Kill Me Softly (3 page)

The girlfriend—Cora—was shifting her weight, rubbing her bare arms. She looked less worried now and more impatient. “Everything all right?” she called. He waved a hand in her direction:
wait.

“I don't
have
a room here,” Mira said. “I'm not with my parents. I'm here to
find
my parents.” She exhaled a frustrated breath, already regretting blurting that out. She expected him to tell her how stupid that was. Instead, he seemed interested.

“Find them?”

“I'm looking for their graves. They died in Beau Rivage a long time ago. But I don't know where they're buried. And I don't—have anywhere else to go right now.” Mira fidgeted with the zipper on her bag, certain she would have to leave. Her muscles felt so worn-out from walking all day that she just wanted to sleep. Give up in every possible way.

“You don't have a place to stay, family here, anything?”

She shook her head, embarrassed. She'd been ruthlessly careful with every detail of her escape but had counted on her instinct, her affinity for her parents, to guide her once she got to Beau Rivage. Now she just felt stupid.

“You do now,” he said. He lifted her bag before she could stop him, pressed down the rope barrier, and glanced back like he expected her to follow. “You coming?”

“Um—” She scrambled after him. “I can carry that. And I wasn't looking for a handout when I—”

“Relax,” he said, turning so her bag was out of reach. “Let me help you.”

Reluctantly, she climbed over the rope barrier, and he stepped down after. Mira wasn't sure where they were going—but she was sure Cora was less than thrilled. That much was clear from the dirty look the girl gave her.

“It's two
A.M.
,” Blue's brother said. “And we have empty rooms that are going to stay empty. So the Dream is putting you up for the night. No arguments.”

Mira nodded, abashed. “Okay. I mean—thank you.”

“
Or
you could call the police,” Cora said—her voice taking on a hardness that hadn't been there before. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Since there's probably someone looking for her. And she's not your problem.”

A chill came over Mira. “I—no one's looking for—”

“Everyone in this hotel is my problem,” the guy said coolly, eyes on his girlfriend. “And I'm sure that if she wanted to call the police, she'd do that herself. So how about you go play”—he dug a handful of betting chips out of his pocket—“and see how fast you can lose my money. Set a record tonight.”

Cora made a face but accepted the chips, tucking them into her black clutch bag like she'd done this a hundred times. “Okay, but hurry up. I'm not feeling very lucky.”

“I'll call you later,” he said. He pressed the button for the elevator, and he and Mira stepped inside when the brassy doors slid open, leaving the other girl behind.

Mirrors on every side of the elevator caught their reflections—and showed Mira she was even more disheveled than she'd thought. Her wavy hair was tangled and sticking up in places, like she'd been rolling around in a forest, not just sleeping against a tree. She wanted to smooth it down but didn't want to seem like she was trying to look pretty for him. That would be more embarrassing than having messy hair.

He brought her to a room on the twentieth floor, opened it with his passkey, and set her bag down, then strode to the window and thrust the thick curtains apart. Moonlight swept into the room, edging the dark shapes with light.

He turned toward her but didn't move away from the window. “You just got in tonight?”

“Earlier today.”

She drifted closer, lured by the view. Below, she could see the rolling dark waves of the sea, tinted silver by the moon. The Dream was so quiet, now that they were away from the clang of machines, the chaos of hundreds of voices.

“So you don't know the city very well?” he said.

“No,” Mira admitted. “I have a map, but—it's hard to know where to start.”

He looked at her carefully, like he was considering something. “If you're not in a hurry, I might be able to help you. If you're really serious about this.”

“I'm serious about it,” she said quickly. “I've wanted this for so long, I—it would mean a lot to me.” She
was
in a hurry. But the thought of trekking through the city alone was so demoralizing she was willing to wait a few days if it meant she'd have help.

He nodded. “All right, good. Well—I can't promise you anything, but I'll see what I can do. And in the meantime, you'll be our guest.”

“Thank you. So much.” She felt like she was babbling, even when she barely said anything. He was being so nice—she should let him leave already. She started to move away from the window, and he said:

“So tell me your story.” And she stopped. She could sense his attentiveness, like a hand on the back of her neck. Like his voice was touching her skin. “Who'd you leave behind at home?” he asked. “Foster parents?”

“My godmothers. They knew my parents. They were there when they … died. And they took care of me after that.”

He leaned his shoulder against the window, tilted his head to look at her. The silver light turned his dark blue hair and eyes a midnight black. “Do you mind if I ask what happened?”

Normally, she didn't talk about her tragedy—but he was looking at her in a way that made her want to trust him. And he'd agreed to help her with this—this dream that meant everything to her. She wanted him to know.

Mira bowed her head. “I was three months old. We were at my christening party. … It was held in this beautiful ballroom, with a mural on the ceiling, like the Sistine Chapel, except with fairy-tale scenes. You could spin around and around and always see a different story. There was a red-cloaked girl running from a wolf, and a mermaid whose fins were splitting to become legs, and—a beauty taming her beast. … That's what my godmothers told me—I was too young to remember.”

She took a deep breath, and paused. The tale of that night was whole in her head, in one piece like a bedtime story, because that was how her godmothers told it—but she couldn't tell it straight through. She had to split it into
before
and
after
.

“Then—the fire started. It spread through the ballroom, and crawled up the curtains and reached as high as the ceiling. Smoke filled the air, and beams were crashing down … and my parents were trying to save everyone. They handed me to my godmother Bliss, and she wrapped me in her shawl and ran through the smoke to safety. It was a party, and there were a lot of people … but my parents managed to get everyone out. Except, I don't think they realized they'd done it. Because they kept searching. So they were—” The words stuck in her throat, as hard as a stone. “They were the only ones who didn't make it out in time.”

