#psst psst

The ghost of pain flares. Unwittingly, your fingers slip inside your jacket sleeve to caress a dark blossom of purple and blue over your wrist. Your skin seems so delicate though it’s not yet broken as it holds back the damage. 

You just have to get home. Taking a corner, the street seems to fall dead before your eyes. What would usually be bustling is not hush with the shadows thickly draping the sidewalk and the slick road. Fire burns in street lamps, solitary beacons in the infant night, as doors are shut and windows drawn close, and you wonder what happened to the businesses in this area. 

The walk home hadn’t seemed so lonely before. There is another you can blame on such a thing but you bite back any accusations and duck your head to stride quickly to your apartment. Maybe you could actually catch some shut-eye and not disappoint your boss tomorrow.

There’s always something to report, something going down, someone murdered and someone found washed up in the river. Corruption thrives in the festering wounds of the city, and you bear witness. 

There has to be something someone can do. On top of your private life struggles, a helplessness sinks down and drags you into the muck of the city. 

The last rays of the dying red sunlight disappear into a deep blue twilight, and you think about lying down on your bed only to twist and turn, fruitlessly chasing some hours of snoozing. Yellow lights guide your way home, and you stare into dark buildings with indifferent streets falling behind you.

Your pulse thrums in your ears. Evening your breath, you force your stride to not show any fear. The wrong person might not like your scent, might see someone without an escort and without any means of protection, and want to try their luck.

You don’t need any more bruises tonight.

At the end of the street, a vehicle rumbles into sight. Turning into view, great big headlights cut through the night and blind you momentarily. Forced to avert your gaze, you catch the deep growl of the engine as it creeps down the street. Your vision settles with two blots of afterimages seared into them, but you catch the dark make and model of the vehicle. It’s black as a hearse and sleek as polished onyx. 

Your heart immediately leaps into your throat. You turn away, immediately walking in the other direction. Squaring your shoulders and holding your head high, you try to not run—it might push them into a chase, like a predator unwilling to allow its prey to escape.

A dozen answers race through your mind: a hit and run, an ordered target, a problem that needs to be solved with lead and gasoline. It was always a possibility in your line of work—and you’ve rocked the boat on plenty of circles within the city from the counselors’ office all the way down to the low life gangsters that seek to keep polluting the people.

Your lungs constrict and deflate. Swallowing back a whimper, you continue striding purposefully down the sidewalk as if the black vehicle isn’t crawling behind you, lights fully placed onto your figure. Your shadow is startled and jumpy, twitching arms unable to decide to prepare for a fight or to run all the way to someone who might bear witness to the crime about to occur. 

You curse quietly in the echoes of your mind. You don’t want to die like this. You don't want to die. 

Behind you, a sudden stutter in the engine sounds as it jerks to a stop. 

Your heart explodes in your chest, adrenaline fueled into the recesses of your limbs, and you take off like an alley cat escaping the jaws of a mutt.

Doors open and footsteps pound behind you. Only a precious few strides closes the distance, and hands seize you, wrapping around your waist and snatching your legs before the familiar scent of bourbon and cigarette smoke reaches your senses.

That does not quell your furious struggle, attempting to kick your legs and claw at your abductors, but they haul you back to the vehicle and stuff you inside as if you were a mere lamb.

Before you can blink, doors slam shut, the vehicle lurches forward, and you’re caught in the darkness behind tinted glass. Fabric rustles before you’re pulled neatly onto the mob boss’s lab.

“Sun,” you utter, your throat thick with panic. Across the plush seats and dingy trails of cigarette smoke, sits his brother. You meet his gaze briefly before lowering it. “Moon.”

“Turtle dove,” a cheerful coo slips into your ear. The solar theme animatronic, crowned with bright yellow rays and a notorious infamy for his underworld business practice, tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. His arms trap you firmly against his chest. “The attempt to fly away from us was precious, but you wouldn’t have to lose your breath if you simply stayed where you were.”

You offer a noncommittal hum, unable to argue but unwilling to concede. 

Across the seat, Moon sits in the darkness, his pale eyes glowing red with a simper. He fixes his fedora with two fingers pinching the brim.

“If you wanted us to chase you, say the word,” his growl is low and saccharine, causing your pulse to jump, “I would have enjoyed giving you a better chance.”

“What chance would that be?” you ask warily. Sun’s hand slips down your cheek with warm, slender digits leaving goosebumps in his wake. 

“Next to nothing,” Moon chuckles, “but it would have had more sport in it.”

“For you,” you murmur, unable to meet his eyes as Sun leans closely behind you. His hand softly wraps around the column of your throat, just under your chin.

