Lost Angeles

by Mantchev, Lisa

  Nobody, but nobody snaps a heel off a Louboutin.

  I end up all in white this time, a one-piece catsuit cut out of some sort of curve-hugging spandex that makes me look like a comic book character. A leather belt gets slung around my waist, and one of the three not-so-amigos shoves me into matching boots. They cap the whole deal off with an utterly ridiculous fur shrug that catches strands of my hair the second they pull the rollers out. The only color I’m wearing is the violent red on my lips and the marks at the side of my neck.

  The costuming makes sense the second they steer me toward the photoshoot set-up, because Xaine is head-to-toe in black. Devil to my angel, Dark against Light.

  The smile to my frown, the pale to my blush, the arrogance to my innocence…

  Working my way through a yin-yang litany helps distract me from my anxiety about the newest body dump. I don’t have a single quiet second to ask Xaine about it. Standing under the brilliant lights, everything starts to blur, one pose into the next, one shouted instruction to another, until precious little seems real. It becomes clear early-on that I am most definitely not a natural at this. I spend the first twenty minutes tripping over my own feet, the next ten tripping over Xaine’s feet, and then five after that flushed so red that they have to stop until I get my fumbling under control. For his part, Xaine seems merely amused by the entire episode, pulling me up and dusting me off, wrapping himself around me until I have no choice but to stand and deliver, so to speak. It seems like forever before the photographer waves us off in opposite directions: me to the Dreaded Chair, X to wherever he’s been hiding out for the last three hours. Apparently we’re going to bounce around each other, only touching occasionally until this trial by fire is done.

  Next up is an interview, and thankfully they stick me in a pair of ripped jeans, a glittering tank top, and a pair of stilettos that might just kill me. Dead or not, anything is an improvement over the fur cape, in my opinion. The stylist makes a huge deal over the heels, telling me in no uncertain terms that I am not to drag my feet, damage, scuff, mark, scratch, dent or—god forbid!—break them. Right about then, Xaine swings into my corner of the ring, grasps me by the hand, and yanks me from the chair. There’s an unsure second as I struggle to get my legs under me.

  “Quit it, jerkface.” I scowl because he did it on purpose, but I manage to keep from snapping the precious red-painted peg that’s holding me up.

  “Relax, babe.” He grins into my I hate you face, sliding a hand around my waist and pulling me snug against him. “You can burn the shoes in effigy if you want, once we’re done. I won’t even tattle.”

  They put us on a couch. It’s not Xaine’s couch, so I can’t fathom where it came from unless there’s an attic full of couches somewhere. Or they brought their own, which seems inordinately silly but this is Hollywood. Xaine does most of the talking, and I’m content to let him, following his lead, watching him soak up the limelight.

  It’s all cake until someone fires up one more Leko, and I’m pinned to the upholstery by a high-intensity halogen—

  White illumination overhead, burning into my retinas, and yet I spot the flash of gold as someone turns. His eyes catch the light the way that vampire eyes do. Like cat eyes do.

  My mouth is dry, lips so parched that they’re cracking. My voice is gone, long gone, and I don’t even bother trying to speak. It’s no use anyway. It’s all going to end soon. I can feel it, the pervasive weakness weighing down everything inside of me. There’s no strength left, no fight. We stare at each other, me and the man with the tiger eyes, and I find that his face is as devoid of sympathy as it is devoid of malice. It’s just blank.

  There is no hope.

  “Hey,” Xaine’s lips brush against the overstyled hair at my temple, causing me to startle. “You holding up?”

  “Yeah,” I turn my head enough to offer up a tight smile. “I’m great.”

  Xaine gives me a skeptical once-over, but nods and turns his attention to the minion powdering his nose. Someone else comes at me with a makeup sponge, but it hardly matters. By the time the stylist reapplies my lipstick, my mind is a hundred miles away. I’m fishing, casting the line and bringing it back empty, trying to remember more than mere snippets. It’s like waking up in the middle of a dream and then trying to go back to sleep so you can pick up where you left off.

  Doesn’t work that way.

