The Casquette Girls

by Arden, Alys

  My heart thumps ricocheted against my chest. “Even you?”

  “Especially me.”

  “Why especially?” I intertwined my fingers with his. The small gesture was bold for me.

  “That’s why.” He yanked his hands away and dragged them through his hair, causing my self-esteem to plummet.

  “I’m sorry—” we both said at the same time.

  The awkwardness that followed made my stomach knot come back tenfold. I desperately wanted to get back to the place we had been last night, in the bell tower. I wanted to jump into his side of the booth and wrap myself underneath his arm. Instead, I twisted a napkin until it morphed into a ropelike shape. I wanted answers more.

  “Did I break Adeline’s curse? Is that how the v—your, er, family escaped the convent attic?”

  His eyes flickered again. “What do you know about Adeline Saint-Germain?” He nearly spat out her surname.

  A wave of energy rushed through my limbs, collecting at the tips of my outer extremities, and the chain around my neck gently rippled against my skin. Suddenly I remembered the woman in the alley saying that she was warning me and not threatening me.

  “Nothing really,” I lied. “When I found Adeline’s necklace, there was also a letter she had written to her father but never sent. It described the night she met Monsieur Jean-Antoine Cartier. The night she met you.” Lying to him hurt me more than I could have imagined, but something deep inside pushed the words out.

  I quickly glanced at Blanche, who was using the spatula as a mic and riffing trills. “Why do they expect me to break the rest of the curse? I don’t know anything about spells!”

  “Well, if Adeline’s dead, then it’s your curse now—”

  “I don’t want any of this!” I whispered loudly, leaning across the table.

  He jerked forward in his seat, his nose suddenly brushing mine. “Do you think I did?”

  Despite keeping my gaze fully locked on the green eyes, only inches away from mine, I knew his fangs were extended because my fingers ached.

  The song ended, leaving a moment of silence. And then the soft sounds of air pushing in and out of his nostrils sent a shiver down my spine.

  His mouth stayed shut, but I saw his fangs retract. We both sank back to our leather cushions. I sat on top of my hands for a minute.

  His words about murder being inconsequential rang in my head. Given that the only other way to break the curse was death, telling him that I couldn’t actually break it on my own didn’t seem so smart.

  “You’ll figure it out, bella. When you woke up yesterday, you didn’t know that you could throw fire to defend yourself from a vampire—”

  “So, you also want me to break the curse?”

  “I usually let my brethren clean up their own messes, but I’m not fond of my family members being cursed.”

  “Gabe,” I whispered. Had he been one of the vampires trapped in the attic? Of course. He had been on the ship with the casquette girls. “Shit.”

  “There’s nomore time, Adele. I cannot control what will happen – not that I haven’t been trying. Peoplewill die in retaliation if you don’t break the curse.”

  The look on my face must have made him pause. His words became softer.

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself, bella. You didn’t even know you were breaking the curse – not that I am upset about it breaking – but I’m sure you had help, unbeknownst to you. I may not be a witch, but I have lived long enough to know that sometimes unexplainable things happen, especially when Mother Nature is involved.”

  “The Storm.”

  “Si.”

  His foot knocked into mine. I was surprised when he didn’t immediately pull it back. Over the next few moments, our legs slowly crept into each other’s and locked together. The bend was awkward but somehow still felt perfect. I knew that he could feel my pulse speed up – a small smile hid under his serious disposition.

  “I won’t let anything happen to you, Adele.” His eyes dragged from the table to mine.

  “One Hurricane Es-pec-i-al,” Blanche said, dropping a single plate with a mound of eggs dripping in gooey cheese, and a mysterious, powdered-sugar-dusted log. “Bon appetite.” He placed a fork next to each of us, not knowing we only needed one.

  “Wow, Blanche, you really outdid yourself.”

  “This really is… special,” said Nicco.

  “Always, baby.”

  “What is this?” I poked the long lump of fried dough. “A Twinkie?”

