Page 112 of Gave Proof Through the Night

She presses a button and a glowing blue light bursts out with a shhh-krrr sound followed by a buzzing hum.

When it’s time to slip on my dress, I use the bedroom for privacy, and also because I like a big reveal. Ivy comes in with me to help me zip up and do the last fluffs of my hair. She looks utterly pleased with her handiwork, and does one last-minute sweep of my hair to the side of my shoulder that’s bare.

I wouldn’t have thought a dress like this would have worked, but the nice saleswoman understood the assignment.

The dress is monochromatic black, head to toe, but unmistakably the flag if you look twice. A structured one-shoulder bodice wraps asymmetrically across my chest. The whole thing is dense with crushed velvet stars against satin.

Below the waist, the stripes descend in wavy, alternating diagonal panels in matte crepe and satin that flare when I walk. It’s both gothic and patriotic, and completely, deliberately me. And underneath, laced tight to the ankle where nobody will think to look, a pair of black combat boots.

I step out of the bedroom, and there’s a collective hush among my friends.

Rue’s jaw hangs down. “You look hot, girl.”

“You look like justice,” Suri adds.

“Good,” I say. “That’s what I’m going for.”

I’m nervous on the elevator ride down. Funnily enough, not for the job, but in anticipation of seeing Jeremiah.

But when he sees me, all my anxiety floats off into the ether.

He is devastatingly handsome in a tailored tux. It gives in all the right muscular places, and tapers into a sleek silhouette.

“You are… stunning,” Jeremiah says. His tongue is effectively on the floor. He takes me in slowly. The hair, the makeup, the dress. And then his eyes catch on the hem where I’ve hitched my skirt to step up to the red carpet without tripping, and he stops cold. “Erica. Your shoes. I told you, if the gift cards didn’t cover everything, I had cash.”

“Oh, the gift cards covered more than everything.” I let the skirt fall back over the boots. “I bought these to go with the dress.”

“Of course you did.”

“And I bought myself a pair of Wonder Woman boots too. Couldn’t help it.”

He nods, laughing. “That checks.”

Camera shutters fire in overlapping bursts in a wall of white light. Reporters are shouting questions over each other from behind the stanchions. A boom mic dips toward a couple two spots ahead of us. Someone’s publicist is already steering a starlet toward the backdrop emblazoned with the tournament logo and positioning her at an angle so the photographers can get her good side, probably.

“Judge Marchetti, ten o’clock,” Zoe murmurs in my ear. Her eyes are on the security feed from the van. “And that’s Cordelia Byrne air-kissing her way down the carpet. She’s chaired six galas this year alone. This one’s probably just a regular day for her.”

Somewhere behind us a photographer calls out, “Who’s the date, Precio?”

“My lady,” Jeremiah says, without missing a beat.

Something in my chest does a happy, undignified flip, and we go in the ballroom.

Jeremiah’s whole body changes the second we clear the doors, a shift so small most people would miss it entirely. “He’s here,” he whispers. “That man.”

Across the ballroom, Hobbs lifts two fingers to his own eyes, then points them at me. Watching you. Is it inappropriate to give him the finger at a black-tie gala? Probably. I settle for a cheeky salute instead.

“Don’t mind him,” I say. “He’s harmless.”

“I know he’s the guy,” Jeremiah says through his teeth, staring down Hobbs from across the room. “Don’t tell me otherwise.”

“Yes, he’s the guy from the museum.”

He turns to me, and his expression is really, really grave. “The guy, Erica. When you were eighteen.”

“Okay, yes. He’s the guy.” No point pretending. “But please don’t make a scene. He’ll be out of our lives soon enough. I’ve got it covered.”

“What does that mean?”