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“Go to your room,” Wolf says to me, relaxing his grip. “Go straight there. One of us will be up there soon.”
I wrangle myself out of his grasp, gathering the ends of my dress.
Don’t turn around and look at Solon, I tell myself. Just get out of here.
I go through the doors into the house, then up the stairs, passing by Amethyst on the landing.
“What the hell just happened in there?” she says to me, noting the horrid expression on my face, my bloody neck and chest.
“Kalima,” I tell her. “I’m leaving.”
“What?” she asks, confused by my Temple of Doom reference. “Where?”
But I don’t answer her.
I open the door and step out into the night, running down the street toward the Bay. I can’t think, I can only run, the vestiges of my vampire grace enabling me to do so in my heels, my dress flowing behind me.
It isn’t until I get closer to the hotel that I realize I don’t have the room key on me, or anything at all, not even my phone.
So I have no choice.
I stop just at the base of the hill on California Street and make sure no one is looking before I make the air shimmer and warp, the flames appearing, taking on the shape of a door.
I step through the Veil for the second time tonight, but this time I’m alone.
Kinda.
Immediately I see shadows coming for me out of the darkness.
Fuck.
I start running again, up the hill, going faster and faster, the adrenaline flooding my system. I don’t look back, don’t want to see the spirit-hijackers slithering towards me, don’t want to do anything but be back in my hotel room, safe and sound.
I reach the Fairmont quickly, thanking both my natural athleticism and my now active vampire genes, and go to my room. The empty lobby creeps me out, but by the time I climb one million stairs to get to my floor, I’m too tired to care.
The door unlocks as all the doors in the Black Sunshine do, and I step inside my room, closing it beside me. I create a flaming door again and step through, the flames fading. The world is colorful, normal again, the city lights bright.
And then, only then, do I exhale.
Put my head in my hands.
Wonder if the tears are going to come, how I’m going to handle this because there’s so much happening right now and I’m teetering between horror and rage and frustration and—
My ruby burns against my chest.
“Fuck!” I yell, head back. No escape.
Turn around in time to see Solon appear from the Veil, still in his tux, looking incensed.
“Why did you leave?” he cries out, coming to me, grabbing me by my forearms. “Do you know how dangerous that was?”
He’s breathing hard, grinding his jaw, eyes wild and unhinged. His grip on my arms is close to hurting me.
“Let go of me,” I tell him, trying to keep my voice firm. “Now.”
He hates being told what to do. He bares his teeth at me, a rumble coming from his chest, but he lets go.
“I told you, I warned you,” he says to me, running his hand through his hair in frustration, turning around so his back is to me. “I showed you who I was, and that wasn’t even the half of it.”
