Page 177 of Shhh…It’s A Killer Story

"We're already solving problems together."

I had known her for approximately thirty-seven seconds. I was fairly certain I'd just made my first real friend.

The next three hours disappeared so quietly that I barely noticed time passing. I don't usually lose time around people.

People are exhausting. They require eye contact and emotional participation and little noises of agreement at appropriate intervals. They ask questions they don't care about simply because silence terrifies them. Most conversations are nothing more than two people politely waiting for their turn to speak.

Persephone... wasn't like that.

Conversation with her didn't feel like work. It felt like wandering through an old cemetery where every gravestone had something fascinating written on it. We drifted from gallery to gallery, neither of us feeling the need to rush.

Every building in Hollow City was another monument to excess. Marble staircases curved beneath enormous chandeliers, sculptures worth millions occupied empty corners simply because someone wealthy enough had decided emptiness needed decorating, and paintings stretched across white walls beneath careful lighting that made every brushstroke feel sacred.

We criticized them shamelessly.

"Too optimistic," Persephone declared in front of an enormous landscape.

"It needs at least one dead crow."

She nodded thoughtfully.

"Or fog."

"Definitely fog."

By the third gallery we were inventing tragic backstories for statues. The marble woman holding flowers? Obviously poisoned her husband. The bronze soldier? Definitely cried whenever he saw butterflies. The naked Greek god? Tax evasion.

We laughed until strangers started giving us uncomfortable looks.

Good. Art should make people uncomfortable. If they're comfortable, they're probably standing in front of furniture instead.

Eventually we escaped the galleries altogether and wandered through the botanical district where every flower bed looked professionally choreographed. Even nature had rules in Hollow City.

Persephone stopped beside a wrought-iron railing overlooking one of the ornamental lakes.

"If you had to become a flower," she asked suddenly, "which one would you choose?"

I didn't even have to think.

"Foxglove."

She smiled immediately.

"Poisonous, beautiful and frequently misunderstood."

I looked sideways at her.

"Exactly."

She leaned against the railing.

"My turn."

"Violets."

I blinked.

"Really?"