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17
RAINBOW STRANDS
The lackluster colorof my driver’s license photo stared back at me.
Even though it was taken four years ago, my eyes looked older, strained and dulled, the flecks of blue blurred and pale, the watery circles drying up in the years after.
Time should have smoothed over the edges in my smile, the curves of fatigue. In a way, it did. Cards assisted in burying the grief, the dirt that covered it fertilized by illegal addiction. Adrenaline helping it grow.
“Scroll down,” Theo said.
I took the phone from him, first going above my picture and reading the headline:
INNOCENT GUNSHOT SURVIVOR FROM WILLIAMSBURG DRUG BUST NOW GUILTY FUGITIVE
24-year-old Scarlet Rhodes from Croton Harmon, Westchester, narrowly escaped death-defying odds when she was at the receiving end of a bullet shot from the gun of one of Manhattan’s most notorious crime lords and currently one of New York City’s Most Wanted, Tracey Saxon.
Rumors spread that Miss Rhodes was the girlfriend of Tracey’s younger brother, Theodore “Sax” Saxon, also a fugitive from the law, and in doing so, found herself amidst an underground world heretofore unknown to the former honor roll student at Croton-Harmon High. A high school dropout who lost her twin sister, Cassandra Rhodes, almost ten years ago in a horrific car accident, Scarlet has since acquired a taste for the bad boys. A little over two years after barely surviving the well-documented Saxon fury dominating these streets, Scarlet has once again teamed up with this familial crime syndicate and can now add “criminal” to her non-exhaustive list of ways to rebel against her parents, and I daresay, living out a Bonnie and Clyde fantasy—
“What kindof rag mag is this?” I asked Theo.
“A blog,” he said. “Read by hundreds of thousands a day.”
“Explains why it’s so unnecessarily wordy,” I muttered.
“This isn’t a joke. The FBI knows you’re with me now. It’s only a matter of time before the major news outlets catch on and people start to recognize you.”
“Even on London’s streets?”
“I repeat,” he said, “Over a hundred thousand hits a day.”
“We knew this was going to happen eventually.” My heartbeat drummed, but my hand was steady when I passed the phone back to Theo.
“You’re blond in the picture.”
“I—what?”
“The photo they’ve uploaded. You’re blond.”
“And?” I asked carefully. My attention slid to the pharmacy bag he held. “Is that … oh God, what color did Rada’s butler choose for me?”
“You have to do this,” he said. Theo’s tone had me focusing back on his face.
“I mean, fine. I have no problems changing my hair.”
“Good.” His relief was palpable.
“Did you actually believe I’d fight you on this?”
“You fight me on everything.”
I fake-scoffed. “Not for something involving me being caught and arrested in a foreign country.”
“Are you still sure you want to do this?” he asked, searching.
I didn’t hesitate. “Of course.”
“I don’t mean the at-home salon treatment, Scarlet. If you leave now, we can come up with something completely unrelated to my family as to why you’re here. They wouldn’t be able to prove otherwise. Unless—”
