Sweet Venom
Page 23
A silent cheer erupts in my brain.
“Actually, I—” As weird as it feels to say out loud, it’s an amazing relief to know I’m not going insane. Or, at least if I am, this girl is going with me. “Yes. And I saw another one last night. At a dim sum parlor.”
She snorts. “The minotaur.”
“Ew, right?” I shove away a mental image of the drooling bull’s head. My attempt at shared grossness gets no response, so I admit, “I thought I was losing my mind.”
The girl swerves the car along some winding street and guns it as we pass the lower slope of a big green park. “Unfor-tunately,” she says, turning at an old Spanish-style gatehouse, “the monsters are all too real.”
I have a second when I wonder if maybe I still am going crazy. I mean, maybe I’m imagining this identical twin I never knew I had. This identical twin I always wished I had—what little girl doesn’t? She could be as much a mental trick as the monsters. An expression of an adopted girl’s wishful thinking.
But then she cuts the wheel hard to the left, sending me slamming against the passenger door, and races toward the end wall of what looks like a giant warehouse building. No way am I making up the throbbing in my shoulder. Or the fact that we’re barreling toward a completely solid wall.
“Watch out!” I scream.
Before I can finish my warning, a hidden garage door glides up in the middle of the wall, and the Mustang flies into the building. She slams on the brakes, sending the car squealing across the concrete. I scream again, convinced we’re going to skid into the corrugated metal interior wall.
We don’t.
The car screeches to a halt with a good ten feet between us and the wall. Heart racing and breathing heavy, I stare wide-eyed at my double.
She doesn’t say a word, just yanks the parking break, shuts off the car, and climbs out. I’ve barely unbuckled my seatbelt with shaking hands when I see her march across the empty space and climb a set of metal spiral stairs in the far corner. As I manage to pull myself out of the car, my legs wiggly as wet noodles, I see her disappearing from the balcony through a rusty metal door.
“Quite the welcome,” I whisper.
Not knowing what else to do, I follow her.
My foot is on the first step when my cell phone rings. I pull it out of my jeans pocket and check the screen.
Thane.
Oh shoot, I totally forgot about him and Milo. Meeting a long-lost twin tends to have that affect, I suppose. I need to come up with a believable explanation—emphasis on the believable bit—for my disappearance. I am so not good at coming up with cover stories, which is probably one of the reasons I’ve never snuck out of the house. I’d have no way to talk myself out of trouble if I got caught.
If I don’t answer his call, though, things will only get worse. He would call Mom and Dad, and they would probably call the police, the fire department, and every hospital in the Bay Area. And that’s if he didn’t see me get hauled out of the club over another girl’s shoulder. Who knows what he saw or what he thinks happened.
Since he’s waited this long to call, I hope that means he thinks I got lost on the way to bathroom or something.
With a deep breath, I punch the answer button. “Hey,” I say, trying to sound un–freaked out. “What’s up?”
“Are you ready to go?”
Whew. He must not have seen me carried away like a sack of apples.
“Am I ready to go?” I ask to buy time.
“It’s not a trick question.”
Cover story, Grace. Come on, you’re a smart girl. You can do this. “Um, I—er, ran into a new friend.”
“New friend?”
“From school.” For the first time, I’m really thankful Thane and I are not at the same school. Otherwise he’d know I haven’t met a single person I could call a friend. “Yeah, she lives nearby and invited me over to watch movies.”
“You left?”
The heavy silence after his question tells me he’s angry. Rightfully so, since I bailed without telling him and can’t exactly share the real reason.
“Sorry,” I say, glancing up at the rusty door. I don’t have time to deal with Thane right now. Not when I have a mysterious, monster-fighting twin upstairs who has answers to my burning questions. “I should have told you first.”
“Grace—”
“Look, I gotta go,” I said, partly because I don’t want to risk answering any more questions, but also because my curiosity is killing me. I need to know what’s up with the monsters and why no one else can see them and who the lookalike girl is and a million other things. Thane will be waiting at home. I can only find my answers upstairs. “I’ll call home to let them know what’s up.”
I hang up before he can argue.
I allow myself a few seconds of rest against the railing before gathering the courage to call Mom. Before gathering the courage to lie to Mom. In the end, the call isn’t as stressful as I feared. I give her the story about running into a friend and going over to watch movies. After assuring her that my friend’s parents would bring me home before midnight, she lets me go without an interrogation. She’s probably thrilled to think I’ve made a friend.
“Little does she know,” I whisper, pocketing my phone and following my double up the stairs.
As I push open the squeaky door, I’m shocked to step into an entirely modern space. All the surfaces are gleaming black and white, polished metal, and shiny glass. The complete opposite of the dull beige exterior and the rusty metal garage area.
