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“No!” she continued to try to wriggle free.
Her beautiful violet eyes were wide with panic. She tilted her head back and started to yell. He captured her mouth with his, swallowing the sound. She froze. The scream died but she didn’t move. He slipped his tongue into her mouth, coaxing a response from her. She remained still but then with a defeated sigh, kissed him back. Strawberries. Why did she always taste like strawberries to him? He loved strawberries. They reminded him of summer. Long lazy days spent in the sun.
She moved against him but the movement was more an invitation than a fight. An invitation he desperately wanted to take her up on.
But…
But now wasn’t the time. She was the enemy. And he’d slept with her sister. Both things put her on the Do Not Touch List.
“Riss,” he said again breaking off the kiss. This time it came out as a wistful sigh. He held her gaze. “What do you want? Live or die?”
* * *
Riss stared at the woman across the desk from her. She was droning on about the rules, but Riss didn’t hear a word she said. Her entire brain had shut down. She couldn’t think. How could this be happening? How could any of this be real? A secret society? Wasn’t that the stuff of television and books? How could something like this exist in this day and age? The entire scenario was ridiculous, archaic. She kept thinking she’d wake up at any moment and this nightmare would all go away.
“Ms. Day?” the woman across the desk said. Cash had introduced her as Paloma.
“I-I’m sorry, what?” she asked as she played with her pendant. Riss had no idea what was going on.
Paloma frowned. “Please pay attention. Not following the rules can result in?—”
“Death. Yes, I’m aware. But it’s all a bit overwhelming, you see, so telling me to focus or I’ll die is really not that helpful,” Riss snarled.
The woman’s mouth thinned to a straight line. And did she just look down her nose at Riss? “My dear girl, this is the opportunity of a lifetime. Many people better than you have been turned down for membership. Pull yourself together.” The woman snapped her fingers and went back to shuffling some papers.
Stupid. Yeah, she’d been that. And naive. Look where it had all gotten her. She blew out a breath and made an effort to follow what Paloma was saying. But it was no use. Paloma shook her head and her hair didn’t move. It was shaped like a chestnut brown helmet. Riss was sure it was dyed. This woman had to at least be sixty but there was not a gray hair on her head. The wrinkles on her neck, however, reminded Riss of a Shar-Pei. The neck and hands were the way to tell a woman's age. This one had definitely had work done. Her face had a taut, pulled look. Not that it mattered. Riss was just trying to distract herself from the mess she was in because she needed to know about her origins. Like her adoptive family wasn’t good enough, her biological family must be superior. Super stupid. But there was no running from it. No chance at all. Run and die. That’s what Cash had said, and she believed him.
She’d thought him handsome and sexy in a dark and dangerous way. Little had she realized just what that really meant. She ran a hand over her face. No way out. Paloma was sitting there telling her all of the benefits of joining the Society as if she was signing up for a lifetime membership to a gym not to a Society that killed you if you tried to leave.
“I think that’s enough, Paloma,” Riss said suddenly cutting off the other woman’s explanation of their ‘core values.’
The other woman narrowed her eyes. “We’re not finished.”
“Yes, we are.” Riss stood. “I don’t have a choice here so let’s cut the bullshit. Tell me where I have to sign and then let me go.”
Paloma looked like she might argue for a moment but then, heaved a huge sigh and pulled out a stack of papers that probably caused the death of ten trees. Riss spent the next five minutes signing, initialing, and dating page after page. Then she finally straightened and turned towards the door.
“I’ll have a copy of all this sent to your room,” Paloma informed her.
“You do that.” Riss wrenched open the door to the little office hard enough to make the spring doorstop twang before the heavy wooden panel flew backward, hitting her heel. She tripped into the hallway. To the right was the foyer and then the canal. To the left was the walled garden. Could she open the door she and Cash had come in a few hours ago? Was it only a few hours? Felt like years ago now.
She moved swiftly into the garden. What she’d thought was so beautiful earlier now went unnoticed. She would run. She’d known it the moment her head had cleared from Cash’s revelations and his kiss. There was no other choice for her. She couldn’t stay here and give up her entire life. She might dislike her job as an office manager, but she still had friends and a world to get back to. She’d run and hide out until all this blew over. But where?
First things first, she had to get out of the garden and back to her hotel to pack her stuff and pick up her passport. Then maybe she’d drive to France or Switzerland and fly out from there. She’d figure it out one step at a time. But she’d have to be smarter than she typically was. Flying off willy-nilly could result in… well, death. She threw a hand over her mouth to smother a giggle. The stress and anxiety were making her loopy. She tried to calm down.
Riss glanced around but she was alone in the garden. She stared at the door. The flat panel to the right of it lit up with a white light as she approached. She read enough science fiction to recognize it as a biometric reader. Handprint she thought. Hadn’t Paloma said something about it when they’d taken her handprint? She put her hand on the screen and got a green light. Step one. She tugged on and twisted the knob, but the door didn’t budge.
Wait, hadn’t Paloma babbled on about an iris scan? Riss had scoffed at the over-the-top system at the time, but she surmised that a secret club that would kill you for breaking their stupid rules would probably have redundant security features.
Riss looked around the door. A box on a track protruded from the wall above the hand scanner. It was too high up for her to look into, so she reached up, grabbed the frame, and tugged it downward. Then she leaned in and let it scan her eye. The door made a sound and it unlatched. She grabbed the doorknob and yanked. After an annoying rejection sound, the hand scanner went red.
“Shit,” she mumbled. Maybe she hadn’t been fast enough. She tried it all again but this time everything stayed red. “For shit’s sake,” she said as she shook the door. This wasn’t getting her anywhere. She’d have to try the front. Whirling around she immediately fell into Cash. He gave a surprised grunt and wrapped his arms around her to steady both of them.
“Going somewhere?” he asked.
“Yes. Home.” Riss tried to back out of his arms, but she just backed into the door and now there was no escape. “I joined your stupid Society and understand I can’t tell anyone anything. I’m going home.”
The look on his face said no chance in hell. “Not a good idea. At least not yet. Once we get this whole bible thing sorted then you can go home. Right now, you’re in too much danger.”
