Hard Light Read Online Free PDF

performance. I listened, stunned, until the final drumbeats faded into reverb, then silence.
    â€œHoly shit.” I stared at Krishna. “That’s some set of pipes.”
    Krishna swiped a bead of sweat from her cheek, stepped over, and stood on tiptoe to kiss me on the mouth, her tongue darting between my lips.
    â€œWhat’s that for?” I asked when she drew away.
    â€œThat’s for nothing.” She gave me a sly half smile. “Now go do something.” She spun on her platform heels and sashayed back to the bar.
    I whistled softly. Where in that tiny body did she keep that enormous voice? I looked around the room. Kerry was gone. Derek was still MIA, and Lance appeared to have been texting for the last two minutes and forty-one seconds.
    I licked my lips, tasting smoke and limes. Krishna had staked out a spot at the end of the bar. She gazed at me with that cockeyed smile, one hand splayed below the red leatherette miniskirt. I decided to count to ten before I crossed the room. I made it to five.
    â€œSo.” I set my satchel on the floor beside her. “Krishna. Isn’t that a guy’s name? Or a god’s?”
    â€œYah. My friends call me Krish. My mum was a fucking hippie in a caravan.” She made a face.
    â€œWhere’d you learn to belt like that?”
    â€œSinging in tube stations. Brilliant echo. I used to ride up and down the escalator and sing, but I couldn’t make any dosh. Down in the station I could make fifty quid a night. When the cops chased me out I’d sing on the street.”
    â€œBut you’re doing clubs now, right? Backup.”
    â€œMake more money busking. DJ I know just uploaded a song of mine. No dosh in that, either, but maybe someday.”
    Her gaze slid sideways to take in Lance, still engrossed in his tiny blue screen. His head was tilted so that I could see teethmarks on the side of his throat. Either a love bite deep enough to draw blood, or proof that Krishna could hold her own with a violent boyfriend.
    I scowled. “Tell me that asshole isn’t your DJ friend. Because the whole Ronnie Spector thing is already weird enough.”
    She shook her head. “Nah. He’s nobody. Just a guy.”
    â€œA guy as in a boyfriend and you can dump him? Like, now?”
    I ran a finger along the back of her neck. Her skin felt hot. Channeling the Wall of Sound burned a lot of calories. Her leg brushed mine and she looked up at me. I touched her chin and bent to kiss her. Her tongue flicked against my mouth, but before I could pull her closer her head whipped back.
    â€œOw!”
    â€œWhat the fuck?” Lance stared at me, his hand buried in Krishna’s bouffant. “Fucking sket.”
    He yanked Krishna so hard I heard her jaw snap. Blood welled from her lip as she glared at him, shouting, “ You’re the fucking sket!”
    He raised his arm to strike her and I lunged at him, the steel tip of my cowboy boot connecting with his kneecap. His legs buckled. With a muffled shriek, he fell.
    I grabbed my camera bag. Krishna stared at Lance as he clutched his leg, weeping in pain. I touched her shoulder. “You coming?”
    She ran a hand across her head, pulled off the teased blond wig, and threw it Lance with a curse. “You—”
    I pulled her toward the front door. “Save it.”
    â€œNo.” Krishna shook herself free. “This way.”
    She staggered to the back of the room on her platform heels. I followed, down a dim corridor into a storage area filled with crates of empty bottles. Krishna stopped, fumbling with the door latch until it opened, and we ran outside, startling Derek where he paced nervously, mobile pressed to one ear. His head jerked up as we darted past.
    â€œWait!” Derek shouted. “Don’t—”
    But we had already reached the High Street.

 
    6
    I ran with Krishna through a warren of alleys slick with icy rain. Sirens wailed in the