Dark City

32.

Nathan left the doctor's office with prescriptions for Seroquel and Klonopin. The skin around his stump ached in the prosthesis. Every time he thought his skin irritation was getting better, the sores would come back with a vengeance. He wore thinner ply socks to adjust his wear of the prosthesis and he tried to spend less time wearing it.

When he climbed into the driver's seat of his car, he was tempted to remove the leg, but he decided he could bear the pain until he got home.

Thoughts and memories of Alex filled his head as he drove to pick up his meds. He remembered her letters in pink calligraphy marker. He remembered reading them over and over, as if he could prolong their communication this way.

I'm sorry you're feeling homesick. When will you be going back to your base? My brother goes to UC Berkeley, so maybe I can tell my parents I want to see the campus and convince him to drive me over to Camp Pendleton.

Here's another picture of me, to replace the one you lost.

With love, Alexandria

She signed Alexandria. It was just one of those details about her that made him smile. She was an old world romantic. He couldn't give up on her. Even if he couldn't trust her or trust himself with her, he could still protect her. The only way to do that was to kill every last monster, to find the master of shadows and vanquish him once and for all. It wasn't Jacob. He was only the master's guardian, the three-headed dog snarling at the gates of Hell.

After picking up his meds, Nathan stopped next door at the public library. He went upstairs to see the little Asian woman who held access to all the archived periodicals of Neptune Township. She looked up from her book and adjusted her round spectacles.

"Can I help you?"

"I hope so," he said. "If I wanted to research a particular person in Monmouth county, is there a way I could search a name in the periodicals?"

The woman shook her head. "It's not on a database like that. You would have to give me a specific date and then I could go find that newspaper for you."

"Oh..." Nathan sighed.

"Who is it you're researching?"

"I don't know much about him, just that he's a big guy in his late thirties with a scar on his eye. Liam he's called. I just wanted to see if someone matching his description had ever been arrested for anything in the past."

"A scar on his eye?" the woman asked, her face going blank. "How old are you?"

"I'm twenty-two."

"Ah, that explains it. You were just a little kid when he was making headlines. Back then he went by his legal name Sam Preston. He was accused of raping a fourteen-year-old student at St. Thomas Aquinas. Lost his job and all his credibility in Red Bank. He changed his name so people wouldn't crucify him down here."

"How do you know him?"

She sighed. "I hate to admit it, but I dated him briefly. I do background checks on everyone I date. Found out about the rape and broke it off. Made him buy me some manolos first, though. The guy's loaded."

Above nebulous neon mist, young girls coiled their bodies around steel poles, wheeling themselves upside down, blowing kisses and removing their stringy tops. A mixture of bad music and worse beer made this the seediest strip club Nathan had ever seen. He smoked a cigarette in the corner, wearing a cloud that swirled in front of his eyes. His photo of the rape victim was cut from a yearbook from eight years ago. It was nearly impossible trying to figure out which stripper she was. They all wore too much makeup.

Then a girl went up wearing a Catholic Schoolgirl uniform. It was no cheap costume like the other girls, but an actual uniform like the one Alexandria used to wear. The similarity made Nathan feel ashamed to watch, but this was the girl. She crouched low, her spine aligned against the pole, and did a peek-a-book with her knees. She had a lovely body, but something about strippers always made Nathan feel depressed. He could see the sadness in their eyes and it made him wonder what they were thinking about. A boyfriend she'd rather be with? Her next fix?

He waited for her to prowl the club's tables, asking for private dances. Soon, the waifish brunette wandered right up to him to pose the question.

"No," he said. "But would you join me for a cigarette?"

She nodded and took a seat in his booth.

"You're Caroline right?"

"Starla," she corrected. Nathan lit her cigarette.

"So you wouldn't know a guy name Sam Preston."

She bristled. "How do you know that name?"

Nathan took a sip of his jack and coke. He knew he was asking a lot of her. Poor thing had to confide in a complete stranger. The best approach, he thought, was complete transparency. "I know he hurt you, and he got away with it. And I think that's messed up."

She lowered her eyes like she was considering calling the guards on him. Nathan imagined the possibility, but he remained steadfast.

"Can you tell me what happened when you were in high school?"

"Sorry. Who are you?" she asked.

"Nathan."

"All right, Nathan. How did you find me?"

"I researched your case against Sam where you accused him of statutory rape."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because you managed to get him fired from the school. You know how to fight this guy."

"Fired?" she scoffed. "They let him resign. You really want to hear my story? I was fourteen and on scholarship money at a corrupt piece of shit high school for rich brats. Mr. Preston convinced me he was in love with me, got me into heroin, isolated me from my friends, and then one day out of nowhere, he found someone new, and I was nothing more than another customer. I was depressed and I needed desperately to talk to somebody about it, have somebody understand. My guidance counselor told me that I was making serious accusations against a member of faculty, that if I was making it up, it would ruin an innocent man's career. So I told her to forget everything. I tried to go about my life like everything was normal, but it wasn't. I was different. I was drinking and sleeping around to feel better. I ended up totaling my car and almost dying, and that was when I finally told my parents about Mr. Preston. We pressed charges to the full extent of the law, but by this time I was eighteen. And I couldn't prove shit. Everyone at my school testified that I was a promiscuous junkie and that I had a personal vendetta against Mr. Preston for not reciprocating my 'silly crush.' The school's headmaster even got up there and testified that I came from a broken home. So I lost. That really fucking hurt. The only people who ever believed me were my parents."

"And the guidance counselor," Nathan said.

Caroline shook her head. "No. She testified against me, told everyone how I recanted my original story."

"And she still regrets it. She's the one who helped me find you. I went to your school, asked about your case. Ended up in her office."

Caroline huffed like she didn't care. She took a second cigarette from Nathan's pack and lit it with her last one.

"So you lost because you didn't have enough evidence?" he asked.

"Yeah, but in the end, everybody knew deep down he was a creep. After he resigned, he moved."

"What happened to you after the case?"

"I dropped out," she said, smirking into her cigarette pull. "I guess I let him win."

Nathan shrugged, polishing off his drink and flipping the plastic cup on its head. "At least you fought."

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Music: Muse "Exogenesis Symphony"