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He gets in line and glances at me over his shoulder and I give him a shy smile, feeling like I really am on my first date and a little over my head.
Then I get this strange smell of cologne and beer in my nose, something really familiar but I can’t quite place it because it smells like so many people in here.
I turn my head and see Matt standing just a few feet away, staring at me in concern.
I stare back him, the sight of him doing something to my brain, like two worlds colliding that I never thought would collide.
I don’t know if I should say something to him or not, but he just frowns at me, looking mildly horrified and confused, and I can’t tell if it’s the way I look now or maybe him not seeing me since Elle went missing or…
I glance down at my arms. At all my missing tattoos.
Oh, fuck. I totally fucking forgot.
He gives me another odd, harried look, and then leaves.
I get up and go after him, going to Solon first at the bar.
“I see an old friend,” I tell Solon, my voice low. “I’ll be right back, don’t come after me, it will only make things worse.”
“Lenore,” he growls, but it’s too late and I’m already leaving, heading out the door just in time to see Matt at the top of the stairs.
“Matt!” I call out to him and he keeps going.
In a flash I’m by his side, grabbing his arm, pulling him off into the darkened garden at the back of the church.
“What the fuck Lenore?” Matt cries out, and I realize I’m too strong for my own good. “What is wrong with you?”
Though we’re in the far corner of the garden, I feel a presence at my back, smell Solon’s scent. He’s keeping his distance, disappearing into the shadows I’m sure, but he’s here and he’s watching me.
“You didn’t say hello,” I say to him, trying to sound breezy and not desperately trying to prove that I’m normal. “I saw you in the bar.”
“I know,” he says, looking me up and down. “I didn’t even recognize you. What the fuck happened to your tattoos? Why are you so pale? You trying to change your appearance or something?”
I blink at him. “No? Why?”
“Of all people, I thought I’d see you on the news, out there looking for Elle,” he says bitterly. “A post on your Facebook, something. But it’s like you don’t even care that she’s gone.”
I shake my head, feeling panic flood through me. “I don’t have anything to do with Elle’s disappearance. I didn’t kill her.”
He stares at me for a moment. “I never said anything about her being killed…”
Fuck.
“Well that’s what you’re implying,” I say hurriedly. “That’s what everyone is thinking. That she’s dead.”
He looks down at my arms and legs, though I know he can’t see as well in the shadows like I can. “All your tattoos are gone,” he says in a whisper. “All of them.”
I swallow uneasily, my heart starting to race, my adrenaline picking up.
Something awful and dark is starting to spread inside my gut.
“I got tired of them,” I lie. “They were easy to remove. I wanted a fresh start.”
“A fresh start for what?”
“I don’t know, I thought maybe I wouldn’t be taken seriously as a museum curator,” I say, lying through my teeth, starting to panic. That darkness is spreading up me now, turning into a form of hunger.
The thing is, I’m not the only here with adrenaline running high. His is too and I can smell it, smell his fear, smell it coming out of his pores, smell it in his blood. The scent is flipping a switch on inside me, a thirst that wasn’t there before.
