W\\CKED

Be Still, My Panicked Heart

[Jul]

We stepped through the front door of the Singh estate and straight into an explosion of fuchsia. A trellis of hot pink roses framed the doorway, while countless variations of pink had been strung along the ceiling and walls of the foyer in the form of heart-shaped balloon clusters and trails of feathered streamers. It was the sixteenth birthday of Kay's younger sister Diya and the Singhs had not been stingy with her favorite color.

"Sorely tempted to redecorate this place with fire," Sanny joked.

My bodyguard didn't say anything, his expression perpetually neutral.

I glanced at the guests. "I don't see Kaydrien."

Sanny checked her texts. "He's hiding in the step-ass's den. I see why he used the word 'hiding.'"

We passed through a hallway lined with life-sized paintings of predators in overwrought frames, staring down as if they were tempted to leap out and devour us.

Sanny opened a door. "Here we are."

The only source of illumination in the den was the light slipping in from behind us. I could just make out the vague shape of a bar and lining the walls, the mounted heads of Mr. Singh's slaughtered prey. He was a big game hunter; the rarer the creature, the harder he tried to drive it to extinction.

Kaydrien's voice teased us from the dark: "Now they descend in a blaze of light, those denizens of joy and delight."

I squinted, making out several figures seated around the room. Strangers whose eyes were probably adjusting to the light spilling in from the hall, who could right now be staring at the scar laying baldly against my skin...

"The bathroom," I squeaked.

A figure motioned at a door at the opposite end of the room. "Over there." Kay's voice again. "But there's—"

I stumbled toward it. Just as I reached for the handle, the door swung open. The halogens on the other side wrapped their mellow glow like a halo around the body of the person coming out—the same person I last saw in strips of tight leather, crooning to me from a safe distance while I whispered his name over and over again like it was a spell that could make me his.

Dae was standing in front of me.

He took me in, all of me, by the same glow that was illuminating him like an adumbral angel. My coiled blond hair slipping out of its bun, the turtleneck brushing my chin, even the tips of my baby blue Mary Janes peeking out from under the hem of my skirt, all of which must have seemed out of place at a party full of mini-skirts and high heels. He took it all in in a glance, and then he took in my face. There was the slightest flicker of sympathy in his expression—bereft of embarrassment or, worse, pity—as he studied my scar; then he broke into a polite smile. "My apologies. Am I in your way?"

I nodded.

He stepped sideways. I slid past him, close enough to feel his breath on my forehead. I slammed the door shut a lot harder than I meant to. I yanked at the bun pinned on my head until my hair fell down in waves over my face, then slid to the tile floor, my senses going numb. Dae was out there. Which meant the whole band was probably out there, laughing at the strange, ugly girl whose reaction to meeting sexy musicians was to lock herself in the nearest bathroom.

There was an insistent rap on the door, followed by Sanny exclaiming, "Let me in! You're not the only one who has to touch up her lipstick."

I summoned the energy to unlock the door.

"Can you believe it?" she exclaimed the second the door shut behind her. "Kay didn't warn me the band would be here! Do I look okay?" She moved to the mirror.