RoseBlood(67)
I make the promise, although I know it’s a lie.
It’s 6:05 p.m., and I’m in Paris on a deserted street corner, waiting for some nameless car to escort me blindfolded to an undisclosed location.
I have to wonder how many missing persons reports start with this premise.
The sunset hangs low and the air chills, scented with mildewing mortar. Lavender and apricot hues soften the glimpses of sky between buildings. Stagnant puddles glimmer in inky spills at every curb.
The wristband itches on my arm like poison ivy, as if to demonstrate that I’ve chosen the toxic path. I can’t shake the image of the taxi driver’s disapproving face when he dropped me here alone a few minutes ago, an obvious inference that he knew I was in over my head.
What am I doing?
An icy tremor radiates from my spine to my limbs in answer. I should have sense enough to call back the taxi; I should get myself out of this situation before it turns into a full-blown mistake with irreparable consequences. I would, if my plan hadn’t fallen into place so seamlessly—like a cosmic sign I’m doing the right thing.
My tote’s strap eats into my shoulder. I cinch it higher, trying not to think about the jeans and tunic tucked inside, the fiber-optic dress I’m wearing in their place now hidden under my hooded gray trench coat and clinging to my every curve, or the nude underthings I’m glad I brought from Texas—being the only ones that don’t show through the shear fabric.
In any other situation, these surroundings would be a tourist’s haven: the damp brick streets and abandoned buildings surrounding a cathedral-style church—pillars emblazoned with carved ornamentation and drainage pipes topped with gargoyles frowning down at me. I feel as if I’ve fallen into the pages of Victor Hugo’s romantic gothic novel, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.
I glance again at the clock on my phone. Twenty more minutes, and my ride will be here for the 6:30 pickup.
I shudder and draw my hood tighter around my face. Logic tells me I should be afraid. But I can’t stop thinking about all the hours I’ve spent with my maestro, how I no longer fear what he hides beneath his mask. How I’ve seen his soul written upon the pages of his past, and it’s beautiful.
He wants me at that club enough that he gave me a starlit dress, and I’m going to be there. I’ll be there so he can tell me what he knows of my past—and my father. So he can fill in that missing piece to the puzzle of my identity.
Since the age of four, I’ve been singing as if possessed. I’ve waited thirteen years to understand. I’m ready to face everything. Anything. As long as it’s the truth.
That courageous thought shrinks to a cowardly whimper in my throat at the glimpse of headlights rounding the corner on the north side of the cathedral. It’s too far to make out the car color or model. If this is my ride, why’s the driver fifteen minutes early?
An urge to run sends a jolt all the way to my legs, but I think better of it. I wouldn’t get far in my stiletto ankle boots—the only fashionable, pewter-toned footwear I could find earlier on my shopping spree to complement the shear fabric of my dress and the pearly surface of my tote.
The surroundings have dimmed enough for streetlamps to blink on, illuminating halos of amber dust around the bulbs. I roll up my trench coat’s cuff to showcase my wristband, proof that I should be here. The closer the car gets, the more details come into view. My feet twitch on the cobblestone . . . debating whether to start walking the opposite direction, or leap in as soon as the door opens.
It’s a taxi, and it stops in front of the church, some twenty feet away. I engage in a stare down with the windshield, hoping to see who’s driving before deciding my next move, but the beaming headlights make it impossible.
Going to the rave via public transportation doesn’t make sense, if the location is to be kept secret. Cautiously, I start toward the car, only to stall as both back doors open. Sunny and Quan step out from the right side, and Jax from the other.
My throat drains of moisture. Jax leans in and pays the driver, then they all start toward me—dressed in bright and glowing clothes.
Rave wear.
“You can’t be serious,” I mumble, loud enough to snap Sunny’s eyes to mine as Quan helps her step up onto the sidewalk in her furry, platform neon-green boots.
“Dang right we’re serious,” she growls.
Within moments they’re all beside me on the cobblestone, glancing over their shoulders as the driver disappears around the corner.
Jax’s features pulse from shadowy to bright, an effect of the LED green alien head on his shirt fading and appearing with his movements, keeping time with the light-up soles on his black tennis shoes.
“Well, there’s no going back now,” Quan says, somewhere between a sigh and a groan. Beneath the fluorescent-orange cowboy hat perched crookedly at his brow, his face looks as pensive and uncomfortable as Jax’s. It’s obvious who’s behind this raid.
Sunny has me in her sights again, but my gaze keeps flitting unintentionally to the top of her head. A fiber-optic wig covers her hair and vacillates between colors for a rainbow effect—the perfect match to her sexy minidress, adorned with strands of glow-in-the-dark fabric paint swirling along the contours of her body.
I inhale a shallow breath, drowning in the combination of her cherry blossom body spray and the guys’ mix of colognes. Before I can think of anything to say, Sunny unties my coat’s belt and whips the flaps open, slipping off my hood in the process.