The Casquette Girls (35 page)

All of the sounds in the room seemed to fade away: Gabriel, the music, the whistling. I was only vaguely aware that the mime was now raising my hand for applause, or that Isaac was walking towards me. The only thing I could focus on was the boy holding the blonde girl – he wasn’t Niccolò.

He was Émile.

I am losing my mind.

Am I drunk? Had he come to New Orleans to see me? This is not possible.

I blinked. But there he was, still staring straight at me. Smiling.

Behind him, Annabelle glared
.
I hated her for bringing me here. My father moved from behind the bar. This was all his fault
.
How could he not tell me about this plac
e
?

The mime took a bow while the crowd clapped with drunken glee. For the second bow, he bent my body downwards to join him. They whistled louder. As we came up, I let out an uncontrollable gasp – and every flame in the room extinguished.

The sudden blackout caused immediate pandemoniu
m.
Squeals came from every direction.
This is my chance to get the hell out.

Focus, Adele. You know this place.

“Adele!” my father shouted over the crowd.

I pushed my way to the door. Tiny flickers of light started to appear as people struck matches.
Faste
r
.
With my eye on the handle, the door swung open long before I got to it, and then it slammed behind me.

The sounds of mayhem softening brought an immediate relief, but I didn’t slow down. I yelled goodbye to Troy and bounced down the stairs and out of the courtyard. The sense of claustrophobia started to ease, but still I didn’t stop running.

On the post-curfew street, I realized my ears were ringing. I sucked in the fresh air and felt the alcohol coursing through my system – my fingers tingled like they were on fire.

Maybe it’s the alcoho
l
…
I took the corner too sharp to see anyone coming from the other direction.
Or maybe it’s just… me—

“Dammit!” I yelled. My arm jerk
ed in my shoulder socket as, once again, someone kept me from hitting the ground.

“We really should stop meeting like this,
bella
,” Niccolò said, holding me steady and smiling at me with one eyebrow cocked. “Not that I mind it.”

I was still too shocked by the evening’s antics to engage in any kind of witty repartee.

“That’s an interesting outfit,” he joked as his eyes wandered, lingering in confusion.

I did not laugh. I did not even budge.

“What’s wrong, Adele?”

I felt like I was going to implode. This wa
s
no
t
how I had imagined our next encounter.

“Are you hurt?” His usual serious face was back. “Why were you running?” He rubbed my shaking shoulders – his hands were barely warmer than my arms, but the friction helped. I could smell alcohol on his breath, but that wasn’t the reason he was trouble, and I knew it.

Hearing Isaac shouting my name made me suddenly alert.

I flinched only for a millisecond, but that was all Niccolò needed. He grabbed my hand, and we started running. I didn’t know where to, and I didn’t care. Whether I was conscious of it or not, I knew exactly what I was doing. I knew exactly who he was, or rather
what
he was. And it was precisely that moment I decided I was okay with it.

For better or worse, I dove down the rabbit hole.

Isaac’s shouts faded as we sped through the narrow streets.

I had no idea where we were going, but I was overwhelmingly eager to be there with Niccolò. To conceal our escape route, I began flicking out the gas lantern flames as we ran, hoping Nicco wouldn’t notice – but his fingers locked tighter around mine. The gesture was tiny, but I could feel his excitement. And his strength.

I struggled to keep pace; he wasn’t even breathing heavily.

Blue eyes flashed in my head.
Dea
d
,
blue eyes.

Regardless, I didn’t stop Niccolò from pulling me along. I pushed myself to run faster. I wanted to get far away from everyone. Everyone who was hiding things from me. Everyone who thought I was
blind to everything going on.

We turned onto Pirate's Alley and ran into the courtyard of St. Anthony’s Garden, through the gigantic shadow cast by the Jesus statue. The plastic popped against my bare skin as we ran straight through the yellow caution tape. My brain fired off warnings about breaking into the cathedral, but my heart unlocked the back door just before Niccolò touched the handle. He never let go of my hand.

That unmistakable church feeling crept over me as soon as we stepped inside – a mixture of guilt, as if I’d been busted doing bad things, and a total serenity: both wrapped into one. It kind of freaked me out.

Other than the moonlight shining through the stained-glass windows and a bright red emergency exit sign, the church was completely dark. This didn’t seem to be a problem for Niccolò, who navigated quickly through the towers of melted candles and the basins of long-dried-up holy water.

We raced up the stairs, past the choir loft, and through the mezzanine that ran the length of the vast space. I had been inside the historical landmark countless times, but now all sense of familiarity was absorbed by the darkness. The emptiness. Now it was just us and our footsteps echoing back down from the domed ceilings that separated us from the stars.

