He smirks, the exquisiteness of his face almost blinding. “I have a power, Kaye, and so do you. We’re going to need to work quickly if we want to save Zane.”
A tremble flutters through my stomach and down my legs. I find myself wrapping my arms around my knees, pressing them into my core. Another flash, an impression appears in my mind. Of kisses burning hot in the water falling around us.I’m a monster too.A wall of flames towering over us.Who is Checkmate? Who is C?
“Zane.”
30
KAYE
The masquerade party is somehow even more than I had anticipated. I had been told to expect opulence, a great showing wealth and luxury that rivals what my wildest dreams could conjure. Even with the wild dreams I have been having.
Dreams, or something more?
Like puzzles made up of pieces taken from entirely different puzzle kits. None of them match, their colors and textures as varied as can be. Yet their edges fit together. If I got far enough away from them, could I see the picture? More pieces appear every day.
“The party will be at Mayor Vanall’s home,” Fulton explained, unrolling a blueprint filled with lines and symbols with meanings that I could only guess. They must have made some kind of sense to her though. She traced her finger over the paper with delicate precision.
“This is Main Street,” she said, pointing. “And Vanall’s home is here. According to these, there’s an opening to the underground right underneath here.”
“Underground?” I may have been missing memories, but even I knew that New Malcolm didn’t have a subway system. They tried to build one to make exporting from the factories andtransportation of oil fracking easier, but all that infrastructure work had unintended consequences.
A giant mouth opened in the earth below the construction site, swallowing trucks, equipment, materials. A sink hole, they said, but it was so much more. Wider than a city block and almost ten stories deep. It was unlike anything they had ever seen.
What was seen within that boundless maw? Slate rooftops peeking through the debris. And within that, mass graves. Tunnels lined with bones. The remnants of an earthquake that flattened early-industrial New Malcolm. A tale lost to history.
Deliberately forgotten.
“Don’t you see?” Fulton’s dark eyes level with mine, fervor shining within them. “These tunnels cover the majority of downtown, and that’s just what people have managed to plot! No one goes down there because it’s too dangerous, but what if there’s another reason to keep people away?”
What it all has to do with the mayor’s party remains to be seen. Or why this C person—whoever he is—wants me here.
The doorman is dressed to the nines in a matte black tux and starched white undershirt and cummerbund. The top half of his face is covered in a devilish red mask, complete with horns. Masks. More and more in every direction I look.
We made it together, they said. Zane and I. But the ensemble still feels foreign to me, like slipping on a skin that I haven’t yet grown into. Wrinkled and roomy on all sides. Not that I don’t look killer in this outfit. The diamonds up the night-black fabric of my sleeves and trailing from my boots to the tops of my thighs on either side creates this strange illusion. It makes my reluctant movements appear… graceful. Strong. Certain. I saw myself in the mirror, and a stranger looked back. A stranger, but…
“Invitation?” The doorman is looking at me expectantly, and I wonder where the line of people in front of me went. If he had asked me that question once before already.
I hand him the paper without a word. I wish Fulton was here, or even Jaspar with all his flirtation and sarcasm. Adeon with his calming presence. Any of the friends I awoke to find. They’re only a call or text away, backup just around the corner, camouflaged in the parade of cars parked for the party. They couldn’t have come. The invitation admitted only one, and even if it hadn’t, I couldn’t ask them to risk their lives because I didn’t want to go alone.
The Hero of New Malcolm is afraid to fight the criminals she hunted days before. If only I didn’t have to rely on others to tell me who I am.
After all the stories, the kind, if not subtle, hints and reminders, I expect Checkmate to be this huge, prolific figure to everyone in the city. And maybe she was, once upon a time, but the doorman doesn’t recognize her—me—right in front of his face. He waves me through the door without another glance, already eyeing up the couple in line behind me. It’s something akin to disappointment, this faint stab in my chest, even if I know it’s better this way. Still, it would have been nice to have one person validate this person I’m supposed to be.
The world inside is made of sensuous red and debauchery. Auburn-haired servers clad in nothing more than crimson corsets, fishnets, and heels carry drinks and hors d’oeuvres from room to room. Music pounds the air, every breath through my lungs thick with vibration. Red leather couches line the walls in the entryway, and beyond as far as I can tell. Already, a couple to my right is making use of them—a leggy blonde in a black catsuit straddling a brunette dressed as Red Riding Hood. A trio of men is seated across the room, ogling the passionate pair. I shootthem a glare as I pass them by. One of them catches my eye and winces. Good.
The party in the grand room is more my speed. The DJ’s booth is lit with a soft light that only emphasizes the grotesque expression of his glowing mask. The ample dance floor is full of revelers, hands raised as they jump in time to the beat. The whole of the left wall is a bar stocked with top-shelf liquor, and leaning on the bar?—
Suit black as night, like ink solidified. The gloves covering those dangerous, elegant fingers. That mask, white as fresh snow on Christmas morning, disturbing in its blank features. My reaction to it is visceral, tattooed in the scars in my skin.
“Charade?”
The face that turns to greet me is too fine to belong to him, the chin and jawbone coming to a delicate point, the grinning lips too rosy and feline. And as she adjusts in her seat, I notice the differences in posture and stance. The subtle curve of her bust within the suit, tapering down to a slim waist.
She may not have been Charade, but as I look at her, that eerie sense calls just at the edges of my thoughts and feelings.
She stands, takes my hand, and brings it to those soft, pink lips. I freeze even as her touch makes heat rise to my cheeks. There’s something so familiar about all of this. Like watching a movie of a dream you had once before. You know the steps, even if they happened to someone else. But… I think the someone was me.
She pulls me close to her until her lips press against my ear, her cheek warm where is presses against my cheek. “Dance with me.”
