S.E. Brunson's Writing Website

 

Part 1: Bach

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Chapter 1 – March 12th, Saturday, 3am. 28th Precinct Police Station. Harlem, New York City, NY.

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If you knew that I am currently sitting beneath a single bare light bulb in a police station you might think nothing of it. If you knew that I am a seventeen-year-old, 5'3”, skinny blond girl you might not really care. But see... it's the whole werewolf thing that usually gets people interested. 

 

Okay, so, let's start again. Actually no. Let's tune in right now on what's going on, because I hear footsteps outside the interrogation room.

 

The door opens and in walk my good buddies, officer Spears and his life partner the large bastard who started breathing heavier when he was strapping me to the metal chair. From here on I will refer to him as Large Bastard. I glare at them with my mismatched eyes, though only one of them really works at all. That would be the amber one on the left. The blue one on the right only really sees light and dark.

 

“You were so chatty the last time we met” Officer Spears coos, clasping his slender hands together. They're the kind of hands that never get enough circulation and so feel ice cold whenever they touch anything. Like my face or arm. I really hate getting touched by that guy, and so I respond by just pressing my lips together like they've suddenly been sealed with glue. The man pouts and closes the door behind him, a big heavy metal door that clangs shut and makes me jerk in my chair. My hearing is very good and loud noises are painful.

 

Large Bastard takes up the slack and wanders over, all six and a half feet and 300 pounds of him. I glance to the two-way glass, wondering if anyone's watching this. But as the man's sausage-like fingers grip at my sweaty hair I decide that whoever's watching isn't going to help me. My head snaps back and my eyes roll down to keep looking at Officer Spears as he approaches. If my wrists and ankles weren't tied to the chair things would be way different, you better believe it.

 

“Does your mother know that you go out in that attire?”

 

I frown at him in genuine puzzlement. What's wrong with my 'attire'? They're my clothes: my black work boots, my scuffed up black cargo pants, my black sports bra and my cool-as-fuck black and red plaid shirt. Just because my pants ride a bit low and my stylish underwear's straps ride a bit high on the hips is no reason to go and bash my fashion sense. Especially since I don't have a mother that I know of.

 

“Fuck you, Candy Man.” Ah, my first words since you've all checked in, and all of them hissed out in my frustratingly girlish voice. Officer Spears, it might be noted, moonlights as a creeper around movie theaters and the YMCA, telling poor tweens that he'll give them candy and cash in return for favors. Yeah, exactly, those kinds of favors. He's a monster and all the kids in the shitty parts of town have had a run in with him, or have heard about it from a friend. Luckily I've only heard about it, unless you count this as a run in. How fucked up would that be?

 

For that little remark I get struck in the face, and then my chin and cheeks are gripped tight in his ice-cold hands. “Listen here you little bitch. I've got you dead to rights on prostitution. I could send you away for a long time, and when you get out your life will be a hell of probation, halfway houses, and me watching over you for as long as I want. You want me in your life little girl?” His eyes rake over my tired and dirty body and he scoffs “I mean, you're a bit old...”

 

My reply is that I start screaming in his face. Loud. Fucking loud. Screeching banshee mother fucking oh-shit-she's-dying loud. Loud enough to be heard in other rooms, by people who might actually care and cops that aren't obviously crooked, like these two. Clearly there are some in this station, given that I can now hear the sound of running standard-issue boots comes quickly to my door. I narrow my eyes in triumph as I continue to scream in Officer Spear's face. Other police men come in and I turn to them with tears in my eyes (I'm so good) and shiver. The red welt from his hand is still on my face as I stammer “Please! He's hurting me! Please help me!” And I scream again because now the door is open. Now my outrageous volume fills the entire police station providing me with a shit load of witnesses.

 

Officer Spears scowls as he and Large Bastard back away, caught out for roughing up a detainee. The other officers unstrap me from the chair and take me out of there. I mean, I'm still under arrest but now I get to actually go to the bathroom, clean up, and make a phone call. You know, like a person who has rights. After emptying my nervous bladder and splashing water on my face, I accept the quarter from the guard and slip it into the pay phone in the hallway.