I squeezed his hand as we entered a pitch-black hallway. All I could see was a trail of glow tape spiraling up the staircase. He pulled me in front of him, and I slowly made my way up the glow-taped steps, dragging my hand along the
stone wall as we ascended.

Each board creaked in pain under my weight.

His hands brushed my waist. I began to take the steps faster, confident that he wouldn’t let me fall. My leg muscles burned with exhaustion, but I refused to slow down in front of him.

I made the final turn and halted abruptly at a dead end: a small arched window shed a little moonlight on a small wooden door. It was sealed with a giant iron padlock.

My heart thumped as the metal tempted my fingers
.
Don’t do anything stupid, Adele. He would surely notice.

Before I could think any more about it, he stepped around me, turning to face me from the tiny top stair and blocking my view of the door. Strain flashed across his face, and then there was a loud clank as the metal arch of the lock landed at his feet. I didn’t have to see it to know
that the base was in his hand.
Was he trying to hide his strength so he still had the element of surprise, or was he, like me, simply not ready to reveal himsel
f
?

Ignoring the thought, I stepped past him through the little door into the bell tower. The slats in the eight long windows had been blown out, and the flooding moonlight seemed almost bright after the pitch-black staircase. I went straight to a window, collapsed against the stone wall and looked out over the rooftops, discreetly trying to catch my breath. This was certainly the highest point in the French Quarter.

I turned back to Niccolò. His eyes lit up with rapt attention as he watched me.

Other than the drop, there was only one way down, and Niccolò Medici was still standing in front of that exit, biting his lower lip.

* * *

“What are we doing here?” the cross-breeze gave my voice a slight shake.

“You’re upset about something. I have an idea to make you feel better,” he said, circling behind me.

“Unlikely.” My thoughts spiraled back to what was possibly the worst night of my life.

He gently nudged me to the center of the tower, underneath the enormous church bell. It was intricately rigged to several other bells hanging above it, but it dwarfed them in size. I looked up into the giant brass dome. The clapper was bigger than my head. Niccolò’s chest brushed my shoulders, and I suddenly felt small next to him. My pulse began to climb as my fingers warmed.

He swept both of my braids to the left side of my neck.
“On the count of three, I want you to scream as loud as you can.”

“What?”

As his mouth came closer to my ear, my brain no longer fired warning signs but “I told you sos.”

“One…,” he whispered, sending chills down my neck.

“Two…”

“Three!”

He jumped up and jerked the thick rope down.

Before I heard even the slightest noise, his hands swooped back around and cupped my ears. The clapper hit the brass rim right before the shriek left my lips. The gong easily masked the sound of my scream, and I miraculously couldn’t hear anything under the protection of his hands.

Rather than the deafening sound of metal hitting metal, I heard a distant ping that didn’t at all match the resonate vibrations beneath our feet. It was exhilarating, screaming at the top of my lungs, high above the silent city. My throat became raw, and my knees started to buckle. His hands never left my ears as he followed my slow slump to the ground.

By the time the chiming stopped, I was hunched into a ball on the cold floor, exhausted. It was hard to breathe with him cocooned over my back, but I liked the way his weight felt atop me.

For a few moments, he just let me be, and then he hooked my waist and drew me to my feet.

“Do you feel better?” he asked, still pressed against my back.

As I exhaled, a droplet slipped from my right eye.

“Yeah, actually,” I whispered, turning around.

“
Ben
e
.
”
He wiped the wet trail away with his knuckle.

The wind tingled against the light sweat brought on by the unexpected run, making my teeth chatter. He removed his jacket but, instead of handing it to me, dropped it to the floor and began unbuttoning his red flannel shirt.

“What… what are you doing?”

His expression contorted into a smirk. “Don’t worry
,
your virtues are safe with me.”

Blood flushed my cheeks as his black V-neck was revealed underneath.

“I can’t take your jacket
and
your shirt. The wind is pretty fierce up here.”

“Don’t worry about me.” He draped the flannel over my shoulders.

“Fine. I don’t think lumberjack is really your thing, anyway.”

“Oh, really?
Scusami, bell
a
,
but you are in no position to be doling out fashion advice.” A slight laugh slipped through his lips. “But you’re right. It looks better on you.”

I glanced down at my ensemble and became mortified all over again.

