“Denaux?” I asked, creeping outside the back of The Cat’s Cradle, the sunshine blaring down on me, as I entered through the back door. It wrenched open, creaking through a thick mucus that had stuck itself to the bottom of the door, embedded and intertwined in the metal sweeper below.

  I slipped inside, ceiling panels letting in strips of hot morning sun, beaming onto the now cleaned, yet ever dirty, floors of the club. Years old scuff marks, dents, and abrasions lined it, the wear and tear of ages in servitude to the art of dance.

  Denaux stood on an a-frame ladder himself, applying graffiti remover to the almost completely eradicated words that had been scrawled upon the wall in blood.

  “Denaux,” I said again, my words softer now, as I inhaled the toxic fumes of what felt like total sterilization.

  “Had to have an industrial cleaning crew out here immediately,” Denaux said. “I’m just finishing up a few things. This part...was personal.”

  “I...I’m sorry,” I breathed out, sadness lining my larynx.

  “Investigators said we could clean it up ASAP,” he continued, scrubbing the last few letters with gusto. “Called it gang warfare.” He cracked his neck angrily. “Just washed their hands of it like that. A massacre, and the crime scene is gone just like that," he snapped his fingers.

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  “Perrault’s got to have people on the force,” I affirmed, walking up to him, and offering my hand to take a rag. Denaux just kept on scrubbing. I grabbed one and reached it up to him to exchange his old one. He looked down briefly, a solemn look across his face, before accepting. The usual jovial nature, gone. It felt wrong. Perverse even. To strip the life from someone like Denaux.

  “Even before,” Denaux said, “there were so many reasons to want to end Perrault’s terror. This...” he sighed, rubbing his eyes, maybe hiding tears, or knowing the ducts were all out and wishing they weren’t, “this is it," he swallowed hard. "It has to end...at any cost.”

  We stood in silence, an eerie and foreboding feeling overwhelming the large space.

  “I just...” I started up, “I just couldn’t do it. We can’t trust Alessia. I’m sorry.”

  Denaux remained quiet for a moment longer. “Yeah...me too...chère.” It was as if he wanted to say something more...or apologize for something else, but nothing came.

  After moments more in silence, I turned back and left through the same doors I came, shutting them closed behind me and taking in the arid heat, filling my lungs.

  “Anything?” Isaac said, leaning off of the nearby alley wall to my side, in his form fitting grey denim jacket, and tight black t-shirt.

  I shook my head. “It was brief. He’s lost.”

  “Lost...as in...can we trust him?”

  “It’s Denaux,” I said, forcing myself to affirm my own beliefs.

  “Can we trust him?” Isaac asked again, keeping his tone low and almost guttural in affect.

  “I...,” I breathed out, thoughts racing through my mind as I tried to grapple with them. I had been with Denaux since the beginning of my life...well, my 'unlife' and he had given me a home, even if it was just a basement, and helped me all along the way. He was a friend...maybe family now. So much had happened to us, but this...this was different. He would never betray us, he wouldn't turn to the darkness like that. Then, thoughts of his hatred of Perrault coursed through my mind. The hatred does something though. Would it do something to him? At what cost would Denaux pay for revenge. I sighed, compiling my thoughts, or lack there of, before opening my mouth to speak again. Words hanging at the fringe of the ether.

  “I...I don’t know.”