Chapter Five
I cannot believe Pax left. I can’t afford this!
I touch Frank’s arm. “Yes, certainly. Let me find my—friend.”
Frank looks pained—asking a lady for money! He is rather unused to this. I turn and walk toward the exit.
I’m ready to push through the spinning door to the outside, when Spirit calls:
See that painting of the hunter over there?
Turn it. Swing it sideways and to the left.
One thing I do know: Spirit never leads me into danger. Just the opposite. So if it’s telling me there’s something I should see, I listen.
I push the dusty old painting. It sways in an arc, and a click sounds. The wall creaks open between wooden panels. A hidden passageway. There are stairs leading down. Of course I take them.
At the bottom of the stairs, there are musty animal heads—deer, bulls, lions, even a giraffe—mounted everywhere.
Guns and pots and mugs and rope hang from the ceiling.
The tables are long and wooden with benches on either side.
And the room is full of men. Greasy, growling, bar-song-singing men, who are eating flanks of steak with their hands. Their hands.
And then I see him. Pristine, perfect Pax, his crisp, white sleeves pushed up his tanned forearms past his elbows. He tears into a piece of steak with his bare hands, his bared teeth.
This is his jagged side. This is him, shadowy and ravenous. Angry. I sensed it in his very touch—he has darkness attached to his soul.
I should run. I should simply disappear—I am masterful at it, after all. But I’m called to confront him. I march toward him, weaving through a haze of greasy meat. I’m not even sure what I’ll say, but Spirit shines a spotlight on the gravy boat in front of him.
Yes. I pick it up.
Stella, no, we didn’t—
“Don’t stiff me with the check,” I say. I dump gravy over the top of his head. Slowly and completely.
Spirit howls with laughter. Brown, greasy gravy drips down through his perfectly combed hair, over his ears, onto his fancy white four-dollar Sears and Roebuck shirt.
The din in this basement dies. All eyes are on me. Me and Pax.
Pax swipes his crystalline green eyes clear. He blinks and flips his head once, gravy flying. He dips his chin gently toward me. “You have my wallet.”
It is only then that I realize: The bulk of his wallet is dragging down the left side of his blazer, which I’m still wearing. My embarrassment drags me down.
I drop the gravy boat. It clatters to the cement floor.
I shrug out of his jacket and throw it at him.
“You!” a voice behind me grunts. Frank. “No women in the beefsteak dungeon. OUT!”
I glance at Pax, whose head is dripping with rich gravy, whose face is bloody with rare meat. It is too symbolic. It rings too true.
His gaze locks with mine, his eyes a flash of silver. Is he… grinning?
I want to scream with deep frustration. I want to growl. I have to get out of here. I should never have come.
“Stella, wait!” Pax leaps up, but I’m already leaving. He curses. Frank shoves a table aside, yelling, “Hold up, Princip! You need to settle your bill!”
I don’t wait. I take the stairs two at a time.
Spirit never leads me into danger. Just the opposite.
I need to be far away from the dark temptations of Pax Princip.