by Ana Calin
“In this context Leona might not talk to me either, you know,” I said. “I’m on your side, and if she’s on Varlam’s, it’s gonna be hard to make my point.”
“Yes, but she wants to persuade you of hers, so at least she’ll let you approach her.”
I pondered. “Why is Leona important to the Viscount all of a sudden?”
Damian frowned. “What makes you think she’s important to him?”
“Well, he asked that I try to win her over, didn’t he? He wants me to persuade her of your cause. Of the Order’s cause. And he seems willing to take risks for that. Why?”
Damian smiled. “I’m afraid that’s something you’ll have to ask him someday.”
Eyes turned to us as we stepped inside the cafeteria, which pushed me to instinctively seek shelter under Damian’s wing. His closeness felt protective against the insistent stares. Most people looked surprised that he pranced in here with me yet again, huge hand covering my shoulder, making it so clear we had something going that the Barbies couldn’t hide their jealousy.
And then I saw Svetlana, a shocking vision.
Her face was so pale and sickly that not even the make-up could hide it, her big hazel eyes fixing us like a hurt stalker’s, the rings under them deep. Her outfit was beyond reproach though, as always, with stylish trousers, high heels, a tight top, and a beige jacket so short it ended under her breasts. A designer bag was hanging from her forearm. Her platinum hair looked freshly dyed.
Anytime she’d glance at us, Damian seemed oblivious to her. Once immersed in his group, his hold on me tightened, allowing for little possibility to move. It seemed he made it clear to everyone that he possessed me.
He shielded us behind his group of friends whose chattering lost meaning in the bad acoustics of the cafeteria, and found privacy with Gino Bogza in a corner.
“Have you seen her?” Damian inquired.
Gino’s reply lagged. His eyes fixed me disapprovingly, their electric brightness now once again concealed behind dusty-blue contacts. He also wore a thin layer of foundation to make him look imperfect. He was almost as tall as Damian was, but leaner in a modern blue body-fit shirt and leather jacket.
“Very early. At eight she was already here,” he said.
Damian glanced around. “Good. And where is she now?”
“Class, Medieval Literature. They have two hours in a row, might go without a break,” Gino replied. He grabbed Damian’s forearm and leaned in closer with an earnest expression on his face. “I’m worried, Damian.”
“Why?” Damian sounded detached but not quite. I had a feeling he wanted to downplay the gravity of the situation, but it didn’t stop Gino.
“To put it bluntly, because I think you’re…” He threw me a glance full of reproof, “being reckless. Because of her.”
Damian threw Gino a glare that made the poor guy back off. Only moments later, a breathless man in a leather jacket made his way through the crowd with a desperate look on his face. Smooth, beautiful face under a layer of make-up, I realized as he came within inches of us. He was an Upgrade too.
“Damian, you need to see this,” he urged.
Before I could say another word, Damian freed himself from my grasp and followed the desperate Upgrade back through the crowd, smoothly, like a feral. I stretched my arm after him, calling his name, but Gino grabbed my forearm and restrained me.
“Listen, girl, and listen good,” he hissed in my ear. “No matter what he says, he does put himself in unprecedented danger, and he does it for your sake.”
“Then let’s stop him!” I cried.
“There’s no stopping The Executioner, stupid girl. The death race is on.”
“Where is he going, Gino? Please!”
“He’s taking on BioDhrome’s new project, most probably. Our people have been scouting the area since this morning, and they must have come upon someone suspicious.”
Keeping his hand on my wrist, he placed himself before me and glowered, waiting for a reaction. I opened my mouth to speak, but then I saw her. She passed right behind Gino’s back and headed for the stairs, coffee-to-go in her hand. She must have taken a quick break from class to get herself a “shot of life,” as she liked to call it. I reacted on impulse and sprang up to follow her up the stairs, but Gino’s clasp jerked me back.
“I can’t let you walk away on my watch, girl, he’ll have my head.”
“He brought me here today for a reason, and that reason is now taking two steps at a time,” I cut him off and pointed at Leona.