  Blanche opened his mouth—

  “No Twinkie jokes!” I yelled.

  He mimed zipping his lips. “Yeah, baby, that’s a fried Twinkie. You know that shit’ll survive the apocalypse.”

  Gross. I waited for Blanche to return to the grill before I pushed the sponge of fried preservatives to the side and tried to separate some of the egg from the cheese.

  “This is something you have to explain to me,” Nicco said, suddenly serious. He straightened up quickly, and our still-intertwined legs pulled me down the leather seat until my ribs hit the table. Had the tabletop not been there, I would have slid right on top of him. I wished it hadn’t been there.

  “What?” I was fully intrigued by somethingIcould explain to him.

  “This stuff you Americans eat. This American cheese. Is it good? It looks like—”

  “Plastic,” we both said simultaneously.

  As the last syllable came out of my mouth, a series of latent memories buried deep in my subconscious between “jet lag” and “too much to drink” pounded through my mind like a flashing camera bulb:

  Plastic cheese.

  Half-James Dean, half-Italian Vogue.

  Leather jacket.

  Innocent smile… deceptively innocent.

  Fork. Clank. Coffee mug on top of a ten-dollar bill.

  The waitress yelling, “Don’t worry, honey, I’ll bring ya a new one.”

  The room began to spin.

  “Adele?”

  “Adele?”

  “Addie? He-llo! Girlfriend, you in outer space right now. Here ya go.” Blanche handed me a fork.

  When I looked down, I realized mine was missing.

  “Try not to take my eye out with this one, m’kay?”

  Clutching the fork, I nodded my head, and he walked back to the grill.

  Breathe.

  I looked back at Nicco.

  “I’ve said something to offend you?” He sounded genuinely concerned. “Are you okay?”

  Was Nicco at the Waffle House? In Alabama? I stared at him for another moment – he absolutely was that guy. My body tensed. Dammit! I knew he looked familiar. What the hell?

  “Adele, what’s wrong?”

  Ren’s words about no such thing as a coincidence repeated over and over in my head. Is Nicco stalking me? Suddenly uneasy, I tried my best not to recoil so he wouldn’t think I was on to something. If I am on to something.

  “Are you okay?” he repeated.

  “No. I mean, yes, I’m okay. No, you didn’t say something to offend me.”

  “You’re lying. I can hear your heart racing.”

  “My heart’s racing for a lot of different reasons right now.” I tried my best to mimic one of Désirée’s sultry smiles.

  “Oh, really?” He leaned closer over the table, pushing my tease.

  Never trust a vampire.

  I fell back into the booth. “American cheese, it’s kind of an acquired taste.”

  His brow crinkled. He knew I was still lying – and he seemed to be upset by it.

  “Are you sure you’re okay? Or is there something else on your mind?”

  And that’s the first time I had the thought: What if the curse wasn’t meant to be broken? I poked the eggs, trying to think of something to cover for my sudden nervousness. “I do have a question.”

  “Go on,” he said with confidence and leaned even further across the table.

  “The Carter brothers, John and Wayne… the story Ren told on the tour.�
� I looked up at Blanche to make sure he was still preoccupied. “John Carter? Monsieur Jean-Antoine Cartier?” As the words left my mouth, a gigantic flame shot up from the grill, causing a high-pitched yelp from Blanche.

  My eyes fluttered to the grill, but Nicco’s absorbed gaze never left me.

  “Si.My brother and I,” he said quietly. “It was the depression. Everyone rationed.”

  I had to consciously keep my mouth from gaping at his flippant response.

  “Those weren’t really my best years,” he added.

  Is he really comparing saving half a potato to stringing people up and slowly bleeding them to death? I barely heard the words come out of my mouth as I asked him something trivial about life in the French Quarter during the prohibition. I swallowed a few bites of egg and slowly drank my coffee, trying not to rouse suspicion.

  “People always want what they can’t have,” he said, a bit lost in his own thoughts.

  “Nicco?”

