Allie could hear the screams echoing around her, she could hear the sounds of someone firing a gun and the sound of a tiger growl, but she couldn't focus clearly enough on one singular thing long enough for it to make a lick of sense to her brain. All she did know for certain was that she was on her back on the floor, staring up at the stage lights overhead.
"Jesus fucking christ," she heard someone scream nearby, as a stage hand raced to the stage from the audience seating area and leapt up, crawling towards Allie. She could feel them touching her, but she didn't know where, and she could hear their walkie talkie going off, but she couldn't make out the words through the static. As her head rolled to her side, she looked at her left hand and noticed her wrist was bent backwards, and crimson red, muscle sticking out. It looked nearly detached from her arm, and yet she couldn't feel anything. She'd later learn this is a common occurrence when dealing with serious trauma and pain. "Fuck," Allie mumbled, "that sucks." And then she blacked out. *** "Did it hurt?" Zoe asked, as she and Allie sat in the casino at the slot machines, Allie pumping quarters from a plastic cup into the machine as Zoe drank some pink fruit drink with very little alcohol in it. "What? Almost losing my hand?" Allie asked, and Zoe nodded, making Allie sigh; she shrugged and said, "I don't think so. I was so out of it when I woke up that I...I couldn't really feel anything, and then the painkillers they prescribed me were so heavy duty that I couldn't feel it after that either. Took a long time before I could really use my left hand again though, and even now it doesn't fully work properly." "You're so lucky it didn't attack your face," Zoe said softly, and Allie laughed. "Lucky? Is that what you'd call it? I'd rather they destroyed my face," Allie said. "What happened to the tiger?" Zoe asked, and Allie shut her eyes, breathing deeply. "So," Allie asked after a moment, "Got any ideas for your stage name?" *** Zoe opened the door to the house and hung her car keys on the little hook by the door before getting further in. She pulled her jacket off and headed into the kitchen, finding her sister there, making a pot of coffee. As Zoe opened the fridge, she raised a brow at this. "Coffee?" she asked, checking her watch, "It's really late." "I have to work on something all night," her sister, Thea, said. "Oh okay," Zoe replied, pulling out the carrot juice carton from the fridge and then, grabbing a glass from the cabinet, poured herself a glass. As she leaned against the counter and watched Thea pour herself coffee, Zoe couldn't help but think about what Allie had asked her at the casino, about her stage name. She cleared her throat and, tying her hair up, asked her sister, "Do you think you could help me come up with a stage name?" "Why?" "You do graphic design and advertising, I just figured you might be able to help better than anyone. It's so hard because nothing starts with a Z," Zoe said, "But I need one if I want to keep my job." "Could always make up a word," Thea said, sipping her coffee, "Something like The Zantabulous Zoe." "I'm not 10, although..." The girls laughed as Zoe sat at the table, Thea seating herself across from her, still sipping on her coffee. "I'm working with Allie Meers," Zoe said quietly, "You know her? Remember? The woman who got attacked by her tiger, almost lost her hand?" "No shit, really?" "Yeah, and she's really cagey. I mean, she's been fairly nice to me, but she...I don't know how to explain it," Zoe said, "she's clearly still very troubled by it. I mean, understandably, as it was probably traumatic as all heck, but I just...I asked her about it tonight, and she wouldn't even really discuss it much." "Well, don't put her off too much," Thea said, standing up and patting her sisters shoulder, "you need this job." As Thea left and headed upstairs to her home office, Zoe sat in the kitchen and thought back to that moment, the moment she saw Allie's hand nearly ripped from her arm. Being in the audience that night, standing and staring at the sight as Allie struggled to free her wrist from the tigers mouth only to hear the ripping of flesh and cracking of bone, and hearing Allie scream. Fuck, that scream. She never forgot that scream, ever. She could recall crowd shuffling around her, fleeing for their lives - even though nobody else was in any danger as the tiger had been chained to its post on the stage - and her eyes absolutely transfixed on her hero, bleeding in front of them all. A regular child might think, "This is terrifying", and be scared away from that profession forever. But Zoe was not a regular child. If anything, all she thought was... "This is what I wanna do for a living." *** The phone rang, and Nick's hand fumbled around in the dark, grasping for it. He saw the time on its face, 3:15 in the morning, and he groaned. He answered and lifted the phone to his ear, mumbling into the receiver. "M'ello?" he asked. "Can you drive me somewhere?" Allie asked, and Nick exhaled, rubbing his face with his free palm, sitting up in his bed new. "Are you too drunk to drive?" "Somewhat, but I also can't go alone," she said, and he knew immediately what this was about. "Yeah, I'll come get you." Nick got dressed quickly, got into his car and headed over to Card Shark. He found Allie sitting outside, a bottle of beer in her hand in a paper sack, wearing torn jeans and a white t-shirt with a black jacket. She climbed into his car, buckled her seatbelt and he continued driving. Neither one said a word at first, and Allie began turning his radio dials, until she stopped on a late night rock station. She finished her beer, tossed it into his backseat and rested her head on her fist, looking out the passenger window. "How's your wrist?" Nick asked. "Always the nurse," she whispered, making him smile. "Force of habit." "It's fine. I'm still taking painkillers, obviously," Allie said, "thanks for taking me. I don't like doing this by myself. Try as I might, I'm still pretty fucking terrified of it." "I get it Al, you don't have to explain it to me," Nick said. After a good half hour drive, Nick parked and climbed out of the car, Allie doing the same. They'd driven to a small private animal rescue, generally where stage animals go once they retire; animals from circus acts, animals from vegas shows, they all eventually wound up here. As they climbed out of the car, they saw the guard station light come on, and the door open, as a tall, lanky woman with thin glasses and oak brown hair stepped out in her uniform. "Oh, it's you guys," she said. "Hey Jenny," Nick