Surprisingly, he doesn’t.
7
Slate
Ifollow Cadence’s gently swinging ass into a modern archival room decked out in glass. The view is stunning, and I’m not talking about the clock gears or rough stone walls; I’m talking about the view of blue denim that hugs this girl in all the right places.
It almost makes me forget I want out of this goddamn village in which I’m stuck.
And when I say “stuck,” I mean,stuck.
After the De Morel party, I bought a ticket for the earliest train out of here. In blizzard-like conditions, I trudged back to the station. The thirty-minute walk almost froze my balls off. If hell existed, this would be it, this life-sized, snow-globe of a town with its swirling flakes and icy winds.
Never had I been so ecstatic to see a train.
That’s when the next-level crazy shit went down.
I crossed the platform and raised my foot to climb into the orange bullet when I hit a wall.
Literally.
Only it was an invisible wall. And I seemed to be the only one who couldn’t get past it. I watched a couple of other people get onto the train with no problem. I thought maybe there’d been some toxic chemical in one of those salmon things from the party. Something that would cause me to hallucinate. So I took a deep breath and tried again.
And again, I hit a fucking wall.
I moved farther down the platform, tried another entrance. Same damn deal. I looked like one of those sad mimes pretending he was in a box, my palms out, pushing but going nowhere. All I needed was to paint my face white and stencil a black teardrop on my cheek. Hell, at some point—that point being my breaking point—someone tossed a two-euro coin my way.
I swore and shouted, which made a ticket inspector step off the train and inch toward me as though I were some rabies-infected dog. When I said I wanted to get on the train, he sniffed the air, trying to breathalyze me with his nose, then gave a little shake of his head.
Yeah, I smelled like wine, but I was stone-cold sober.
I took a step forward.
Bam!
“Fait chier,” I growled. Then, “Push me!”
“Look, Monsieur, I really can’t—”
“Putain de bordel de merde!PUSH ME ONTO THIS TRAIN!”
A handful of people eyed me like I was missing my straitjacket. The ticket inspector wouldn’t touch me, but a freckle-faced kid shoved me toward the door, only to have me bounce off the invisible wall. Everyone scattered like I was contagious.
The train whirred to indicate the doors were closing. In a last desperate attempt to break through, I banged my fist against the invisible force that trapped me in this quaint shithole. The doors shut, and then the train shot away like a missile.
I wasn’t on it.
I got a cheap bottle of Beaujolais to numb my brain, then went back to my gnome headquarters, aka my dorm. Found theToilettes Hommes, which looked like they’d come straight out of a retro horror movie—mildewed white tiles, yellowed plastic curtains, hair-speckled soap on a stick. There was one toilet stall and two urinals set so close to the row of white porcelain sinks I could have probably taken a leak and brushed my teeth at the same time. At least the showers were semi-private. I stood under the hot water, lubed up my fingers, gagging as I picked out the wet hair that came off the soap, and went to work on the goddamn ring.
I yanked and pulled, twisted and rubbed. The last time I’d worked up so much friction in the shower I’d gotten myself off. This? Well, this was a fucking nightmare. The ring didn’t even budge.
After dressing and going back to my room, I tried again.
And again.
Andagain.
No dice.
