30. Reva
CHAPTER THIRTY
REVA
Sonny arrives at Blackwood House with three makeup bags, a garment steamer, a curling iron, two coffees, and the expression of a woman preparing for war.
“Where’s the dress?” she asks the second I open my bedroom door.
“Hello to you too.”
“Hello. Where’s the dress?”
I step aside and let her in. “You’re kind of scary, you know that?”
“Look. I have a limited window to make you look hot and bulletproof.”
My lips twitch. “That sounds like Shiloh and Ever had a baby.”
“Shiloh wishes he had my vision.”
Homer darts between her ankles and immediately tries to climb inside one of the makeup bags. Sonny gasps, scoops him up, and holds him in front of her face.
“Is this the famous shower kitten?”
“He is not famous.”
“He should be. Look at him. Lil orange chaos biscuit.”
Homer nuzzles in and bites one of her earrings.
“See?” I say. “Chaos.”
She kisses the top of his head anyway, then sets him on the bed, where he attacks the drawstring on her hoodie with the seriousness of a trained killer.
The dress hangs on the closet door.
I’ve avoided looking at it for most of the morning. That has not made it disappear. It waits there in a long garment bag, delivered two hours ago with shoes, a mask, and a note from Shiloh that said only:
Wear the green. Trust me.
I do trust him, which is either growth or further proof that I have lost the plot.
Sonny unzips the bag.
The dress slides into view in a fall of deep emerald satin.
For once, I say nothing.
It is beautiful in the kind of way that makes me nervous.
Not soft. Not sweet. The bodice is structured and close-fitting, with thin straps and a low neckline that manages to look elegant instead of desperate.
The waist is clean. The skirt skims over the hips and falls to the floor with a slit up one side high enough to cause problems if I forget how to sit.
The color is the thing, though.
Rich. Verdant. Alive. Sharp against all the black I have been hiding inside since I got here.
Sonny’s voice softens. “Oh, honey.”
“Too much?”
“No.” She touches the fabric with two fingers. “Exactly enough.”
I laugh under my breath, but my eyes sting. That’s inconvenient.
“It’s just a dress,” I say.
“You know better.”
I look away.
The room is too quiet for a second. Outside, men move around the house in low voices.
Cars come and go on the drive. Somewhere below us, Nash is probably turning a gala invitation into a battle plan.
Ever is checking feeds. Shiloh is pretending not to worry.
Deacon is doing whatever assassins do before formal events, which I assume involves brooding near weapons.
And me?
I am standing in a bedroom while a girl I met what feels like mere weeks ago tries to make me beautiful enough to walk into a room full of people who want me dead.
Sonny takes my hand and squeezes once. “Sit.”
“So bossy.”
“Someone in your life has to be bossy.”
That provokes a snort. I sit at the vanity.
She starts with my hair. The curling iron heats while she brushes through my tangles with surprising gentleness. Homer sits on the vanity beside us, paws tucked beneath him, supervising the process like a furry dictator.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Sonny tells him. “She needs volume.”
He blinks.
“Thank you for your input.”
Sonny works in sections, curling and pinning, then unpinning, then pulling the curls loose with her fingers until my hair falls over my shoulders in dark waves.
She does my makeup next, quieter than usual.
Foundation light enough that my skin still looks like skin.
Gold at the lids. A sharper line at the eyes. A dark rose on my mouth.
“No red?” I ask.
“The room will be full of red tonight. Roses. Blood. Whatever theatrical nonsense cartel people like. We’re not giving them their color.”
That earns a real smile.
“There she—” Sonny stops abruptly.
I look at her in the mirror.
She winces. “Sorry. You told me you hate that.”
“I told Shiloh.”
“You told Shiloh. Shiloh told everyone else. Dramatically. He made it sound like a public health advisory.”
I snort again, and if it sounds a little watery, it’s better than crying.
She holds up the little black enamel hairpin Ever made. The rosebud looks harmless in her palm. Pretty. Delicate. A lie with circuitry inside.
“He wants this in your hair?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere it can see.”
She pauses, then nods once. No joke this time. She pins it into the side of my hair, angled carefully above my ear. Her fingers linger for half a second when she is done.
“You scared?”
I meet her eyes in the mirror. “Yes.”
“Good. You need to be.”
“That’s not comforting, Sonny.”
“Fear means your brain is working. We like working brains.”
“I feel like mine has been operating on emergency power for days.”
“Then tonight, you let the scary men do some of the heavy lifting.”
I look at my reflection.
I look older with the makeup. Not old. Just finished in a way I rarely am.
Polished edges over all the places still raw underneath.
