“You can look if you agree to go out with me tomorrow, like on a date, for real.”
Oh. “I’m moving house tomorrow, remember?” I laughed off my discomfort and fixed my hair, avoiding his gaze. “Besides Tommy, you know I can’t date. In case you haven’t noticed…” I jiggled my collar. “This Probie hasn’t been doing much dating at all. Anyway, there are plenty of other girls closer to your age than me.”
“No there ain’t.” The life faded from his eyes the moment I shook my head. I couldn’t risk it. “Never mind,” he mumbled and packed away his camera. “So you spoke to your aunt about the move?”
Grateful for the change, I told him about my afternoon, minus the memory byte, and my family’s reaction. He listened attentively, nodded and made agreeable sounds in all the right places. He was magical at getting me to open up but it should have been the other way around. Bartenders were supposed to be the listeners.
“So, y’all need a hand moving boxes? I got nothing else to do. The Festival ain’t for another few days.”
I gazed into his endearing, puffy, smiling eyes and realized I was happy when with him. Maybe Kitty was right and I should stop pushing people away.
“Sure, that would be great,” I said. “I’ll buy you and Kitty a drink to say thanks and maybe after the move we could all hang out?”
His face brightened, and I felt mine do the same. Then I thought of something else that might boost his mood even more. “If you can get your brother out of hiding, maybe he’d like to come too—after the move, that is. I don’t expect a stranger to help lift my boxes.” I grabbed an empty beer glass from the rack, angled it under the beer tap and filled it to the rim.
“Oh yeah, my brother.” He drew out the word brother longer than he should have. “He’s probably busy. He works every day, and doesn’t tell me where he goes, but he’ll be in later tonight. I guess you can ask him yourself.”
“I didn’t realize this was a business trip for him, too. I thought you said he was surfing.”
“Um, yeah, he does that too. He ain’t never picked up a board in his life. Hell, only way you get wet back home is from the rain, but he’s just smooth sailing out there like he was born on the goddamn water.” He hid the pained look in his eyes by glancing away. There was something going on there, but I didn’t want to push it.
Tommy realized he had just cussed in front of a lady and pulled his cap off to apologize profusely. His mop of dark curls stuck flat to his head in a circle. What a southern gentleman.
I left him to turn on the electromagnetic scanner near the front door. Of all the silly brained inventions during the war, it was one of the worst. Unfortunately, the injunction to scan every patron entering a public establishment was still enforced around the country, so we had to put up with it. The scanner looked like something from an airport in the seventies. If the panels picked up suspicious activity, the alarm sounded, and the police were notified. It never went off. Even when I walked by, it just blipped softly as it did with everyone. I wasn’t sure how accurate it was at detecting a witch, but at least women didn’t have a curfew anymore. That law had been a pain in the ass.
“Let the good times roll,” I said and let the first patrons in.
Kitty joined me to serve the long line of thirsty clientele and, as the night wore on, people got rowdier and the music got louder. Tommy moved to the edge of the bar and busied himself with lively conversations and frequent flash-popping photography—the ladies loved it.
By nine o’clock, the absence of his brother stood out like my random red lips. Poor Tommy. Disappointment poured off him in waves. He obviously looked up to his brother, and the no-show affected him deeply. He slunk to the rear of the room where he nursed his beer in a private booth.
As it was a weeknight, business slowed when the kitchen closed at half past nine. The remaining patrons took to the dance floor. I ducked out the back to scoff some food and made a mad dash to the restroom. My phone clattered to the floor when I pulled my pants back up. I couldn’t believe I’d been so distracted that I forgot about the byte. The notion sat me down squarely on the lid of the toilet while I stared at my phone.
I had two minutes left of my break and the little chip burned a hole in my pocket. Not sure if I’d get another chance, I pulled out the green square and twirled it in my fingers. What did I know about my mother’s death? Not much. My father, a decorated soldier in the Australian Army, didn’t know what had happened either. Well, that’s what he said. Apparently, he’d walked in to find my dead mother in a bloody bath and my sister holding me, still attached to the umbilical cord. Leila had saved my life—even if she hated me now, she saved me once.
