Page 36 of Faithless
No sooner had he said that than a woman in a crisp black suit seemed to pop out of nowhere and approached the driver’s side of Gwen’s car. The sight made me wonder if I was hallucinating again. “Where the fuck did she come from?”
“Hang on.” Torr hit a button that opened the car’s panoramic sunroof and lifted up, poking his head through the top of the car. He flopped back in his seat seconds later. “Ah, I get it.”
“What?” I demanded.
“There’s a canyon up ahead, I could just see the edge of it just now. We’re on a slight incline, so it’s harder to see when you’re sitting.”
“Oh, so that’s where the resort is?”
“Must be.”
I stretched up to look myself, and he was right. A sheer drop-off was maybe thirty feet in front of Gwen’s car. Across the divide, I could see just the top of the far canyon wall. The rock looked smooth, even polished, like it was carved by human machinery instead of nature.
Dropping back to my seat, I saw the suited woman talking to Gwen through her lowered window. She had to be verifying us as guests, and I hoped we were flying under the radar as well as Gwen assured us we would be.
Several long moments passed until the woman nodded definitively and looked toward us with a beaming smile. She waved and began to approach our car while Torr rolled his window down, but it was my side of the car she came to. Torr fiddled with the buttons for a moment until he got my window to lower.
“Welcome to Mystic Canyon Resort!” the woman said. “You have passed all the qualifications for entry, and we hope you enjoy your stay. I’m Nella, the guest services manager, and will be showing you around today.”
“Thank you.”
Nella continued before I could ask any questions. “I have staff on their way up to retrieve your things, including valet service for your vehicle. If you would like to pull up just in front of your assistant, our valet driver can take your car to the lot, and we can enter the lift to begin our tour.”
“Thank you, that sounds…lovely.” I tried my best to sound like a snooty rich person while finding it curious that she spoke exclusively to me, never glancing once at Torr.
Nella stepped away as he rolled our windows back up, and we slowly maneuvered in front of Gwen’s SUV.
“I’m already creeped the fuck out,” Torr muttered.
“You and me both.”
“She stared at you like she wanted to eat you.”
“Why wouldn’t she just come to the driver’s side?” I wondered.
“Shit,I’mglad she didn’t.”
“Dick.” I shoved at his shoulder, but a smile never cracked his face. All of this was becoming very real.
There was a concrete pad, essentially a lone parking space, directly in front of Gwen’s car, and Torr drove onto it. We were only a few feet away from the edge of the canyon now, and I stared at some kind of metal frame drilled into the side of the canyon wall nearby. It looked like a cage with only four bars making a rectangle shape, the top maybe eight feet above the lip of the canyon.
The questions in my head were answered when a glass and metal box slid up from the inside of the canyon wall and nestled into the top of the metal frame. Four people stepped out of the box, all women in the same crisp black suits as Nella.
An elevator!I realized, the word screaming out in my head. I’d never seen one in real life, much less stepped inside one. I was pretty sure Torr never had either.
Two of the women approached our car and opened the doors for us. “Welcome to Mystic Canyon Resort,” they said in unison with warm, welcoming smiles. “We’ll take your vehicle to the valet lot now,” said the one at my door.
Torr and I stepped out, and the woman who opened his door slid into the driver’s seat. The rest of the staff went to the back of Gwen’s car and quickly unloaded our things. I clasped my hands in front of me, shoving down the uncomfortable feelings of someone else carrying my stuff. When you rode motorcycles, everyone was responsible for their own goods.
A whirring, grinding sound made me whip back around. “Torr!” I hissed, grabbing his arm.
“I know,” he said, placing a warm palm on my back.
The concrete pad, and our car on it, was descending straight into the fucking ground.
“I apologize for the noise of our car lift,” Nella said, eying her fellow staff member in the driver’s seat like she was the one responsible. “We will replace the machinery immediately.”
“Ah, no, that’s okay,” I protested, forcing a smile with a hand on my chest. “It just startled me, that’s all.”