“How tragic,” he said. “They were heroes … but they could have lived, if they'd known.” He said it like he meant it. Like he understood how awful it was to have lost them that way.

Mira nodded. “That's the hardest part. I can't help wishing they hadn't tried so hard to save everyone. Because—then maybe I'd still have them.”

She waited for him to insist she didn't really mean that—like Elsa always did—or to say it was selfish to trade a host of lives to save two. But his mind was elsewhere.

“A christening party … So your parents were very traditional.”

“They sort of look that way in pictures. I have maybe one picture where my dad's
not
in a tuxedo,” she said with a smile. “But I don't know. I mostly think of them as perfect.”

He tipped his head back, eyes closing, moonlight sliding over his throat. “I don't remember my mother very well. I never think of her as perfect. But that's probably because she left. When someone chooses to leave you … it's different.”

“You lost your mother?” She hadn't expected to have that in common with him. She wondered if that was why he'd offered to help her.

“She left when I was eight. I think she was afraid of getting attached.”

Mira nodded, not sure what to say. She couldn't imagine a mother cold enough to leave for that reason. “I'm sorry,” she said.

He shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”

They stood at the window a moment more, and then he went to the light and turned it on. The room expanded from a dark ocean overlook to a subtly glitzy suite; the shine and shimmer of the casino stirred with the colors of sea and sand.

Now that the room was brighter, it seemed less intimate, less a place for confessions. Mira unpacked her bag while he called the front desk, unrolling crumpled shirts and tank tops and skirts and trying not to stare at him.

“This is Felix,” he said into the phone. “I need you to activate a key for room 2005 and bring it up here. Right. Just put that it's my guest. Leave the checkout date open.”

He—Felix—hung up and faced her. Paused for a moment, watching her unpack. “Someone's bringing your key.”

“Thanks,” she said, pushing her hair out of her face, straightening up. Then it occurred to her that maybe she was being presumptuous. That it was rude to assume the room was free.

“I can pay,” she said, reaching for her wallet.

Felix gave a short shake of his head. “Don't worry about it. I feel better knowing you're not on the street. Think of it like you're doing me a favor. Not like you owe me.”

He smiled, and there was something unguarded about it, like they were friends. Mira smiled back—feeling safe, and less lost—and the tension she'd carried all day began to ebb.

A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door. A hotel employee had arrived with the key card. Felix took it and sent the clerk away, then set the key card on the desk next to a hotel notepad, where he wrote down the numbers she would need: the front desk, room service, his phone number—and that was when she finally saw his full name, the letters surging forward in a series of sharp slashes:

FELIX VALENTINE

“If you can't reach me … that probably means I'm dealing with someone high maintenance, or I'm in a meeting and can't answer my phone. It doesn't mean I'm ignoring you.”

He stopped, lost in thought, and then laughed. “I never asked your name. I was so caught up in …” He shook his head.

“It's late, and I wasn't thinking. What should I call you?”

“Mira,” she said. “Or Mirabelle.”

“All right, Mira … I'll let you get some sleep. But call me if you need anything. And tomorrow or the day after, we'll start our search—whenever I can steal some time.”

“If you're busy, I can look by myself. You've done a lot for me already; you don't—”

The words dried up in her mouth. Something about the way Felix was looking at her—his eyes dark, and very sure—made her feel like it was silly to keep offering him an out. He touched her shoulder and said:

“Mira, I spend every day doing things I don't want to do. But I
want
to help you. I can make time for that.” He leaned in then, and his lips brushed her cheek; and for a moment he was all she could see. Her world was reduced to the warmth of his lips, the hint of smoke on his clothes, and the tang of his cologne.

And then he moved away. He was being friendly, probably. But she wasn't used to being kissed by anyone other than her godmothers. She wasn't used to kisses that were simultaneously startling and wonderful, casual and memorable. Her world was so much smaller than that.

“Okay?” he said with a smile.

“Okay,” she managed, not sure she knew what she was answering anymore.

“Good.” Felix stepped into the hall; paused long enough to tell her, “Hey—bolt the door after I leave. You can't be too careful around here.”

“I will,” she promised. But she didn't. Not immediately.

Her cheek burned like she'd been lying in the sun too long, and she stood perfectly still, not wanting to break the spell. The scent of Felix's cologne lingered on her skin.

When she closed her eyes, she could imagine he was there. She could relive that kiss one more time. All two seconds of it.

Exhaling slowly, Mira threw the bolt and kicked off her flip-flops. She let her fantasy float away—
it was the kiss equiva
lent of a handshake; nothing to get excited about
—and let the delicious freedom of being barefoot bring her back to reality. The carpet soothed her, because it wasn't a hot strip of road with no end in sight. She had a room; she didn't have to worry that someone would harass her or hurt her. She could rest.

But first: a shower. She was too sticky with sweat to sleep.

She padded to the bathroom—which was huge and had folded towels as thick as couch cushions, an entire wall of mirrors, and a deep Jacuzzi tub that was separate from the shower.

Mira shucked off her dirty clothes and stepped into the glass-walled shower. She scrubbed the day's travel grime from her skin, until she felt like a new person, with fresh hopes—and as she did, her fingers grazed the disfigurement at the small of her back.

The mark.

The mark rested at the base of her spine. It was wine red like a burn, shiny-smooth like a scar: a ring spoked by thin red lines, like a wheel. It was as big around as her fist.

Her clothes covered the mark if she was careful to wear long shirts, but her bikini never did. It looked like she'd been branded, and she hated it. One of the reasons she was growing her hair out so long was for extra camouflage. If she had hair down to her butt, she could walk around in her bathing suit without worrying what people would say.

Because she'd heard it all, since her first appearance at a pool party when she was twelve. Bikini clad for the first time, constantly hurrying out of the water for another trip down the waterslide, she'd heard: