“Right.” Inhaling, I try to steady my pulse. While I’m a natural shoplifter, I’m not really experienced in planned heists. It was always more of a spontaneous thing with me. But I did manage to slip that company card out from under Calvin’s nose, which took a bit of finesse. So, I tell myself I can do this too. But stealing from Calvin is like stealing from a bulldog. While Arla is a Belgian Malinois, intelligent and militant. “Once we’re inside, don’t let her see you. Okay? She’s mentioned you before, so she must know what you look like. If she realizes you’re here, she’ll suspect something. And after Aaron, I don’t trust her.”
“Still no word, huh?” he asks.
I shake my head. I drove by Aaron’s house after leaving Arla this morning, but he wasn’t home. His car wasn’t even parked out front. And his phone has finally stopped ringing. It goes straight to voicemail now. I’ve left several already.
He considers that and gives my hand a squeeze. “Are you sure about this? We can turn back, think of something else.”
I want nothing more than to turn back. To leave the city and the club and the Fathom behind and pretend this chapter of my life was never written. But that didn’t turn out well the last time I tried it. And there will be no retreat. Not with Arla. Not with the Fathom.
This is our best chance at setting things right. I have to take it. “Let’s go in,” I tell him. “She’ll be waiting. She knew I’d come.”
He nods and follows me across the pavement to the awning where Sal is batting long eyelashes in our direction.
“One more thing.” I turn and whisper to Levi in a rush. “Don’t drink anything.”
His lips are tight, but his eyes tell me he understands.
“Welcome,” Sal says with an enormous smile. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
“You have?”
“The ceremony can’t start without the honoree,” he says dramatically.
Honoree?I glance at the people in line shooting daggers at my back for cutting. “He’s with me,” I tell Sal so that Levi won’t have any trouble getting inside. Once we’re through that door, we’ll have to go our separate ways.
“Of course,” Sal replies, and pulls open the door with a bow.
The first thing I notice is the music. There’s a lounge singer crooning over an unmistakable beat that the DJ is playing. They’ve both been relegated to a corner of the club instead of the main stage where the music is usually stationed. She sounds like a slower, weirder Debbie Harry, melodic and electronic at the same time, and her performance leaves people sweaty and blank in the eyes. A shiver goes through me as I finally catch on her lyrics.
“Tall and wild it waves… my mother says it’s just a weed… goldenrod…”
That’s when I see the tall vases rimming the room, leggy stems of goldenrod bursting from them like sunny fountains, and I freeze. It’s no coincidence. Arla has done this intentionally. For me. Coupled with what Sal said, it’s enough to set my teeth on edge and send my heart sprinting in panicked circles.
I pull Levi toward me. “Something’s wrong,” I whisper.
My eyes scan the crowd, searching faces and alcoves for anyone from the Fathom. But all I see are the freestanding plaster columns positioned around the main stage, stretches of black fabric mysteriously draped between them, the two topless women on platforms dressed like snowy peacocks, and the fire-breathers posted near the center of the room, their bodies glistening beneath the flames they spew.
It’s a carefully crafted nod in my direction, the thoughtless, drunken Arla of this morning replaced by the ringmaster I know too well. But I don’t know why.
Before I can utter another word to Levi, who won’t recognize the meaning behind any of this, a young man comes by holding a tray crammed with drinks. Golden liquid swims in the clear plastic cups, twinkling with edible glitter. He foists them off on anyone and everyone in our vicinity repeating, “A golden hour, on the house.” When he gets to us, I decline with a wave, but he won’t take no for an answer. Finally, I take two and pass one to Levi, quickly setting them aside once the server leaves. Everyone else gulps them back like it’s their last hurrah.
The club is growing increasingly crowded, so that there is less and less room to dance. People are swaying in tighter and tighter circles, but the servers continue to fight their way through the throng, with tray after tray of the same glittering cocktail.
I can’t explain what’s happening, but the fear is curdling inside me with every new detail, with the knowledge that this is all building toward some end I can’t control. We’ve walked into something set just for me—a stage, a trap—and I have the distinct sense that I’ve been outplayed.
We were supposed to separate once inside and I pointed Levi to the elevator, but I can hardly make it out in this commotion; and as people continue to enter, Levi and I have been pushed deeper toward the center of the room. Now, I grab his hand and tug him back toward the door, shouldering revelers as I go.
“Jude, what’s wrong?” he asks, picking up on my anxiety.
“We’re leaving,” I tell him. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
He follows blindly, but I am suddenly cut off by Rock, who has materialized out of thin air and is resolutely blocking my path. “Rock, what’s going on?”
Behind me, I release Levi’s hand and make a shooing motion, hoping he’ll understand my signals.Go. Find a way out.
Rock’s eyes lock on mine. “Jude, we’ve been waiting for you.”
“Where’s Brennan?” I ask him. “Have you seen him?”
