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I just really hope this thing glows for someone else because it’s already been a long day. I’m overtired, my eyes feel grainy, my head is starting to throb, my nipples keep doing strange things around Kirian, which I don’t want to think about, and the tuna wraps are only going to last so long in this heat.
We had better find a hundred people and find them fast.
CHAPTER 6
Kirian
Whoa. This can’t seriously be the neighborhood Lindy lives in, can it?
The houses are tiny wartime gigs and decrepit bungalows, and even the odd two-story or small, tall, and narrow three-story houses have all seen better days. This neighborhood can’t even be called up and coming. I would say that after dark, it’s the kind of place where people should lock their doors and bar their windows. Gunshots and loud arguments are probably an every-night occurrence here.
I try not to judge as I drive down a narrow street made narrower by cars parked on either side. Some are broken down, some don’t have tires, and a few look like they haven’t run in years. I can’t believe these are allowed on the street. A lot of the yards have sagging chainlink fencing, a few have dogs running around, and some have kids playing out front.
I pull up to a narrow two-story with a sagging porch and roof and a front door to match. A couple of the windows are cracked. I notice everything appears to be sagging when I mount the front steps and find that they make me feel like I’m back in college again, on the nights when I couldn’t get home walking upright because everything was swaying and spinning.
I said I’d be here at seven, and I made sure I was punctual. It’s almost dark, seeing as the days are getting shorter now, and I find myself shivering even though it’s not cold out. I might be extremely terrified of wasps, and I’m not entirely comfortable with shady-looking dudes in hoodies and baggy jeans sauntering down the sidewalk a few feet away. Sure, they might be teenagers. But they might also not be teenagers and have more sinister intentions.
Yeah, so I’ve been spoiled. I grew up in a good neighborhood, and our family drama might have been hurtful to us kids, such as our dads leaving our moms when we were pretty young and us growing up without them, but I always had a nice place to call home. I didn’t appreciate it as a kid, I’m sure. At least not the way I would have appreciated it if I’d come from a neighborhood like this first.
I’m seriously not judging while standing here. I’ve used that word twice now, and I don’t want to do it, but neighborhoods like this make my heart hurt. I know everyone says the system is broken and stuff, but this is bad, and people have to live here and endure it every single day.
I tear my eyes away from the sidewalk and notice the camera in the corner. I study it hard with the keen interest of someone who does home security for a living. I must be looking at it too hard because the door swings open all of a sudden, and I nearly tumble through. I stop myself, catching and stabilizing my footing with one hand on the frame. To my shock, it crumbles under my fingers, and I come away holding part of the door frame.
“Uhhh….”
Lindy sighs and snatches it from me. “Don’t worry about it. It happens more often than you think. I’ll talk to the landlord about it.” She chucks the piece inside and steps out. Then, she turns and puts the code in on the pad to lock the door.
For such a dilapidated house, it sure was high-end security, but the pad was placed pretty conspicuously beside the door.
I’m here because, earlier, when Lindy proposed the idea of having people—hapless strangers—touch the necklace, I thought it was crazy, but then it grew on me. I also realized we couldn’t just up and do it without a plan. So, I suggested she go home, get some rest, save the tuna wraps from making everything taste like tuna as they were in the same bag as all the other desserts she ordered, and said that we’d regroup later when the heat of the day had abated.
It’s a beautiful evening. A great evening to go to the French Quarter, where there are lots of tourists walking around, tourists who would think it would be pretty cool to test a theory about a curse because this is New Orleans. This is exactly the kind of stuff they’re looking to find on a beautiful evening in a city as old, mysterious, and wonderful as this one.
I promised Lindy I’d pick her up at seven, and we’d conduct her social experiment. I’m not sure why I promised or why I even agreed. If it glows for someone else, I suppose that would disprove the theory of there being only one soulmate. It would probably prove that the glowing doesn’t mean anything, or maybe it has nothing to do with the curse.
