Intaglio: The Snake and the Coins Page 6

  “Copying me, I see...” Ava chided, interrupting his thoughts.

  Cole glanced over at her, concerned, but she was smirking, so he put on a falsely cultured voice to answer.

  “Learning from a professional; the whole apprenticeship plan in action. You know that’s been going on for centuries… Professor Wilkins could tell you ALL about it.”

  Ava giggled, moving back into his personal space, when her face abruptly flickered. She glanced to the side, humour disappearing like a light flicked off.

  “Shit,” she hissed, face wary. Cole hadn’t heard or seen anything, but he could tell that she had.

  She grabbed the cans out of his hands.

  “Run!” she barked.

  Without questioning, Cole turned and headed back the way they’d come. Fear rocketed through him, making every minute stretch out. The distant fence seemed further away than he remembered it. It was completely dark in the hours before dawn, and he kept stumbling as he ran. Cole glanced over his shoulder. Not seeing Ava, he slowed slightly, then he remembered his promise to her. He pushed onward, his mind suddenly chattering away in panic.

  ‘C’mon Ava… come ON!… Hurry up, damnit!’

  His feet stumbled to a stop the second he heard sirens.

  With a horrified gasp, Cole turned, sprinting back the way he’d just come. He’d hardly gone fifty feet when he ran directly into Ava coming at a dead-run in the dark, deflecting from plowing into her at the last second.

  “I said fucking RUN!” she roared.

  Without a word, he spun and followed her, the sounds of dogs baying now mixing with the sirens. Cole’s heart thudded painfully in his chest. His lungs were on fire. He pushed forward, the fight/flight instinct surging, giving him wings. They reached the fence just as he started hearing shouts. It was clear that the police didn’t know which direction they’d gone… but they had dogs. They were looking for the two of them.

  Ava threw the pack over the chain-link barrier, launching up and down the other side so fast it seemed comical. Cole was nowhere near as graceful and he felt the sharp tug as spikes grabbed his pant leg; one tine broke through his jeans and bit into Cole’s upper thigh. He didn’t care. He could hear the police approaching, the dogs’ barking getting louder and Ava snarling ‘hurry the hell up!’

  He stumbled down the other side, hitting the ground roughly, his knees aching with the aftershock. Ava was already at the motorcycle and she threw the helmet to him as he arrived, leaving him gasping. Cole tossed his leg over the bike, feeling her body wrap around him, her fingers gripping his chest, as he kicked hard and the machine growled to life.

  “Hold on tight,” Cole muttered – more to himself than to her.

  His hands were shaking hard; his body flooded with adrenaline. She was with him as he released the throttle and the wheel sprayed a shower of gravel up behind them. They flew back into the night. The road and the flashing red and blue lights and the barking dogs all disappeared, swallowed by a sea of darkness. His heart was still pounding, but Cole was grinning now, his body pulsing with an incredible rush. Again, the sensation came to him of being on a boat at night, skimming over the surface of the water. Fast… faster… almost one with the wind.

  Behind him, Ava was humming, her face pressed to his shoulder, arms tight around his chest, her thighs warm on either side of his. That feeling was back. The one that left him aching with the perfection of this single moment in time.

  They were safe.

  Chapter 9: In the Dark

  The two of them buzzed together across the open roads, wind burning their cheeks. Ava smiled, her chin tucked against Cole’s shoulder, feeling her body relax into the motion. Happy. She hadn’t been sure how he was going to react to spray-painting, but Cole Thomas had surpassed her expectations… surprising her yet again.

  ‘He keeps doing that,’ her mind added. Ava’s smile widened, realizing the truth of it.

  She hadn’t been out painting – really painting – since her Dad had left on tour with the orchestra earlier that summer. The paintings she did in her studio were great… but they didn’t give her the scope she needed to express herself. She missed the vast arenas of unpainted cement. The visceral charge she got from changing a public space.