 

Come on, man. Pick up your fucking phone. Swear to god if you're passed out in a pile of- “Hey, Jaxson! How's my favorite diabetic! Good old Jaxson, my very best of...”

 

“You're in trouble.” His voice is gravely. He's probably just gotten up. Given that it's round about 3 am that would be the most logical answer.

 

“Well... yes. Kind of. I'm in jail.” I lean back against the wall and twiddle my finger in the curly cord.

 

“What else is new? I'm hanging up now.”

 

“No no no no no Jaxson! Don't hang up, look...” I turn to lean my shoulder against the wall and whisper into the phone “...they're looking for Alpha. I was just about to get the screws put to me and...”

 

“The screws? What the fuck...”

 

“Oh for shit's sake, don't you read books?” I take a moment to calm myself, realizing that this is my one phone call and the one friend who will come (maybe) to bail me out. “Jaxson, I was seriously about to get hurt by these two cops that have the scent of Amodeus all over them.”

 

I can hear his bed squeak as he sits up suddenly, his hissed voice asking after a moment “Are you sure? That's some serious shit to just make up...”

 

“I'm not fucking making it up! Look, get me out of here. Go to the main desk and say you're here for me.”

 

“How much is your bail?”

 

“Uh... well, they're holding me on charges of prostitution.”

 

“Were you actually...”

 

“Jaxson! No. I mean, I totally made out with this guy...” I grin stupidly. Hey, what? I'm only 17, what do you want? I'm like... hormones with a cute haircut. “...and then the cops shined their spotlight on us. The kid ran and just left me there.”

 

“Right. Hold up, I'll come get you. Which one are you at?”

 

“Thanks Jaxson. I'm at the station on the corner of West 123rd street and Eighth ave. You're the best.”

 

“Uh huh. Wait, you're in Harlem? How'd you get to Harlem?!” I open my mouth to offer several running theories before he just groans. “Never mind. I'll be there.”

 

I hang up the phone and allow myself to be led to the holding cells with a few other strung out kids and dirty old men and an actual hooker. I just keep to myself on one of the benches and think. And I sit like that and keep on thinking so that I don't actually make eye contact with anyone else, if only to avoid conversation. I still smell like the club I was at, my clothing saturated with the scents of booze, clove cigarettes, sweat, cologne, and perfume. Some guy passes out loudly in the corner and I'm just about to look when a guard walks up to the bars.

 

“Bach. Step up to the bars.”

 

I grin and get to my feet, wiping down any dust from my clothes as I approach the guards. “Yeah, that's me. I'm Bach.” Yes, my name is Bach. What? “How's it going?”

 

The guy seems unimpressed but I keep smiling at him, unleashing my powers of looking adorable and  heinously underage. It's the sort of look that might make him wonder how moral it is to leave someone who may well be in middle school locked up with these creeps. It seems to work, given that he unlocks the door almost immediately and lets me out. “Your ride's here.”

 

“Oh great!” Stay chipper! Look naive. It's gotten me out of more scrapes than I can count. I'm led out to the lobby where Jaxson is standing, nearly drowning in his black duster jacket that's far too big for him. And Jaxson's already kind of a big guy. I make a point to wave shyly at him and behave like a girl looking like me is expected to behave. I wait as I'm bailed out, collect my things, and follow him outside to the parking lot where we pile into his clapped out beige Honda Civic from yesteryear.

 

We don't speak as he keys the ignition and pulls the car out and onto the road. It's a ghost town at this hour and extremely unnerving to drive through. I mean I'm technically a monster too but there's still a load of shit that I'm afraid of out there. And two of them were in that interrogation room with me just now.

