They had been working on designstogether for a couple of years, ever since she got her first. She’d loved it somuch that she had begged him to make her another, and this would be the thirdtime one of his designs decorated her body. There was something strangelyintimate about it, though they had never been lovers. Something about the wayhis work trailed across her skin, the one gesture of rebellion against thecorporate lifestyle she was no doubt going to have to endure for decades.
Or maybe not. Maybe she could find a wayout, to do the things she really loved. Start her own business, even though shehadn’t figured out what it would be yet. Callie could still hope.
She stepped down into the alleyway, pastan overturned garbage can and a mural of graffiti that had since been taggedover by kids with spray cans. Art, covered by the kind of inane scrawl thatmade cities want to crack down on graffiti in the first place. It was a shame.The California sun that had been shining down on her face disappeared, replacedwith the cool shade between tall buildings, leaving her eyes to adjust to newgloom.
At the opposite end of the alley, a manentered, coming in her direction. Callie stiffened a little, taking him in whiletrying to pretend she was looking at the ground to his left. He had a hoodiepulled up over his head, his face in shadows, his hands deep into his pocketsjust like hers.
She couldn’t make out his identity. Thatcould be bad news, in a place like this. It could mean that he didn’t want hisidentity known. A bad sign.
Callie’s fingers curled and wrappedaround the pepper spray, her arm muscles tensing as she thought about using it.She would pull it out in one swift motion, aim it at his face—she used the tipof her index finger to find the nozzle so that it would be the right way around—andthen spray. Spray and run.
She stepped up her pace, thinking thatthe quicker she passed him, the less chance he would have of getting the upperhand. She looked down the distance between them, trying to figure it out. Aglance up at the sky. Was she halfway yet? Would it be quicker to run forwardor back? Javi was expecting her. Maybe if she ran to him, he would let her inquicker. Yes, she would run to Javi.
She held her breath as the man camecloser, trying to keep walking forward as if nothing was happening, butgripping the pepper spray harder than ever. She was primed, ready to go—
He passed by her without incident.
Callie breathed again, mentally tellingherself off for being so paranoid. That was what happened to people who wereoverprepared. Who thought too much about getting attacked in alleyways.
Javi would laugh about this. She wouldtell him, even though it was embarrassing. He would laugh warmly and tell herhe would protect her from the big scary men. It would be a bonding momentbetween them.
Unexpectedly, Callie was pulled offbalance, just when she was breathing easy again. Something from behind. Him,she realized—it had to be. He had her around the shoulders, one of his armspulled around her. Back toward him. Her shoulder blades collided with hischest, and something was pulling across her throat—something sharp—something—
She wanted to yell for help, yell forJavi, scream, but when she tried, the air only bubbled out through her throat,through the new opening he had made. He had cut her throat. Something hot wascascading across her chest—she knew what it was—her own blood.
With a moment of clarity unlike any shehad ever felt, Callie Everard knew that she was going to die.
Dying, even. It was happening, rightnow, actively, and she was never going to see Javi to get that tattoo designand she was never going to follow her dream of being her own boss and she wasnever going to own that Mercedes she had set her eyes on when she read that afamous fashion editor drove one. Callie’s hands clutched at her throat,slipping on the blood, and she could only grasp at the edges of the newopening, the geography of which made no sense to her searching fingers.
Callie fell, unaware that she was doingit until she registered that she was looking up at the sky and therefore had tobe on her back. She strained one last time to make a noise, desperately suckingin air through her open mouth and trying to expel it again in a shout. All sheheard was another gush of blood from her wound, the oxygen bubbling out in it,not even reaching her lungs.
It was only another moment before Calliestopped seeing anything at all, and stopped breathing, and then it was only herbody that lay abandoned in the alleyway. A shell. Her soul, or herconsciousness, or whatever it was that was Callie, long gone.
CHAPTER TWO
Zoe set down her glass on the table,trying not to let herself calculate the volume of water still remaining insideit. It was a losing battle, of course. She was always going to see the numbers,whether she wanted to or not.
“What do you think?”
“Hmm?” Zoe looked up guiltily, meetingJohn’s waiting brown eyes.
She expected him to lose his patience,but she still had never managed to push him that far. Instead he gave her agentle smile, one of those lopsided smiles of his that went higher on the rightside of his face than the left. He always seemed to be giving her those smiles,forgiving her for something or other. Zoe didn’t really know that she deservedit.
“What’s on your mind?” John asked.
Zoe tried to mold her face intosomething that would convincingly tell him she was fine. “Oh, nothing,” shesaid, and then, feeling that perhaps this wasn’t the best answer: “Just workstuff.”
“You can tell me about it, you know,”John said, slipping his hand over hers on the table. She felt his calmheartbeat thumping slowly through his thumb where it pressed on her skin,slower than hers. Slower by a long shot.
Great. Zoe had made up
