Escaping Death

Tate

“Thought you were dead,” a mountain of a bouncer with the nameRalphembroidered on his shirt stares down at Solana expectantly from his stool in front of the club doors.

“The hell you did. You going to let me in or what?” She jabs a pointed finger at the center of his chest which is eye level with her.

“You?” He considers her for a moment with a discerning glare before his tough-guy bouncer facade fades with an affectionate smile. “Always. Want me to get rid of your shadow?” Ralph nods towards me crossing his arms over his expansive chest like any of his posturing could intimidate me.

Solana turns to look at me and with a wicked glint in my eye Idareher to tell him to get rid of me. We both know I’m not going anywhere, but I see her weighing how entertaining it would be for her to watch me take down Wreck-it-Ralph the 6’9, 350-pound bouncer.

“Nah, not this one.” She says with a sly grin letting Ralph off the hook and just like that he ushers us past him and through the main doors.

It’s Friday night and the club is packed to the brim with party-goers looking to get drunk, get lucky, or both. Solana breezes through the throngs of people like she owns the place, which in a way she does. Not just because her parents own the club, but because she has a vested interest in the club and its employees.

She carries herself with an ease here that she doesn’t back at the pack house, and no one questions her when she hops the bar and gets right to work clearing glasses and pouring new shots. I take a seat on a stool in the center of the bar that way no matter where she is behind the bar I’m never more than 20 or so feet away from her.

“Good to see you, Shae,” one of the male bartenders smiles at her a little too broadly for my liking. “We’ve missed you.”

“Yeah it looks like it, the bar is a mess.” She responds kindly whilst strategically making it clear that she’s here to work, not flirt with the staff.

One by one the bartenders rotate around to say hi and welcome her back. Some are more flirtatious than others, but she dismisses them all the same.

“What’s your poison?” She finally asks me after cleaning and organizing everything to her liking.

“My tastes are probably more singular than what you stock here.”

“Try me.” Of course she doesn’t back down.

“Blackstrap.” It’s vague enough to test her because either she’ll know exactly what I’m talking about or she’ll mistake it for a cocktail or brand.

She rolls her lips and taps her pointer finger to them, studying me with keen interest. Then she gets to work. I watch as she grabs a bottle off the shelf behind the bar, no search needed – she knew exactly what she wanted and where to find it. Ice clatters into a tall, cylindrical glass followed by liquid from two different bottles.

She stirs the drink with a long, thin spoon and pops a lime on the rim of the glass before placing it neatly in front of me looking every ounce as proud of herself.

“An iced tea?” I question her.

Her lips purse and she cocks her head to the side unamused. “Dark and Stormy,” she pushes the drink closer to me as if I needed the encouragement. “Just like you,” she rolls her lips in a weak attempt to bite back her laughter.

“Laughing at the guy who smuggled you out of lockdown, are we?”

The eye roll she gives me makes my heart stutter, I hardly get to see playful, carefree Solana. Usually it’s been angry, brooding Solana, or sarcastic, hurting Solana.

“It looks more dark than stormy,” I playfully criticize her drink choice, but really it’s impressive. She knows her rums, and her drinks.

“As I said…just like you.” She wipes down her countertop and moves aside to serve other customers.

The drink is irritatingly excellent. I typically drink my rum neat, but with the ginger and lime added it’s effervescent. Just like her.

If I’m the dark, then she’s the storm. Blowing through the pack house like a tornado. Stirring up feelings that have no business coming back into the light.

She’s a force to be reckoned with.

At the end of the bar I catch sight of her leaning in close over the counter to a gentleman who is clearly not here to party. He sips his water, gripping the short, stubby glass with two hands while he waits for Sol to make his order.

His mouth is set in a grim line when Sol comes back to him with a martini glass filled with liquid that looks more like ink than anything potable. But what’s truly intriguing is that it’s flaming, blanketed by a muted, purple flame.

He signs what I assume is his receipt but that’s the only thing exchanged between them. No cash, no card, nothing but a drink to him and a receipt to her. Even more curious, she brings that receipt over tothatcomputer. The one on the far end of the bar out of the way of the natural workflow, the one you have to intentionally walk over to, the one with nothing but names stored in its system.

“Excuse me,” I flag down one of Sol’s coworkers with a wave and she bounces over to me with a smile that’s too eager.

“What can I get you?”

I point down to the end of the bar where the gentleman Solana served is staring at the flaming cocktail as if it personally wronged him. “I’d like to try one of those.”

“Oh, uhm, of course.” She drums her fingers on the counter looking up and down the bar for someone. She gives me a tight, toothless smile this time before flagging down one of her coworkers. After some hair flipping and hand gesturing, the guy she roped into helping her approaches me.

“You understand the cost?” He asks me from behind stern eyes.

Truthfully I don’t understand any of this, but I suspect everyone here knows about the connection to Nightshade and I’m determined to find out one way or another. “I understand.”

The bartender fills a martini glass full of water and sets it before me. He crouches down disappearing from view before popping back up and plunking a shiny, black ball into my glass. At first I mistake it for a marble, but when it opens and begins spilling its purple-black juice into the water I realize that it’s not a marble – it’s a berry.

Soon, the entire glass is nearly pitch black but it lacks the purple flames the other glass had. The bartender begins to run his finger around the rim of the glass and that’s when I feel it – her heated gaze like a laser on my skin. I chance a sideways glance at her but her eyes harpoon me from the end of the bar and I know I’m busted.

Like a cheetah prowling through the grasslands of Sub-Saharan Africa, Solana cautiously stalks her way back over to me.

She taps the guy serving me on the shoulder, “I’ll take it from here.” Then we both wait for several seconds that seem to span centuries for him to leave us alone.

“You have no business ordering this drink, Tate.” She says as soon as the guy is out of earshot.

“On the contrary, it very muchismy business. You know it is.”

“What are you hoping will happen?” She crosses her arms over her chest, making it painfully difficult to look anywhere except her perfect breasts.

“I’m hoping I’ll be closer to the truth, closer to closing out this contract. Closer tofreedom.”

We’re shielded in our own bubble against the chaos of the club around us as she studies me thoughtfully. “You understand the cost? Because these things can not be undone.”

I reaffirm what I already told the other bartender who asked, “I understand.”

Sol lifts the glass to her lips but rather than taking a sip like I first thought she was going to, she blows on it like one would to cool down a hot beverage. In doing so, purple flames billow across the inky surface of the drink and then she places the glass back down on the bar.

With what looks like an ordinary pen, she dips the tip into the flaming liquid then places the pen down atop a receipt requiring my signature.

“Name.”

I scrawl my target on the paper, fold it in half with a sharp crease, and hand it back to her. Either they’re protecting him, or they’re being controlled by him. Either way I know I’m one step closer to finding Nightshade.

“What do I owe you for the drink?” I ask her with sincere interest.

Sol passes the receipt to the guy who had been helping me earlier. He doesn’t need to ask what it’s for, he already knows, and he heads straight for that mysterious computer at the far end.

“There’s no charge for water,” she deadpans, clears the counter beside her, and hops the bar landing next to me.

I look back at the martini glass and sure enough it’s filled once more with nothing but crystal clear water. This woman is the most confounding person on the planet. Every time that I think I’ve solved one of her mysteries, five more pop up.

But I’m more than up for the challenge that is figuring out what makes Solana who she is, and why, like planets around the sun, Death is slowly being sucked into her orbit.