CHAPTER 8
CHLOE
Chloe kept finding new places sand had gotten wedged into as she hurried back to the staff quarters. Most of them she could brush off without too much trouble, but some of them were going to require a shower.
She had a quick sniff of one armpit as she came into sight of the main house and ducked behind a hedge. Strike that. I’m going to need a shower even without the sand invasion.
The sun was halfway up the sky by the time Chloe slunk into the staff quarters. Her hand automatically went to her pants pocket to check her phone, but it was out of power.
Dammit. Must have forgotten to put it on airplane mode. Which means it’s been sucking up battery power searching for signal all night…
There was a clock in the kitchen. Ten fifteen. Time for a shower—and time to apologize to Thandie.
Chloe rolled her shoulders back and felt them click. A month of cleaning duties had made her back and arm muscles as tight as coiled springs. A shower would get her clean, but what she really needed was a long, hot soak to ease out all the knots.
She thought of her bathroom back home with a longing she wouldn’t have thought possible a month ago. The tub in her apartment might be cramped, and have decades’ worth of waterlines around the edges, but at least you could fill it with hot water and sit in it.
Chloe stretched her back and heard another crackling click. Okay, ouch. I’m going to spend the next week in that shitty tub, I swear.
She crept past the tightly shut doors of a few of her colleagues who she knew worked the night shift, and up the stairs to the room she shared with Thandie. She hadn’t seen anyone yet, and more importantly, no one had seen her—or smelled her. All she needed to do now was grab a change of clothes and sneak back to the bathroom…
“Chloe!”
Chloe’s spine slammed painfully into the doorframe as Thandie tackled her.
“Ow,” she groaned. “Thandie, what—”
“Are you okay?” Thandie didn’t seem to know whether she wanted to hug Chloe, or look her over. She grabbed Chloe’s upper arms in a vice-like grip. “Oh God, Chloe, when you disappeared I thought—”
“You thought what?” Chloe started to shake Thandie off, but thought the better of it. Thandie’s lower lip was trembling, and she had dark circles under her eyes. “Thandie, what’s wrong?”
Thandie pulled her into a hug that made Chloe’s back click. “I thought you were dead,” she wailed.
“What?” Shock buzzed at the base of Chloe’s skull. Back down the corridor, she heard a door bang. Moving on autopilot, she kicked the door closed, wrapped her arms around Thandie and half-guided, half-dragged her to the closest bed.
Thandie was sniffling as Chloe sat her down. Chloe slung one arm around her shaking shoulders.
“Can you tell me what’s going on?” she asked gently.
Thandie drew in a ragged breath and wiped her eyes. “I thought—when you took over the drinks service for me last night, with all the apex shifters, and then you didn’t come back to the room…”
Chloe winced. She’d felt guilty for forgetting about Thandie the night before, but she hadn’t realized how much of a panic her midnight disappearance would put her friend into.
“You worried one of them had, what—hurt me?”
“Or eaten you,” Thandie said hollowly. “When they sensed that I was just a hummingbird, they kept making all these jokes. But they were jokes that didn’t feel like jokes, you know? And the way some of them were looking at me…” She sniffed and rubbed her nose. “God, I feel so stupid, now, but I was really freaked out. I mean, I knew we had a lot of shifters on staff, but I didn’t know the big boss and his friends were like us, too.”
“Shit. I’m so sorry, I didn’t even think...” Chloe stopped, tongue-tied, as the events of the night before appeared to her in a new light. Thandie’s frantic refusal to work the VIP lounge. The way that one guy had literally sniffed her.
Oh, shit. They must all think I’m a shifter, too.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come back last night. After I watched the fight, I needed some air, you know? But I should have come back and checked on you.” Chloe hugged Thandie awkwardly. “Sorry for being such a crappy friend.”
Thandie gave a final-sounding sniff. “And I’m sorry for freaking out on you just now. I feel like such an idiot. I talked with Nora after I came back here and, you know, it’s not just most of us who are shifters. It’s all of us. The whole crew!” She sighed. “So, what are you, anyway? I can’t figure it out, so you must be something with great camouflage skills, right? A chameleon or something?”
I wish. Chloe flicked her hair back over one shoulder. “What am I? I’m getting the hell off this island, is what I am. And you should, too.”
“Well, I’m probably going to get fired, so…” Thandie’s eyebrows knitted together. “Wait, how are you going to get off the island?”