“Actually, I—” As weird as it feels to say out loud, it’s an amazing relief to know I’m not going insane. Or, at least if I am, this girl is going with me. “Yes. And I saw another one last night. At a dim sum parlor.”
She snorts. “The minotaur.”
“Ew, right?” I shove away a mental image of the drooling bull’s head. My attempt at shared grossness gets no response, so I admit, “I thought I was losing my mind.”
The girl swerves the car along some winding street and guns it as we pass the lower slope of a big green park. “Unfor-tunately,” she says, turning at an old Spanish-style gatehouse, “the monsters are all too real.”
I have a second when I wonder if maybe I still am going crazy. I mean, maybe I’m imagining this identical twin I never knew I had. This identical twin I always wished I had—what little girl doesn’t? She could be as much a mental trick as the monsters. An expression of an adopted girl’s wishful thinking.
But then she cuts the wheel hard to the left, sending me slamming against the passenger door, and races toward the end wall of what looks like a giant warehouse building. No way am I making up the throbbing in my shoulder. Or the fact that we’re barreling toward a completely solid wall.
“Watch out!” I scream.
Before I can finish my warning, a hidden garage door glides up in the middle of the wall, and the Mustang flies into the building. She slams on the brakes, sending the car squealing across the concrete. I scream again, convinced we’re going to skid into the corrugated metal interior wall.
We don’t.
The car screeches to a halt with a good ten feet between us and the wall. Heart racing and breathing heavy, I stare wide-eyed at my double.
She doesn’t say a word, just yanks the parking break, shuts off the car, and climbs out. I’ve barely unbuckled my seatbelt with shaking hands when I see her march across the empty space and climb a set of metal spiral stairs in the far corner. As I manage to pull myself out of the car, my legs wiggly as wet noodles, I see her disappearing from the balcony through a rusty metal door.
“Quite the welcome,” I whisper.
Not knowing what else to do, I follow her.
My foot is on the first step when my cell phone rings. I pull it out of my jeans pocket and check the screen.
Thane.
Oh shoot, I totally forgot about him and Milo. Meeting a long-lost twin tends to have that affect, I suppose. I need to come up with a believable explanation—emphasis on the believable bit—for my disappearance. I am so not good at coming up with cover stories, which is probably one of the reasons I’ve never snuck out of the house. I’d have no way to talk myself out of trouble if I got caught.
If I don’t answer his call, though, things will only get worse. He would call Mom and Dad, and they would probably call the police, the fire department, and every hospital in the Bay Area. And that’s if he didn’t see me get hauled out of the club over another girl’s shoulder. Who knows what he saw or what he thinks happened.
Since he’s waited this long to call, I hope that means he thinks I got lost on the way to bathroom or something.
With a deep breath, I punch the answer button. “Hey,” I say, trying to sound un–freaked out. “What’s up?”
“Are you ready to go?”
Whew. He must not have seen me carried away like a sack of apples.
“Am I ready to go?” I ask to buy time.
“It’s not a trick question.”
Cover story, Grace. Come on, you’re a smart girl. You can do this. “Um, I—er, ran into a new friend.”
“New friend?”
“From school.” For the first time, I’m really thankful Thane and I are not at the same school. Otherwise he’d know I haven’t met a single person I could call a friend. “Yeah, she lives nearby and invited me over to watch movies.”
“You left?”
The heavy silence after his question tells me he’s angry. Rightfully so, since I bailed without telling him and can’t exactly share the real reason.
“Sorry,” I say, glancing up at the rusty door. I don’t have time to deal with Thane right now. Not when I have a mysterious, monster-fighting twin upstairs who has answers to my burning questions. “I should have told you first.”
“Grace—”
“Look, I gotta go,” I said, partly because I don’t want to risk answering any more questions, but also because my curiosity is killing me. I need to know what’s up with the monsters and why no one else can see them and who the lookalike girl is and a million other things. Thane will be waiting at home. I can only find my answers upstairs. “I’ll call home to let them know what’s up.”
I hang up before he can argue.
I allow myself a few seconds of rest against the railing before gathering the courage to call Mom. Before gathering the courage to lie to Mom. In the end, the call isn’t as stressful as I feared. I give her the story about running into a friend and going over to watch movies. After assuring her that my friend’s parents would bring me home before midnight, she lets me go without an interrogation. She’s probably thrilled to think I’ve made a friend.
“Little does she know,” I whisper, pocketing my phone and following my double up the stairs.
As I push open the squeaky door, I’m shocked to step into an entirely modern space. All the surfaces are gleaming black and white, polished metal, and shiny glass. The complete opposite of the dull beige exterior and the rusty metal garage area.
