Crimson "Dizzy" Holloway's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Morning came gray and useless. Dizzy walked the edge of town with empty pockets. The runoff was tonight, and Annie's leaves were gone. Without them she could not sleep her way into the dream. Without the dream her hands would shake on stage. She checked every seam of her coat for a scrap of leaf. Nothing but lint. She had no plan and no herb, and Jessie waiting across the gate. She drifted until she reached a rundown lot. Rows of golf carts sat under a leaning roof, tires flat, seats split. Faded signs hung crooked over broken windows. A short man in black lay across a red cart's hood. His face was painted white and black like a skull, hair spread over the metal. A bottle rocked in his hand. She knew the paint. This was Violent J's partner, the man who built the Gathering underground. "You look like a dead battery, little sister," he said, not opening his eyes. "Sit down before you fall down, ninja." Dizzy sat on the cracked seat. "I lost the thing that puts me to sleep. I can't perform tonight without it." He laughed and swung upright. The bottle sloshed, pale gold behind fancy glass. "Sleep's the wrong medicine, ninja." He pushed the bottle at her. "You want to stop caring. You want happy, dizzy, dumb. Best decisions I ever made came from not thinking, ninja." She stared at the bottle. It was not Annie's way. Annie's way was gone. "What is it?" "Freedom, ninja." He grinned wide. "Nobody up there matters. You spin your pins and you laugh at all of them." Dizzy took the bottle. It was heavier than the leaves had ever been. She thought of steady hands and clean dreams, and knew she had lost that road. This was the only door left. She stood, tucked the bottle inside her coat, and left him laughing on the hood. Night fell. She climbed down the stone gate into the noise. Drums shook the tunnels. She waited in the dark near the stage. Before her name was called, she pulled the stopper and drank. The tequila burned her throat. She did not stop. She drank until the bottle ran dry and the tunnel tilted. Jessie went before her. He worked the crowd with his dry laugh, thin arms twitching. When his set ended, they pushed Dizzy toward the light. The floor rolled under her. Her head swam. She staggered out past Jessie, grinning at nothing, the empty bottle rolling from her hand. Jessie caught her arm as she passed. "You're wasted," he said, and his grin spread. "You'll fall on your face out there." Dizzy pulled free. The crowd blurred into one bright smear. She did not care. She had traded the dream for this. There was no going back now. She stepped onto the stage drunk and dizzy, with her pins in her hands and no plan but to not care at all.