“Um…” Chloe weighed up her options. Should she tell Thandie the truth about what she’d been doing last night, or gloss over the details?
She took in Thandie’s expression. Her brown skin was still paler than Chloe had even seen it, and there were tensions lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes. Chloe made up her mind.
Time for her Jedi mind trick to do some good.
“I uhh… might have broken certain fraternization rules last night…” Chloe caught the glint of curiosity in Thandie’s eyes, and privately pumped her fist. “Speaking of which, I really need a shower.”
Chloe stood up and started rifling through her drawers for a fresh change of clothes, deliberately not meeting Thandie’s interested gaze.
“Hang on…” Thandie’s voice was suspicious. “Do you mean you met someone, or you—” Chloe could almost hear the inverted commas, “—‘met’ someone?”
“Um… the second?” Chloe grabbed a towel. “Save your questions for after I’m clean, okay?”
She made it to the door and turned back to see Thandie close on her heels. Chloe raised her eyebrows.
“You know, I’m really okay with going to shower by myself.”
“Uh-uh. No way. I stayed up all night terrified you’d been eaten by a lion shifter or something, and now you’re telling me you were with some guy? You owe me.” Thandie jabbed her in the ribs.
Chloe groaned dramatically, and trudged down the hall to the bathrooms. “Ugh, fine. Well, he is a lion shifter, so you’re right about that. As for him eating me…”
***
Chloe’s spirits lifted as she teased Thandie out of her fears with salacious details about her night-time adventures—then sank again as the day went on with no news from Mathis. By the time her afternoon shift came around, she had to admit to herself that he’d probably forgotten about her.
If he’d ever meant what he said at all.
Chloe’s stomach clenched as she thought about how stupid she had been. Had she really believed that Mathis would give up a sweet gig like this just to get to know her better? As if. It was far more likely that he’d seen the opportunity to jump into her pants, taken it, and then come up with a convincing story to make her leave in the morning.
She snorted. Stay in your room until I come and find you? What a great strategy for giving him time to GTFO before she figured out what his game was.
A soft snore from Thandie’s bed echoed her snort. Chloe finished pinning her hair back and stared at Thandie’s sleeping form in the mirror. She sighed.
Not only were her own plans to leave the island shattered, but now she would have to admit to Thandie that she’d been fooled, too, and that neither of them were leaving. She had suggested to Thandie that she take the chance to get off the island while she and Mathis were being given the book, but so much for that idea.
Her shift started in ten minutes. Chloe checked herself in the mirror one last time, pulled some apology-chocolate from her bag and put in on Thandie’s bedside table for when she woke up, and headed for the door.
Someone knocked on the other side of it.
Chloe’s heart thudded in her ears. He wasn’t lying. He really is here.
She pulled the door open, heart leaping—and saw Julian Rouse standing on the other side, his hand still raised to knock again.
Chloe felt numb. “Oh—Julian, hi,” she mumbled. “I was just heading over to start my shift…” Which will probably include cleaning Mathis’ room. God, how humiliating.
Julian looked over her shoulder. His eyes narrowed as he took in the sleeping Thandie, and then snapped back to Chloe.
“I’ll walk you over,” he said, his voice clipped.
“All right, but I’m on guest room duties—”
“There’s been a change of plans.” Julian ushered her into the hall. “You’ll be—” His eyes flicked back towards Chloe and Thandie’s room. “—taking Thandie’s shift again. She’s been permanently moved off the service roster.”
Julian’s jaw set with an almost audible click. Chloe tried to keep her confusion off her face. Everything he was saying was perfectly ordinary—so why did he look so tense?
It’s probably a shifter thing, she reasoned. I wonder what he is?
She stole sidelong glances at Julian as they walked. Whatever sixth sense it was that Thandie and the others had for figuring out what sort of animal people shifted into, Chloe definitely didn’t have it. Julian was tall and slender, and moved gracefully—but to Chloe, he looked one hundred percent human, from his glossy black hair and green eyes to the nervous twitch in his fingers.
Who knows. He could be a chupacabra for all I know. Shit. I hope they don’t actually exist, too.
Chloe’s internal running commentary could only keep herself entertained for so long. She might not be planning to write an exposé about shifters, but that didn’t mean she had to abandon the investigation altogether, did it? She was still curious, and since Mathis was making himself scarce, Julian would have to do.
