Seeing Red [✓]

xxi. let them eat cake

Ashley

"There had better be a great freaking reason for getting us to come here this late at night," Nikko bit, hands across his broad chest as he leaned against one of the desks in the main journalists hall of Urban Life & Times.

Lola, who was chewing gum and on her phone, hadn't even looked up. I had to text her half a dozen times before she even responded to the texts to get here as fast as possible.

But Pete. Pete knew something was off when I walked in ahead of Erika, who snailed her way behind me, never coming up to stand on my right side as she usually did. Proud and Strong. She said not a single word, uttered no phrases, her heels did all the talking that was necessary. Hitting the ground with small clacks, not even enough to cause earthquakes for the insects on the ground.

"What's wrong?" Pete asked. His voice snaked around my leg, slithered up my back and wrapped itself around my throat. How could I start? Where do I start?

Stepping a bit closer, out of the darkness of the office and into the white light that streamed in through an open window. His hair was still deshelled from sleep, but his eyes were alive and awake, his skin holding as bright a color as I could make out. His footsteps got Lola to look up at me and Nikko – still shrouded in the dark – to kick himself from the desk. "What happened?"