Read Online Toxic Heart by Theo Lawrence - Free Book Online

me. More nauseating posters of Hunter and me are plastered all over the place—on the sides of buildings, even on the pavement. I stare at myself smiling and holding on to Hunter. I look like an idiot.
    We hurry up Broadway, scurrying underneath empty clotheslines and deadened mystic spires. Homeless people with dirt-caked faces and ratty hair line the streets, their palms open for change. I pull my cloak tighter.
    “Aria, come on!” Turk says. But I don’t feel like talking to him.
    The street opens up onto a major road where a series of bridges cover a wide, circular canal, and now I know exactly where I am.
    The Magnificent Block.
    Only instead of a towering wall, there’s simply … water.
    No mystic tenements peeking over a stone blockade. No stilted walkways leading to the center of the Block, because there is no center.
    The entire place has been destroyed. This section of Manhattan—what used to be Central Park and then was inhabited by the mystics—has been completely obliterated. The individual waterways and drained areas where the buildings were have been wiped out, leaving a sad, watery mess.
    “Sad,” Turk says from behind me.
    I turn to him, shocked. “What happened?”
    He doesn’t respond for a few minutes, his broad shoulders slumped, his tattoos washed out by the sun. Even his Mohawk looks droopy.
    “When the mystics refused to be drained, your family bombed the Block,” Turk says. “Hundreds were killed. Some escaped and are hiding out around the Depths. But here, your father wiped everything clean.”
    I stare out at the massive lake that has taken the Block’s place.Tenement ruins rise from the water, haunting reminders of what used to be.
    “This is horrible,” I say.
    “I know,” Turk replies. Gently he rests a hand on my shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go.”
    We make our way to a gondola, and Turk pays the gondolier to let us use the boat alone, promising to return it when he comes back to pick up his bike.
    “How does he know he can trust you?” I ask as Turk pilots us down a canal. The movement of the boat and the wind across my face feel nice, offering slight relief from the hot, sticky air.
    “We go way back,” Turk says. He’s seated in the boat, facing me, one hand grasping the gondola’s motorized steering wheel, the other arm resting on the side of the boat. “His name is Monroe. I’ve loaned him money in the past.”
    I’m silent for a moment, watching the ripples in the murky water. “Who are you?”
    Turk raises his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
    “You just live a very wild life,” I say.
    “Because I lent a gondolier some cash?”
    “And where does this money come from?” I ask, removing my hood. I quickly run my fingers through my hair.
    “MYOB,” Turk says, turning us left, onto a smaller canal. We pass a group of buildings that seem more or less intact, with gates that cover their doors, the bottom layers of stone stained green and brown from the water.
    “What’s that? Some sort of bank?”
    Turk sticks out his tongue at me. “Yeah. The bank of mind your own beeswax.” He laughs.
    “Oh, that’s mature,” I say, but I can’t help it. I’m laughing, too.
    “This part of Manhattan used to be called Harlem back in the day,” Turk says.
    We’ve been riding the canals for the better part of an hour, and we’re now in an area of broken-down brownstones, like jagged teeth rising from the waters.
    “And why are we here?” I ask.
    “You’ll see.” He pulls the boat up to a sagging dock and ties it to a rotting wooden post.
    We leave the gondola and step onto the street. We’re truly in the middle of nowhere. No people. No signs of life. Just abandoned buildings and the remains of old warehouses.
    Turk guides me to a street corner—but it’s the corner of nothing and nowhere. There isn’t a building in sight that looks remotely livable. Just an empty lot that takes up nearly an entire city block, surrounded by a rusty chain-link fence.