Page 181 of Dark Romeo

“Waverley Cathedral, please.”

The cab driver nodded and pulled away from the curb. I watched the city that I grew up in slide past my window, recognizing the familiar streets and shops with a nostalgic pang. Soon, everything would be new: new city, new streets, new life. I found myself missing my mother. She would have understood. She knew what it was to love deeply. She would have urged me to go, she would have accepted Roman. I know she would have. Not like my father. A seed of bitterness rooted in my stomach. He would never understand. He would never accept Roman and me.

The taxi took a wrong turn into a deserted alleyway. I frowned. Where was he going? I knocked on the plastic divider. “Excuse me? This isn’t the way to Waverley Cathedral.”

The mechanical locks on the doors clicked like a gunshot. A voice crackled through the small speakers on the side of the cab. “Afraid we’re not going there, Miss Capulet.”

My blood froze in my veins.

A low hiss grew into a loud one as a white smoke filled the back of the cab, stinging my eyes. I held my breath and struggled with the door. This wasn’t working. I spun to my side and kicked at the glass. Break, damn you, break. I could hear the cab driver laughing through the crackle. I couldn’t hold my breath any longer. I gulped in sweet medicinal-smelling air. My head spun. Black spots flickered in front of my eyes. I couldn’t pass out. I wouldn’t. I just had to break this window…

My legs grew weak. The edges of my vision closed in.

I just had to?—

Everything went black.

ROMAN

____________

Julianna still wasn’t here. I paced the small room at Waverley Cathedral, grabbing my hair. It was almost nine p.m. She still hadn’t arrived back. She was supposed to be here hours ago. I tried calling her several times, my fingers stabbing the keys on my new burner phone, but her cell phone had been turned off. I was about to go insane. My heart tore itself to pieces with helpless worry. Something had gone wrong. Terribly wrong. What was the bet my father had something to do with this.

I couldn’t wait here any longer.

Outside Julianna’s apartment, I sat in the black sedan I’d stolen. It was supposed to have been our getaway car, the back packed with a few clothes, enough food and bottled water for our drive out of here.

Her apartment was dark. Too dark. Not a soul stirred inside. Still, I had to be sure. I slipped out of the car and locked it behind me. In the side alley, I took a run up and leapt for the bottom rung of the fire escape. I caught it, pulling myself up, before making my way up the rickety ladders to her apartment. I peered through her bedroom window into the gloom – she wasn’t home. No one was.

I slid around the building, jumping from ledge to ledge until I got to the single window at the end of the corridor on Julianna’s floor. I found the window unlocked, thank God. I pushed it open and slid inside. It was getting late but I didn’t care. I knocked on Nora’s door, my fist reverberating through the wood. My anxiousness caused me to hammer on it too hard.

I heard a call from inside, “Hang on a damn second.”

Hurry up, Nora. There were no seconds to lose.

Nora opened her door, her robe tied around her waist. Her features went from surprise into a frown. “Roman, what are you doing here?”

“Did you see Julianna?”

“Yes, but she left a few hours ago. To meet you.”

Shit. The blood drained from my limbs. Cold fear took root in my gut. “She never made it.”

Shit shit shit.

Somewhere between here and Waverley Cathedral, Julianna had disappeared.

ROMAN

____________

In the silence of my car, I pulled out my phone and rang a number that I had memorized. A contact I only called in emergencies. A number that I always deleted from the phone memory after I used it.

“I thought I told you never to call me again,” a female’s voice said through the phone, no humor to her tone.

“It’s an emergency,” I said through gritted teeth.

“It always is with you.”

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