. Here, give it your best shot.” He nods once at the mural, and I follow his gaze. Something inside me simpl
y can’t resist the allure. It’s surprisingly tempting to wield such power over someone else’s creation. The paint can drifts upward before I realize it, and my thumb strikes the nozzle.

  I jump when a jet of white paint speckles the wall amid a hungry hiss. The ‘Devil’ watches me with burning eyes as I aim in the general direction of his head. I’m too short to clear it completely, and the next stream of white hits the top of his carefully coiffed hair. For some reason, it’s easier to ignore the guilt this time. I keep spraying. Painting. Defacing.

  For exactly thirty-four seconds, Vinny’s men are in another universe. There’s only me and a skinny stranger and the Devil being doused in white paint. Despite everything, I take my time forming a single shape, though my ineptitude is obvious.

  Chuckling, my stranger points it out to me the moment my hand falls to my side. “Is that a halo? Or a...D?”

  My mouth quirks in an unusual shape. A smile? “Both,” I say.

  “Both.” He shrugs as if it makes perfect sense. “Well done, Pyro Girl. You’ve turned my villain into a superhero.”

  Something inside me twitches, stung. If only it were that easy. My grip tightens over the can of spray paint again. Would Vinny be as easy to shape? The stranger takes it from me before I can settle on an answer.

  “Thanks,” he says while returning the can to his bag. “You’ve solved that dilemma. But what exactly does the ‘D’ stand for? Devil?”

  I shake my head. “D for Dan...” My teeth clamp shut, cutting off the word, but I’m too late. The stranger notices my hesitation. Names are dangerous. Vinny alone has three for me, each one representing a different facet of the person he’s shaped me to be. Lynn is the good, obedient girl. Daniela is a nuisance. Mi Bella is the creature I never want to fully become. “Danny,” I blurt out suddenly. “D for Danny.”

  He nods, once again letting my insecurities go unchecked. It’s a small kindness that rubs at something deep inside of me. “Cute name, Danny. I’m Espi.”