“For me,” Moon grins wickedly. Then brusquely, he says, “Sunny, leave enough to share.”

“I’m not overindulging,” Sun’s voice, bouncing and dark, warms your ears until they turn red, “Not yet, anyways.”

His thumb strokes your pulse. Held still in his grasp, you fight the urge to gulp as Sun hums thoughtfully.

“Dollface, we’ve been so worried! We thought you might have forgotten about us!”

“I couldn’t if I wanted to,” you answer meekly. You glance down to his sharp suit. His half-lidded gaze peers around you, his eyes pale and haunting. 

You try to squirm free, to find some space where you’re not overwhelmed by the rich scent of his clothes and the metallic tang that almost hangs like blood in the air, but Sun leaves no room for escape. His arm cinches tightly over your waist. His faceplate is smooth and sleek, and his malleable mouth presses a kiss to the back of your neck, just above your jacket collar. You flinch slightly from the pressure on the sore and sensitive bruise circling your neck like a choker before flailing to cover it up.

“Where are you taking me?” you squeak in fright. Frantically, you up turn the collar of your jacket to conceal the bruises once more.

Sun becomes frozen, and you shift frantically in his lap. You almost turn to see his expression but dread what you will find. His hand falls away from your neck but they hover close to your arms, as if he wishes to grab you and whisk you away somewhere. 

“A little tour of the city,” Moon answers, and seizing his opportunity, reaches across the space and plucks you from Sun’s arms. 

The mob boss slides you onto his lap. The city lights flash past, dulled by the windows, and the night hangs heavier still outside. Your heart thunders within you. Silver and dark hands slip down your sides, rubbing you gently as if to soothe the anxiety boiling over within you. His touch slides down your legs, carefully caressing until you shiver. 

Sun sits strangely silent, as taut as the trigger of a gun. His expression catches on flashes of streetlamps, unreadable, but his eyes are wide and piercing the darkness. 

Moon at last cups your chin and turns it towards him. Attention ripped away from his brother, you struggle to not whimper under his daunting expression. His red glow dusts your cheeks. A frown forms on his face plate. He lifts a thumb and draws it in a half moon underneath your eye.

“When’s the last time you had a good night’s rest?” he murmurs. Your eyelids flutter, wondering how terrible you must look. 

You cage your tongue within your mouth, “Last night.”

His optics narrow into thin slits of red. “Naughty thing. Perhaps I should take you back with us. You would have a proper bed, and peace, and Sun and I to help you drift into dreams. Doesn’t that sound like heaven, my dear?”

You stiffen, and quickly try to deny your sleepless night, but pushing back against Moon only results in your wrist being captured.

Pain pulses, sucking in sharply through your teeth. Moon immediately becomes alert. He releases your chin to rip your jacket sleeve back and expose the dark circle wrapping your wrist like a bracelet. In response, you pull it back down.

“Take me home,” you utter.  

“What happened?” Moon growls. He lifts his head, refusing to release your arm though he grips it gingerly. “Who did this?”

“It was only me,” you answer, but you avert your gaze. “I fell down a step and hit it on the railing.”

“An accident,” Moon rasps, much lower. You fear he doesn’t believe you.

“Yes.” You unwittingly meet Sun’s gaze, and his hands have curled into iron-like fists. He still says nothing. The weight of his expression burns through you.

“Please,” you look at neither of them but plead with both, “Take me home.”

You catch the briefest glance shared between the brothers, silent and stormy. Moon shifts you back to the seat where Sun resides, and settles you between them. The quiet stretches as Sun gives a signal with his hand, and the driver turns a corner on the street. Instead of diving downtown, the vehicle returns to the higher streets where you were abducted. 

Sun’s hands caress your hair softly, twisting the strands between his fingers. A shiver rises up and over your scalp at the sweetness of his playfulness. The burn of his gaze resides on the back of your neck. Likewise, Moon’s touch does not leave your hand. His other strokes your knuckles and slips between your fingers until you shudder from the sensitive traces. 

Your street comes back into view, lonely and quiet and dark. The car parks quietly before your apartment building. A concern of them knowing where you leave is filed away for another time.

For several moments, neither mob bosses move, and you are trapped between them.

Sun grins but there is little joy in it, “We’ll see you again soon, turtle dove.”

“Very soon,” Moon echoes, his eyes darker, almost bordering on black before he at last opens the door for you.

You step out, freed. The black car peels away, leaving a scent of burnt rubber. You stand and stare at the vehicle turning away in the distance.

They shouldn’t have looked too close. Now you sit with a fear that they will go digger where they shouldn’t. It shouldn't matter at all to them.

You rub your wrist before touching the back of your neck.