  Tonight’s chase reminded her of the first time she’d been caught… and her reasons for getting involved in graffiti in the first place. Behind Ava’s closed lids, her mother appeared, her voice raised in anger. Shay Brooks had never been a great mother; her dark personal history – an abuser shaped by her own experiences of abuse – making her more volatile than Ava’s father ever had been. The dynamic was always thrown out of balance whenever Oliver was on tour with the philharmonic. That had been when things had gotten really bad. Ava grimaced, tightening her grip around Cole’s chest, trying ineffectively to push the images away.

  ‘Don’t want to remember...’ her mind whimpered, but it was too late.

  She was five when her father went on tour in Europe. Ava’s mother lost her minimum wage job mere days after Ollie left, and Ava became the sole target of her mother’s anger. Small punishments and hard-edged routines degraded into neglect punctuated by rough-handling. Ava was locked in the empty apartment for hours.

  Darkness.

  Ava’s kindergarten teacher was the first to notice the change in her behaviour, the once outgoing child who’d become silent and withdrawn. On the Monday morning Mrs. Doucette had seen the blue fingerprints ringing Ava’s thin arms, she’d contacted the authorities. Tuesday evening they’d sent a social worker to investigate. (As usual, Ava was home alone.) By Wednesday night, the social worker located Oliver’s agent, and called to Germany to relay the situation to Ava's father. Thursday morning, Oliver had broken his contract – leaving mid-tour and forfeiting half his wages – to come home. By Saturday morning, he was home again and Shay was gone.

  He hadn’t toured again for the next ten years.

  Ava smiled, remembering how his arrival had marked two things for her: the end of his marriage to her mother, and the start of what Ava considered her real childhood. She felt the bike slow as they reached the main roads. Her eyes fluttered open and she squinted at the approaching lights of the city.

  Oliver, her father, was a hippie and a dreamer. He was a Buddhist in most things, though he considered any and all philosophies and approaches to life, as long as they focused on the positive. His favourite quote was one by Beethoven: “Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.” He was a classical composer by trade, though he also listened to rock music. He’d always been a favourite adult among Ava’s friends, and there had been numerous nights when Marcus and her Dad had started arguing like old friends over revolutionary tactics and guerrilla warfare.

  Fact was, Oliver Brooks wasn’t like most fathers.

  He and Ava were closer than most: they talked about things that fathers and daughters usually avoided, abortion and sexuality and drug use (though he tended to fib on that one). They argued and ranted at one another, then moments later were engrossed in heated discussions about books and dreams and reincarnation. Not that he wasn’t a disciplinarian… Ava grinned, remembering the late night talks at the table when Oliver insisted on talking calmly until Ava could “see it his way.”

  It was that he treated her as a person, too.

  For a moment, his voice was as clear in her mind as if he was hovering beside her. She could hear the conversation they’d had on the way back from the police station the night she had been caught spray-painting the back wall of her high school. The event that had finally pushed Oliver to enroll Ava in a summer art program for teens.

  “You’re an old soul, Ava...” he’d begun, his voice tired.

  “God, Dad... Let’s not do this now, please...”

  “It’s true. You are. But that means you have to choose your life… not just react to it.”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” she’d snapped at him. “I don’t understand you sometimes!�
� She had been tired; being booked by the police had left her feeling raw and furious.

  “First – watch your mouth – I don’t like swearing,” Oliver had grumbled irritably.

  “Fine. What does it mean, then?”

  “It means you need to LEARN from the things that happen to you, Ava.”

  “And what if I don’t learn from them?” she’d cried, her voice breaking in anger. “What if I just keep screwing up?”

  Ava scowled, his voice from the past sending a warning to her present, leaving her anxious about the decision to take Cole out to paint tonight.

  “Then you’ll be forced to live the mistakes over and over again until you do...”

  : : : : : : : : : :

  The sky lightened to a muddy greyish purple by the time they hit the main roads. Cole slowed down to three clicks below the speed limit. He was smiling; his body still coursing with adrenaline. When they reached her apartment, Ava climbed off the back of his bike, pulling the helmet off sweat-rumpled hair and offering it back.

