Chapter 26
Yasmine drew slowly apart from Bella, her vision pulsing, her heart still hammering.
She'd been so close to saying something.
She'd felt the words bubbling up from somewhere deep inside her, clawing their way toward her throat like a ravenous animal.
What had she been about to say?
She glanced at Bella's eyes again, remembering that it was, somehow, by some miracle, a safe thing to do. She'd spent so long being afraid of simple eye contact.
It was almost inconceivable that she could hold Bella's gaze for as long as she wanted, and nothing would come of it.
Nothing would come of it besides Yasmine falling deeper in...
Oh.
Oh.
“Yasmine.”
Bella's fingers were digging into her collarbones, shaking her slightly. Her touch was warm enough to wrench Yasmine from the depths of her mind.
"Did you hear me? I think they took Rebecca."
That was pretty much the only thing that could distract Yasmine from the thought that had just assaulted her.
She breathed in, trying to shake it off. She'd just been caught up in the moment, the adrenaline. Thoughts didn’t really describe reality, they were just passing tumbleweeds. That didn’t feel like a tumbleweed.
Didn’t matter. She could deal with it later. She could deal with everything later. She needed to make sure that Wallace was safe. And Rebecca, fuck, fuck—
Yasmine massaged her temples, trying to get the room to stop spinning.
"You think they kidnapped her?"
"That would be the polite word for it. But I don't think they're planning on killing her, at least not until they get what they’re after.” Bella pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. “Do you know about the mass suggestion contract?"
Yasmine’s heart sank to her feet.
"Oh, fuck."
***
Yasmine tore through the house. Opening doors, slamming them, not caring when entire load-bearing walls shuddered behind her.
She looked and looked and looked. Not a soul was left inside.
Certainly not Rebecca.
The mansion had emptied like a stomach; Yasmine’s nightmare had vomited up all of the guests. She ploughed through the space where the front door used to be, and found lingering bits of bile in the form of Sylvia, Aster, and Bruce strewn about the garden in varying states of distress.
They were all coming down from their fights with their respective inner demons.
Bruce was nursing his head, which he'd probably slammed into the wall while brawling an imaginary bottle of alcohol, or perhaps a rival baseball fan. Sylvia’s eyes were bloodshot; she'd probably just had a traumatic conversation with her dead mother.
Aster seemed mostly fine, which was deeply annoying, but predictable.
But there was no sign of Rebecca.
Yasmine’s heels sunk into the mud as she stalked onto the lawn. There was only one car left in the driveway, and no limousine.
“Did you see Bella’s family leave?” she shouted at Bruce. “Did they take Rebecca?”
It took Bruce several moments to discern what she was talking about. “Take?” he finally said. “I thought you loaned them Ms. Rebecca.”
Yasmine groaned.
Oh my God.
“Bruce. I do not loan.” She stabbed her finger to his chest. “Paintings, jewelry, furniture, tupperware, least of all my staff.”
“Oh,” Bruce said, his mouth turning into a perfect o. He added quietly, “Not even me? I might deserve it, Ms. Sokolov. I let them breeze right by.”
Yasmine’s eyes softened. He looked completely prepared for her to fire him right then and there. It was unexpectedly hurtful, seeing just how much he expected that reaction. Like she’d just toss him away after all this time.
Worse yet, she knew he was right to feel that way.
Maybe a few months ago, she would have.
“I….” She stuttered. Finding a strange, foreign forgiveness inside of her, she continued, “It’s not your fault. You didn't know. It’s okay.”
She saw Sylvia, even in her disgruntled state, raise an eyebrow.
“That’s new,” she mused. “When did you start being nice?”
Yasmine did not have time to argue with her right now—and yet she always found it anyway. “I’ve always been nice,” she shot back.
“Not at all,” Sylvia snorted. “You’re decent. But not nice.”
Yasmine’s mouth opened, then closed. She found herself unable to argue.
Because, yes—she had spent hundreds of years building her persona around efficiency and rationality. She wasn’t a cruel employer, but she wasn’t a friendly one. She’d told Rebecca the day after she hired her: “if I fire you, it’s not personal.” It was just work.
That’s what it always had been. Everything was in service of the work.
Even Yasmine was a cog in her own machine. If she’d died, Rebecca knew she was in charge of finding a suitable replacement to finish her research.
And honestly, Rebecca probably would have found an excellent replacement—one far better and more effective than Yasmine, if Bella was any indication. That was what made Rebecca so incredible. She drastically improved every plan she touched.