“So… how about last night, huh? Maybe in future you should warn the wait staff before sending them into the lion’s den like that.”
Julian said nothing. Chloe barreled on.
“I mean, me, I would give the staff a heads-up before they have a chance to embarrass themselves in front of the big boss, you know what I’m saying? And I’m sure Mr. Harper wasn’t happy about Thandie making a scene in front of his guests.”
She waited. It was all she could do not to jab Julian in the ribs, just to get a reaction out of him.
“I mean, I get not bringing it up at job interviews, but what about at on-boarding? Once a new employee’s already on the island?”
Julian’s lips tightened. “Mr. Harper is, so far as I’m aware, perfectly happy with the current state of affairs.”
Chloe grimaced. “Oh, wonderful. So he’s the sort who gets his kicks out of freaking out his employees, is that it?”
She glanced at Julian, trying to judge what reaction he would have to her barb—if any.
His eyelid flickered, but that was all. And it could have just been a response to a change in the light as they stepped outside, anyway.
Frustration and disappointment were boiling in Chloe’s stomach. She needed an outlet—and Julian was it.
She kept up the sniping as Julian led her to the main building. He was unfailingly stiff and polite, as though nothing she said penetrated his polished veneer. Which only made Chloe more aggravated.
She knew she wasn’t being fair. Julian wasn’t to blame for her gullibility. He was just a handy target for her bad mood.
Chloe gritted her teeth. “Dammit. Look, Julian, I’m sorry for being such a—”
Julian stopped her with one upraised hand. Something glinted in the dark green of his eyes. “Don’t,” he said through gritted teeth. A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I’m the one who should be sorry. For all of this.”
Chloe blinked. They were still a floor below the VIP lounge, in a corridor she hadn’t explored yet. She could guess where the service elevator to the lounge floor was, but they were nowhere near it. Instead, Julian had his hand on a heavy metal door.
He twisted the handle. Inside the door, a lock released with a heavy thunk.
“And I am sorry,” Julian said in a grim undertone, before grabbing Chloe roughly by the shoulder and pushing her through the door.
Chloe fell clumsily to the floor. Pain shot through her knees and she rolled over just in time to see the door slam shut behind her.
“Hey—!” she yelled, rubbing her knees. “What the hell, Julian?”
There was no answer. The room he’d pushed her into was dark, and she blinked, willing her eyes to adjust. A moment later she hissed as bright lights flashed on.
Chloe stood up, shading her eyes. “Hello? What’s going on?” Is this some sort of—of solitary? Because of what Mathis and I did? No, that’s crazy.
Her stomach clenched. Or maybe it’s a lockup for non-shifters who put their nose in where it doesn’t belong.
She squinted around the brightly lit room. The floor was concrete, rough enough that it had torn holes in her stockings. The walls were the same, as far as she could tell. There was another sturdy-looking door on the opposite wall, and above them…
Chloe gulped. She knew where she was, now.
Ten or twelve feet above her, the concrete walls turned into thick transparent glass. She could just see the silhouetted shapes of people in the room on the other side. Were any of them looking down at her? She couldn’t tell.
“Hey! Hey, you!” she yelled, banging her fists on the walls. “Hey, get me out of here! There’s been some sort of mistake!”
This has to be a mistake, she thought, her heart thundering in her ears. Julian had just thrown her into the fighting ring where she’d watched shifters tear each other to pieces the night before. It had to be a mistake. It had to be.
“Hey! Hello? Anybody?”
The concrete walls seemed to swallow up the sound her fists made. Her shouts weren’t having any effect on the people in the room above. Can they even hear me?
She kicked the wall. A metallic thunk filled the room, and she turned back to the door she’d come in by, hoping this was all a mistake—but it was still closed, and the metal grill cage-door had swung down like a portcullis in front of it.
Chloe turned on the spot, her body heavy with dread. The door on the opposite wall swung open.
For a second, she could only see the outline of the figure standing in the doorway. Then he stepped into the light. He was huge, muscles bulging under scars that crisscrossed his body like a fishing net. His chest was bare, and his pale skin was mottled with scars and bruises. Light blue eyes glinted from a face that held no mercy.
“I… I think there’s been a mistake…” Chloe quavered, backing away.
The man grunted and spat to one side. Then, in one fluid movement, he transformed into a massive polar bear, as scarred and brutish as the man.