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They walked on, Noelle’s mind continuing to wander. Words and phrases Tallulah Marsh had said kept popping forward, and she swore she could see them, written in a glittery pink the same as the woman’s outfit, flashing like the rhinestones on her lashes.It was like someone knew me.
Who? Who had known her? And hadn’t Noelle felt the same?
A slot machine on her right caught her attention, the cartoon animals grinning wildly. A bear, a moose, a rabbit.
Little rabbit.
He’d called herlittle rabbitbecause she’d called herself that first. She reached for the conversation from the room she’d spent eight years trying to forget. She was floating somewhere between here and there, the surrounding chaos making her feel like she was in a dream. Her hand in Evan’s as he led her along. Safe.
The man with the very slight accent—or maybeaccents—had given her the graphite from the pencil. She was certain that’s why he’d made the request that he had. Not because he’d wanted a picture drawn by her. That was subterfuge. He’d known she would understand its possibility. He’d emphasized the wordbreak, which had made her remember it. And then he’d uttered,You’re sohot.And it’d seemed odd because it was. He’d been offering her clues.Break.Pencil.Hot.Fire. Oh.
She stumbled slightly, catching herself. “Hey, are you okay?” Evan asked, stopping and turning toward her.
“Yes. I’m fine. Can we go back to the room?”
“Yeah. Of course. We’re basically penniless anyway.” He laughed. He didn’t care. He was a PI who lived in a nondescript apartment after he’d been surrounded by luxury, and all that had obviously meant nothing to him because he’d given it up to pursue his own dream, a career where he brought justice to others but one that might never result in great wealth.
She thought back to that conversation they’d had so long ago in the café in San Francisco when he’d told her he wasn’t happy at Stanford. He’d felt himself heading toward the exact life his father led and said that it felt like a death sentence. And so he’d changed paths, despite the fact that it must have been difficult. Evan had never taken the more predictable route because it was easier and expected of him. He’d forgedhis own way. He valued things far beyond money and power. His life was the proof of that.
You’re wonderful, Evan Sinclair.
They made their way through the casino and then out onto the street where the weather was still and warm. Desert air.
Like Reno.Like Mexico, where you limped over the cracked earth.She grabbed Evan’s hand again, taking the initiative, whereas before he had been the one to take hers, and he looked over at her, seeming surprised. But then he gripped her tightly, and they walked the rest of the way to their hotel.
“Hold on, just a second,” she said, sitting on one of the lounge chairs next to the pool as they walked through the open area. She slid off her heels, giving a short laugh. She rarely wore them, and they’d given her blisters that she was only noticing now.
Evan sat on the lounge chair next to her and lay back. She looked over her shoulder as she massaged her foot, giving him a slight smile and then lying back too. The stars above were so clear, so bright. He reached out and took her hand, and she remembered the moment they’d lain like this in the desert, bloody and broken and staring at these very same stars.Gemini.The twins.She wanted to laugh and she wanted to cry and she wanted to clench her eyes shut, but she couldn’t. She’d just begun to see.
“Do you ... want a drink in my room?” Evan asked as they both sat up. “Or just a water ... we could order room service, too, if you’re hungry. Maybe dessert?”
He was nervous, and it made her smile. “Water would be good. I ... I think I remembered something ... maybe.”
Ten minutes later, the elevator dinged, and they got off on their floor and then walked the short distance around the corner to Evan’s room. He unlocked the door, and they both went inside, where she kicked off her heels again and sat on the desk chair, bringing her other foot up and massaging that one.
That man had massaged her too. He’d touched her. He’d let his hands linger wherever he’d wanted. He’d brought her pleasure that had also hurt.
She started to shut her eyes, to shake her head and block it out, but then stopped, squeezing her foot to keep herself there. In that room of horrors.
“All those things we received, Evan ... the graphite from the pencil, the rose petals ... some of them were random ... gifts ... but some of them were not.”
He pulled two waters from the mini fridge and handed one to her. “Yes. I agree. It was like someone was trying to help us.”
Okay, great. She didn’t have to convince him of that. She nodded. “Yes, so from what we know, many people were watching us.”
“Yes,” he said. “Because it was a sort of game. Sickos who put us in cages to see what we’d do. For the pure thrill of it. Like a coliseum of sorts.”
Coliseum.Like the Roman Colosseum, where kings had watched slaves fight for their lives for the pure entertainment of it. A chill made her lift her shoulders and then drop them. “Yes, so there would have to be money involved, right?”
“Always follow the money,” he murmured. “So they—whoever those sickos were—watched us from a live feed that showed everything. They’d pay to watch. It was a digital coliseum, and they were the crowd in the stands.”
She pictured all those dull-eyed gamblers they’d walked past in the casino. “Yes. But what if they didn’t just watch. What if they were also given the choice to ... bet.”
That seemed to surprise Evan. “On what? On the choices we’d make from the ones given?”
She nodded.
“And then some of them rented us for purposes of sex or violence,” he said.