And because of that, Yasmine had viewed Rebecca as nothing more than a highly effective tool.
Now she was realizing that Rebecca was more like a replacement for Yasmine’s entire prefrontal cortex. She had been relying on her. Deeply so.
Case in point: standing in the field, frustrated with what to do next, she instantly opened her mouth to yell for Rebecca to send a team to find Rebecca.
Then she paused.
“I’m an idiot,” she groaned.
It had been so long that she’d had to use her brain to solve a problem that wasn’t mathematical or scientific in nature. It had been years since she’d paid an electricity bill, or driven a car. Was she really this useless? God.
What would Rebecca do?
She tried to summon the voice of her wonderfully blunt assistant. Rebecca would probably tell her to act quickly. To stop stalling.
“Whose car is that?” Yasmine snapped, pointing to the last remaining vehicle in the drive.
“That’s your car, ma'am,” Bruce said.
“Oh.”
Yasmine owned so many things, she sometimes felt like one of those “repopulate the Earth” people with fourteen children. Once you get past five, you sort of forget the other ones exist. Same went for belongings.
She began to nod to herself, snapping her fingers, forming a plan in the way a toddler might when playing pretend.
“We’re out in the boondocks. There's only one road that goes from here to the highway,” she said, waving towards the horizon. “If they just left, I’m sure we can catch them if we speed. Get in the car and drive.”
Bruce nodded decisively, picking the right key out from his massive key ring. But then as he was walking towards the car, he froze, turning to Yasmine with a grimace.
“Ma'am, I, er, don't know how to drive stick,” he said. “Rebecca always did it.”
Yasmine could scream. “Oh, for the love of God. Why do I even own a stick shift?”
“Because Rebecca prefers stick,” Bruce added unhelpfully. “And she’s the driver.”
Shaking her head, Yasmine stole the keys out of his hand, and jingled them loudly to her audience in the lawn.
“Hello? Ancient vampires? Do any of you know how to drive a stick shift?”
She stared daggers at Sylvia, then Aster.
“You’ve seen your own credit card bills,” Sylvia snorted. “I’m practically a shareholder in the Uber corporation at this point.”
Aster just shrugged. “I can try, if we want. But we might die.”
“Goddamnit,” Yasmine sighed.
They were all so useless. Including herself. Back when she drove, she’d exclusively used an automatic car. She had no idea what the gears meant.
A warm hand lay over Yasmine's, snatching the keys from her.
“Bunch of passenger princesses," Bella said, laughing as she swung open the driver’s door.
***
Sylvia, Aster and Bruce were stuffed in the back of the car like three troublesome children, Bruce's hulking frame in the middle so the former two were pushed flush to the windows. Officially, the three of them were responsible for keeping an eye out while Bella and Yasmine strategized up front.
Unofficially, Yasmine was sitting shotgun because, well…
I just need to talk to her like normal again. Then I’ll get this feeling out of my system.
Another doomed plan. Yasmine swallowed as she watched Bella’s fingers on the gear shifter. The car lurched backward, Bella reversing then quickly accelerating onto the main drag. Soon enough, they were shooting down the street at sixty miles an hour.
Yasmine licked her lips. Bella was an impressively good driver.
What the hell can’t she do?
Whatever Yasmine had felt that first time, back at Columbia, staring up at Bella from the audience at her lecture—that twisted, desperate pulling in her stomach that she’d referred to as a temporary affliction—it was no longer temporary.
It had multiplied like a virus.
Bella's eyes slid over to her in the rearview mirror, catching her off guard.
"Hey," she said quietly, in such a sweet tone that it made Yasmine even more frustrated. "It's gonna be okay. We'll find her. My mother is smart, but she’s no genius.”
Yasmine’s mouth opened, then closed. Rebecca should be entitled to shoot me for how far she is from my mind right now.
"Yes, right," Yasmine said, taking a breath in. She needed a distraction. Anything. "When did you learn to drive stick shift?"
Bella smiled knowingly at the question. “No matter how much I tell you, you’re still so nosy.
” But, probably out of pity, she didn’t make Yasmine work for it.
“I used to do gig work to pay my way through college. Hard to deliver food without a driver’s license.
And the cheapest cars had manual transmission. I drove an old used one.”
"Oh," Yasmine said.
She'd forgotten just how little money Bella had when she’d arrived here.
Yasmine's eyebrows furrowed. Thinking back to it now—she'd never really gotten that part of the story straight, had she?
“Your family. How did you ever…”