Page 50 of One Step After Another

Maybe a drink, too.

“Penny, hey—”

“I’ll be back.”

When she felt like it.

Luca’s sigh rang out behind her before he called, “Don’t leave the building.”

Right.

Even if she wanted to, she didn’t have a choice but to stay. That was ninety percent of the damn problem. She couldn’t get away from him, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. This couldn’t possibly lead her to anywhere good.

• • •

THE SHOWER DID nothing for Penny. It certainly didn’t help with her growing problem despite the fact that she couldn’t even get the water to a bearably warm temperature. Cold showers were a joke even when it was unintentional. She did manage to snag a black tank top someone had left hanging from a makeshift clothesline in the hallway to throw on and with the skin-tight slip she wore under her dress to help conceal any weapons, it was like a whole new outfit.

Mostly.

She might return the top.

If she felt like it.

Penny found the bar Luca had mentioned on their first day after wandering a maze of halls for what felt like an hour. Attached to a kitchen where she was positive Luca had been getting their food from during their stay, the bar wasn’t much to look at. But neither was the rest of the place, either. Mismatched tables, booths, and chairs were set up haphazardly to face a small platform where a singer was currently crooning into a microphone through a haze of smoke.

This place wasn’t legal by any stretch of the imagination. That much was clear. It also served a purpose because she didn’t think she had ever seen such a melting pot of people as the ones that lingered in the bar and kitchen.

She also found what served as the entrance. Not that it appeared that way. More like a nondescript door between two others where a man stood with a weapon at his hip, deciding who could and could not come inside which led directly into the bar.

Despite the strange atmosphere of the place, no one paid her any mind when she found a seat at a table near the back of the bar. With only the tank top and slip to cover her skin, her patchwork of scars was on clear display.

No one even looked her way.

They didn’t care.

It made it easier for her to forget that she wasn’t trying to blend in when she really didn’t have to in the first place. How long had it been since she just ... was?

Too long.

Maybe that was the general rule of the place. Don’t ask, don’t tell. If no one caused a problem, then someone wouldn’t cause a problem with them. Penny liked that just fine.

Luca finally came to find—and join her at the table—when Penny was six drinks deep. Vodka soda wasn’t her favorite alcohol to drink, but the place wasn’t exactly equipped for the kinds of martinis she preferred. Simple would have to do.

She didn’t even glance Luca’s way when he slipped into the chair next to hers. At the other side of the room, the female singer crooned her way through a rendition of Lana Del Rey’s Heroin. The song was decades old but the tune certainly fit the vibe of the place. And maybe even Penny’s current mood.

Luca said nothing, but Penny couldn’t help but fill the silence between them.

“I like this place,” she admitted. “It’s ... different.”

“Not the social standard?”

She shrugged. “Different.”

His head turned a bit in the corner of her vision, telling her that he was now looking right at her and trying to decipher what she meant. He was free to do that all he wanted; she wasn’t giving away the thoughts she kept locked up tight.

“Like you,” he said, not even posing it as a question. “I’m sure you feel different, too. Maybe like you don’t fit in with the typical crowd ... it’s not a place where you belong. Instead, you spend your time living in the undergrounds where people play at a new level of rules and only occasionally come out to blend in with the rest of the world when needed.”

Christ.