“Sure. Get in.”
She didn’t move. “What?”
“I said, get in.”
She gave him her hardest stare and let the silence unwind. That usually did the trick with most people, but apparently Loki was immune to the daunting pressure of silence. He simply stared back, eyes sharp and telling her without words how lovely it was to have her over a barrel.
Gah.
“Did you bring my jacket, or not?” Perhaps he’d forgotten it. It wouldn’t hurt to give him the benefit of the doubt, after all.
“I brought it. It’s in the back. We’re going to take a little ride first.”
A snarl ripped out of her. “No.”
“Then I guess you don’t want your jacket. Or your phone. Or your car keys. See ya.”
“Wait.” She slapped a hand down on the car’s windowsill even as he began to pull away. She took a breath to tell him to go fuck himself and the horse he rode in on, only to remember the humiliation that awaited her if she once again lost her temper. “Just…wait. Where do you want to take me?”
“It’s a secret. Literally. In fact, you can’t ever speak of this place once we leave it, because that’s how this shit works.”
She stared at him. “You’re fucking with me.”
“Of course I’m fucking with you, but I’m also telling you the truth. I could just hand over your jacket and never see you again, sure. But in my opinion, you need to be educated on what’s going on around you so you won’t be a danger to yourself. That requires a little road trip. It won’t take too long,” he added when she still hesitated. “And hey, you can always call your man from your phone once you get in here to pick it up.”
“I don’t have a—” She cut herself off, If this animal believed she had someone at home waiting for her, maybe he’d be less likely to savage her and leave her for dead in a ditch somewhere, just because she was stupid enough to get in his car.
And there it was.
She was stupid.
Again.
Because she was getting in this monster’s car.
“If anything happens to me, just remember that chick where you work, Scout, knows we were meeting up tonight.” Without fanfare, Alice opened the Hummer’s passenger door and climbed into what was most certainly her doom. At least it smelled like leather. “And I’ve got people who know about this meeting as well. Fuck with me in any way, and you can kiss your life as you know it goodbye.”
“It’d almost be worth it just to shut that smart mouth of yours. Jacket’s in the backseat. Why do you have a Hello Kitty keyring?”
In the process of turning to the backseat—putting her knees on the passenger seat and her ass facing the windshield—Alice felt her face grow hot. “You went through my pockets?”
“Yeah. By the way, your gloves don’t match.”
“Life is too short to sit around matching up shit like gloves and socks.”
“And they’ve got holes in the fingers.”
“It’s April. I’ll buy gloves next season when I’ll need them again.” If she wasn’t completely destitute and living on the streets by then. At least with her gloves, she had a head start on a potential hobo look.
“That doesn’t answer the Hello Kitty question.” Once she had her ass back in the seat where it belonged, he looked over his shoulder and pulled out into traffic. “Like the pink jacket, it doesn’t fit you.”
“It’s not Hello Kitty.” Grimly she avoided looking at him by focusing all her concentration on snapping her seatbelt in place. “It’s Badtz-Maru, and he’s a penguin, not a cat.”
“It’s Hello Kitty shit, Alice.”
“Hello Kitty’s all about cuteness and yippee-skippy rainbows and whatever. Badtz-Maru is the opposite of that. He’s a realist, and that’s why he’s like my spirit animal.”
“So you love Badtz-Maru so much you got a keychain of your spirit animal?”
“It was a gift.” She looked out the window as they drove past the opera house. “I’m not the kind of person who’d waste money on frivolous things like a plushie keyring. Where are we going?”
“Wacker Drive.”
“We’re already on Wacker. What part?”
“The Lower Lower part.”
That brought her head around so fast it flared her hair out. “You’re kidding.”
“So you’ve heard of it.”
“A couple years ago you couldn’t turn on the local news without hearing about all the illegal drag racing and drifting that went on down there on Lower Lower Wacker.”
“Yep. The Lower Lower used to be a magnet for the world’s best—or worst—of that subculture, and you can bet a lot of sketchy shit went on two stories below where we are now. Truth be told, sketchy shit’s still going on down there.”
And that was where he wanted to go? Um… “I thought that whole road system had been closed down to everything but authorized service vehicles.”
“Kinda hard to shut down an entire subterranean system that has tunnels and roads going in and out of it like an ant colony. The main thoroughfare, Lower Lower Wacker Drive, or the Lower Lower, is closed to the public, yeah. But no one ever said anything about all the feeder roads leading to it, turnarounds and parking lots. Don’t you just love loopholes?”
“Not really.” She watched as he made a turn onto Lower Wacker drive, a tunnel-like thoroughfare that ran beneath Wacker Drive. It had been used as a backdrop for countless movies, video games and TV shows, but on the few occasions when she’d had to use Lower Wacker, she’d driven as fast as she could to get out into the sun once more. The disjointed feeling that it was another world separate from the city above had always given her the heebie-jeebies.
That sensation only intensified as Loki took an offramp that was almost completely hidden behind an array of thick concrete pillars.
“You sure we’re not going to get in trouble for this?” she asked nervously as they zoomed past a sign stating that only authorized vehicles beyond that point were allowed. “Because I’m thinking we’re going to get in trouble for this if we’re caught.”
“That’s the kicker right there—if we’re caught.” The greenish fluorescent lighting gave everything a surreal cast, and as his tigerlike eyes flicked a glance her way, she wondered if she was having some sort of crazy nightmare. “Don’t tell me you’ve never taken a walk on the wild side, Alice.”
“Define wild side.”
“Pushed through a door that says Do Not Enter. Pulled a fire alarm for no good reason other than to laugh at the ensuing chaos. Stayed out past curfew. Been bad when you knew you should be good.”
“Do you not remember how we met?”
“Yeah, but I’m not sure if I should count that, in light of your freak-out for disobeying a fucking street sign. And when you challenged me, you weren’t breaking society’s dainty little rules just for shits and giggles. You were defending someone you cared about as well as trying to survive, and you had a belly full of righteous anger.”
She tried not to flinch at the word anger. “So?”