“What would Prince do?” My favorite musician had an answer to all of my deepest, darkest questions. On my phone I had over two hundred of his songs to choose from and so far he hadn’t let me down. I set the music playlist to shuffle and pressed play.
You got the Look, came on.
I nodded. “That’s what I thought too. Prince, you’re a friggin’ genius. I’ve got to stop being a baby and have a look.” With a renewed sense of urgency and purpose, I inserted the chip into the slot at the bottom of my phone. The screen lit up—a vibrant blue—and the song faded. On the screen, visions in shades of gray projected, flickering and jumping before they settled into a recognizable, Technicolor pattern. Memory bytes had no sound and couldn’t portray emotions, so I had to make sense of the images as they were. They were also warped, like random dreams.
We were in a bathroom. Mama reached out through a red veil, but she wasn’t asking for Leila to come to her, she wanted her to leave. Wait—it wasn’t a veil, it was her hair. It had changed in color from black to red.
Her face changed too. A black-eyed monster looked out laughing through red lips, laughing, so close to the screen. Then its eyes widened, its laughter turned to fear, and it clawed its own face, causing wells of blood to spring from the beautiful porcelain skin. Suddenly, it collapsed on the tiled floor.
It was my mother again, her hair bled to black, her lips faded to pink. She looked up and moved her mouth, eyes glassy and leaking tears. She assured Leila of something, but I couldn’t work it out. She pulled herself up to stand and lowered her heavily pregnant and naked body into the bath. Water surged over the edge, a torrential flood spilled to the floor, lapping at Leila’s little feet.
I could see the black-eyed monster again. Its mouth opened wide, it must be screaming, scared. It tried to scramble out of the bath but couldn’t get a footing. Why is the witch scared? It’s only water. Spit flew from its mouth as it screamed, its mouth moved as though it spoke. It scratched its face, ripping welts in soft tissue and thrashed its legs. Water splashed on the walls and over the bathroom, but the puddles looked red, not clear.
Then it stopped.
The face calmed, the hands slid over the bath’s edge and it sank lower.
The water stilled.
The monster stared at me from over the bath’s edge, black eyes wide and terrible.
The monster was afraid. It was desperate. It turned its gaze to the big belly and lashed at it with cracked and bleeding fingernails. Welts sliced open in the skin and pulled apart to reveal something I shouldn’t be seeing. Fresh streams of blood ran in rivers over the bath to paint the tiles crimson.
The water was red, everything was red. The screen blacked out. When it cleared, my mother held a baby out, smiling and moving her mouth. She was saying the same thing over and over again. I could read her lips because I recognized the movement, she was saying a name.
La Roux.
It was over in seconds. I hugged the phone to my chest and squeezed my eyes shut to stop the sting of tears. Even without feeling Leila’s emotions, I’d seen everything through her eyes as though I were there too. It was so vivid, so frightening. My feet tapped erratically, and I scratched at the warm skin under my collar.
I must not cry at work, I must not cry at work.
I blinked wildly, chewin
g on my lip. My thoughts scrambled as I tried to make sense of what I’d seen. It was clear my mother had been attacked by the witch, but what did that have to do with me? Why did that make Leila hate me so much?
I shivered like a shaggy dog, pulled the chip out of the phone, and shoved them both in my pocket. I needed to find someone who could read lips. I needed to know what was said.
“You done there, Roo? I need to go.” Alvin banged on the door.
“Sorry, I’m coming.” I swallowed a few times and pinched my cheeks, then took a deep breath and opened the door with a fake smile.
Alvin hopped from foot to foot, frowning. He shoved past me.
If Leila saw that every night, no wonder she was damaged. A witch had killed my mother, and I’d barely escaped with my life. The only thing I liked about the memory byte was that my mother had fought for me. Why else would the witch have look so frightened? Icy cold fingers tickled my skin when I realized the real reason my sister hated me. The witch hadn’t been afraid of my mother, or Leila. It was the baby she tried to claw out.
