Well, crap. Annabella looked over her shoulder to ask, “Then how…?” and whipped around to grip the dashboard when Adam made a sudden U-turn.
“Abigail,” Adam said. “She can’t help Talia, but she might be able to see Annabella.”
“See me?” Annabella asked. Adam made no sense.
“She’s…” Adam began, “I don’t know what she is. A visionary? A psychic? An oracle? Someone touched by the magic of Shadow, like you, but different. Abigail seethes with Shadow internally; you can see the darkness in her eyes, like there’s a storm in her mind. It’s sped her aging, taking decades off her life. She can foretell futures, what she calls possible futures because every choice changes the course of things.” He fell silent, then added, “I don’t know if she can help. The last time she saw a future for me, I wasn’t able to change a damn thing.”
Annabella wasn’t sure she wanted to know what had happened, not by the tone Adam used or the misery that pulled at his eyes.
“That was two years ago,” Adam said, his voice rough.
When Custo died.
Well, Custo was fine now, and Annabella had had enough of him and the doom and gloom. Any more drama and she was going to lose it. Any more fear and she was going to start screaming. Any more Custo and she was going to fall apart.
A little food wouldn’t hurt either. She could feel her blood sugar plunging. On an ordinary day, she was bound to get a little cranky. With all this insanity going on, the big men better look out.
“Maybe,” she said perversely, “this Abigail will see my name in bright lights suspended over a theater, you know, bigger than the actual name of the ballet I am performing in. Maybe with the word incomparable in pretty cursive nearby. Or maybe magnificent?” Now she was just talking to herself. “Anyway, that’s what I see when I look into my future.”
Adam slanted a humorless glance her way.
“Really big lights,” she added for Mr. Buzzkill.
She refused to peek over her shoulder at Custo again, though she felt him behind her like a warm sun on her skin. The sensation was impossible to block so she kept her gaze on the road, on the white license plates with their blue anagramlike letters and numbers. GKM rearranged could be gimmick, and SFR could be surfer, and AGL could be agile, but not angel. No matter how hard she tried, heat and comfort wrapped around her, embraced her. And she knew it was just as dangerous as the Shadow creature that stalked her.
The contradiction of Custo was pulling her apart and called for an exception in her once-a-year cheesecake rule. Just as soon as possible. And with whipped cream. She needed a binge and bad, the kind ballet rarely permitted her.
The building Adam stopped at was three stories high, one in a series of several similar buildings, on a seriously crap street that made her nervous in broad daylight. The brick was dulled to gray, except for the door, which was painted a clashing, crackling reddish pink. Litter clogged the gutter, and a couple of beer cans were lined up neatly against the building. Remnants of the night. A small sign was above the door, black lettering on a black background, so she couldn’t read it until she was standing in front of it. AMARANTH.
Wasn’t that a flower?
Adam pounded on the door while Custo stood to her side. He didn’t try to hold her, for which she was grateful, though he kept shooting her sorry, troubled looks.
Yeah, well, deal with it.
“I don’t want you to worry about whatever she sees,” Custo murmured. “Adam said ‘possible’ futures. Just because he wasn’t able to change mine, doesn’t mean we can’t change yours.”
Her stomach had started to knot in spite of her determination not to worry. She lifted her chin an extra notch. “I’m not nervous.”
“Liar,” he whispered into her ear.
Adam pounded on the door again. “Zoe!” he shouted. “Open up!”
“I thought we were seeing Abigail,” Annabella said.
“Zoe’s her sister,” Custo answered.
Adam turned, a questioning look on his face.
Yeah, Annabella wondered, how did Custo know Abigail had a sister?
“Angel,” Custo answered them both.
Still didn’t answer the how part of the question, but before she could press, the red door was wrenched open from the inside.
A cartoon character of a girl stood in the entrance. She was part Japanese anime, part Goth, with inky black hair, a blunt fringe of bangs at her forehead, the rest parted severely down the middle and woven in lots of thin, long braids. Her black makeup, heavy enough for the stage, exaggerated her eyes, while the rest of her face was ultrapale. A tight black crop top bared her midriff to show her belly button, and she wore low-riding black skinny jeans that fit like tights.
“I won’t let you in,” she said, snapping her gum.
“Tell Abigail I’m here,” Adam said.
Zoe sneered and snapped her gum again. “She knows who’s here, duh. Been up since dawn waiting with her visions. Got herself all dressed up and everything.”
Adam planted a hand on the door to push it open; Zoe countered with her combat boot to the floor to keep the gap just so.
“But I’m not letting you in,” Zoe finished in singsong. “She told me you’d pound and pound until someone answered, so I came down personally to tell you all to fuck off.”
“Listen,” Adam grated, “what Talia did to you was necessary at the time. You are alive and well, so get over it and let us—”
“Abigail is ill,” Custo said, thoughtfully. “Dying.”
Zoe’s pale pout trembled. Her black eyes trained on Custo, wicked arched brows winging. “I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but forcing my sister to look into Shadow makes her even sicker.”
Annabella blanched. She didn’t want anyone made sick on her behalf.
Zoe’s gaze hit her, too, her sneer turning her eyes into twin crescents. “That’s right, you’d be killing her.” She looked up, as if thinking really hard. “Hmmmm…Now, should I let my sister’s killers in the door, or should I tell them to screw themselves? Hmmm. Gosh, it’s just so damn hard to decide.”
“Let me help,” Adam said. “Let me bring you both to Segue. I have resources that might be able to…”
Zoe’s sarcasm thickened. “Oh, I think you’ve helped quite enough, thank you.”
Annabella lifted a hand to placate the girl. “They’re here for me, and I am totally cool not bothering your sister about my future. I like to think that I make my own choices about my life, so I wouldn’t really want to hear my fortune anyway. It would kinda destroy my illusions, you know?”
Zoe’s black-kohled lids lowered halfway in an expression of acute boredom. Lovely girl.
“Okay, then,” Annabella said. She leaned her weight into a step back to get Custo moving. No way was she going to kill some dying psychic today. Time to go back to Segue and work on Plan B. Or, uh, C.
Zoe rolled her eyes again. “Okay, fine. She might have said something about going to the party tonight. There. We’re done.”
“What party?” Adam asked.
“I don’t know,” Zoe returned petulantly. “The party. You figure it out.”
Party, party, party…Oh, crap. Annabella had completely forgotten. “The reception for the company. It’s tonight. I’ll get out of it, say I’m sick or something.” If Venroy wasn’t already pissed at her, he was going to be livid about this. The new principal missing the start-of-the-season bash. Freaking fantastic.