Gino’s face drew as he saw her, and he immediately released me. I hurried after Leona as fast as I could, calling out her name. She stopped and turned, then grimaced and spun around, increasing her pace. She triggered an angry cuss from the guy she bumped into, and spilled her coffee. On the crowded first floor, she slowed down and faced me, craning her neck to search behind me. I did too. No one had followed me.
Chapter Twelve
Half a head taller than me, on stylish high heels and long legs, the cherry red top highlighted her toned body and her shiny black hair. Leona was a beauty queen by any human standards.
Often, I’d asked myself, why hadn’t the sexy “Gypsy Carmen” found a sugar daddy, the way Svetlana had? Why be the best in her class when she could use both her wit and looks to attract a generous sponsor? I’d never had a doubt she could get an expensive ring on her finger anytime.
But now, I realized just how much my perspective on beauty had changed. I’d called my best friend “beautiful” many times in the many years we’d known each other, but I wouldn’t go past “attractive” today. The concept of beauty had changed radically for me since I’d seen Upgrades with their truly flawless faces, a natural fit for any magazine.
“Why did you make me chase you like that?” I demanded.
Despite the blush on her high cheekbones, Leona looked tired and shaken in a strange way. She couldn’t seem to find her voice, and as I approached, I saw the frightened flicker in her chocolate eyes.
“Why are you looking at me like that, Leona?” I whispered. When she finally spoke, she sounded like a ghost.
“Alice, I need you to trust me.”
I narrowed my eyes, as if that could help inspect hers better, see through her anguish. I took another step closer, but she pirouetted and started down the hallway before I got the chance to open my mouth.
I hurried after her, gritting my teeth at the sore sensation between my legs, and forcing myself to follow, as Leona slid through the door to the narrow service stairs.
She took two stairs at a time, while I had to hold on to the rail and haul myself up every step. I congratulated myself for having decided on the low-heel boots, no matter how much of an old maid they made me look. But when I reached the attic – a shabby place cluttered with brooms, buckets, expired cleaning products, and a wide variety of insects – and plunged after Leona through a small, creaking door, I forgot all about the pain.
There he stood, right by my best friend’s side, his outline an unmistakable embossment in the shade. Enormous and dark, more intimidating than a bear with his overly bulky muscles. Next to him, Leona’s shape appeared like something he could crush with one arm. Cold sweat covered my body, and my teeth began to clatter. In an impulse, I took a step back, stumbled, and fell.
I saw Leona stretching her arm in an attempt to catch me. I also heard her say, “Please, Alice,” a frightened insistence.
I scrambled to my feet and barged out, not looking back. I didn’t even dwell on Leona’s betrayal for an instant. All I knew was that I had to get away from him, get to Damian and Gino, warn them, get us all out of there. In my haste I stumbled and rolled down the stairs, the edges hammering my bones. The adrenaline gave me strength to pick myself up and keep going without pause.
My body seemed to draw on unsuspected sources of energy. By the time I reached the first floor, my muscles felt strong, my legs picked up pace, and the shoulders I bumped into jerked out of my way at t
he force. People cussed. Someone tried to grab me, but I kept gaining speed like an automatic engine. In the race, I knocked back a bespectacled girl with an armful of books, and, as my hands scissored the air to catch her, things became clear in my head – my brain was again “activating” traits that I now needed in order to stay alive.
My ears perked up, my eyesight sharpened, and my nose began sniffing like an animal’s as I caught every scent around – the sweat that had stained the girl’s armpits, the stale reek of cigarettes from the guy behind me, the fresh-green fragrance natural to Gino’s skin.
My eyes searched for him automatically, and spotted his golden head bobbing in a chaotic group of guys on the landing. The group’s outer circle, all sweaters, backpacks and books, seemed to laugh and talk, slap shoulders and bump fists, but the inner commotion didn’t escape my fast moving irises. They adjusted like high-tech cameras taking focus. Gino was ambushed; he was struggling his way out of what must’ve been a cluster of Upgrades.
One of them ripped from the outer circle and moved in my direction. Loose sweater with stripes, dark pants and sneakers, the outfit made him look like a student. But the aggressive stare, the unnatural smoothness of his skin unique to Upgrades despite the make-up, made it clear he was one of them.
Without a second’s pondering, I walked backwards, increasing pace. He hastened his long-legged stride to reach me, and I eventually spun round and ran as fast as I could back the way I’d come. It was the only available route at this point. As the door to the service stairway tunneled closer, my heart became frantic – the only alternative to the man behind was Giant. I was trapped between them.
I followed my first impulse and turned a sharp left towards the corridor by the main stairs, plunging into the ladies’ room and slamming the door shut. In only a few moments of pulse pounding in my ears, I realized the staring Barbie caught mid-applying lipstick, and the gaping she-nerd wouldn’t hold him back. He’d barge in, grip my throat, and finish me. Then he’d finish them.
I tried jerking open the first closet – taken. Second one – taken, an angry voice “bug off”-ing me for the desperate pressing of the latch. I heard the entrance door hit the wall, and the girls’ cry of surprise. He was in. I didn’t look at him, afraid I might petrify in panic. I needed every drop of clear-headedness.
I kicked the door to the last closet, and a small blonde with her pants down shrieked and cowered on the toilet seat. Her risen legs left just enough space on it for me to jump on and hoist myself to the high window above our heads.
I gripped the latch and held tightly to it, while my feet patted up the tiled wall to the sill, slipping, and then wheeling faster like a hysteric Speedy Gonzales. Once there, I crouched in a ball. I faced the side of the window I knew would open, and tugged at it. It was stuck, and it only unclenched after insistent tries, the exact moment a hand reached for my ankle.
I slid out and crawled down the inclined roof to the gutter. Before I could grab it, I skidded and screamed. My legs dangled high above the ground, while I held on to the frail pipe with both hands. My palms were so sweaty that I soon hung only by my fingers. Seconds later, my arms beat the air in a failed attempt to grab for something. I crashed with a muffled thump, hearing my ankle and knee snap. My head began to spin as hot pain shot through my leg, ripping a howl from my chest.
I didn’t know how much of my leg was broken, but fear provided strength to limp out of the open. Yet before I reached the wall I could already walk normally again. The pain was crawling back the way it had come, retreating into nothingness – the strangest sensation of all times, like in those movies where time runs backwards. Only it was pain that crept back down my leg, faint in my knee and ankle, then vanishing in thin air.
“Hey, are you okay?” a voice spoke, sounding close, a gentle hand touching my elbow. I turned briskly and found myself face to face with none other than Mr. Dimples, the waiter from Café d’Art. Maybe it was the relief at seeing a familiar face that made my shoulders relax a bit. Only an instant later, the hairs were up all along my arms again.
Damian appeared behind Dimples, twisting the hand that had touched me behind his back, forcing the guy to his knees. Dimples scrunched his eyes shut and screeched in pain. The flash I got of Damian’s face revealed sculpted barbarian features, sharp eyes, and his lips drawn in a brutal expression – the grin of an attacking animal as he hurled Dimples down on his back.
Dimples’ head snapped to the side at Damian’s blow, blood spluttering out of his mouth. My stomach churned at the sight, at the brutality of it. It was an innocent human, so fragile under mighty Damian. He stood with his legs planted on each side of the now sprawled Dimples, hands like claws, his muscular arms flexing through the white sleeves of his sweater.
I could see it coming. He was getting ready to pull poor Dimples back up and knock his teeth out when I jumped to him and hung my whole weight on his arm.
“Don’t!”
Damian’s eyes didn’t waver off him.
“He’s a dirt bag,” he snarled, baring his teeth. One look at Dimples revealed the bloody lower part of his face and, to my surprise, the pattern of smooth, perfect skin in the shape of Damian’s fingers. His fist had wiped off the layer of foundation. I stilled.
Mr. Dimples was an Upgrade. Probably Tony’s contact at Café d’Art. A spy, a foe. How many of them had been around, and for how long?
A kick from Damian made his head snap to the side again and then back to us with an angry but powerless glare. I expected Damian would beat him to a bloody pulp, but instead of reaching down for the man, his arm wrapped around me. He led me with urgent steps across the field toward his car. One glance at him was enough to see he was tense, focused, a soldier on a mission.
