Page 3 of Amethyst Flame
She held out her hand. “Gimme two.”
I whistled through my teeth. “You got your doctor friends to hook you up with activated charcoalandthe little blue pill?”
She smirked. “Don’t need those.”
So yeah, maybe she wouldn’t miss me that much this weekend.
Which was great. Really. I was glad she’d found someone. After all this time of being my mom, she deserved something more. Mr. Morales was nice, looked like Benjamin Bratt, and had money after selling his business, which Jacob confirmed for me—minus the Bratt thing, which I could confirm myself—via a highly illegal background check.
Everything was going great. Even better, when I got through airport security, my name was on the board, and the gate attendant informed me I’d been bumped up to first class. Woo-hoo! Bring on the fruity drinks!
I mean, it was only an hour flight, but I used that houraaallup.
By the time I landed in Vegas, got my ride, and arrived at the hotel and casino a block off the Strip, the sun had slanted hard to the west and I was slanting a little—thanks, free fruity drinks!—in the cute kitten heels I’d slipped into during the ride. I’d never had shoes like this, but Swann had sent them, hot from her New York high fashion internship. I posed one shimmering purple shoe next to a broken bottle in the gutter and sent her a text:Cool AF!!!
Nothing came back right away, but she’d told me she was super busy getting ready for a showcase of her work so I didn’t get paranoid. Plus, since she was my best friend of all time, whenever she got back to me was fine with me.
Plus plus, I knew I was just dithering instead of going in to meet Jacob. I let out a hard breath, trying to psych myself up.
Like it was mocking me, hot asphalt-and-exhaust air gusted from beneath the passing cars, puffing up my cute yellow sundress—a Swann original from a couple of years ago before she left town to get famous. I clamped a hand over my thigh before I flashed a buncha dirty ol’ gamblers, and my palm left an almost invisible print on the fabric—not my purple power, although it would’ve matched my Swann shoes. Just sweat. So much for bragging about my cool-girl street cred.
Another breath of wind tugged at me, this time with a hint of wild creosote and nighttime chill, a reminder from the surrounding desert that it didn’t care about me any more than the city did. I was on my own to face the weekend.
Hefting my overnight bag higher on my shoulder, I headed for the wide-open front door. The sensory overload of Vegas swallowed me between one step and the next. The spinning lights and cacophony of dinging/ringing/clanging/tinkling were designed to encourage risky behaviors. I’d learned that in one of my design classes.
And damned if it wasn’t working on me. My pulse was racing like a greyhound, and my whole body felt muzzled yet reckless at the same time.
Jacob was here somewhere. And he had a job for me. For us.
His text last week—pinging me at the butt-crack of dawn—had read:Are you free to go to Vegas next weekend? On me.
And that fast, I was wide awake on a Tuesday at 5:23 a.m. Vegas. Weekend. On Jacob. Ack!
I started to text Swann:Urgent consult needed,but as I typed, another text from Jacob popped up.I need some help with something. Time-sensitive
Oh. My high soured a bit. I flipped back to his text thread. Truth was, I owed him big time for all the help he’d been giving me. A weekend wasn’t too much to ask in return. And who knew? It was possible the job could turn into something more.
I typed back:I can probably swing it. What do you need?And then stared at the screen, waiting for his response.
He took a full thirty seconds—felt like thirty minutes—to get back to me.Better to discuss the job IRL
So he was keeping me in suspense. Shifty of him, but fine. I texted him back. I’ll get the time off from work
Another text lit up my screen:Thx. One room or two? No pressure
I flipped back to my thread with Swann, added a couple of explosion emojis and an eggplant, and hit send.
And now here I was, in Vegas, ready to work. IRL.
Oh damn, what if Jacob liked countryandwestern music? Meeting “in real life” had some disadvantages since I’d never been nervous about talking with him online. I mean, I’d called him Jackhole many a time, just never to his face.
He’d even refused to send me a photo so I could find him!
I’ll find you, he’d texted.I’ve seen you enough. Or should I say enough of you.Evil grin emoji.
Ugh. Of course he’d remember the embarrassing event at the start of all this. When I’d first gotten infected with a stolen Molecular Tactical Hive, I’d been playing Legendelirium and blew a hole in my bedroom wall—while accidentally livestreaming my play—wearing only my VR gear and a towel. Jackhole (I needed to remember to say Jacob now) had called me a fake gamer girl getting half-naked for clicks. Truly the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
But once he learned what had happened to me, how I was being pursued by real bad guys with guns and handcuffs and less advanced microscopic robot hives, he’d been willing to help. And I’d needed all the help I could get.
