Chapter 32 #2
It occurred to me that this was not unlike what Zephyr did onstage every night. If I’d lacked any respect for his skill before now, this would have changed that. He made this shit look effortless while I wriggled like a worm on a hook.
“Doing great, sweetheart,” Darby said sweetly. “Very Cirque du Désespéré.”
“Is everybody fucking French now?” I snapped between labored breaths.
Halfway up, my left foot slipped, and I dangled for a heart-stopping moment.
Spite whooped.
Smolder leaned out and called, “Almost there!”
“I hate all of you,” I gasped.
“You’re doing this for love!” Darby cheered.
“I’m doing this for closure,” I retorted.
“Naw,” Spite corrected. “You’re doing this for ass.”
They were still cackling when I reached the windowsill and hauled myself up, red-faced and out of breath, knees scraping the brick. I scrambled over the ledge, then tumbled headfirst onto the bedroom floor, nearly crushing the flowers in my collapse.
The three of them waited until I’d regained myself enough to stand before they broke into applause like I’d landed a perfect ten.
The room in which I’d landed was long and narrow, like a section of a hall.
For furnishings, it had a bunk bed and a pair of dressers plus a metal rack stuffed with hanging garments.
Pegs on the wall held enough cowboy hats to rival a retail display, and the area beneath the lower bunk was cluttered with at least a dozen pairs of boots.
Beyond the clothing and accessories, the space was utilitarian. The sheets and blankets were sterile white and gray, and there were no tchotchkes or trinkets to be found. Even the window I’d clambered in through lacked basic blinds or a curtain.
It was bare. Like a cage. A cell. Zephyr’s room had been the same.
Zoo animals had more enrichment in their habitats than this.
Wavering, I passed the flowers to Darby, who lifted them to his nose for a sniff.
“You okay?” Smolder’s soft expression contrasted with his brother’s bratty smirk.
“Ain’t gonna have a coronary, are ya?” Spite pulled off his hat and fanned it toward me, blowing cool air across my sweaty face.
“Knock it off,” I wheezed, shooing him away until he, his brother, and Darby retreated to form a semicircle before me.
Darby stood flanked by the twins who looked downright subdued in pearl snap shirts and jeans.
They were covered, at least, wearing more than assless chaps and bolo ties.
In such close proximity, I couldn’t ignore how damn young they were.
As much as it grated to have been made into a spectacle for their amusement, it bothered me more to realize that Maslow had collected souls so fresh.
Maybe it was the time I’d spent thinking about Zephyr’s human life, but I couldn’t help but wonder what each of them had lost. What had been cut short?
College, careers, first apartments, first loves?
Had any of them made it to thirty? Looking at the twins, at Darby, and considering Zephyr, I doubted it.
To have been robbed of so much only to end up here, served half naked under stage lights, pressed into someone else’s fantasy… that was its own kind of tragedy.
Darby clutched the bouquet to his chest like a shield. His stormy glare rose above the cheerful spray of pink and yellow blooms in an almost comical contradiction.
“Listen, Becky,” he began. “Mazzy may think he owns us, but let me make something clear: the dolls are my babies, and I don’t let anybody fuck with them.”
He saw the same thing I did—their youth, their fragility.
And he wanted to protect that, even though he was no less young or vulnerable himself.
I ached a little at the thought of watching this wannabe princess stand up to Maslow and inevitably lose, burgeoning with conviction and promises he probably couldn’t keep. I knew the feeling.
Spite scoffed and scuffed his boot against the floor. “I ain’t no goddamn baby.”
“Can it, Colt,” Darby snapped at him. “It’s the sentiment.”
Colt. I pinpointed the twin with the Stetson crowning his head. His real name may have been accidentally given, but I intentionally committed it to memory.
“I understand,” I told Darby, who didn’t blink before firing back.
“You hurt Zephyr.”
“I know,” I said.
“You don’t deserve him.”