said, "Can we get in?" "Sure," she said, "Let me just shut the cameras off for a minute." After Jenny killed the cameras, she opened the gate and the three of them walked inside. Allie walked well among them, clearly lost in her own thoughts, leaving Nick and Jenny to walk behind her. Jenny twirled her keyring on her finger as they walked, glancing at Nick every now and then. She spoke, keeping her voice low, so as not to draw Allie's attention. "You guys haven't been here in a while," she whispered. "Well, we wouldn't be now except that she needed me to drive. We broke up," Nick said. "Really?" "Yeah," Nick replied, "I mean, I ended things, she wasn't...anyway. Thanks for letting us in." "Of course," Jenny said, "It's a tradition at this point." After a few minutes of walking, the three of them stopped at a large enclosure, spotting a few tigers within it, lounging and sleeping. Allie stopped and, leaning against the rail, stared into the enclosure in the darkness of the night, looking for her tiger. As soon as her eyes caught him, she wouldn't let her eyes wander again. But the tiger was indifferent, it merely yawned, stretched and laid on its side. Nick and Jenny just stood back, watching from afar, as Allie did her usual ritual. To think this one moment from this one animal, a few seconds was all it took, would alter her life forever. If it hadn't been for this tiger, she wouldn't had gotten addicted to painkillers, and she wouldn't be the mess she was today. All because of this fucking tiger. Standing there, tears rolling down her face, she couldn't imagine what her life might be like had he not attacked...would she have met someone else besides Nick? Would she have started drinking more anyway? Who knows. She used to be so clean, so sober, and now...now she couldn't stand to look at herself in the mirror. Allie wiped her face on her coat sleeve and felt a hand on her shoulder, glancing to her side to see Jenny standing there, touching her. "You okay?" she asked, and Allie shrugged. "How can I ever be okay?" she whispered, "...I'll never be who I was, and I hate who I've become." "I'm sorry, Allie," Jenny said, and Allie nodded, then turned to face Nick. "Take me home," she said. Nick drove her back to the city, and as they pulled back up at the casino, and thus her penthouse, he waited for her to get out of the car, but she was hesitating. She was picking at her tears in her jeans, chewing on her lip, like she wanted to say something. "You okay?" he asked. "Thanks for taking me..." she muttered, and Nick nodded as she added, "uh...do you want to come up? You know...come upstairs? It's late, you could get something on my room service since it's all comped anyway. Could just hang, watch TV or something. Or, you know." "Heh," Nick chuckled, "Much as I appreciate the offer for sex so late at night, I don't think it's a great idea." "Come on man," Allie said, "Just cause you don't want to be with me romantically doesn't mean we can't have fun, right?" "Allie-" "Nick, just...it's not me, right? It's not....it's not because I'm ugly is it?" "Jesus, you're not ugly, Allie, fuck. You're beautiful, and you-" Allie wiped her makeup off her face, revealing the long scar on one side of her face, trying extremely hard to keep herself from sobbing. She wasn't really drunk, and she wasn't on pills at the moment. Nick could tell this was coming from somewhere deep inside, something that she was really struggling with. "Now tell me you believe that," she said. "Why do you want people to hate you so much?" Nick asked, his voice lowering. "...i don't know, and i don't care what other people think about me...i just want you to love me," she said. Nick shook his head and looked away. Allie opened her car door and stepped out, shutting it behind her, not saying a word as she headed inside. As Allie got off the elevator moments later and headed to her door, she spotted someone sitting by it, asleep. Allie approached and nudged them with her shoe, waking them up, only to realize it was Zoe. "What are you doing here? It's so late," Allie said, as she helped Zoe up and they entered Allie's penthouse. "I think I came up with a name," Zoe said, yawning, "I couldn't wait until tomorrow to show you, since we have rehearsals tomorrow. I was thinking perhaps I could go with something like The Zealous Zoe!" "Zealous?" "It's the only word I could come up with," Zoe said, "If you have any suggestions, please, let me hear them." Zoe stood there and watched as Allie took her jacket off and walked to the minibar, pulling out a box of chocolates and then, as she was heading back across the room, stopped to stare at her face in the vanity mirror over the dresser. Allie reached up and touched the scar on her face, then looked back at Zoe before holding the candy box out, offering her one, which she happily took, popping it into her mouth. "That tiger you asked about," Allie said, "he did this to me. Before I came to Vegas, all I wanted to do was perform magic, but eventually you needed to up your game each time, and before I knew it, I was using a tiger. I didn't have to do any of those things. I just wanted to be the best. I wanted to be on top. Animal magic was where it was, and I bought into the pressure. You wanna be like me? Don't. And don't buy into pressure. Don't have a stage name. Just be Zoe, because unlike me, you're cool enough." Zoe stood there, eating another chocolate, her face frozen in surprise. "You barely know me and you're saying this?" she asked. "Yeah, I am, because I don't want to see another magician turn into what I've turned into," Allie said, "Now if you'll open this bottle of wine, I'll show you my scrapbook of the news clippings and gruesome surgery photos I had taken. You know you wanna see it." It was true, she did want to see it. Zoe nodded, taking the wine and opening it as Allie went and pulled the scrapbook from the bookshelf. Sitting on the couch, plopping the book open with Zoe at her side, still munching on chocolates as Allie started to pour them some wine, she smiled. "Here's my hand nearly off at the wrist, you can see bone," Allie said. "Cool," Zoe replied, as Allie took a chocolate from the box.
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ABOUT
Allie Meers is what she dreamed of being since she was a little girl...a successful Vegas magician. The only problem now is she can't make all her problems disappear; Allie grapples with her strained relationship, crippling addictions and FBI agents on her tail, all while trying to stay at the top of her career. Archives
December 2023
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