Page 88 of If Looks Could Kill
“Don’t leave?” I was grateful for the dark, as I was sure my face was crimson.
“Don’t get on that morning train.”
I was speechless.
“I’ve got no right to say it,” he added quickly. “We’re barely more than acquaintances. You’ve got a family. Your life is your own to do with as you please, and—”
“Never mind them,” I said. “Why don’t you want me to go?”
He pulled me toward him and kissed my forehead, right at my hairline.
Now I might actually swoon. Swooning might look better than standing there blinking stupidly, which was what I had down to a science, just then.
“I just don’t like the thought of a Bowery without you on it,” he said sheepishly, “terrorizing the saloons.” He grinned. “Or whatever your Army has you doing.”
He watched me for some response. All he got was a stupefied Tabitha.
“Come on.” I heard disappointment in his voice. “Let me walk you to the door.”
I’d hurt him. He’d tried to show me something of his own self, and I’d been so flustered that I panicked into silence. He must’ve read it as a lack of interest. Indifference, even.
Or maybe Irish young men kiss girls’ foreheads a lot. In a friendly, brotherly sort of way.
“I’m sorry, please,” I stammered. “I’m not very, er, experienced with life, and, oh, the world, and so I’m unaccustomed to… what a young man might say if he wanted, that is, if he might want, or at least…”
We’d reached Stella’s door, and my voice trailed off as my spirits sank.
I delved for whatever courage I might find inside me. “I think you’re lovely,” I told him.
But Mike didn’t hear me, for right at that moment, he also spoke.
“Someone’s busted the lock to this door.”
The newly splintered wood of the door splayed out from the lock in long, jagged spikes.
Pearl. Freyda. Cora.
Pearl.
“Oh, God, what have I done?” I prayed. Wailed. “I left my friends here to be taken.” I couldn’t swallow. “Or slaughtered.”
Mike drew his gun. “Wait here,” he said. “I’ll go inside. If I don’t come out in a few minutes, go for the police.”
My head was a whirl, but I remembered snakes. “You can’t,” I told him. “I’ll go.”
Mike gaped at me. “I can’t let you go in there,” he said. “Rosie’s toughs are in there.”
“Mike,” I said, “I know this won’t sound believable, but you can’t go in there. There’s…” Oh, how to explain? “There’s a woman in there who has a supernatural power.”
Mike’s eyes narrowed.
“I wouldn’t have believed it either,” I said quickly. “Until I saw it with my own eyes.”
“Saw what?”
This was the moment when tonight’s spun-sugar bubble would burst.
I closed my eyes. “Saw two women,” I whispered, “with snakes for hair. Medusas, from the ancient stories, who can kill you, I think, just by looking at you.”
