Maya

    I look at her. Hell, how could I not? She's gorgeous. About 5'7, blonde, dark brown eyes. And that smile. I don't want to just stare, I want to talk to her, ask her name. So I do.

***

    Her name is Maya. She's lived in the city all her life, like myself. She's into Eternity, the drug, which I appreciate; the last thing I need is a lecture concerning my habits, my choices, even if it was a beautiful woman giving said lecture. I buy her another drink. And another. She can hold her liquor better than most girls. Again, something I appreciate, they get irritating when they're drunk. She kisses me. She tastes like something I could get used to. I take her home.

***

    She really is something else. She never mentions the fact that this is probably a one night thing. I doubt she cares. But...she's pulled me in. I can't get enough of her. Maybe it's the drugs.

***

    It's not. I sleep well that night and wake up with her perfume still on my pillow but the woman herself gone. I sit up, I never asked her for her number. As I mentally kick myself, my phone rings. I answer and a smile crosses my lips.

    "My number's in your phone. I took yours. You're welcome."

    Click.

    I laugh to myself, who is this girl?

***

    She is nothing like I've ever seen. I find myself hanging out with her the next day. And the next. And the next. I don't go to the clubs alone, anymore.  Days, weeks, months. Three months, actually. She stays at my apartment long enough for me to understand she's not going to bother leaving.  Her place is shit, anyway, and she laughs when my landlady gets angry and sets her half blind rat dog on us.  I say my building is a health hazard. She says it has character.

***

        Four months. Benny comes to me, asks me about her. I tell him- she likes music that makes her feel like she owns the room, she can't stand anything grape flavoured but loves grapes, she is a natural blonde, and her uncle taught her how to hot wire cars when she was fourteen. Morgan laughs, says it sounds like I really got a thing for this girl. I laugh and say I can't explain it. Morgan says there's a name for that, but I stop her before she can say it. Her favourite smell is peppermint.


***

    "Let your love last forever" says some store window- it's an advertisement for jewelry. I roll my eyes. Rocks are rocks, they don't mean much in the grand scheme of things. Maya once told me she loves sapphires. I glance once more in the window.

***

    We walk into a club. It's not a part of the city I usually travel to, but she insists on introducing me to someone. I ask if we can get a drink first, but she says her friend doesn't have long. She drags me through the club. I ask how we're going to find the friend. She kisses me and tells me to shut up and trust her. I do. God, I do.

***

    We enter a backroom and next thing I know, I'm on the ground, blood trickling down my forehead. I call her name, looking around blindly in the dark.

    "Maya?"

    Maya, Maya.

    MayaMayaMaya.

    I stand up, making a face as a light gets turned on, illuminating the room.  I almost wish it didn't.

***

    Five men stand around me, Maya in the middle. I don't ask why. I don't ask how. I don't break down. I straighten myself up.  She's traded me to the enemy.  The small box in my pocket weighs more than I do.

***

    They pay her in Eternity. She coos some apology, then laughs. Two men speak quietly, one raises a gun. I don't have time to take a breath before her blood splatters on my cheek and her body falls to the ground.

***
    
    Nothing happens in slow motion.  Anyone who tells you that is a liar trying to make a story that will move the listener to tears and all that bullshit. Besides, what happens is rarely important, it's the results that matter. Everything is fast, everything is cold. You can blink and five people will be killed. You won't even know it.

***

    The next time I take a breath, all the men are dead, my gun still smoking. I step over her body and walk back to my car, just in time to hear the commotion because this just in, tonight's big headline, five bodies are found in a local nightclub. I never liked the news.

***

    I take a shower and make dinner. I stick with one of those frozen meals, nothing fancy. I shoot up once, twice, three times, until I can't feel a thing.

***

    I can't feel a thing. I can't feel a thing. I can't feel a thing. I can't feel a thing. I can't feel a thing. I can't feel a thing. I can't feel a thing. I can't feel a thing. I can't feel a thing. I can't feel a thing.

***

    Alone in an apartment that smells like last night's mistake, a ghost of a name escapes some junkie's lips.

    "Maya."