Lost Angeles (6 page)

“Do we have any ice cream?” I ask.

“What?” Jess barks. “No, we don’t have any damn ice cream, and don’t eat that, it’s probably poisoned!”

Too late. I’ve already shoveled a mouthful of it in, and if it is poisoned, this is how I want to go. Shifting it to one cheek so I don’t choke, I peer up at her. “Do we have any milk?”

“This is not funny, Lolo.” Much like Jackson Trace, Jess Rivera also has a serious voice. It’s the one I’m supposed to heed whenever it comes out of the closet, but right now, the
ridiculous
and
tired
and
hungry
all outweigh the
serious
of the situation.

“No, it’s not,” I agree, then reach over and pull a foot-long Hillshire Farm beef stick out of a nearby basket. “It’s
hilarious
. Can you hand me a knife and a cutting board?”

Jess opens her mouth, but the sudden, muffled sound of music chimes from under one of those giant circular tins that hold cheese and caramel popcorn. This one has the Hollywood sign etched into the side of it and a ring of palm trees around the bottom.

Because every tourist wants to wrangle a can of popcorn home in their suitcase, right?

She drops the tin into my lap and picks up her phone, leaving me to peel off the cellophane and pop the lid. It’s not nitrate-processed mystery meat, but it will do for the moment.

Jess puts the cell to her ear and picks her way toward the bathroom on spindly heels, slamming the door shut between us for a smidge of privacy. A muffled “yes, sir” tells me she’s on the line with her boss, some East Coast power broker who keeps Jess on a tight schedule and a short leash.

A few handfuls of popcorn in, I’m in desperate need of something to drink and maybe some protein. Setting aside all the junk food, I manage to make my way to the fridge. Chilly air hits me in the face when I open the door, just like—

The room. The one with the metal tables, concrete floors, dim lights.

The
room.

“Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on here?” His voice is commanding, his body swathed in a perfectly-tailored suit. Amber eyes flash at everyone gathered, but they ignore him. Clothed like doctors, like
surgeons
, they go about their business as if he hadn’t spoken at all.

“Cas is going to kill you!” another woman screams. That’s when I notice her, strapped to the table and struggling, her red hair fanned out across the metal, pale arms straining against the wrist straps. “He’s going to rip you apart, destroy everything you ever—”

A man reaches out, backhanding her with one blue latex-gloved hand. Blood splashes across my face, cast-off splatter from the damage done to her nose, her lip. I can taste it in my mouth, and I try hard not to swallow it, but there’s no other option, so it trails down my throat, metallic and thick, lingering on my tongue long after it’s gone. Drying on my face long after
she
is gone.

After that, I’m alone. Alone with the doctors because the man with the amber eyes is gone, too. It’s just me, and them, and I can’t even move as they methodically stick me with needle after needle, running an intricate web of tubes from each and every artery.

“Destroy us, will he?” one man intones, flipping a switch on the machine. Searing,
burning
pain spreads through the entirety of my body, and I bite my lip, holding back a scream, back arching off the table. He smiles behind his mask and says, “Not if we destroy him first.”

Pushing away from the refrigerator, I brush at my arms, frantic, like I’m covered in spiders. Adrenaline surges so hard that I swear I can feel it pumping through each individual artery. A cool sheen of sweat breaks out on my skin, and it’s not until my ass hits the opposite counter that I realize I’m no longer…

Dreaming?

Remembering?

Mid-flail, my elbow knocks against the fishbowl. It wobbles, and I scramble at it in vain before it detonates against the floor. For a second, I stand there, shell-shocked, feet wet, with glass between my toes. It’s the tiny goldfish flopping across my foot that finally has me shuffling between broken bits of vase, sodden pie and approximately four hundred yellow calla lilies in order to grab cups out of the sink strainer. I fill them with a few inches of water before lining them up on the tiled counter. It’s harder than advertised to scoop flopping ornamental fish off a linoleum floor, so I end up using my bare hands. There’s five of them, and by the time I get to the last one, he’s acting like a goner.

“Shit, shit, shit. Sorry! So sorry!”

“Who—” Jess starts to say behind me, and then there’s the kind of strangled noise that people make when they’re robbed of speech. “What did you… I was gone for a minute, maybe!”

“I’m a murderer,” I mutter, avoiding the worst of the glass as I tiptoe toward the sink with the last flopping goldfish in my cupped hands. I think you’re supposed to put some kind of chemical drops in their water, but tap is going to have to suffice for now. Better than a trip down the toilet bowl, I guess.

“You’re something,” she says, grabbing a broom from the crack between the fridge and the wall. Pretty soon there’s a pile of broken crystal in the corner, and we’ve tossed dishcloths over the worst of the water. Once the chaos is reined in, Jess takes a slow look around. Her head shakes in disapproval, her usual fire traded in for a weary expression. Eventually, those warm, brown eyes come to rest on my face again, and she heaves a sigh. “Only you.”

