Page 106 of Into Pitch

“That’s not an answer, little fox.” He murmurs and pushes forward, his fingers sliding to cup my jaw.

“I’m okay with you,” I whisper.

“And if I say no?” He parrots my words back to me from earlier.

“I want to tell you that nothing changes, Alex, but I don’t think we can continue as we are.” I try to make him see my point. Try to prove to him that we can’t be one thing and not the other. That if he expects me to open up all my ugly to him, then the road has to go both ways.

“You will see me without filters or curation.”

“I get that, and I’m not asking to be a tourist to be entertained.” I counter.

“I’m not sure you would be.” He murmurs and rubs his thumb along my jaw. My eyes track his as they try to pick apart whatever he thinks he can find simply in the distance between us. He takes a deep breath, and shocks me just a tiny bit.

“Alright, then.”

“Yeah?” I breathe.

“Yeah,” he confirms.

“When?” I ask.

“There’s another event soon. I just have to let them know I’m coming with a guest.” He murmurs and strokes his thumb to my pulse.

I search myself for any hesitation at the request. I really do, I dig deep and nothing comes up but this strange bubble of excitement. There is fear, yes, but there is also a blinding clarity that I am so ready to understand.

“We just have to prepare a few things first,” he murmurs and leans forward to press his lips to my brow. A gesture I’ve found he’s doing more and more here lately. Something that doesn’t seem like him at all, but sends the annoying little butterflies in my stomach fluttering.

I sort of thought Pitch would be inside of another asylum.

I was wrong. Because the cathedral that rises above me looms with the same air of excitement, but is entirely different.

Stone cuts out of the dark like a fossilized spine, all arches and ribs and ancient intent. Stained glass windows stretch toward the sky, their colors muted now, and swallowed by the night. The building looks less like a place of worship and more like it’s the place where all things come to die—horribly.

I swallow hard behind my mask and follow Alex through one of the side doors. There isn’t any spectacle or crowd for those who actually participate. One moment I’m outside in the cold night air, and the next I’m inside a narrow corridor washed in low red light.

They really do go all out for these things, including down to how we are expected to dress according to Alex. Tonight I wear a crisp white shirt tucked into black slacks. A fitted vest that hugs my ribs and boots that make surprisingly little noise on the stone floor. When I lift my hands, gloved and steady, they don’t even look like mine.

And on my face rests a fox mask. Much to Alex’s great amusement when he had presented it to me in the car.

It’s gold and white, with elegant lines curving around the eyes, sharp where they need to be. It’s predatory without being monstrous, and I have to admit a little clever. A fine contrast to the mask that Alex wears as Plague; matte black with that unmistakably long beak.

Alex shifts closer to me as we move deeper into the cathedral, his hand falling to the low of my back as we walk. It’s strange the way the other staff members shift when we pass. The way they angle their bodies just slightly away or the way conversations soften, and die.

They’re scared of him.

I don’t need a mask to hide behind to observe that. Whatever he is to them here, they are fucking terrified to be in his orbit. Yet his hand still feels solid at my back, and there is something intoxicating being the person who walks beside the monster. The person who gets to soak in some of that power that radiates off of him when the world simply shifts around him to make room.

He guides us through the space like we are little more than shadows, past the velvet ropes and iron gates, until we are suddenly inside of the mirrored room. It’s not exactly the same as the one before, not that it could be with it being an entirely different building, but so much of it is the same.

It’s just this time I am standing behind them instead of being the focal point. It changes everything somehow.

The noise is dulled and the air feels cooler. The scent of antiseptic and cold stone wrapping around me like a memory I didn’t ask for. The room beyond the glass is empty for now. Only occupied by the settee at the center and the mirrors that sit warped and waiting.

Alex positions himself behind me, his hands slowly sliding to my hips possessively. Strangely anchoring as his beak ducks and brushes against the side of my head.

“I have something special for you tonight,” he murmurs, his distorted voice threading through the mask and straight down my spine.

I wet my lips nervously and nod, content to wait. Like it had before, time stretches here. Minutes feel like hours as we stand and wait. My breathing sounds a little too loud in my head and I try to focus instead on the steady pressure of his hands, the warmth of him at my back.