“I know,” I repeated.
Darby crept forward, tail thrashing in a display of indignation I couldn’t help but admire. He was brimming with spitfire and sass, and something quieter too. Struggle. I saw it knitted between his snow-white brows.
“Zeph’s a sweet kid. He’s still trying to find his place here, and I introduced you because I thought…” He blinked hard enough to flinch when he registered my words at last. “You know?”
“Yes.”
The tension binding Darby’s narrow shoulders seemed to loosen. “Well, good,” he muttered. “That’s a start.”
The twins exchanged a look while I drew my first easy breath since the climb.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Darby waved me off. “Save it for Zephyr.”
I nodded. “I’d like to. Where is he?”
Colt crossed his arms. “Not here.”
“What?” I squawked. “You mean you let me…” I flung my arm toward the sheet rope draped over the window ledge. “You made me do that, and he’s not even here? Where is he?”
Smolder scratched one of his horns. “Probably at the Basilica.”
“The Basilica?” I echoed. “Why?”
“Mazzy plays cards there,” Smolder replied. “With the angels. It’s a regular thing, but this… wasn’t regular.”
Colt scowled. “He just went last week. It ain’t time yet.”
Darby spoke quieter now. “He brought some clothes for Zephyr to wear. Had me do his makeup.”
“To go to a card game?” I couldn’t keep the grit out of my voice.
Darby looked down at the flowers cradled in his arms, leaving Smolder to fill the silence.
“We ain’t usually invited. Angels don’t like…” He flicked a glance around our group, then bounced his shoulders. “You know.”
“Yes,” I replied. “I know.”
Maslow couldn’t be up to anything good. Dragging Zephyr across the Strip’s invisible dividing line and into enemy territory wasn’t a casual outing. It was strategy. Provocation. Maybe punishment.
The Basilica was the last place in the world I wanted to go.
Let the feathered fucks hold their holy ground.
I’d never envied them their piety or their power.
I knew my place, and I was comfortable in it.
Too comfortable, apparently. Loitering in my stale office or lording over the city from my private suite, letting eternity pass me by.
Coming here had embarrassed me, but it also reminded me of things I should never have forgotten.
Like how it felt to want something I wasn’t sure I could have.
Like how easily people—young people—got caught in the gears of things bigger than them.
These three, trapped in this cell of a room, were all cogs in Maslow’s machine. Somehow, so was I.
I glanced at Darby, who looked deflated but firm, and wary enough to make it clear this was a test that I’d better not fail.
“You’re gonna work for this, Becky.”
I sure as hell was.
Stepping toward the window, I glanced down. The sheet rope dangled outside, swaying in the breeze. In the lot below, Colette had exited the limo and leaned against the driver’s door. Seeing me, she waved, and I sighed.
“The Basilica, huh?” I muttered, torn between dread and a growing sense of concern for my incubus. The idea of Maslow parading him into that gilded hell and auctioning him to the highest bidder made my body tighten with rage.
It was a fucking roadshow. The wraith had taken his act to the angels, where he would whore out my Beauty like some demonic delicacy.
And Zephyr would be terrified. I knew it.
I’d seen it in the distant, tense look he got when he talked about what Maslow did to him.
About starving. About the room downstairs.
He tried so hard to hold it together, but he wasn’t built for this. Not the way Maslow wanted him to be.
Darby’s voice broke through the storm in my head. “If you can get Zephyr out of this,” he said. “Please. Do.”
I nodded. “I will.”
The words landed like a coin tossed into a well, and they echoed with finality. There was no handshake required to seal this deal. I would sign it in blood if need be.
I turned back to the sill and swung a leg over, gripping the rope.
“Don’t fall,” Colt muttered.
I already had. I’d toppled headfirst into trouble and something that breathed life into my long-dead heart.
With my weight shifting onto the rope and the city humming below, I began the descent—one hand over the other, one foot at a time—toward a place I swore I’d never go again.