Page 55 of Hellbound

VALE:

IS THIS BETTER?

Another beat. Another reply from the demon. Exactly one yellow winky face emoji.

Marian didn’t understand why a demon texting her an emoji felt so wrong, but that didn’t stop her from throwing her phone at the futon as if it had caught fire.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Marian had dressed in her usual ripped attire and applied a bit of the years-old concealer she’d found in the bathroom to mask the bruises on her neck before she left to meet Tori across town.

It was sweltering out, the rainy days a distant memory as she stepped off the bus in Long Beach. She pulled the bill of her cap down over her sweat-dampened brow and looked across the street, scanning the trendy little storefronts for the location Tori had given her before their dive: Evergreen Coffee & Tea.

There was an artisan soap store made famous by some influencer, a minimalist smoothie bar, and several boutiques selling the same white designer T-shirts. Marian found what she was looking for at the end of the block.

A bell chimed as she stepped inside. One barista worked an espresso machine while the other chatted up a customer at the register.

Coffee was the dominant aroma, but it clashed with the scent of artificial pine, which was cloyingly sweet in a way that real pines were not. She looked around and wondered where the smell was coming from, and why? Fake though it was, the scent tugged at an old, prickly memory of a stolen moment in the woods that Marian stamped out before it overtook her.

A pair of sharply dressed ladies chatted quietly at a small table in the far corner of the room while a middle-aged man in a bow tie pored over a ream of paper.

“Hi, welcome!” The petite barista with a heart-shaped face smiled from behind the register. Her long chestnut ponytail swished as she swayed to the folksy music playing throughout the café.

Coffee was not in the budget, and the blackboard menu hanging on the white-tiled wall behind the espresso bar told her she was too poor for this place. A fifteen-dollar latte.

“Minimum five-dollar purchase required for two hours of Wi-Fi access” oh my god, get fucked.

Fifteen minutes later, Marian sat at a table near the bathroom with a cup of tepid water—ice cost extra—and sticker shock, as she stared at the clock on her phone. Ponytail shot her the occasional dirty look but otherwise left Marian alone. The barista could stare at Marian until her eyes fell out; she didn’t care. Only one thing mattered then, and Marian hated how it was becoming a trend with her clients this week: Tori was thirty minutes late.

Some cruel part of Marian wheedled her with a barrage of I told you so. She hated her anxiety, but she especially hated it when people proved her awful little voice right.

Marian fired off a text.

Where are you?

By the time the clock struck one, Marian didn’t know how else to spin the situation. Tori wasn’t an hour late. She’d stood Marian up.

A kinder part of Marian suggested that there could be a more benign explanation for why Tori wasn’t there. But Marian had already made up her mind. She ought to have been angry. Furious, even. And for a moment, she was. But that spark of anger fizzled quickly and left her with nothing but shame. Shame on Marian for giving Tori the benefit of the doubt, for giving her a glimpse into her reality. Shame on Marian for not demanding that the girl pay her in full up front.

She’d been wrestling with dread about this meeting ever since Tori’s parting words to her at Union Station. And now the worst had come to pass.

By one fifteen, Marian had made up her mind to leave when curiosity got the better of her. She stopped at the espresso bar next to the string bean-looking barista with shaggy black hair wiping down the counter. Ponytail had disappeared into a back room, leaving him alone; the guy had to be in his late teens.

“Hey,” Marian said, trying to get his attention.

The barista looked up, his bright green eyes locking on Marian.

“Did you want to order something?”

Marian shook her head. “I just wanted to know if you’ve seen a girl come in here today. She’s Black with dark brown eyes and really curly hair. She’s, uh, this tall.”

Marian held a hand to her clavicle.

The green-eyed teen squinted. “Little leather backpack? Fancy eye makeup?”

Marian’s heart leapt in her chest. “Yep.”

“That sounds like Tori. She was supposed to start her shift ages ago.”