Page 37 of Girl, Unmasked
Or the dirt.
The sun was setting and had painted the sky orange and pink, which would have been beautiful if Martina hadn't been too busy having a low-key panic attack.She leaned against the railing, suddenly reluctant to go back inside.The balcony felt safe, somehow.Open.No place for anyone to hide.
Martina pulled out her phone.Should she call the cops?But what would she say?
Hello, officer.I think someone broke into my apartment to redecorate with feathers.
Still, something wasn't right.The hairs on the back of her neck stood at attention and her brain screamed danger even as her rational mind tried to explain it all away.
She'd dial 911, just to be safe.Better to feel like an idiot than end up as the star of a true crime documentary.
Her thumb tapped the first number and then – a rush of movement behind her, so fast she barely had time to register it.
Then the whistle of something cutting through the air.
Followed by pain, exploding across her skull and obliterating everything in a red haze.She reeled, staggered, dimly aware of her phone slipping from her nerveless fingers to the concrete four floors below.
The last thing Martina saw before the darkness swallowed her was a figure who’d materialized on her balcony.
And he was tall, and had wiry hair like a scarecrow.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ella leaned in, burning a hole in the section of the manuscript Ripley had circled.A tingle of electricity ran through her.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Look.Right here, in the middle of this thing.'
Ella followed the line of Ripley’s finger to a paragraph that jumped off the page.
In this moment, it was just Cain and his angel.He'd dreamed of this for so long, fantasized about every cut, every scream.And now it was real.The iron tang of blood filled his nostrils, sweeter than any perfume.Her flesh parted beneath his blade like silk, revealing the divine beauty hidden beneath mortal skin.Nothing else mattered.Not his wracking cough, not the ache in his bones, not tomorrow's shift at the bookshop obscure.Just him and her, creator and creation.
She read it once, twice, three times, each pass ratcheting her pulse up another notch.
But she couldn’t see what Ripley had seen.
'Just seems like crap to me.What am I supposed to be looking at?'
‘Focus, woman.You really can’t see it?’
Ella shrugged.‘No?’
‘Look at ‘bookshop obscure.’Doesn’t that seem… off to you?’
Ella blinked, trying to see past the horror show and into whatever linguistic quirk had caught Ripley’s apparent eagle eye.‘It's a weird phrase, sure, but this whole damn book is one big weird phrase.What's your point?’
‘No, it's more than that.Look closer.The word 'obscure.'It's italicized.’
Ella frowned.Read the line again.Damn if the old dog wasn't right.'Obscure' was set apart from the rest of the text, leaning slightly to the right.
‘Okay.But why’s that significant?’
‘Because every time this jackass author mentions a proper noun, it’s in italics.Names, places, whatever.But ‘obscure’ doesn’t fit.Not on its own.’
The gears ground in Ella's head.‘You think it's an error?’
‘More than that.’Ripley leaned in.‘It suggests that this bookshop is a real place, but maybe he ran an auto-spellcheck and it changed it to 'obscure' rather than what it was supposed to be.’
