No, I’m not going to have an arranged marriage. No, I didn’t escape the squalor of Mumbai like that boy in Slumdog Millionaire (Jai ho, bitch). No, I don’t need to wear a red dot on my forehead. No, I can’t show you how to wrap a sari. No, I don’t know Priyanka Chopra or Mindy Kaling or “that one girl from the Bollywood video.” And yes, I speak English and I understand every single word that you just said about me.
“The longer you stall, the longer you have to kiss him the second time, Maddie,” Naomi hisses.
I realize that we live in the age of Beyoncé, where brown, black, and everyone in between is accepted and even celebrated. However, that applies to the world out there, the la-la land of social media and diverse metropolises like NYC, LA, Toronto, and London.
My reality is Meadowdale, Illinois, population thirty-two thousand, smack-dab in America’s heartland. A town that feels like it cropped up in the middle of a cornfield and has more cows than people. Meadowdale is three hours away from Chicago, one hour from a decent mall, and light years away from everything else.
It isn’t that Meadowdale is intolerant. For the most part, it’s okay to be a minority here. As long as you act just like everyone else. That means I have to work harder and be better than all of them just to prove that I am exactly like them.
I’m junior-class vice president, in the honor society, and on the student council, tennis team, and poms (bottom of the pyramid and back line, but nonetheless). I maintain a 3.7 grade point average but make sure not to reach 4.0 because everyone hates a brownnoser. Most important, I am the perpetual nice girl, never too much and adapts easily. Except that there is nothing easy about it.
Madison’s sobs drown out the Muzak playing from the overhead sound system. In this particular situation, no matter how hard Madison cries, blending in means that I should do nothing at all.
“Naomi, I think Maddie has had enough,” Tessa Price mumbles as she looks down and pretends to study a lock of her bleached-blond hair extensions. I’m all about DIY beauty but her hair looks so fake that I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d just glued pieces of straw to her head. She’s skinny to the point of being skeletal and her voice is quiet and wispy. “Can we just drop it and go on with our cheer meeting?”
Tessa is Naomi’s BFF which makes her VP, wingman, and number two. She is generally perceived as the good cop but runner-up is mostly a ceremonial position with lots of perks but very little influence. To Tessa’s credit, she’s usually the only one of us that makes any effort to check Naomi on these all-too-frequent occasions when she goes full-on Regina George. Naomi gives Tessa the kind of withering stare that would turn most mortals into stone, then raises a perfectly waxed eyebrow. “Who cares what she wants? That’s—”
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” a deep male voice barks.
I jump and turn in the direction of the voice. In the doorway is a tall guy with a short blond buzzcut wearing an ill-fitting black blazer that appears to be at least a couple of sizes too big for his lean, muscular frame. His intense green eyes peek out from behind his thick dark-rimmed glasses, which look like the kind of fake prop that I used in the costume department for last year’s school musical.
“Who’s the hottie?” Jessica coos not so quietly. A few of the other girls chime in with their own catcalls and stupid remarks.
I also can’t help checking him out but for a different reason. A weird sensation like déjà vu washes over me. I am fairly certain that I’ve never met the guy but there is something oddly familiar about him. Maybe because he’s an unsettling mix of American Psycho and Ryan Gosling.
“He isn’t a hottie. He’s, like, my dad’s pathetic intern,” Naomi says, letting her disgust drip from every word.
“A creepy hottie,” Jessica purrs. “Even better.”
Naomi ignores her and turns her attention to the intern. She plasters on her best fake smile. “Since you’re new, lackey boy, I’ll let this one slide. But just so you know in the future, this is my house and I can go anywhere I want.”
Naomi’s delivery is classic diva. All that is missing is the hair flip. I try to read the guy’s face for some kind of reaction but there isn’t even a tiny crack in his icy demeanor.
“You can go anywhere you want upstairs in the private living quarters. Not here with the bodies,” he counters. He is talking to Naomi but I feel like his eyes are on me, which makes me jittery. I’m not used to guys noticing me, especially when Naomi is around. Though the way this guy is checking me out doesn’t feel like he wants to ask for my digits.
Naomi digs her platform heels into the carpet. “I don’t take orders from the help.”
“And I don’t tolerate petulant children.” Then he makes a gesture that is too fast for me to catch.
But Naomi sees it. Her cheeks flame with rage. “It was you . . .” she mutters, but she doesn’t finish her thought. Instead, to my utter shock, Naomi begins to make her way toward the door. In the nearly ten years that I’ve known Naomi, I’ve hardly ever seen her obey anyone so easily.
We all follow her without saying a single word.
As I reach the end of the hallway, just before the staircase, I turn around. That same strange feeling comes over me again. The guy is still standing in the doorway and I swear that he is staring right through me.
Two
LUKAS MAKES A SMALL INCISION near the femoral artery of the cadaver. His eyeglasses slip down the bridge of his nose. He darts his head from side to side to make sure that there is no one else here in the morgue with him. At least, no one alive. Then he rips off the glasses and carelessly tosses them onto the worktable next to him.
He picks up a clear plastic tube. The cadaver’s blood is drawn from her body through the tube and into the sink; as it circles the drain, a tinny metallic smell fills the room. He breathes it in. Just a whiff of blood sends his adrenaline pumping. Lukas eases the tube farther into the cadaver. Rigor mortis has already started to set in and it feels like he’s breaking through ice. He waits until he hears the pop sound of the cadaver’s insides before settling back down onto the stool.
The tools for preserving cadavers have changed but one fact has remained the same throughout time: Humans die. It is the one certainty in his line of work.
Lukas shakes his head. He can’t afford to let the darkness set in right now. After a moment, he refocuses his attention on the cadaver. These days, he usually gets stuck playing a tech mogul or hardcore hacker. But in this godforsaken village, neither was relevant.
He actually quite enjoys pretending to be a mortician or, as Naomi put it, a “pathetic intern.” Although when he’d been given this assignment, he didn’t think it would be such a pain in the ass. More specifically, he didn’t think that Violet would end up being such a pain in the ass.
Lukas rips off his latex gloves. Since the day he became immortal, at the age of nineteen, what he has always been and what he will always be is a soldier. His only true function is to win the war at any cost.
The Aiedeo sent him here for just that reason. In the centuries that he’s worked for them, he’s rarely seen them make a misstep. That’s why they’ve become as powerful as they are. He also knows that he’s one of the best soldiers working for them, which is why it’s baffling that they’re wasting him on Violet.