Torment - Lauren Kate [93]
The tiny girl flashed Luce a grin as she sidled through the crowd. With five-inch platform wedges, her hair done up all crazy, and her eyes nearly swallowed by dark eyeliner, Arriane fit in with the casino’s weird clientele perfectly. Nobody seemed to know quite what to make of her, least of all Shelby and Miles.
The pit boss veered over to confront Arriane. He reeked of shoe polish and cough medicine.
“Do you need to be taken to the pen, too, missy?”
“Ooh, sounds fun.” Arriane’s eyes widened. “Alas, I’m overbooked tonight. I’ve got front-row tickets to Blue Man Group, and of course there’s dinner with Cher after the show. One more thing I know I had to do …” She tapped her chin, then looked over at Luce. “Ah yes—get these three guys the hell out of here. ’Scuse us!” She blew a kiss at the fuming pit boss, shrugged an apology at Vera, and snapped her fingers.
Then all the lights went out.
THIRTEEN
SIX DAYS
Rushing them through the labyrinth of the dark casino, Arriane moved as if she had night vision.
“Stay cool, you three,” she sang. “I’ll have you out of here in a flash.”
She held Luce’s wrist in a tight grip, and Luce in turn held Miles’s hand; Miles held Shelby’s, as she cursed at the indignity of having to bring up the escape caboose.
Arriane led them unerringly, and though Luce couldn’t see what she was doing, she could hear people grunt and exclaim as Arriane shouldered them aside. “Sorry ’bout that!” she’d call. “Whoops!” and “Excuse me!”
She took them down dark hallways packed with anxious tourists using their cell phones as flashlights. Up darker staircases, stuffy with disuse and crammed with empty cardboard boxes. Finally she kicked open an emergency exit, ushering them through it and into a dark, narrow alley.
The alleyway was tucked between the Mirage and another towering hotel. A row of Dumpsters sent out the foul odor of expensive rotting food. A trickle of acid-green gutter water formed a vile little river, splitting the alley in half. Straight ahead, in the middle of the bright, bustling neon-lit Strip, an old-fashioned black street clock struck twelve.
“Ahhh.” Arriane inhaled deeply. “The beginning of another glorious day in Sin City. I like to start it off right, with a big breakfast. Who’s hungry?”
“Um … er …,” Shelby stammered, looking at Luce, then Arriane, then at the casino. “What just … How did …”
Miles’s gaze was fixed on the shiny, marbled scar that spanned one side of Arriane’s neck. Luce was used to Arriane by now, but it was clear that her friends didn’t know what to make of her.
Arriane waved her finger at Miles. “This guy looks like he can eat his weight in waffles. Come on, I know a filthy diner.”
As they clipped up the alley toward the street, Miles turned to Luce and mouthed, “That was awesome.”
Luce nodded. It was all she could do to keep up with Arriane as she jogged across the Strip. Vera. She couldn’t get over it. All those memories, glimpsed in a flash. They’d been painful and startling, and she could only imagine what it had been like for Vera. But for Luce, they had also been deeply satisfying. More than with any of her glimpses through the Announcers so far, this time she felt as if she’d experienced one of her past lives. Strangely, she’d also seen something she’d never even thought about: Her previous selves had lives. Lives that had been full and meaningful before Daniel had shown up.
Arriane led them to an IHOP, a squat brown stucco building that looked so ancient it could have predated everything else on the Strip. It seemed more claustrophobic and sadder than other IHOPs.
Shelby led the way inside, pushing through the glass doors, chiming the cheap jingle bells duct-taped to the top. She grabbed a fistful of mints from the bowl by the register before claiming a booth in the far back corner. Arriane slid in next to her, while Luce and Miles took the other side of the cracked orange leather booth.
With a whistle and a quick circular gesture, Arriane ordered a round of coffee from the plump, pretty