  “Si, bella?”

  “If Gabe spent the last three hundred years locked in the Ursuline Convent, then how was he rationing people with you during the Depression?”

  “It wasn’t Gabriel roaring through the nineteen-twenties with me.” He sighed. “It was my other brother, Emilio.”

  I wheezed as I swallowed my last sip of coffee incorrectly. “You have another brother?”

  “Si,although, we’re a bit estranged now. That’s also why I am eager to get Gabriel back.”

  I felt like I had been bitten by a snake and the venom was slowly coursing through my veins, taking over the function of each organ. At the bar last night, Émile had been sitting at the table with Gabe’s crew. Is he really Emilio Medici? My Émile? My mother’s assistant Émile? I suddenly felt very tiny, like a pawn in a life-size game of chess where the stakes were real. How many wrong moves had I made, unaware that I was even a player?

  Player.

  I had been played.

  How could I have been so stupid? Energy streamed through my system like fire, burning out all the venom. All the fear.

  The worry that he’d lost me now shone in Nicco’s eyes. He didn’t know how or why, but he knew everything had changed. Why did he care? Did he care? Or maybe he just needed something from me? What had he needed Adeline for all those years ago? Was it really only passage and a meal ticket aboard a ship?

  There had been nothing coincidental about their happenstance meeting. It had all been so perfectly romantic. So calculated.

  “And Adeline, do tell your father I called, si’l vous plaît…”

  When had Adeline realize she was just a pawn?

  Suddenly the idea of trapping the players in the attic made the corner of my lips gently twitch. My palms burned.

  Then I looked back up at Nicco and just wanted it all to go away. It was so easy to get lost in his stories, in his smiles, in his leather…

  When I told him I had to go home, the disappointed look on his face seemed genuine.

  * * *

  Engulfed in paranoia, I ran from room to room, inside our empty house, locking the windows and doors. Not that it really offered much protection, but it made me feel better.

  “Philosophically, most vampires believe any creature should be able to find asylum in its own home…” Asylum? Maybe… Solace? No.

  For weeks I had felt like I was being watched – now I knew I had been. By Émile. By the blonde woman. By Niccolò. And by the crow, who had followed us from the bar, to the diner, and then to my home, and who had patiently waited in the shadows while I flirted with a monster.

  When I peeked through the kitchen door curtain, I saw the crow perched on the fence, just like he had been last night. I remembered how tired Isaac had looked before our fight. He must have gotten even less sleep than me. Part of me wanted to invite him in.

  I closed the curtain and made coffee instead.

  I’ve already broken Adeline’s spell-line. Isn’t that enough? Breaking the rest of the curse is not my problem.I couldn’t even if I wanted to… not without a coven.

  “The only other way to break it would be if all the inheritors died,” I whispered.

  “People will die in retaliation if you don’t break the curse—”

  “UGH! This cannot be happening!”

  Exhausted, I gulped the cup of black coffee and reluctantly pulled out both my journal and Adeline’s diary to search for answers. I uncapped a pen. A yawn so strong overtook me, my eyes watered. The front burner on the stove exploded with flames.

  “Well, help me, then!” I yelled, jumping up from my seat. “If you don’t want your stupid curse broken, then help me, Adeline!”

  I blew out the fire, but the flames just popped right back up. I blew out the burner again, opened the stove, blew out the pilot light, and turned back to my chair.

  But instantly I felt the glow beckoning from behind me.

  When I turned to give it my attention, rings of fire began to light around the other three burners until all four were ablaze. My fingers burned, but the warmth was comforting.

  “It’s your curse now,” Nicco said.

  Focused on the fire, I took deep breaths, trying to calm myself. The flames slowly simmered into nothing.

  I sat back down, turned the page, and began to think in French.

  * * *

  “Adele, wake up,” my father said, frantically shaking my shoulder.

  “What?” I carefully peeled my face from Adeline’s diary.

  “I don’t know how to tell you this.”