  After Tiberius kidnapped me, all the hurt parts got buried deep. Really deep. But now they are being shaken loose, little by little, and there’s really only one thing—one person—that I can attribute it to. The only person I know who gets his rocks off on all the lockboxes inside my head, and the only person who’s got the Master Key to each and every single one.

  Take-a-memory, leave-a-memory.

  Benicio.

  A long second later, I realize Perez Hilton just asked me what it feels like to piggyback on someone else’s fame.

  I look him right in the eye. “I dunno, P, why don’t you tell me?”

  Then I catch sight of a caterer carrying a platter of sandwiches and promptly abandon the couch. The clip of me snagging a hoagie and kicking a Louboutin at the stylist will end up on YouTube by nightfall with a thousand different parodies following swiftly in its wake. All I can really do at this point is offer up a shrug and filch a glass of champagne on my way off-set.

  Shooting a quick glance over my shoulder, I find Xaine eyeballing me with a bemused smile on his face. This is exactly the sort of thing he’d do, so I guess he understands. He knows I’ll be back eventually.

  The moment I find a quiet corner, I plop down with my sandwich and my bubbly, cramming the food down my throat as quickly as possible. I need a few minutes to think. It’s only a matter of minutes before someone comes looking for me and, at the moment, guilty and hungry are at war inside me with a vengeance, so I’ve got to spend what little time I have wisely. As soon as I wash the last bite down, I lean back against the steps I’m sitting on, letting the square edges dig into my back.

  Another dead girl.

  When I started out, I couldn’t have even anticipated someone like Benicio jumping into the mix. He’s the wild card, the completely uncontrollable variable in this volatile equation. Granted, I’m pretty much charging my way through this whole thing like a stampeding rhino, and I’m not getting that far with any of it. Reille and Cas are on the other side of the planet, Asher and Xaine don’t know anything about my situation, and even I don’t have access to the inner workings of my own mind.

  Not only that, but the longer I tilt at windmills, the more dead women are going to turn up. I may not be able to do anything about Caspian Declan or Reille Reece or all the blank spots in my memories, but I can do something about this. About him. The rest of the answers will come in time, but with every moment that Benicio is loose, time is of the essence.

  “This has to stop.” I mutter as I head back into the fray, determined to take matters into my own hands. Lonan promised me that the house was safe, that it was secure, that nobody was getting in without their express permission.

  I know what I have to do.

  When I sit back down next to Xaine, he hits me with all the bemused boredom he can muster. “Better?”

  “Yeah. What now?”

  The next hour is filled with a million different questions, each one more invasive than the last, but I answer them all with a brutal honesty and candor that borders on recklessness. It becomes a game, I think; the more private the question, the more blatant the answer. They ask about my childhood, my home life, my sex life, our sex life. When they start hinting around questions about what Xaine’s like in bed, I blush, turn ten shades of red even, but keep right on going.

  “You’re sporting a pretty mean set of bite marks there,” one interviewer points out. It’s not a question really, but it’s leading enough, and I take the bait like I just love the taste of worms.

  “Yes, they are. Xaine gave me these during our first time.” That’s the first giant lie,
and I steal a glance at the vampire in question when I deliberately touch my fingertips to the two red puncture wounds. He’s got one deceptively lazy arm looped up on the back of the couch; when it flexes the slightest bit, I wonder if he’s going to call me on my bullshit. One second passes, then another, so I push a bit more, reaching out to brush my thumb adoringly across his cheek.

  He doesn’t say anything, but I know he knows something is up. He knows, and he’s going to do his damndest to shut it down as soon as he realizes what I’m doing. So the second the last umbrella light goes out, I’m up and moving, ditching the final pair of too-tall heels and striding away like I’m not wearing a tight-as-sin Little Black that shows off more thigh than it really ought to. People trail behind me with cameras and microphones, because even though the official Q&A is over, there are always the ambitious bastards after the more meaty stuff.