The witch had been afraid of me.
CHAPTER FOUR
“THANK GOD YOU’RE back,” Kitty said.
There was a line at the bar.
I avoided eye contact and tried to swerve around her, but she took hold of my shoulder. “You okay, babe? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
She didn’t know the half of it.
I nodded. If I spoke about it, I’d cry, so I didn’t.
We cleared the line, and Kitty disappeared out back I was left with a terrible thought. The witch had red lips—like mine.
While I tidied the bar, a multitude of questions flooded my mind. Why had the witch been afraid of a baby? Did I somehow absorb her powers? Had I siphoned them from her right then and there? What the hell was I? Not a witch, but not entirely human either, I was something in between.
I surveyed the bar to see if I had time to get away and speak to my friend. The customers were happy, the kitchen crew had either gone home or were enjoying themselves on the dance floor, and Alvin swept up a broken bottle under a restaurant table. The back room would be empty. I pushed past the swinging doors to join Kitty, but almost smacked into her. Her full ice bucket connected with my shin. Ouch!
I opened my mouth to curse, but stopped when I noticed her face. She stared at something past my shoulder and momentarily lost her careful composure and seductress persona. “Hubba hubba. I think I need to go to confession,” she said.
“Why?” I tried to turn around, but she held me back.
“Don’t look,” she squeaked, then coughed delicately and lowered her voice to a raspy husk. “Because I’m having sinful thoughts about melting this ice over that devilishly hot body. He’s certainly not from around here.” She shoved the bucket into my hands and pushed me backwards so she had room to stumble past. Recovering with a sashay and a saunter, she made her way to the counter where a tall, tanned man stood.
I wouldn’t exactly call him devilish. He was blonde—are devils blonde? His short hair was impeccably groomed and styled at the top, the kind of way that took hours to make it look like it took minutes. His stubble was perfectly trimmed—a designer five o’clock shadow. The only devilish thing about him was the full arm tattoo peeking out from under his crisp, white shirt sleeve on one side. It also showed slightly higher up over his collared neck. Everything about him screamed money, control and influence. Except the ink. That screamed something else.
His lips twitched at the corner, and I narrowed my eyes. What was he smiling at? Had he heard Kitty’s words through the haze of sound?
“Oh, give me a break,” I mumbled and went cross-eyed. Kitty had found another conquest, and that left me lugging the heavy load. She was a predator, that woman, I swear. I stumbled over to the ice trough, dropped half the ice on the floor and almost slipped to land on my butt. “Seriously?” I hissed to the ice.
I glanced over my shoulder and spotted Kitty heading back in my direction. Her face was contorted into an expression I could only describe as horrified or mortified, or maybe constipated. I smirked, then caught myself, breathed in deeply and tried again. I gave her my best sincere smile.
“He called me Ma’am,” she said, and took the empty bucket from my hands. “How dare he? I am not a Ma’am. I’m a sexy, young, successful, independent woman who—” She stopped mid-sentence and looked at me, green eyes blazing. “Well, he asked for you, didn’t he?”
“What? I don’t know him.” I snatched the bucket back.
“He asked for you by name. Don’t be shy, your rudeness is keeping the customer waiting.” She pushed me in the direction of the blue-eyed stranger, making an embarrassing show of my reluctance. “I have to perform soon anyway,” she said as if she had better things to do. “Just keep an eye on the bar while I put my game face on.”
She gave me one last shove and sauntered out back.
Her push sent me flying, and I tripped over my feet to land in front of the stranger with a humph. To make matters worse, the music paused between songs and I yelled, “Can I help you?”
Heat rose to my cheeks in the silence and I imagined my whole face painted red. The music started, and I looked down at my feet, took a deep breath and started again. When I caught his eyes, words fled. They were different—one as clear as the deep blue ocean, the other also blue, but spliced with muddy clouds in the turbulent water. It was as though each eye belonged to a different person. I almost sighed like a school girl. They were amazing. Simply amazing and his dark lashes were full and framed the masterpiece within perfectly. Hang on. I squinted, they looked vaguely familiar.
“La Roux?” He pronounced my name correctly. Maybe he was French, like my name.
I cleared my throat. “Yes, do I know you?”
“No, but you know my brother, Tommy. He told me to look you up when I arrived.” His voice was smooth and hypnotic—a dangerous combination with those eyes.
Wowsers, this was Cash? His neat and trim exterior wasn’t at all what I expected for a beach bum, although his well-toned physique was. I stared like a loser for a minute. Something didn’t add up, and it wasn’t the fact he wore fancy leather loafers in country Western Australia. No, it was because he used my full name. Nobody did that. I’d worked hard for people to forget who I’d been in the city—the girl feared and hated for almost being a witch. My hand fluttered to my collar in a nervous reaction and his gaze flicked down too.
“How did you know my full name?” I asked. The mild panic must have crept into my eyes because he took a step backwards. “Everyone here calls me Roo.”
He scrubbed the back of his neck and then scanned the room like he had somewhere welled to be. “Tommy told me. Look, can I get a drink? whiskey, if it’s not too much to ask?”
Jeez, I was just asking, no need to get grumpy. I glared at him while I pulled a glass from the drying rack and placed it on the counter. He was full of inconsistencies—his accent, for one. It was almost non-existent and, apart from saying my name like he was French, his language was without a pattern or distinguishing lilt that pointed to his origin. He could’ve hailed from anywhere.
“Ice?” I asked.
“No.”
“Top shelf or bottom.”
“Anything.”
Oh-kay. I chose the closest whiskey and poured the amber liquid into the glass.
“More,” he said.
I raised my brows and added another shot. He swiped the glass from under the bottle and emptied it in one gulp.
“You must be thirsty.”
“What else you got?” He examined me. A slight crinkle around his eyes gave me the impression he thought I was curious, not the other way around.
I pulled a menu from the display rack next to him and unfolded it flat on the bar. I was just about to make a retort about which ‘potion’ he might need to give him a better personality when he grunted. Surprised, I looked up. He bent over and groaned, squeezing his eyes shut. Sweat broke out
across his brow and tendons pulled taut in his neck. His palms smacked onto the bar and I jumped, almost knocking over the whiskey bottle. He murmured something under his breath. Was he talking to me? He seemed to be talking to someone.
“Dude, you okay? You don’t look so good.” I laid my fingers on his hand. His skin burned like fire and, up close, I could see fine scars scattered over his left arm that traveled to his jawline. I hadn’t noticed the old wounds under the tattoos.
His head snapped up to reveal white, cloudy irises. I jerked my hand back, heart racing but the second I lifted my touch, his eyes bled back to that exquisite mix of blue and brown.
“What was that?” He stood back, scowled and rubbed his hand where I’d touched him.
“You’re asking me?” I took stock of the room but no one was watching. I lowered my voice. “Your eyes went white.” I picked up the white paper menu and waved it in front of his face for effect. “White.”
He regarded me silently, then ran his hand through his hair, messing up the neatly combed style. He cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and wiped his palms on his shorts. With tousled hair, he didn’t look so anally retentive. I wondered what had happened to make him so uptight.
Just as I was about to put him in the too-hard-basket, he surprised me and apologized. “Sorry about that. I get these blinding headaches, literally. Too much sun.” He fished out his wallet and threw a black credit card on the counter. The closeness of his arm gave me a chance to study the tattoo. Blue and purple clouds swirled up his skin, overlaid with some sort of constellation map etched in thin black lines. My eyes followed the lines up his forearm to his bicep pushing at the edge of his sleeve.
He fidgeted with the opening of his wallet. “What are you looking at?”
Oh, for crying out loud! Mate, if a girl is checking out your guns, you should just smile and take the compliment.
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