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Searching for a person’s house without any clues was a lot more difficult than John initially thought. He knew it was impractical to think he’d get it right within the first three tries, yet he couldn’t stop himself from thinking it. Optimism was good for his morale anyway. Twenty minutes later, as the sun dipped into the horizon and he made what seemed like the fiftieth right turn onto a residential street, his precious optimism was worn thin, but he finally caught a break.
He rolled to a stop outside of a simple but elegant one-story house. He almost passed it by when he didn’t see Vriska’s car in the driveway, but he noticed the curtains were open in the dining room. Peering closer, he noticed several people gathered around the dining room table. At the head was a regal-looking woman who was currently smoking from a cigarette holder that John could’ve sworn was non-existent outside of the 1920s. Beside her was a finely-dressed but very bitter-looking Vriska.
He released the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. It had been two weeks since he’d seen Vriska last, and nearly a month since she’d started actively avoiding him. First she stopped showing up after school and during lunch, but eventually he didn’t see her in any classes or in the halls. None of his calls or texts were going through, and none of their mutual friends had caught sight of her either. John’s mind immediately jumped to the worst, which then inspired this little field trip. His only clue to where she lived was her neighborhood, and apparently that was enough. Now he knew that she was very much alive, although she didn’t exactly look okay. Well, he wasn’t one to butt in to family matters, so it was probably best to get going.
As John was punching his home address into the GPS for simpler exodus out of this maze of a neighborhood, he noticed the open curtain get drawn closed. Looks like someone finally noticed him out here. No matter; he would be gone in a few seconds. Right before he put the car in drive, two huge men in lime green suits burst out of the house and strode purposefully toward him. He didn’t have time to wonder what the hell was going on before one of them tapped insistently on the glass. John rolled the window down as quickly as he could; this palooka was knocking hard enough to shatter it, and there was no way he could explain that away to Dad.
“Hi, can I help y--”
“Who’re you and what’re you doin’ here?” the one on the left growled. Okay. So much for etiquette.
“Um, I’m John, and I was just in the neighborhood and wanted to check on my friend Vriska,” he started, growing more nervous by the second. “And it looks like she’s okay, so I’ll just--”
“How’d you know she lived here?”
“Uh, I didn’t? I just guessed and got lucky…” If these guys were Vriska’s relatives, then it’s no wonder she never talked about them.
The two men exchanged a look. “Come with us,” the one on the right said, then proceeded to open John’s door and remove him bodily, not even giving him enough time to set the parking brake.
“H-hey! What about my car?” he protested, struggling to keep up with the man’s large stride as he was dragged along by his elbow.
“We’ll take care o’ yer car, kid,” the man who’d stayed behind called just as he was ushered in and the door shut behind him. The interior of the house was much more impressive up close. Everything was decorated in that simplistic style, but even the untrained eye could tell that the materials were all of the highest quality. Before he knew it, John was occupying the very room he’d been scoping out a minute ago.
“We found him outside,” the big lug offered as an explanation to the cigarette-smoking lady, whose neutral expression turned slightly sour at the sight of John. Vriska’s expression turned slightly brighter in comparison, albeit incredibly confused.
“John?” Vriska said hesitantly, her voice filled with disbelief.
“Hey Vriska,” John greeted her, laughing nervously. “It’s good to see you are doing okay.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Is this one of your friends, come to say goodbye?” the woman finally spoke, turning to face Vriska. Her movements were smooth and fluid. It positively gave John the creeps.
“Goodbye?” John echoed. “Is Vriska going somewhere?”
The woman laid a hand on Vriska’s shoulder, warranting an eye-roll from the girl. “In a manner of speaking, yes.” The woman continued to direct her voice at Vriska, looking at her as if she were a grand prize. “She’s going up. Now that her eighteenth birthday has passed--”
“Whoa, it was your birthday recently? Happy belated!” He smiled brightly; questionable circumstances be damned, the least he could do for her birthday was give her good wishes. And the gesture wasn’t wasted; he was able to coax a smile and a slight blush from her. The clearing of the woman’s throat brought them both jolting back to reality.
“Now that she is eighteen,” the woman continued, the irritation bubbling just under the surface of her tone, “It is time for her to claim her rightful place in this family.”
“You mean like an inheritance?”