  I don’t disappoint, either. By the time I hit the front hall, I’ve wiggled the back zipper down past the crack of my ass, and the second as my foot hits the first step, the whole thing drops around my ankles. Everyone skids to a stop, because there’s not a single one of the reporters, ballsy or not, willing to chase me upstairs into Off Limits territory. That doesn’t stop them from gaping as I ascend the stairs wearing nothing but two scraps of black lace from some smutty-but-expensive Hollywood lingerie shop. The real eyebrow-raiser comes when the top half of my racy ensemble drops into the foyer two seconds later, drifting onto the marble floor with whisper.

  Yeah, that’ll hit YouTube right about the time it hits XxxTube.

  “Clear out, assholes,” Xaine says, stepping between them and following me into the master suite at a leisurely amble. The words sound cheerful enough, but the reporters know better. Down to the last camera-jockey, they know they have approximately ten minutes to get out of his house before shit gets broken.

  In our absence, Rosa made the bed and picked up our scattered clothes. It’s night again, so the drapes are pulled back to show off the spectacularly expensive canyon view. Stooping, I locate the one discarded T-shirt that Rosa missed on the bedroom floor, pulling it on before turning to face Xaine.

  “Want to tell me what that was all about?”

  “Just answering their questions.” I might have been all sass and backbone in front of the cameras, but now I’m blushing over the fact that I got naked in front of that many people.

  Never mind why I did it.

  “Bullshit, sweetheart.” Xaine moves into my personal space without a second thought. “You were taunting those fuckwits.”

  “I was bored.”

  “You were playing with them,” he corrects. “Except I’m not sure I get what the game is.”

  “I wasn’t playing with them—”

  “Then who?”

  I can’t help but hesitate before answering. “Benicio.”

  Once Xaine manages to pick his jaw up, he blurts out, “What the hell for?”

  “I know about the body,” I tell him. “The other body.”

  Whatever he’s feeling right now, it contains zero guilt. “And how does that explain shaking your ass on national TV for the serial killer who’s got a massive boner for you?”

  Instead of dignifying that gem with a response, I ask, “Where did it happen?”

  There’s a hitch in his indignation parade when he answers, “The warehouse.”

  “The warehouse where we found Jess?”

  “Yes.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Xaine, when were you going to tell me?”

  He considers the question like the cameras are still rolling. “Probably never.”

  “Don’t you think I should know about things like this?” I ask. “I mean, it’s kinda relevant to my interests.”

  “And what are you interests?” he asks. “Before it was Reille and Cas. Now it’s luring in Benny? Then what?”

  “Then we take him down,” I say. “Turn him in. Get him off the streets, stop him from murdering people because he’s obsessed with me, and hopefully recover whatever pieces of my memory he siphoned off—”

  “Benicio is a dickhead,” Xaine interrupts. “A dangerous one.”

  He’s used to getting his way, but I’m not done arguing. Not by a long shot. “It’s my fault those women are dead, so it’s my responsibility to make it stop.”

  “Let Asher do his stupid job.” Xaine’s hand slides across my shoulder, up my neck until he’s cradling my jaw in the palm of his hand. “You just…stay here… with me.”

  Before he even dips his head, I can see the intent in his eyes, along with a flash of pain. Then he shuts those eyes, shuts away the pain, sealing our lips together in a kiss that actually tastes bittersweet. My heart aches for him, but as his fingers tighten down on me and the kiss deepens, I can’t help the nagging feeling that I’m a prop, a standin for the thing he really wants.

  “Stay here,” he mutters against my lips, “where I can protect you—”

  There’s a soft but distinct clearing of the throat from the vicinity of the bedroom door, followed by the staccato of knuckles against wood. Xaine’s body tenses, and I immediately reach for him, closing my fingers down over his hip, his arm.

  “Asher’s trying to get a hold of you, Xaine.” It’s Lonan, eying us both a little warily. “He says it’s important.”

  “Get out, dipshit, I’m busy.”

  “I can see that.” Lonan glances over his shoulder, like he’s debating whether or not to forge ahead. When he finally makes up his mind, he ignores Xaine in favor of talking directly to me. “Lore, Jess isn’t doing so well. Asher needs to talk to you.”

