‘No one else is going to want you.’

I wince, and lurch for Kieran, hugging him around the waist. He stops dancing.

“Isis?” He shouts. “Are you okay?”

“I’m…I’m…I’m not okay,” I laugh. “I’m not. I’m just not.”

“Hey, whoa, okay. Let’s get you some air.”

I hang on to Kieran’s arm as he guides me through the crowd and out to the front of the club. I shoot a look at the bouncer as we pass.

“I’m not thirty-three,” I blurt.

“I know,” he rolls his eyes.

Kieran eases me onto the steps. I shiver when my eyes catch on the lit-tip cigarette ends of a smoking circle of people. Kieran sees it and moves us away from the circle, further down the curb. I gasp for air, choking on nothing and everything at the same time. Kieran waits patiently, staring at the star-studded sky. When the pressure is a little less and the world isn’t so bright, I form words.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “You should go…back in and have fun. This is not fun. This is me dying.”

“You’re not dying,” He laughs.

“Yeah I am. A little faster than most people.”

Kieran’s face is blank, but Sophia’s words ring in my head, a welcome relief from Nameless. Where his sound is the bark of a mad dog tearing my throat out, she’s all crystal bells and raindrops.

No wonder Jack loved her.

No wonder Jack broke when he lost her.

No wonder he doesn’t want anyone else ever again. No one else can compare.

I laugh, but the laugh turns into something weird and I start biting my arm to make it stop. Kieran pulls my arm away from my mouth, and I see the ring of darker red on my shirt sleeve but only faintly.

“You’re really freaking me out, Isis.” He says softly.

“I freak a lot of people out. I’m freaky. Halloweentown loves me. But nobody else does. Except my Mom. My mom’s great and I left her behind and I’m selfish.”

Kieran is silent. I feel the darkness start ebbing away, the streetlights bright and swollen like giant amber fireflies.

“There’s a guy,” I say, and laugh. “But that’s the story with every girl, isn’t it? There’s always a guy. Some guy. Some guy who hasn’t done something. And I like him.”

“If you like him, just go up and kiss him,” Kieran says.

“You do not know how things work very well, do you.”

Kieran laughs, and I clutch my head and lean on his shoulder. The night is too dark and he is too warm and I need someone, something solid beneath me. Someone to keep me from disappearing into the shadow-half of my life. Or maybe it’s too late. Maybe I’ve already disappeared, and the darkness will be here always with only brief flashes of light, instead of the other way around.

“Do you like me?” I ask Kieran. It’s forward but I’m nothing if not forward and stupid.

Kieran coughs. “Well…uh…”

“It’s a yes or no question.”

“Yeah,” He says. “I do.”

‘No one else is going to want you.’

“Do you want me?” I press my chest into his shoulder like I saw Hemorrhoid do to Jack. Kieran clears his throat.

“Yeah. I mean, ever since we made out, I –”

I lean up and kiss him, and he kisses back with a soft, fierce edge to it. It’s not Jack. It’s never Jack, but it will never be Jack again, and I don’t want to cry so I kiss harder, and longer, and Kieran’s hand slithers up my shirt and I let it –

“You!”

I look up to see Charlie Moriyama pointing accusingly at me. And behind him is the one person I really didn’t need to see tonight, or ever again.

***

“How do you listen to this crap?” Charlie snarls, turning my opera music off.

“I take it you aren’t a fan of fat Italian men singing their hearts out over a woman?”

Charlie runs a hand through his spiked hair, re-arranging it. “If I wanted to listen to ass**les complain about bitches, I’d listen to Biggie Smalls. Or Nas.”

“Ah, yes, because referring to women as ‘bitches’ will get you very far with them in life,” I say, and take a left turn at the stoplight.

“I don’t care about bitches, okay? They’re all whiny, and they want your money and they want you to dress nice and pick them up ice cream and fat rings and I’m done with it. Just gonna focus on hustling for my mansion, and then I’ll buy me some bitches.”

“You won’t buy bitches, or a mansion. You’ll buy a house for your grandmother.”

Charlie shoots me a sharp look, going red on the edges. “What kind of stupid shit is coming out of your mouth now? I swear you get dumber every day.”

I park in front of a seedy club called The Back Door. I can hardly bring myself to lash out at him with my usual ice. He’s so pathetic, so soft on the inside and trying so hard on the outside.

He reminds me of someone.

“Well,” I muster. “Hopefully you’re getting smarter, because one of us has to be coherent enough to interrogate the club’s owner.”

Charlie just grumbles, pulling a pair of brass knuckles on under his sleeve. I set my phone to record at the push of a button, in order to get hard evidence on tape.

“The owner will be reluctant to talk,” I say. “His name is Terrance.”

“I don’t give a shit what his name is, let’s just beat the hell out of him.”

“No one beats anything,” I make my words steel, permafrost. “Terrance is a businessman. He’s easily persuaded in a number of logical ways I’d be more than happy to enlighten you with.”

Charlie groans. “I don’t care. Let’s just do this. You can chat his ass up all you want, but if we ain’t getting anywhere with that, I’m moving to plan B - Beatdown.”

“The threat of a beatdown is often more effective than a beatdown itself, when the target has never been beaten before. Someone soft and rich like Terrance will cave without a single punch.” I get out. He follows suit, a thoughtful look coming over his face.

“You might actually be right for once.” Charlie flashes his ID, and I do the same. The bouncer waves us through. “How’re you and Brittany doing, by the way?”

“Fine,” I respond automatically. “She’s very insistent.”

I don’t tell him she is a thing, a means to an end. A puppet stand-in I mentally paste over with forbidden memories of a girl I gave up for good.

“Is that what you call it?” Charlie barks a laugh, and we weave through the edges of the club crowd. “She’s banging down our door 24/7. She can barely hold herself back from jumping on your icicle dick before I’m out of the room.”

I shrug. Charlie studies me carefully.

“What was it you said you did before Gregory found you?” He asks. “Because I’ve seen ladies men, and even the best ones ain’t got girls salivating over them in broad daylight. What makes you so special?”

“I know how to treat women,” I say. “Step one – don’t call them bitches.”

“Unless they’re into that.” Charlie attempts to correct.