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Abel was too busy looking up to notice her climbing down until she was already standing on the street.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Cela?”
“I’m going in there, Abe,” she told him.
“Like hell—”
“You can either come with me or you can wait here,” she said, but she was already turning and running toward the entrance.
Abel caught up with her before she’d reached the main entrance and directed her off to the side. “Are you crazy?”
“I have to get in there,” she told him, trying to pull away.
“Not that way.” He jerked his head, nodding toward an unmarked employee entrance down the block a little farther.
For a second, she didn’t think she was hearing him right.
“Let’s go,” he told her. “Before I change my mind.”
They made it into the building without any trouble. Nobody was around to see them slipping through the service hallways. Thanks to the work Jianyu had done to map out the building, they found their way to the arena without any trouble.
They arrived just in time to see Ruby emerging from a split in the heavy, draping fabric that covered the walls.
Relief bolted through her, but Cela barely took a step in Ruby’s direction before Abel caught her arm.
“Wait a second,” he whispered.
“Where’s she going?” Cela asked as she watched Ruby turn away from the exit.
“Looks like she’s headed up to the roof.”
Ruby looked back, as though checking to make sure she hadn’t been followed, before turning toward the stairs.
“Did you see her eyes?” Cela asked. Ruby’d had a blank, dazed look to her. “Something’s not right.”
They watched as Ruby took the steps up toward the ritual on the roof.
“We need to get out of here, Rabbit,” Abe told her.
“Where did she come from?” Cela asked, studying the place where Ruby had emerged from the curtains. “There shouldn’t be any kind of passage back there.”
“Maybe Jianyu missed something,” Abe said. “We’re not staying to find out. If the rich white girl wants to go play with her rich white friends, I say we let her.”
But Cela’s instincts prickled. She’d gotten to know Ruby over the past weeks, and nothing about what she’d just seen felt right. Something had gone terribly wrong.
They could go after Ruby and make sure she was okay, but that meant going up to the roof. It meant being seen by any number of people who might connect her or Abel to the New York Age just by the color of their skin.
Or she could find out where Ruby had just come from.
One or the other.
“I’m not leaving yet.”
“I will carry you out of here,” Abel threatened.
“You can try,” she said. “But it’d be a lot easier if you just came with me. Something’s back there. I got a feeling we need to go check it out.”
Abel looked like he about wanted to murder her. “You’re sure about this feeling?”
