Blood & Roses, Volume 1

Chapter 1

Sloane

When I say I’m a ghost, I’m not being literal.

I’m very much alive, or at least some days I hurt just enough to know I’m still clinging onto a heartbeat.

No, when I say I’m a ghost, I mean people rarely see me.

I’m the girl in the background. The average height, average weight twentysomething people look through instead of at.

I slip silently through the world without smiling.

Without having to greet anyone for days at a time.

It’s been this way for the last six months.

It’s rare that I have to speak to strangers, but when I do it’s perfunctory.

Instinctively, people seem to know I’m not primed for small talk. Today is no exception.

“Here’s your room key, Ms. Fredrich.” The receptionist in Downtown Seattle’s Marriott Hotel slides the plastic key card across the marble countertop. Once she’s withdrawn her hand a safe distance, I reach out and palm it.

“Thank you.” Eyes down, the receptionist staples my paperwork together. “So. Business or pleasure?” The warmth in her eyes dies when she looks up at me and registers my void expression—her smile slides away like butter from a hot knife.

“Business,” I say, because nothing has ever been truer.

“Okay, well… I hope you enjoy your stay.” She looks away as soon as she’s done with her front desk script.

She doesn’t ask why I’ve turned up at her hotel with no bags or why I’m only booking in for one night.

Nor does she ask why I’ve left a spare key card at the front desk for a Mr. Hanson.

She isn’t supposed to. Eli’s given me a rundown of how this thing will play out, and so far, everything’s going to plan.

I lift my purse from the desk and head to the elevator, straightening my coat.

Twenty-two, twenty-one, twenty, nineteen, eighteen…

I watch the numbers light up one by one.

Each disc, the size of a dollar coin, flares and darkens in turn, and the elevator descends while I wait, impatient and unblinking.

Others wait for the car to arrive. If this were an office building or a shopping center, I’d take the stairs.

Me and closed spaces? We’re not friends.

But since this hotel is forty-seven floors high, and I’ve booked a room on the forty-second floor, it looks like I’ll have to tolerate the presence of strangers for a beat.

The doors slide back, and I walk in first, moving to the back of the car.

I don’t want the four businessmen who follow brushing past me as they exit.

They’re staying somewhere midlevel. It’s easy to label them as midlevel guys.

They’re wearing midlevel-guy suits. All four of them have midlevel-guy haircuts.

An accounting department booked their accommodation, and accounting departments don’t spring for penthouses.

They spring for twin rooms with en suites that have access to the gym and not much else. No mini bar for you, Mr. Corporate.

The lift doors roll closed, and I retreat within myself, pressing my back against the rear wall of the elevator.

I close my eyes, exhale down my nose. This will all be over soon, but my heart still dances in my chest all the same.

The fear of being trapped, of what I am about to do, is a coiled snake, wreaking havoc on my insides.

“Hey. You okay? You look a little freaked out.”

One of them talks to me. He thinks my nerves are because of the elevator ride, which they are, but only partially.

The guy has brown eyes—a warm color that reminds me of melted chocolate.

He has dimples, too. Probably twenty-eight or so.

Around my age. He looks nice. The kind of nice I might have dated once upon a time, before…

well. Before dating became an impossibility.

I force myself to look at him. “I’m fine. Thanks.”

“Good.” The guy with chocolate eyes smiles. “Deep breathing sometimes helps my sister. She isn’t a fan of elevators, either.”

He’s sweet. Way sweeter than I deserve, considering my purpose here today.

I reward him with a watery smile—he grins back—and then the doors open, and the four of them leave.

I jam my hands into my pockets to stop them from shaking.

I’m alone for eighteen floors (better than being trapped with four strangers, but still not great), and then finally it’s my turn to alight.

This hotel is much like any other I’ve stayed in. The only thing that sets it apart from any other hotel, the thing that will forever define it, is my purpose for coming here today.

I’m about to have sex with a total stranger.

And I’m doing it to find my baby sister.