Page 80 of It Happened on a Sunday
As I say the words, I realize that for the first time in a long time, I actually mean them.
Before the concert, I was too busy thinking about Sly—and everything that happened in Griffith Park this afternoon—to get myself as worked up as I usually do. Plus, when the crowd started chanting “Sloaney” halfway through the concert, I didn’t try to ignore it. Instead, I went with it, and we all had a surprisingly good time.
Not to mention, the signs were fabulous tonight. My personal favorite read i love you more than chocolate chip cookies,but all of them were cute or hilarious.
I shimmy into my track pants, then give Lucinda a quick smile before heading out the door. I’m dying to get back to the hotel. Sly’s melody—I’ve given up trying to call the notes that have been running through my head since I first met him anything else—has been playing on repeat in my mind, and I’m dying to play with it a while before I try to sleep.
“Hey, aren’t you forgetting something?” Lucinda calls when I’m halfway out the door.
“What’s that?” I ask, brows raised.
She nods to my flask, which is lying on its side on my dressing table.
It’s the first time I’ve forgotten it in forever, and it shakes memore than I like. I don’t need it—there’s just tea in it, after all—but it’s what the flask stands for that makes me nervous about leaving it. It’s one more level between the Black Widow and the real Sloane. One more layer to keep people from seeing the real me.
When I ate that concha with Sly, I allowed him to peel back a corner of that hard outer shell. I let him and the world see just a tiny bit of the real Sloane. And when I decided not to worry about those girls taking pics, I chose to let the rest of the world see that part of me, too. Part of me still can’t believe I let that happen. And now I was about to walk out without one of the most basic parts of my Black Widow uniform?
Is it any wonder my stomach is churning? I don’t know what’s happening to me. And worse, I don’t have a clue if I want to stop it.
“You okay?” Lucinda asks, and she looks uncharacteristically uncertain.
“Yeah, I’m good.” I grab the flask with a quick thanks, then hustle out the door. That song won’t write itself.
Marco meets me in the hallway. “Ready?” he asks. I do a double take because his voice is serious and his normally dancing eyes look grim.
“What’s wrong?” My stomach clenches as a dozen different scenarios flash through my head. All of them dealing with Sly. All of them awful.
“There was another mutilated doll onstage tonight.”
Relief floods me. “Is that all?”
“What do you mean, is that all? This is the second dead Sloane doll someone’s thrown at you in a week—and what they did to this one was…disturbing. Plus, it’s in a different city than the first, which means whoever is doing this might have followed you to L.A.”
It takes a second for his words to hit, and when they do, myalready unsteady stomach threatens to revolt. Whatever positive energy I had from the concert and my time with Sly evaporates as I look into Marco’s concerned face.
“Another stalker?” I ask, swallowing down the nausea. I can puke when I get back to my hotel room. For now, no one gets to see how much this shit affects me, not even Marco.
“I don’t know yet. I just know the coincidence makes me wonder if there’s a connection.”
“Don’t you think you might be jumping to conclusions?” I ask as we walk toward the exit. “The first doll literally crashed into me onstage, which means a ton of people filmed it happening and probably put it up on their socials. Especially if this one is different—”
“I said disturbing, not different,” he clarifies.
“So what are we dealing with here? A copycat? Maybe some obsessed fan of Jarrod’s who wants to freak me out? The anniversary of his death is in a couple of weeks—”
“This seems more deranged than obsessed,” Marco says as he holds the door open for me.
“Fantastic.” I breeze through the door. “Well, it takes all kinds.”
G, one of my other guards, has already pulled the SUV up to the door, and I start toward it. But Marco gently grabs hold of my arm to stop me.
I freeze, shock ricocheting through me as my gaze locks on his fingers circling my wrist. Marco knows I hate being touched, so for him to do it now must mean he’s serious about getting my attention.
The feeling is underscored when he continues. “I’m worried, Sloane. My gut is telling me something is wrong here.”
Well, shit. At this rate I might just puke right here on the curb and to hell with whether it makes me look weak. Marco’s been with me since I was sixteen, and his gut has never been wrong.Not aboutanything. It’s one of the many reasons he heads up my security team. If he’s this worried, there’s real cause for concern.
I take a deep breath to give myself a chance to think and settle, then blow it out slowly. “So do you think I’ve picked up another stalker?”
