Faith rolls her eyes and shakes her shimmering red hair. “I don’t care what they want, silly. I want to dance with you before you leave and I never see you again.”
Taylor sighs. “You will see me again.”
“Says who? You always say the future is a privilege. Blah blah blah.” She tugs on Taylor’s hands again. “Please? One time? Come on, Super Taylor.”
It’s incredibly cute to see Taylor’s resolve crumble beneath Faith’s pleas.
Taylor hands her drink off to a waiter and lets Faith lure her into the dancers with both hands. The drunken escort walks backward, bumping into a few people as they close in around her. I’m instantly entranced by the sight of Taylor having fun. Eyes alight, posture relaxed, and a genuine, room-illuminating smile. It’s like someone opened a portal to the past and I’m peeking into the Taylor who existed before I knew her. Seeing her exhibit what little happiness she possesses stops me from cutting in to dance with her myself. Faith wrests Taylor’s blazer off and tosses it away, covering a pair of involved dancers grateful for the privacy. The redhead spins around, looping Taylor’s arms over her head until she’s snug in Taylor’s embrace. I smile at them, and Taylor’s eyes crinkle back at me from over Faith’s shoulder.
And then, time stops. Like figurines in a snow globe, the world shakes around us, but we remain unmoved, frozen.
A gunshot. Screaming.
Faith raises her hand to her chest and pulls it away, tilting her head to examine the blood in confusion. She swoons backward into Taylor’s arms, who lowers her gently to the ground. Chaos breaks out. Dancers transform into soldiers. I watch them wrestle the shooter to the ground, disarm, and restrain her. Blinding lights flicker on with a loud clunk. Faith lies in Taylor’s embrace, gurgling, her body convulsing in terrible shakes. A crimson hole in her dress leaks blood down her torso, pooling on the floor.
“Someone get help!”
“No, nobody move,” Taylor says, voice choked. She addresses the shocked crowd. “Go into lockdown. No one gets in or out until the hotel is cleared top to bottom. Apprehend anyone suspicious. Squads of four to each floor. Gutierrez, organize the squads. Appoint four people to the lobby, guards posted at every point of entrance until I give the order to be relieved. Dansin and Vasilev—hold the assailant in a room and let no one in.”
Whoever Gutierrez is, he immediately shouts names and people part the crowd to report to him. Faith’s cough brings Taylor’s attention down. She clutches at Taylor’s shirt, trying to find purchase on it, perhaps a desperate attempt to stay tethered to this world, smearing the fabric in ruby streaks. Taylor makes no effort to stem the blood flow. Instead, she leans close to her dying friend and delivers parting words.
Faith’s eyes lose focus. Her garbled breathing abruptly ceases with one hard inhale.
I watch her die. We all do.
Mason shoves away onlookers and crouches to lift the suddenly lifeless body of a recently alive Faith into his arms. He and Taylor communicate silently and she leads him out of the ballroom. Delilah is not far behind, skittering in her heels to catch up. I follow them into a room about a step below a triage unit. Nothing fancy, but fully functional. Hit with the nauseating odors of bandages and disinfectant, I hold my hand over my mouth to prevent myself from vomiting. Mason lays Faith’s body on the steel table in the center of the room as Taylor collapses into a chair. Delilah stands near the doorway and converses in quiet tones with an Order soldier. A few minutes later, a doctor arrives to check Faith’s vitals and confirms what we already know. She’s dead.
“I’ll have to prepare the body for transport,” the doctor tells the room. Nobody responds to her, each of us turned inward to our grief. I’m jerked back a decade, running from wheremy maids stashed me in the library to my mother’s room. I’m watching the doctors click off the machines keeping her alive. My father by her side, face red in anger and sadness. He pleads with me to leave the room and I burst into tears and scream for my mother. She doesn’t answer. I didn’t understand how she could be there one moment and gone the next. The dissonance of death is in the sameness. Nothing changes, yet everything is different.
“Transport?” Delilah pivots to face the doctor. “For what?”
“To the morgue in the hospital. We need this room for living patients.”
Delilah’s grief-stricken shock slowly fades to understanding. That makes one person in the room who agrees with her, based on the disconcertingly blank expression on Taylor and the anguished one on Mason.
“No.” I move forward and shake my head. “You are not taking her anywhere.”
“Excuse me?” The doctor levels a haughty look in my direction. “In the absence of kin, I decide what to do with the body.”
“Her name is Faith,” I say through gritted teeth. The woman cocks an eyebrow at me. “You are not touching her. You are leaving,” I insist. “This is the closest to kin she had, and they need time.”
“I am a doctor, and I demand?—”
Emitting a short growl, I cross the room and eye the woman from head to toe. With about three inches of height on her, I look much more threatening than I am. However, the tattoo on the inside of her arm tells me she’s trained Order and could probably kick my ass. “You would be so audacious as to make demands of the lieutenant general?” Maybe I can’t throw my own weight around, but I sure as hell can throw Taylor’s.
The doctor, presumably seeing Taylor for the first time, shrinks back. “I see. I apologize. It’s simply protocol.”
“This is her family, and you will let them grieve. We will call for you when we’re ready. Thank you.”
Miffed but compliant, the doctor exits in a huff and I venture a glance at my captor. Her eyes are glossy, unfocused, and burning. Faith’s blood dries in her hair. Mason ambles around the table and puts his hand on Taylor’s back, but she shoves him off.
Delilah disengages from the soldier and Taylor’s head snaps to her. “Who was it?”
“I don’t know. They’re putting her in a bedroom as we speak.” Delilah’s dulcet voice frays at the ends.
Taylor stands and leans over the table, bloody hands gripping the edge. I wish someone would cover this poor dead girl with a sheet. Rivers of dried blood stream from her nose and mouth. Her eyes are open, staring into the abyss.
“What room?” Taylor asks, brushing Faith’s hair from her face.
