Free Fracture by Amanda K. Byrne

flat. Or someplace else. He doesn’t need me. These few days have my fragile walls shuddering, so it’s probably a good thing if he leaves before they come crashing down.
         “Mila’s home. She says to come by.” Ismael flicks a dismissive glance in my direction. He resumes his conversation with Declan and Murat; something about soccer. Futbol, as they call it.
         Putting away the vegetables, I slip back out of the flat without a goodbye from any of the men. I’d expect that of Ismael and possibly Declan, but Murat? We might not be close — my fault, I know — but he’s always had a grin for me.
         The street’s empty and far too quiet. The crack of bullets in the distance is faint enough for me to assume the fighting must be in a different neighborhood today. I take my precautions anyway, the cold, damp air searing my lungs. My conversation with Cristian was cut short the other day, and I wouldn’t put it past him to search me out again.
         I take the long way around to Mila’s, backtracking and looping. She doesn’t live too far from me, only two blocks over, a walk that would take ten minutes, tops, if I was heading straight there. Instead I detour and check out the site of a supply off-load scheduled for two days from now. Confirmation of the offload would be nice, as well as what it is. The clinic’s antibiotics need to be replaced, and Declan could probably do with a painkiller or two that’s harder hitting than ibuprofen.
         Mila yanks the door open like she’d been waiting impatiently on the other side since I’d left my flat. “There you are.” She gives my hair a critical once over. “Too shaggy. You wait too long. Again. Come.” She leads me into her kitchen, where the straight-back chair is set in the middle of the floor, the tools of her trade laid out within easy reach. After the salon she worked at was trashed, she elected not to stick around to help with clean up. The neighborhood it was in was one of the first to fall to the rebels, and it was too dangerous, she said, crossing the invisible boundary every time she had to go to work. Her clients come to her.
         She runs her fingers through my hair. “Unless you have decided to grow it back out?” She hadn’t wanted to cut off my hair when I came to her two years ago, but I refused to leave until she did. One more way to sever the ties to my old life.
         “There is a club opening tomorrow night. You should come. Dance. Drink.” Comb trapped between her teeth, she snips away at my bangs. Tiny hairs tickle my nose and I try not to wiggle it too much.
         “A club opening? Really? Who’s spinning?” My girlfriends in college would drag me out dancing and pour a couple of drinks into me to get me on the dance floor. It was the only way I didn’t feel self-conscious.
         “No one,” she admitted. “It is not a true club, not like what we used to have.” Most of the dance clubs and lounges had shut down in the past few months, the streets too dangerous to be on at night. When boundaries shift on a whim, you could be safe one hour and in the middle of a hot zone the next. “It is like a…what do you call it? A speakeasy, I think. But it is a place to go, relax, have some drinks with friends. You come. Dance.”
         “I don’t have anything to wear.” Going to a club, drinking, possibly dancing, isn’t much of a commitment. I could handle it. I enjoy Mila’s company on occasion, when I’m sick of living in my head and the one-sided conversations with Ismael start to grate. Working up the nerve to leave my flat in the dark might take some doing, though.
         She comes around, frowning as her gaze rakes over me. “You are much smaller than me. Not much smaller than Zlata.” Zlata is her younger sister. “She should have something you can borrow. You have shoes?”
         I don’t think she means sneakers or boots. “Probably not the kind