For a second, I can almost see what other people must see when they look at me now.
Not the girl in the closet. Not Cal’s kid.
Not Delia’s dead sister. Not Deacon’s little ghost.
But a beautiful woman with a blade for a mouth and a black rose in her hair.
“I have a lot of scary men,” I say.
“You collect them like stray cats.”
“Homer was not a gateway drug.”
“He absolutely was.”
Homer chooses that moment to leap at the curling iron cord.
Sonny yelps, grabs the cord, and I grab the cat. He twists in my arms, furious at being denied the chance to electrocute or burn or otherwise off himself before dinner.
“You have terrible survival instincts,” I tell him.
He bites my thumb.
“Case made.”
Sonny laughs, and for a little while, the room almost feels normal. Hair, makeup, dress, coffee, cat antics, and two women pretending the evening ahead is merely formal and not possibly lethal. I let myself sit in the almost-normal of that longer than I should.
Then something taps at the balcony door—not the bedroom door, but the balcony.
Sonny freezes with a mascara wand in her hand. “Please tell me that’s expected.”
I look toward the French doors. Another tap. Small. Sharp. A pebble drops onto the floor of the balcony.
I set Homer on the bed. “If it’s an assassin, tell everyone I died underdressed for the occasion.”
“You are in underwear.”
“Like I said.”
I cross the room in my bra and panties, push aside the curtain, and look out.
Shiloh stands in the garden below, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a small handful of pebbles. He looks up and gives me a wolf whistle quiet enough not to alert the house.
I open the balcony door. “Are you twelve?”
“In key areas, probably.”
“I am not dressed.”
“I noticed.” His gaze travels down, then back to my face. “With deep gratitude.”
“Sonny is holding mascara and would probably throw the curling iron at you if I told her to.”
He looks past me and lifts a hand. “Hey, Sonny.”
Sonny calls, “I’m not finished with her.”
“Neither am I.”
I roll my eyes. “What do you want?”
His smile slips a little. That answers before he does.
I step onto the balcony and pull the door mostly closed behind me. The air is warm, the sky already leaning toward evening. Below, Shiloh moves closer to the wall, looking up at me with less show than he usually allows.
“You doing okay, Yank?” he asks.
“I am half-naked on a balcony before a cartel masquerade.”
“So no.”
I rest my forearms on the railing. “I’m trying.”
“I know.”
His voice does something to my chest. Shiloh can make anything sound playful until he decides not to. Then the truth comes through clean enough to hurt.
“I don’t want tonight to feel important,” I say. “I want it to just be a stupid party with expensive people and bad music. I want to complain about the shoes and drink champagne I don’t like and come home making fun of everyone.”
“We can still make fun of everyone.”
“If we come home.”
His jaw tightens. I hate that I said it. I hate more that I needed to.
“You will,” he says.
“That easy?”
“No. That certain.”
I laugh once, without any humor. “You’re all very confident.”
“No, sweetheart.” He looks up at me, and whatever joke he had ready dies before he says it. “We’re all terrified. Some of us are just fully dressed.”
My eyes burn. Damn him.
I look toward the garden so I do not have to look at his face. “I keep forgetting why I’m here.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do. For minutes at a time, I forget. Breakfast, Homer walks, Sonny talking about eyeliner. You. Ever. Nash. Deacon. Cal making pancakes like the world didn’t split open under us.” I swallow. “Then I remember, and it feels like I’m betraying the dead by breathing too easily.”
Shiloh is quiet long enough that I look back down. His expression is more tender than I can handle. He opens his mouth, then closes it and glances away.
“Don’t do that,” I say.
His brows lift. “Do what?”
“Go quiet because you’re afraid one wrong joke will make me fall apart.”
The corner of his mouth shifts, but he doesn’t let the smile have him. “Sometimes one wrong joke does make people fall apart.”
“Yeah. Sometimes.” I tighten my grip on the railing. “But sometimes it’s the only reason I remember I still have lungs.”
His face changes.
I hate that I see it. I hate that it matters. I hate that Shiloh Lafitte can stand in a garden holding pebbles like a twelve-year-old menace and still somehow make me feel less alone than I did five seconds ago.
“So,” I say, before it gets too soft, “say something inappropriate before we both die of emotional honesty.”
The smile comes back slowly. Not the shiny plastic one. The real one.
“I didn’t actually have a joke.”
I laugh once, small and unwilling. Shiloh stares up at me, softer now but steadier too.
“I just wanted to tell you the dead don’t need you to be miserable to prove you loved them,” he says.
I groan.
“There she—” He catches himself and points up at me. “See? PSA. I forgot my own PSA.”