“We need to get you out of here,” he hissed. “I can’t risk exposing you any further no matter what the Viscount says.”
People had stopped to gawk at us. I threw a look behind to see Mr. Dimples wobbling on his legs as he tried to find balance.
“Why didn’t you go all the way?” I asked Damian as he drove us out of there with screeching tires.
“You would have wanted me to do that?”
“Not wanted, but expected you to,” I managed. My stomach jerked left and right as he slalomed through dense traffic and avoided holes in the asphalt. We moved so fast I wondered how long until police sirens would start wailing after us.
“I already told you, I don’t kill gratuitously,” Damian said. “If I can avoid it, I do. Especially since I met you.”
His face was that of a beautiful demon with frightening eyes. The more I looked at him, the more it froze me in my seat.
“I did see Leona,” I said as he took a brusque turn, making me grab the door’s handle for extra balance. “She seemed to be running away, but it turned out she was baiting me right into Giant’s claws.”
This turned Damian’s focus from the road to my face for a second too long. He lost direction and almost drove into a dusty Dacia.
“Watch it!” I yelped, and Damian pulled the wheel at the last moment.
“What on Earth was she thinking?” he hissed.
“I don’t have the slightest idea.” It hurt as I thought of Leona’s betrayal. “We’ve been like sisters for over ten years, I would’ve never expected this.”
Damian kept his eyes ahead, his driving aggressive. The seatbelt and the door’s handle weren’t enough to keep me steady; all my organs jumped at the bumps and overhauls.
“Where are we going?”
Damian took another turn that threw my head against the window. Before I hit it, he grabbed my arm and pulled me back straight in my seat. He didn’t reply, his eyes hard ahead.
The race ended with me nauseated, and Damian speeding down the subterranean garage under the grey apartment building by the shipyard. He stopped, bringing the BMW snout first into a corner slot, then turned his head to look back without showing the intent of getting out. I followed his gaze and saw two black cars. The br
and was unidentified, and they were badass looking. They drove into the underground as the rolling door slowly lowered to the ground.
Damian opened his door and scooped me from my seat so naturally and so smoothly that I barely realized it happening. It was more like a flash of memory I became aware of as we crouched by the car next to his. Damian worked the lock with a long piece of wire he modeled in his fingers. Watching his smooth, expert moves, I almost forgot what had brought us there.
He opened the door just enough for me to crawl in. I slipped, and made a swooshing sound in the process, which prompted Damian to close the door too quickly to avoid a small thud. He appeared on the other side before I was able to reach over and unlock the driver’s door. He got in with moves so silky they should’ve been impossible for someone his size, just in time to escape the beam of headlight that fell on the spot where he’d stood just an instant ago.
“Get down,” he whispered. He slid lower in his seat to make the car look empty, one of the many in the dark. I followed suit. Our pursuers cruised around the garage, their headlights snaking on the ground like scouts’ lanterns.
I wondered why we’d come here of all places, where our pursuers were bound to look for us first if they lost our trail, but then it hit me – the BMW wouldn’t have been able to keep ahead of the Batmobiles outside the city traffic if we’d tried to leave town. Once on the open country roads, they would have caught up with us in no time. We were here for our own badass horsepower.
When their headlights left our spot to darkness, Damian grabbed my hand in his and slid out of the car sleekly like a feline, leading me over the console to the driver’s seat, then out. Mirroring his actions, I glued my back to the wide concrete column that separated our last hideout from the aisle to the exit.
Damian looked away, peeking for our pursuers around the column while I gawked at him – very tall, his muscles dangerously flexed through his white sweater, ready to fight. Again, I felt small in the shadow of a titan.
We glided our way between a line of parked cars and the concrete wall to his Maserati. Damian didn’t use the remote. The only sound that accompanied us was the draught tugging at my eardrums, and this or that distant car driving out of the lot. He inserted the key in the lock and turned it silently. The door began to open, but then it thudded back shut, kicked from the shadow. Startled, I jumped back as far as Damian’s hand allowed. An instant later, he released me. A crack followed, like wood or bone breaking.