Chapter Eighteen
September 15, age 26
Three Hours Until Vexa LaRue
Ninety Minutes Until Silas Falls
“You’re wearing lingerie?”
“You’re wearing lingerie!”
My men cheered and jeered with equal skepticism and enthusiasm.
I wished I felt as confident as I looked, because damn, I looked hot.
I snapped a selfie in the gloriously flattering light of the bathroom mirror and sent it to Nia and Kirby.
(Marlow) Siren-hunting attire. What do we think?
(Nia) Shouldn’t you be at the concert already?
(Marlow) Yup. We leave as soon as I stop having a panic attack
(Nia) So…never?
(Marlow) Kirbs, you there? Why aren’t you drooling over my thirst trap? The only appropriate response when friends send hot selfies is, “I love you, sit on my face.”
(Marlow) Speaking of, Nia…
(Nia) *clears throat* Raw. Next question.
(Marlow) That’s more like it. Have you heard from Kirby?
(Nia) I’m guessing they silenced their phone when they followed Ella into that meeting. Probably wouldn’t be polite to have your pocket buzzing in front of an Egyptiangod. They’re pretty epic, right? Big shots?
(Nia) I’m sure you’ll exit the concert to a million texts from them. I’ll keep my eyes on the live stream. Go get ‘em, tiger.
I didn’t like it. But I didn’t have a choice.
But the angel’s ticking clock was almost up. Our three days to comply had ended. It was about to be open season on my head.
I’d picked a black lace bodysuit that plunged to my belly button, clinging tightly to keep my tits in place. I’d repurposed my high-waisted black silk pants with the bodysuit and paired them with black heels. I’d tucked the broach between my skin and the black lace. I grimaced at how it pinched uncomfortably every time I moved, but I knew better than to leave the house without it. I’d channeled my inner pop star, slicking my hair into a high ponytail as I’d stared in the bathroom mirror.
My skin prickled with anxious, sickly sweat. The adrenaline had nowhere to go, so it pooled in my temples, in my heart, in my stomach. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to hold it together and finish getting ready when it felt like I had the flu, but, as the saying went, the show must go on.
I held up two tubes of lipstick, struggling to keep the tremble from my hands. “Red lipstick? Or black?”
To my surprise, they both voted black.
Marlow couldn’t pull it off, but Maribelle could. Unfortunately, it was Marlow’s worry plaguing me. The boys had promised me three separate times that they knew what to do, and that they wouldn’t miss.
The problem, of course, was ensuring the audience saw them both. And when they did, that they believed them.
“Good luck,” I’d mumbled as I’d sent them off with black-light spray paint. Theft was probably wrong, but this wasn’t the time to worry about minor notches in my morality belt as I’d had them step in and out of a warehouse, emptying itsUV cans. It had taken them longer than I’d expected to spray the true-sight sigil over the stadium floor.
At Azrames’s urging, the two of them hadn’t left until they’d added the sigil on the drop-down screens and doors.
Silas would pull hisbe not afraidact, revealing himself to the audience. It was Azrames’s visibility that worried us. Though, ultimately, we decided Silas looking like a dick was more important than Azrames looking like a hero.