He gently lifted my chin so my gaze was back on him. “Stop worrying. It’s very Seattle circa 1992.” The statement was very matter-of-fact, as if he’d been BFFs with Kurt Cobain. Unconvinced my outfit had achieved Courtney Love status, I buttoned up the shirt for maximum coverage and turned to the nearest window.

Even in the darkness, the view was magnificent, high above the streets that held over three centuries of mysteries. I made room so we could both fit into the tight frame. Anxiety rushed through me. Despite not knowing his real intentions, despite not really knowing him, I didn’t want to leave.

I slunk down under the window’s stone ledge and wrapped his jacket around my bare legs. He slid down next to me, and we both just sat in silence in the cone-roofed tower.

The quiet was peaceful while my mind was empty, but little by little recent memories infiltrated my head, and I began to feel like a player in a game of Who’s Going to Talk First. I wanted to play it cool, but more than that I wanted to know how many years of history he had seen unfold in this city.

“Niccolò—”

“You can call me Nicco. It sounds funny when you try to say my name.”

“Oh.” I blushed, repeating his name in my head, trying to figure out what was funny about the way I pronounced it.

“Nicco, have you found your family yet?”

Clearly not expecting the question, he hesitated, masterfully hiding his surprise, but the way his eyes examined my face for some kind of underlying hint gave him away. I gave him nothing.

“I have, actually.”

“Oh, good.”

“It has been a very disturbing process…”

“Oh, really, how so?”

“Well, I am sure you can imagine…” He seemed to choose his next words very carefully. “They are quite traumatized, having been trapped and abandoned in an attic for so long. They were very malnourished.”

The slight smirk that followed led me to believe we were no longer talking about victims of the Storm, but we continued to speak obtusely, neither confirming nor denying my suspicions.

“So, does this mean you’re all going back to Italy?”

“They are not well enough to travel, yet.” He sounded sincerely concerned for them, but there was a slight fleck of excitement in his demeanor – he knew that I was inferring something else.

“But then?” I pushed, daring him to answer.

He looked straight in my eyes. “We’ll see…” And then he relaxed back into the wall. “Like you mentioned the day we met, there is something very special about this city.” His attention went back out the window to the stars, ending the conversation. I tumbled deeper down the rabbit hole.

“Did Adeline ever tell her father you called?”

That was the moment everything changed.

His jaw jolted, and a hushed snort forced out of his nose. I had his attention. I had no idea what to do next, but the standing hairs on my arms told me to proceed with caution.

“
What
did you say?” he asked, one hand strategically placed over his mouth.

I stood. His eyes lit up like an animal ready to pounce.

My words were sweet, careful not to come across as mocking. “Did Adeline ever tell her father that you called?
Monsieur Cartie
r
?
”

Pain rippled through my shoulders and down my spine as my back made sudden contact with the stone floor. His head hung directly over mine, his breathing heavier with each inhale. I froze underneath him, as his cool green eyes assault
ed me, terrified I had pushed him too far.

Despite beginning to tremble, I held out, waiting for an answer.

He kept his mouth clamped shut.

After another breath, he pushed himself up into a crouched position over my lap. Attempting to appear assertive, I sat up and looked him in the eye. Again, he nonchalantly moved his hand to his jaw as he asked, “Do you trust me, Adele?”

It was a perplexing question, but I knew he was serious because he had used my real name rather than the endearing Italian nickname. Every shred of my physical being burned like fire, urging me to scream
no
, but instead I whispered, “Yes.”

“Never trust a vampire, Adele!” he yelled, slamming my shoulders back to the ground. A second surge of pain ripped down my torso, but my attention clung to his words. The one word I had been waiting to hear.

Vampire
.

* * *

His breath was cool on my burning face – breath that his existence probably didn’t depend on. His mouth hung open somewhere in between a hiss and a growl, revealing the evidence that he, up until this point, had gone through such great lengths to hide.

Suddenly everything became very real. Too real.

His eyes pulsed with need, letting me know that one wrong move and everything would be over. Then they glazed over, and his nostrils flared as his face came even closer.

Trying to control the tremors rippling through my body only shook me harder. I was over the tears, the lies, the secrets. I thought about Adeline and Cosette.

Through the window behind him, I saw the silhouette of an iron cross against the moonlit clouds. Adrenaline raced through my veins like electricity, shocking me into action.

T
he cross broke off the neighboring steeple with a loud crack.

And i
n a quick whip, it flew through the window, bent around his cold, pale neck, and boomeranged back, slamming him against the wall. The tiny bell tower shuddered as the iron cross plunged into the rock, pinning him in place.

I jumped up and closed the gap between us, heart pounding.