“You are not as stupid as you look.” John hardly took offense at this; it sounded too much like something Vriska would say.
“Okay, so Vriska gets a family inheritance. That doesn’t really explain why she has to leave…”
The woman stared at John, her expression unreadable to him. Right as the eye contact started to get awkward with the silence, she reached up and unpinned the brooch she was wearing on her floppy hat. It seemed like a random assortment of pretty stones at first, but a second look revealed the iconic symbol, the number encased in two circles. It was an eight ball.
“Vriska is inheriting a position,” the woman said, cradling the brooch in one hand, “and this position requires a new life, which is exactly what I am giving her.” She turned to face Vriska, whose bitter countenance had returned full-force. “Out with the old and in with the new. A new education, new friends, new clothes…” She carefully pinned the brooch to the front of Vriska’s dress, then directed her attention to John once more. “I was unaware of you. Otherwise, you would have been properly informed like the others.”
John’s head was spinning; this was way too much drama outside of a cinematic experience for one night. “Listen lady, I’m gonna be completely honest with you. This is sounding like a whole lot of crazy mobstery bullshit.”
The tension in the room doubled immediately. John’s two hulking escorts looked as if they wanted to tackle him right then and there. The woman waved a silk-gloved hand at them; they relaxed. Vriska looked more distraught than ever.
“Oh,” he said dumbly. It was the only semi-intelligent word going through his mind currently.
“I didn’t want you getting involved in this.” Vriska’s voice surprised him. He turned to look at her, silently noting how beautiful she looked in that dress, how much that brooch suited her.
“I guess I can understand that, but aren’t we friends, or…something?” He said “something” because “person for which my feelings are desperately tangled and complicated” didn’t quite roll off the tongue. “Were you really that eager to give me up?”
“It’s a lot trickier than that,” she answered. John believed her when she said that. How could he not? She looked as if her heart was going to crumble at a moment’s notice. This left him with one more question.
“Vriska? Is this what you want?”
The question hung in the air for barely more than a few seconds, but Vriska’s change in that short amount of time was unmistakable. She straightened up; the scowl she wore when things weren’t going her way appeared. The defeated daughter transformed into the defiant woman right before his eyes. “Of course not!” she practically spat out, causing the two mob goons to jump and Mob Bosswoman to raise an eyebrow. “I’m not exactly jumping for joy at the prospect of running a shoddy and old-as-dirt business, bossing around pea-brained subordinates, and changing my name to Snowjunior.” She glared at her boss-mom. “And you’d better believe I’ve told her this on more than one occasion.”
“Then why are you going along with it?” John asked, frustrated.
“Because this isn’t about what she wants.” He gaped at the source of the voice. Boss-mom was eerily good at the whole not-being-noticed-until-necessary thing. “This isn’t about desire. It’s about fate. Destiny. Things with which she was not meant to tinker.” Vriska’s shoulders slumped; John watched this carefully and frowned, finally starting to get it. Of course she would buy into all of this “inevitable” crap. Of course she would follow it blindly when her family has been whispering it into her ear as she fell asleep every night. Luckily for the both of them, he knew exactly how to fight it.
“If you truly believe that, Miss Mob Boss Lady--”
“Snowman,” she corrected him.
“Right. If you truly believe that, then can I assume you wouldn’t have a problem betting on it?”
He figured he could have pitched a stink bomb in the room and the reaction would have been the same. Everyone—even the cool-headed Snowman—recoiled in shock.
“Boy, you’re meddling in affairs on a scale too grand for you to comprehend,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Then it shouldn’t be a problem for you to win, right? I’m not asking for much, just one game. Whatever game you want and whatever rules you want. But if I win, Vriska walks out of here.”
Snowman took a long drag from her cigarette and exhaled heavily, the smoke curling around her head. “And if I win?”
John shrugged. “Then it’s business as usual.”
All eyes were on Snowman as she considered this. The smoke had just finished dissipating when she gave a subtle nod. “Boys, show our guest to the blackjack table.” The two mob goons snapped to attention and shuffled out of the room. Snowman followed them, and John began to follow her. Vriska pulled him by the arm just before he exited.
“You can’t win this, you know,” she said under her breath to him.
John looked around conspiratorially, then motioned for her to come closer. She obliged. In his best stage whisper, he told her, “If she’s anything like you when it comes to gambling, then I know I can win!” He allowed himself a half of a second to enjoy that mixed look of confusion and anger before entering the next room.
The blackjack table was on the far end of the room. It seemed flashy and contrived compared to the stark plainness of the rest of the room. Compared to the other rooms John had seen of the house, this one was cold, strategic, and all business. He started to wonder if people had died in here, but shook the thought from his head. There would be no psyching himself out of this.
Snowman was situated behind the table, shuffling a simple deck of cards. As he approached the table, she dealt out the first hand. “Shall we say best four out of seven?” she asked casually.
“Sounds perfect,” John answered, picking up the cards and fanning them out.
The first round John lost outright. The second round was just good enough for a win. The third round and fourth round were perfect. By the time round five had begun and he was thinking this was in the bag, Snowman snapped her fingers and his two favorite goons overturned the table. In his infinite smugness, John barely noticed the hail of cards.
“I will not allow this,” Snowman said. When exactly did that huge whip get into her hand?
“It’s only fair. I played by your rules and won,” John said as calmly as he could, silently cursing his shaking hands.
“You haven’t won anything. You still have yet to scratch the surface of the game you’re playing.”
“Just admit it; you got bested.” Vriska made her way through the debris to stand by John; the goons were quick to tail her. “Now hold up your end of the deal.”
Snowman laughed a low, cruel laugh. “Now now, Vriska dear, I thought you were smarter than that. It’ll take more than the likes of him to save you.”
With a glower that could melt cheap plastic, she answered, “Who the hell said I needed saving?”
In an instant, the goon nearest Vriska buckled and fell to his knees. That terrible whip cracked in his direction, but just as John was steeling himself for the sting, another smaller, dopier-looking goon was conveniently pushed in the line of fire. An unexpected jolt to the right found him mere inches away from Vriska, her eyes wild. She placed her hands firmly on his shoulders.
“Get out. Stop for no one,” she hissed, and pushed him back as hard as she could muster without bowling him over. Running on pure adrenaline, John made a beeline for the exit.
He wasn’t sure how many lime-suited mobsters he tripped up, tripped over, and punched in the face by the time he made it outside, and frankly he didn’t care. He just wanted to get the hell out of here and not have Vriska turn into a crazy mobster bitch.
Speaking of Vriska, he had no idea if she was able to follow him out. He hadn’t looked back once. He decided on the spot that if she wasn’t behind him, he would hop in his car, circle the block once, and scoop her up car-action-movie style. All that was left to do was fish the spare key out of his pocket, hit the unlock button and—
Whoa. Okay.
The car was not supposed to explode. He was not informed of an explode button. Explosions were not listed in the power features. Was this covered under warranty? Before his thoughts got too carried away by the bright flames his car was currently emitting, a strong grip on his wrist pulled him away. He tripped over his own shoes just once before he ran to keep pace. The rest of the escape was done on autopilot, each house passing by in a blur until the two of them stuffed themselves in a car he vaguely recognized as Vriska’s and drove away in dazed silence.
Once the smoke and flames were no longer visible in her rearview mirror, Vriska spoke. “You knew that game was rigged.”
“Yeah…” John admitted sheepishly.
“And you played anyway.”
“It turned out to be just what we needed, didn’t it?”
“Heh.” Another dazed silence ensued. This one was due more to the tiredness after the adrenaline rushes wore off than anything. Once more, Vriska broke the silence. “This isn’t over.”
John did not answer.
“She wasn’t lying when she said this was an intricate game we’re playing. She knows people. Powerful people. She’s stupidly powerful all on her own.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“She gets what she wants, one way or another, and if she wants me, then she’ll--”
“We’ll figure it out, Vriska,” John repeated more firmly. “You’re okay now. You’re out of her shadow now. Now is all that matters.”
“Okay,” she quietly agreed, and concentrated back on the road. One hand left the steering wheel to find his. He interlocked their fingers, watching the wild-haired, stocking-footed girl maneuver the road. Eventually, he noticed a smug smile growing on her lips.
“What?” he asked curiously.
She waited until they reached a red light to turn and face him. “You cheated during the game, didn’t you?”
Now it was his turn to wear the smug smile. “You’re damn right I did.”