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“Okay.” But my feet don’t move. At least, I don’tthinkthey move.
“Toni,” Lizzie chastises, but her tone is full of laughter. “How much did you take?”
In the moonglow coming from the floor-to-ceiling window, I see her silhouette fracture and multiply, all of her moving in the darkness, as comfortable with the night as a predatory cat.
“Ah…” I narrow my eyes, trying to retract all the Lizzies swimming through my vision. “Four?”
“Dried or fresh?”
“Dried?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
I don’t know.
With a triumphant, “Aha!” she flips on the bedside lamp, casting the far, right corner of the room in a peaceful glow.
The small light has relief spilling through me. I feel it, a tide that washes away the anxiety that darkness brings. But the tide recedes too, and, as the relief dissipates, I see her.
She is young, sprawled on the bed, limbs akimbo. The short red dress she’s wearing is hiked up around her waist, revealing remarkably plain, cotton underwear. Her head is angled down as if she’d tried to roll off the bed—and failed.
I know that something isn’t right with what I’m seeing, but I can’t quite put the pieces together. “L-Lizzie.”
But Lizzie is standing at the large windows, away from the bed, looking down on Los Angeles. “Look at this view, Toni-Baby. One day, we’re going to come home to a view like this.”
“Lizzie!” I say, louder this time. When she turns to look at me, annoyance painted on her features, I raise one shaky hand and point to the bed.
She moves around, past the oversized headboard.
She stops.
I stop.
The only sound is my heavy breath, sawing through the room.
And then everything moves at once.
“We need to get out of here. Now!” Lizzie hurries to me.
“We. Can’t,” I say slowly, making sure to enunciate each word. “The client-”
“Screw the client!” She starts tugging me towards the double-breasted doors, her legs eating up the space withconfidence as I hobble after her, my heels like stilts in the topsy-turvy world I’ve landed in.
My mind is chaos in slow motion. I see the details of the room with absolute clarity. I feel the bass from next door; it pulses through the floor, moving up and into my soles.
And, through the haze, I hear the faintest, “Help.”
“Wait.” The single word echoes in my head.Wait. Wait. Wait.
But Lizzie either doesn’t hear me or doesn’t care. She keeps dragging me towards the door.
“Wait!” I say, louder this time.Wait. Wait. Wait.
“What?”
Lizzie’s warm breath whispers against my skin, and I lift my shoulder to try and chase the unpleasant tickle away. “Just…Hold on.”
“There’sa bodyin the bedroom.We need to leave. Now.” Her words are administered through clenched teeth. Her grip on my arm is unforgiving.