  I twisted my back in pain, realizing I had fallen asleep sitting at the kitchen table. He squatted down so he was eye level with me and took both of my hands.

  “Dad, what’s wrong?” The look on his face made my eyes instantly well.

  “There’s no easy way to tell you this, darling. Something horrible has happened to the Michels.”

  My heart leapt out of my chest.

  “Jeanne and Sébastien?”

  “No, honey, the kids are fine.”

  “Then…”

  “It’s Bertrand and Sabine.”

  “Has there been an accident?” I choked out. Tears began to pour down my face as Nicco’s comment about retaliation echoed in my head.

  “It wasn’t an accident, sweetheart.” He squeezed my hand.

  I began to hyperventilate.

  He didn’t have to say anything else. I knew they were dead.

  Part 3: Brigitte

  “I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.”

  Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

  Chapter 31 Mad World

  October 30th

  Blue. White. Red.

  “Adele?”

  Red. White. Blue.

  “Adele?”

  Blue. White. Red.

  I stared directly into the flashes of light, and the colors began to blur together. Everything faded into bright white, and then went black. A spectrum of spots began dancing in front of my eyes until dizziness filled my head like a balloon. I wanted to float away.

  “Adele, can you please answer the question?”

  I blinked a few times, and the detective came back into focus. My nose was cold, as were my ears. He continued to say my name. My cheeks were warm from two steady streams of tears. I watched my breath vaporize in the chilly, dark air, as I wrapped my hands around Jeanne’s freezing fingers. Her head was buried in my lap, whimpering.

  “Adele, where were you last night from the hours of nine o’clock to midnight?”

  “Back off, Detective,” someone said, almost as if he were pulling the words from my mind. “You heard what Mac said.” It was Sébastien’s voice – he was sitting next to me on the cold bench. I’d never heard him say my father’s first name before. It sounded strange. His arm tightened around my shoulder.

  “I know this is difficult, Sébastien—”

  “Back off!” he yelled, standing up so he was eye level with the detective. “She’s in shock, and she’s a minor.�
�

  Sébastien never raised his voice. It made Jeanne cry harder, but Detective Matthews got the message and walked away to consult with his team.

  “Merci beaucoup,” I whispered as he resumed his position next to me.

  I had no clue how long the three of us had been sitting on the bench in front of Café Orléans, but the sun still wasn’t showing signs of rising and my back was numb from the cold bench. My father wouldn’t let us inside, and we didn’t dare look behind us through the window, where the two bodies were being catalogued and prepped for autopsy.

  A man with a portable crime-scene lab walked passed us, yawning, and entered the café. “Did you guys really have to wake me for this one? I’ve worked three shifts in a row. I don’t even see any blood spatter.”

  “That’s just it,” answered one of the crime scene investigators. “There’s no blood on site. No blood at all.”

  My stomach lurched, causing Jeanne to lift her head from my lap and sit up. I pinned my lips shut and bolted as vomit rose in my throat. I made it just far enough to turn the corner of the café before the contents of my stomach spewed into the gutter. It didn’t take long before my system was totally void of plastic cheese, but I couldn’t stop gagging, and soon, I was staring into a puddle of neon-colored bile. The stomach acid burned my throat, but all I could think was that I deserved it.

  This is all your fault.

  In between my wheezing and coughing, someone scooped back my hair. I continued to dry heave, and a strong but delicate hand rubbed my back.

  “Breathe, mon cœur,” a woman whispered.

  I whipped around, and my mother steadied me as I barely avoided a tumble into my own vomit. I quickly regained my balance and jerked away from her. “What are you doing here?”

  “I am so sorry, Adele.” Her voice was as solid as her touch. “I wish I could take away your pain.”

  “Ha!” my raw throat croaked. “All you’ve ever done is cause pain!”

  “I know. This is all my fault. I never should have left you. You were so young. I don’t expect you to forgive me, nor to understand.”

  “Understand?” I shouted. “Do not patronize me.”