Page 9 of Ghosted

I head for the support columns first, back to the last place I saw her, but she’s no where in sight.

All that’s left is concrete, smoke, and the memory of that flash cutting across my vision at the worst possible second.

My jaw tightens.

I scan the crowd.

Raised phones. Drunk faces. Girls laughing too loud. Guys shoving each other near the cage. Smoke curling beneath the lights. Bodies packed shoulder to shoulder, moving with the ugly pulse of the warehouse.

For a second, I think I lost her.

Then I see the camera.

Black body. Long lens. Strap wrapped around pale fingers covered in silver rings. The thing looks expensive enough to pay someone’s rent for a month, but she holds it like it’s just another part of her.

Like it belongs to her more than most people belong to themselves.

Then I notice the rest.

Heavy black boots. Fishnets beneath a short dark skirt. Silver crosses tangled at her throat like warnings. Her hair falls over her shoulders in loose waves, black at first glance, but when the warehouse lights hit it, there’s a blue sheen threaded through it like midnight under glass.

It suits her.

The darkness. The almost-blue. The way she looks cold and electric at the same time.

Most people come down here and react.

They flinch. Cheer. Scream. Laugh too loud because the blood makes them nervous.

But she doesn’t react.

She fucking records.

I stop a few feet away and watch her take another picture. The flash fires, throwing her face into white for half a second before the shadows swallow her again. She lowers the camera to check the screen, thumb moving over buttons, expression focused in a way that makes me feel strangely, irrationally ignored.

I don’t like that.

I don’t like wanting her fucking attention either.

Both things can be true.

She looks up before I say anything.

People who live behind lenses learn to feel eyes on them.

Her gaze moves over the blood on my jaw, my hands, then back to my eyes. Slow, thorough and curious.

That bothers me most.

“What?” she asks.

I can tell by her tone, she’s not scared or trying to be cute.

“That how you talk to everyone?”

“Only men who stare at me like they’re deciding whether to yell at me or rob me.”

“Rob you?”