lanes, but few are as aggressive as Reece as he steers the silver bullet of a car through the pristine streets.
Huge mansions dot our path, giving way to gleaming office buildings wedged between old-school mission-style offices with Spanish-style roofs or sleek, modern-looking cafés lined with uncomfortable-looking metal tables for two, few of them bustling at this early hour.
Every building has character, that tragically hip and loaded-with-history silver-screen character, and how I wish I could just step out at the next light and take leave of this claustrophobic car and angry driver.
How I wish I could walk away from the way this story is unfolding and trash this plotline the way Iâve been trashing so many of Scarlet Stainâs lately.
Wouldnât it be nice if there were a trash bin for life, where you could drag all the scary, rotten, evil, mean, wicked moments and delete them permanently?
But even those computer files are never truly gone, Iâve heard. Instead, they haunt the innards of your computer where they lurk, just out of sight.
No, there is no way to delete or rewrite this particular scene. For once, Iâm not the author. Reece is.
âWeâre going to a place where youâll be spending a lot of time,â he says as the neighborhoods we pass through suddenly grow more urban, then industrial, then . . . deserted.
I watch the streets zip past the tinted windows, darker than must be legal, hoping to remember where heâs taking me.
âNo need to memorize the details,â he says impatiently, as if this is amateur hour on some prime-time cop show and heâs the crusty veteran policeman to my eager but clueless rookie. âIâm not kidnapping you, after all. Youâll be free to come or go as you please. But I promise you that once you hear my offer, youâll find it hard to resist.â
Ugh. Nothing worse than a smug-ass vampire.
We ride in silence for another few minutes, the beauty, history, and charm of Beverly Hills long gone as we pass derelict brick factories and junkyards until we come to a large warehouse at the end of an industrial cul-de-sac. It is bordered on one side by an empty field, on the other by a fenced-in lot full of rusty cars.
He pulls around to the back of the warehouse, a long and dusty journey in itself, and as we emerge from the car, I hear nothing but the hum of vehicles flying by on the distant highway and crickets chirping in the vacant lot next door.
âPeaceful, isnât it?â he asks over his shoulder. A gleaming new padlock hangs from a twisting length of rusty chain link around two door handles, and he slides a small key in, his long pale fingers are swift and agile. He pauses abruptly. âSo peaceful,â he repeats, as if to himself. âNo one to hear you scream, Nora. No one to run to if you dared. No one to listen to your story if you found the courage to tell it. This is my kind of place.â Then, quickly, he returns to the lock.
The chain falls to the ground, where he leaves itâno need to worry about anyone breaking in or neighbors stumbling across it.
We both step over it to enter the main doorway. Inside, the floor is rough concrete covered by years, maybe decades, of dust, sand, and rat droppings. It is vast and hopeless.
The walls are a drab tan, covered with grime and dust and oil and grease and the odd swatch of indecipherable graffiti, long since faded.
The skeleton of old, rusty machinery sits here and there, with no rhyme or reason, their working parts long ago raided for metals and anything else the squatters who spent time here could pawn, recycle, or perhaps stab each other with.
It goes on forever, longer than it is wide, and endlessly long at that.
Dozensâwho knows, maybe hundredsâof broken windowpanes circle the ceiling. They let in dusty, diffused light that takes so long to get to the floor, itâs orange and muted by the time it arrives.
The warehouse
Huge mansions dot our path, giving way to gleaming office buildings wedged between old-school mission-style offices with Spanish-style roofs or sleek, modern-looking cafés lined with uncomfortable-looking metal tables for two, few of them bustling at this early hour.
Every building has character, that tragically hip and loaded-with-history silver-screen character, and how I wish I could just step out at the next light and take leave of this claustrophobic car and angry driver.
How I wish I could walk away from the way this story is unfolding and trash this plotline the way Iâve been trashing so many of Scarlet Stainâs lately.
Wouldnât it be nice if there were a trash bin for life, where you could drag all the scary, rotten, evil, mean, wicked moments and delete them permanently?
But even those computer files are never truly gone, Iâve heard. Instead, they haunt the innards of your computer where they lurk, just out of sight.
No, there is no way to delete or rewrite this particular scene. For once, Iâm not the author. Reece is.
âWeâre going to a place where youâll be spending a lot of time,â he says as the neighborhoods we pass through suddenly grow more urban, then industrial, then . . . deserted.
I watch the streets zip past the tinted windows, darker than must be legal, hoping to remember where heâs taking me.
âNo need to memorize the details,â he says impatiently, as if this is amateur hour on some prime-time cop show and heâs the crusty veteran policeman to my eager but clueless rookie. âIâm not kidnapping you, after all. Youâll be free to come or go as you please. But I promise you that once you hear my offer, youâll find it hard to resist.â
Ugh. Nothing worse than a smug-ass vampire.
We ride in silence for another few minutes, the beauty, history, and charm of Beverly Hills long gone as we pass derelict brick factories and junkyards until we come to a large warehouse at the end of an industrial cul-de-sac. It is bordered on one side by an empty field, on the other by a fenced-in lot full of rusty cars.
He pulls around to the back of the warehouse, a long and dusty journey in itself, and as we emerge from the car, I hear nothing but the hum of vehicles flying by on the distant highway and crickets chirping in the vacant lot next door.
âPeaceful, isnât it?â he asks over his shoulder. A gleaming new padlock hangs from a twisting length of rusty chain link around two door handles, and he slides a small key in, his long pale fingers are swift and agile. He pauses abruptly. âSo peaceful,â he repeats, as if to himself. âNo one to hear you scream, Nora. No one to run to if you dared. No one to listen to your story if you found the courage to tell it. This is my kind of place.â Then, quickly, he returns to the lock.
The chain falls to the ground, where he leaves itâno need to worry about anyone breaking in or neighbors stumbling across it.
We both step over it to enter the main doorway. Inside, the floor is rough concrete covered by years, maybe decades, of dust, sand, and rat droppings. It is vast and hopeless.
The walls are a drab tan, covered with grime and dust and oil and grease and the odd swatch of indecipherable graffiti, long since faded.
The skeleton of old, rusty machinery sits here and there, with no rhyme or reason, their working parts long ago raided for metals and anything else the squatters who spent time here could pawn, recycle, or perhaps stab each other with.
It goes on forever, longer than it is wide, and endlessly long at that.
Dozensâwho knows, maybe hundredsâof broken windowpanes circle the ceiling. They let in dusty, diffused light that takes so long to get to the floor, itâs orange and muted by the time it arrives.
The warehouse
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