Page 61 of Gather the Storm

“That would be amazing.” I loved Cassie and Sarai, but there were a lot of things about my new life that still felt a little unfamiliar, and I had a feeling Willa might know exactly where I was coming from.

We exchanged numbers and I pocketed my phone just as someone cut the music. The crowd cheered, and Willa pushed off the wall.

“The fight’s about to start,” she said. “It was nice to see you.”

“You too,” I said. “Text me anytime.”

She moved into the crowd with Drago and Rock covering her like Secret Service on presidential detail.

I wondered if we were going to watch the fight, but a second later Wolf took my hand and pulled me away from the flow of the crowd, moving toward the front of the theater where the movie was still playing on the scratched-up screen.

“Come on,” he said, leading the way out of the theater. “Let’s get out of here.”

I felt like Alice, transported from her boring life to someplace magical and dangerous. Part of me wanted to go back, retrace my steps, return to the things that were familiar, but another part — a darker part that had been hidden until I’d moved in with the Beasts — wanted to go even deeper.

Wanted to know what would happen next.

I clung to Wolf’s hand, feeling for the first time that it was too late.

That I couldn’t go back if I tried.

Chapter 31

Daisy

We left the theater just as the voice of an older women boomed out over a microphone, welcoming everybody to fight night.

“We’re not watching the fight?” I asked Wolf when we stopped out into the hall that ran in front of the other theaters.

“That crowd gets rowdy,” he said. “I don’t want you in there.”

I stopped, pulling my hand away. “It’s not your job to protect me.”

He stopped walking and looked at me, then rubbed his lip with his thumb. “That’s a fight you’re not going to win, sunshine.”

“I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time,” I said.

“Maybe, but you shouldn’t have to.” He took my hand again. “But we can argue about this later if you want, after we find Jace and Otis.”

He stopped at the theater door next to the big one where — from the sounds of it — the fight had started.

“What’s in here?” I asked.

“Just another theater,” he said. “But who knows where those fuckers are.”

He opened the door and we stepped into an empty theater. It was smaller than the one where the fight was being held, and this one still had most of its seats, the screen blank at the front of the room.

Other than faint illumination from the exit signs and a glow from some kind of overhead lighting — the kind that stayed on while trailers played before the start of the movie — the place was dark.

“Wow,” I said, moving deeper into the room, “this is so weird.”

Wolf followed me down one of the aisles as I walked toward the big screen. “How so?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s kind of… eerie, isn’t it? To think that there was a time when movies played here and this place was full of people? It feels almost haunted.”

“I’ve never thought of it that way,” he said, “but I guess so.”

I stopped at the front of the theater, just a few feet from the screen, and craned my neck to look up at it. The white expanse felt huge up close and I turned around to look for the projector room I knew had to be at the back of the theater.

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