  She leaned toward him, her wind-whipped face glowing. Cole thought she might kiss him – helmet and all – but she just grinned, her face bright with unbridled joy.

  “How’s it feel to walk the edge, Cole?” she whispered, her lips moist and parted. “To just say fuck it and live out loud?”

  He laughed at that and then lifted off his own helmet, hanging it off the handlebar but not stepping off the bike.

  “Is that what we were doing?”

  She shrugged.

  “Something like that...”

  The smile that he’d been fighting down was back.

  “Next date, I get to choose where we go,” Cole said tartly.

  Ava laughed.

  “So that was a date, was it?” she teased, her voice low and enticing.

  He grabbed a belt loop on either side of her jeans, pulling her forward so that she was half straddling his knee, half leaning up against his bike, her face inches from his.

  “Yeah, it was,” he said in quiet seriousness. “But next time, we’re going to do something legal.”

  Ava burst into raucous laughter, the sound echoing loudly off the cement sides of the building.

  “Spoilsport,” she taunted with a wink.

  Cole grinned in response, but he didn’t let go of her. There was a growing point of heat between them where her legs rested against his. It had drawn all of his attention. That and her nearness.

  As the moment stretched out, her eyes flickered up to his face, losing the laughter and becoming surprised first, and then wary. For a few seconds, neither spoke, the two of them just watching one another. Cole’s expression was solemn, and he reached out, putting one hand on the back of her neck, urging her forward. For the briefest moment she resisted him, her face shifting anxiously, the clear blue of her eyes growing concerned. Nervousness held her still for just long enough that Cole registered the reaction. She eased into the motion, letting him bring her forward, her sooty eyelashes fluttering closed.

  For a moment he simply brushed her lips. The barest hint of his mouth moving lightly against hers. Ava’s hands moved up to his shoulders, resting there while he kissed her. She was trembling; he could feel it through her palms, and he wondered at her reaction. How she could be so fierce sometimes – unabashedly running into danger – and yet terrified at other times. Cole forced his body to stay under control, keeping this kiss slow and suggestive. He was determined to play this right. He let go, hands falling limply to his lap. She could stay or she could go. It was up to her.

  With that single motion, Ava sighed into his mouth, her body relaxing as the equilibrium rebalanced.

  Cole felt the exact moment she stopped letting him kiss her and moved into the embrace, eagerly participating. Her lips opened against his and her tongue flicked into his mouth, testing. His body was burning to touch and caress her, wild with desire, but he forced himself to stay motionless, fingers in fists on his lap, breath coming in sharp gasps. Ava moved closer, sliding herself up his thigh, the bike creaking slightly as she did. Her hands were no longer shaking. She ran them up and over his shoulders; wrapping herself around him, shifting nearer as she did.

  The kiss dragged on. She pressed her breasts up against his chest, her hips tight against his. There were small mewling sounds coming from the back of Ava’s throat, sending stabs of lust directly to his groin. Cole could feel his restraint wavering, , and he knew if he wanted to keep himself under control that he needed to end this right fucking now.

  With a frustrated sigh, he broke contact, letting his cheek rest against hers, panting against her ear, unwilling to pull away. He stroked her hair, then ran his fingers down her shoulders to her back. He didn’t want the night to end, even though it was already very early morning. Ava’s breathing had slowed, and she glanced up at him, her eyes wide and luminous like the morning sea after a night time storm.

  Calm.

  “I’m gonna go,” Cole said. “I’ve got to get a bit of sleep. I need to start working on the back of the sculpture to get it done for the show.”

  Ava nodded, her fingers sliding down the front of his jacket and finding his hands. Her gaze fluttered down to their joined fists, and then back up to his face.

  “This was...” she said, one corner of her mouth lifting, “a good date.”

  “It was,” he agreed with a smile. “And thanks,” Cole added, “for all your help with the sculpture tonight.”

  Ava grinned, letting go of him and stepping back from the bike.

  “Anytime.”