 

“Fuck...” I breathe out, slouching back in my bucket seat. I hug my backpack to my gut and watch the series of light poles pass over head in a hypnotic series as we drive through shittier and shittier parts of town until, at last, we get to Jaxson's apartment squarely situated in the projects behind Coney Island.

 

The number 314 dangles from a loose screw in the door as he opens it and issues me inside. The first thing I see is a huge black wolf stretched out on the couch, its massive head propped up on one of the cushy arm-rests as it watches reruns. “Hey, Louise” I say, lifting a hand in a lazy wave. The wolf on the couch thumps her tail twice and huffs in my direction before she settles back down to her shows. That's Jaxson's roommate – really, she's a sweetheart. Evidenced by the fact that she made us coffee. Well, when she bothered to have hands and fingers and things.

 

I fix myself a cup and feel suitably guilty about dumping a load of sugar into it (only when Jaxson's not looking – diabetic, remember?) before wandering over into his room. As always I automatically open up a window for some fresh air. Look, the dude's a nice guy but his habitat just reeks. I dump my backpack onto the floor and take a seat on the wide windowsill, looking across the room into the glinting beady eyes of his hamster Carl. Carl is just a hamster, but I still hate that little fucking thing. He gives me the stink eye all the time.

 

As Carl and I stare each other down, Jaxson wakes up his laptop and does a bit of searching. He's really bent on it, focusing so much that he forgot to take off his coat or even turn on the light. I sip at my coffee and glance around his room for perhaps the thousandth time – a 14 foot by 14 foot open space with yellowing paper on the walls and a full bed shoved into the corner. A few pictures of family are hung up on the wall, and on his side table there's a little lamp and his insulin bottle. I know for a fact that the needles are locked in the side table drawer. It's not because Louise is a junkie... for real, she could just smash the whole fucking thing open if she wanted. No, living as a diabetic in the bad part of town means that needles tend to go missing if you aren't careful. A small desk is where he's sitting at now, the stained surface covered in bits and pieces of other computers that he scavenges from the local university. Carl's cage is on the dresser that's missing a drawer.

 

The click of nails on the floor and the shine of reflective eyes heralds Louise's arrival. With her maw filled with a change of clothing she lazily snuffles my hand before she hops up onto the bed and just stretches out on it, dropping the bundle on her paws and nosing through it. She, too, gives Carl a dirty look, her ears sliding back as she bares her teeth until the fat little twerp crawls back into his plastic house. Louise then changes out of her “forest-attire” and back into her speech-capable “street-attire” – a fairly pretty black woman with light brown eyes and straight black hair. Wearing nothing, of course. If you hang around werewolves enough you get used to it. That's what the clothes are for, and soon enough she's tugged on a pair of Sponge Bob pajama bottoms and a white tee-shirt. To be fair, there are quite a few werewolves that mill around the city streets on four paws, but the lingo we use is a bit easier on the ears than “Canid Form” or “Humanoid Form”. That's just way too science-fictiony.

 

“Jaxson, Bach, you guys want to fill me in on the occasion for this late visit?” I get a look from the bed area, her eyes still wolfishly reflective, and I look down at my coffee cup.

 

“I got arrested.”

 

She sighs. “Bach...”

 

“I wasn't doing anything wrong!” My god, could my voice whine any harder? I don't quite meet Louise's gaze with my own. When she's mad at me it's best not to. She waits me out and I crack under the pressure, rubbing the top of one boot with the sole of the other. “I was at a club and I got picked up outside for hooking.”

 

Louise laughs in her deep, coarse way. I sulk and sip at my coffee. “You? A hooker? Please. Like anyone would want your skinny ass.”

 

“She smelled Amodeus on two of the cops. They were about to rough her up as they were asking about Alpha.” Jaxson, always my knight in dirty armor.

 

Louise's expression changes slowly from mirth to displeasure. “This does not make my night, Jaxson.” The icicles in her tone give me the shivers.

 

“Wasn't meant to.”

 

“Bach? Let's have it.”

 

And so I tell her.