“Yup,” I say, because it’s true. Only I would hallucinate something with my head stuck in the refrigerator and then smash a vase of fish on the kitchen floor. “When it rains, it pours, I guess.”

“Tell me you didn’t sign anything,” she says in a flat tone that I’ve never heard before. It’s not the joking voice or the serious voice or the diva voice; it’s worried, and it draws my attention back from whatever happened in that damn medical lab. “Please.”

I avert my gaze to the relocated goldfish. “I signed.”

She shakes her head, sending those dark waves of hair flying. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”

“I’m just an opening act,” I say, trying to reassure her. “Not even the only one. There’s a trio, too. I’m not even a blip on Xaine’s radar, anyway.”

“Do you think that trio ended up with
all this
?” Jess gestures to everything gathered around us, gifts from a man I never even met. From my new boss. From a rock-and-roll superstar. “Trust me,
hermana,
you’re on his radar.”

“I’ll keep away.”

“Not away
enough
.”

“I don’t know what else to say. It’s already done.”

At that, Jess turns her head until she’s staring at something or nothing or just the space inside her head. “You’re right. It’s already done.”

Then she walks away. Skirt and heels and nails and jet-black curls, all of it disappears from the kitchen, leaving me alone with my folly.

I’m not a kid anymore, but somehow Jax and Jess have both made me feel like the most naive little girl on the planet today. A perfect match to the pink stuffed rabbit sitting atop another stack of apple pies. Staring hard at that stupid fuzzy lump of faux fur and synthetic fabric brings a scowl to my face.

“First things first,” I tell the fish. “I need to get rid of all this crap.”

Mariachi trumpets blare from one floor down. I’m not the biggest fan of 2C, but he can have the blue glass sculpture in the living room, a sausage basket, and pie. The dark-haired girl down the hall gets the shoe cookies and all the dildos. She lives alone with her cat, so she probably needs them.

Oh, and pie.

“You get a pie, and you get a pie,” I mutter under my breath. “And
you
get a pie.”

Ho, ho, ho, neighbors. Merry Pie-mas.

I start gathering armfuls of stuff, my mind in that place where I’m half-petrified and half-laughing. Because it’s crazy, right? These last few days have been stranger than fiction. Not sure I could sleep now if I tried. I’d likely spend the entire night dwelling on the missing time, the yawning blank spot in my memory.

And all of the girls asleep in their beds, while visions of blood and teeth dance in their heads.

Yeah, hard pass on the nightmares.

Playing Dildo Santa sounds way more fun, anyway.

I’ve been meaning to drop in on my sire, though it sounds formal to call him that. The Scipio family patriarch hit stateside almost a month ago, right about the time that my entire life detonated. I can’t put it off any longer, and I’m sure Matty’s already filled Roman’s ear with a thousand excuses.

The drive to Los Feliz takes less than twenty minutes in a supercar that purrs like the million-dollar machine she is. By the time I ease the Zenvo onto the 5, I’ve relaxed into the leather seat. Rolling the window down, I let the warm air cut across the elbow I have propped up on the door.

Better. This is better than bodies pulled out of dumpsters and blonde girls singing my own memories back to me.

Hope the Fuzzy Bunny doesn’t mind getting buried under the FTD welcome wagon.

Smirking, I cut through Griffith Park and head up the hill toward the Observatory. The houses here are old Hollywood-style residences with lists of previous owners that read like a Who’s Who of Tinseltown, and the mansion I’m headed for is the jewel in the proverbial crown. Graceful lines, pristine white stone, slate roof, trailing vines. The central fountain offers a few notes of music. Under that, the sound of distant traffic drifts up from the city at the bottom of the hill.

I’d labored under the delusion that the next time I came here, it would be to introduce Reille to Roman. He’s been out of the country for nearly a year, so I guess I figured she and I had plenty of time. That we’d work out our shit before he came back from Italy. That I would slide her into a slinky green bit of something and pile on the diamonds and…

What? Show her a good time at one of the orgies he likes to throw belowstairs?

Actually, that’s exactly the kind of thing she would have liked. Reille was insatiable in the best kind of way, always up for a quick shag or a slow burn. In bed, she didn’t know the meaning of the word “no,” and she had a few tricks up her sleeve that were new, even to me. Wish I could get her out of my head, but with my mark still on her, she’s there, ever-present, the one fucking itch that I just can’t scratch. And it’s going to stay that way unless some other shithead vampire comes along and shoots his venom into her veins. Until then, Reille Reece is going to be the white noise at the back of my skull, a little voice that’s constantly telling me just how good it would be if I could have her one more time.

Problem is, it was never really
good
at all, was it?

With a scowl, I climb out of the car, crushed shell crunching softly underfoot. Walking with my hands jammed in my pockets and my shoulders hunched up to my ears, I stare at the ground right up to the point when my feet hit the glossy marble steps and the front door swings open. I’m expecting Magnus, who’s exactly the kind of manservant you’d expect to find presiding over Roman’s house. He’s there, all right, but he’s not opening the door to let me in.