  He pulled on his helmet and lifted a hand in farewell, starting the bike back up. In seconds he was gone, heading away from her before he could change his mind.

  Chapter 10: The Snake and the Coins

  Ava was painting in the studio late the next afternoon when she heard the heavy tread of a man walking up the stairs. She assumed it was Chim so she didn’t turn around, focused instead on getting the mix of colour and light correctly balanced in the painting. She had had the dream again in the hours after Cole had dropped her off, and had awoken with a burning need to capture it in paint.

  The painting was of a landscape, she realized now, though the perspective was completely skewed. The greens, blues and golds were actually a vision looking down onto a place, not a view from the side. Though it wasn’t any place she remembered visiting, but the strange familiarity of it left her throat aching. In the last hours of painting, the shape she had thought might be a snake on top of a shower of gold coins had morphed into a river heading toward the nearby sea. The arc of blue, she now saw, was the sandy shoreline next to a cluster of gold-leafed trees. She’d just been seeing it from above. She grinned, lifting her brush off of the canvas, feeling things starting to fit together.

  She was in flow.

  Absorbed in painting, Ava jumped as someone’s hand touched her shoulder.

  “Shit!” she yelped, spinning around.

  It was Kip Chambers, his face rapt with awe, engrossed in her painting.

  “Sorry,” he muttered, but his eyes were on the painting in front of them. “Ava, this is just… just… wow.” He stepped forward, getting closer to the impasto surface, eyebrows pulled together in concentration. “Shit! Raya wasn’t kidding about this.”

  Ava glanced around, unnerved by his unexpected appearance in her space. Over in Marcus’s studio, she could see Raya Simpson, her hands slicing through the air as she talked with Chim. The two of them had some kind of folder laid out on the table before them. ‘Chim’s official portfolio,’ Ava realized. Simpson and Marcus were chatting in low tones while he pointed at his canvas, his hands tracing different elements, gesturing at the faded echoes of the portraits underneath.

  “I thought when Raya called,” Kip said, “she was talking about a graffiti piece in the yards, but this is just bloody amazing. I love your work. It’s abstract in some ways, but still representational. Powerful.”

  A crimson blush rose up her neck at the praise, but Kip di
dn’t see her reaction, still captivated by her work. He turned around, his brown eyes, warm and bright, meeting hers.

  “Amazing,” he repeated.

  Ava shrugged, glancing over at the wet painting. It was still a mishmash of colour – nothing like Chim’s paintings – but she still liked how it was working. Now if only she could capture the feel of the dream. The release.

  “Thanks,” she muttered. The praise felt over the top, forced.

  There were a few awkward seconds when neither spoke, and then Kip stepped closer.

  “Look,” he said, “the reason I came by today was I was wondering if you’d want to work on a larger studio piece with me.” He gestured to the unfinished canvas beside them. “Something twice this size, or larger. A mural, actually… I’ve been asked by a private collector to do a piece for their home.”

  Ava nodded, her mind struggling to balance two opposing reactions: excitement and wariness.

  “I’m open to the idea,” she said, “but I need more information. That’s a pretty vague description for a collaboration project.”

  Kip chuckled, his gaze dropping down her body before dragged its way back up again.

  “Fair enough,” he said, crossing his arms. “I’ll have Simpson draw up some numbers. I’m thinking a thirty, seventy split.” He narrowed his eyes, glancing at the painting of the snake and the coins and then to her once more. His gaze was harder now, measured. “I’m not trying to screw you over, Ava, I’m just being realistic – your work isn’t known. Mine is. Feel free to check out the numbers and decide for yourself.”

  She nodded, and Kip took another step toward her, pushing slightly into that bubble she kept around herself. Her chin rose defiantly, but she didn’t step back. She refused to.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said slowly, “once I see those numbers...”

  “Of course, you could always come up with a counter-offer,” he said in a husky voice, eyes heavy-lidded.

  There was a tension between them, and Kip Chambers was caressing her with every look – following the curve of her lips and cheek and breasts. Testing something. She found her heart beating faster… worried at the sudden change.