  “That’s what the phone is for,” Xaine mutters, but the adrenaline is already snaking through me when I say, “Define ‘not well.’”

  A muscle in Lonan’s jaw jumps. “She’s bleeding again. Running a high fever. He thinks maybe whatever you guys gave her just delayed the inevitable.”

  “Oh, god…” It’s like someone punched me hard in the stomach, in the heart. Pulling out of Xaine’s grasp, I head straight for the closet and start grabbing clothes, whatever’s closest.

  Lonan and Xaine mutter at each other as I pull on his jeans, make a mad grab for the ballerina flats. I catch snippets of the conversation, but it all boils down to the fact that Cas’s miracle shot didn’t work. It only gave Jess a temporary reprieve.

  When I exit the closet, Lonan’s gone, and Xaine clenches the doorframe with one hand, fingers flexing like he wants to punch something.

  “You’re going down there to watch her die.” It’s not a question or an accusation, but a softly worded warning, in case I hadn’t understood the implication in Asher’s message.

  “Yes.” I step up behind him, reaching out to place a hand on his shoulder. The muscles in his back are bunched up, harder than rock, but he exhales and forces himself to relax even as he turns to face me. “That’s what we do, Xaine. What humans do.”

  “Not all humans,” he says, bringing his forehead down to meet mine. “Just the good ones. And there are far less of you than you think.” His frown deepens. “I’m not sure Jess is one of them. You might be wasting your prayers.”

  “I don’t pray anymore,” I tell him. “But if I did, she’d be the one I’d waste them on.”

  With an irritated huff, Xaine pulls away, threading his fingers through mine and towing me down the hall and toward the stairs. “Yeah, well, don’t expect a last minute Hail Mary. I’m pretty sure we blew all chance of that on Cas’s prototype piece of nothin’.”

  As ordered, the crews are in the process of cleaning up and clearing out, but Xaine plows through them, striding toward the front door. Lonan’s waiting in the driveway, his Jeep already idling. I slide into the backseat, and Xaine ducks in behind me.

  “Keep your eyes peeled for Benicio,” Xaine says as we pass through the gates.

  “And if I see him?” Lonan asks, gaze flicking to the rearview mirror.

  “Run him the fuck over and keep going.”

  CHAPTER F
IFTEEN

  Xaine

  As soon as my ass hits the seat, I pull out my phone and start checking the stats. Three different clips of Lore stomping off the set with her huge-ass sandwich. Fourteen different bootlegs and counting of her in her underwear, but the primary upload came from a burner account run by one of the Scion PR lackeys, under a pseudonym, of course. Despite what Cas thinks about how I run my company, I don’t let people get the jump on me when it matters. And it’s nice footage, I will admit, of Lore’s pretty ass working its way up my staircase.

  Her gaze slide over to the screen, drawn by the backlight. “Jesus, they didn’t waste any time, did they?”

  “Nope.” It sounds a little more cheerful than it ought to, given the circumstances, and she doubles-down on the frown when I hit repeat. “Five thousand hits and counting.”

  “Why?” she says, sounding a little bewildered by it all.

  Welcome back, Fuzzy Bunny.

  Punching up my iTunes account, I jab at the screen until “In Your Light” starts to play for her. “That’s why, sweetheart.”

  I hand it over, watching her face as she cradles the cell in her palm. It’s one thing to hear your song in the studio, but something else entirely to hear it like it’s the new release from Taylor Swift or Katy Perry, fresh off the internet. She probably doesn’t realize it, but she’s stroking the phone case. Conflicted, because she’s probably daydreamed about something like this, and now it’s happening while her friend is dying by inches.

  “They’ve been playing it nonstop on KIIS and KROQ all day,” Lonan adds, turning on the radio.

  Then she gets it in stereo, her voice chasing mine. I reach out and shut off my phone, because the Jeep has decent speakers, but I leave my hand over hers. Then she’s petting me instead, which is more than fine by me.

  “We need to do that again,” I observe softly when she doesn’t say anything all the way through Noah Carmichael’s newest single. “Just you, me, and the studio. It was a good time.”