“You sure you heard me? For a second I thought you’d fallen asleep.”
“Me? Ha, no,” I scoffed. “What do you think I am, a little baby?”
“Alright then. Well, look alive. We’re almost there.” Cole turned off the main road and a second later a gate popped out of nowhere.
A guard stepped out of a gatehouse and put his hand up to stop us.
“Uh…is that guard holding a machine gun?” I asked.
“Technically it’s an assault rifle. But yes, he’s armed.”
My eyes got big. “I don’t know that we should be here…”
Cole laughed and blinked his high beams thrice in quick succession. The guard stepped aside and waved us through.
“Seriously, what is this place?” I asked as we drove up a windy path towards aridiculousmansion. If the Emerald Oasis clubhouse was a castle, this was a freaking palace. “This lookslike the kind of place where a bunch of mobsters would meet to bid on nuclear weapons and kidnapped virgins.”
“That’s only on Wednesdays.”
Is he joking?I genuinely couldn’t tell.
We came to a stop under the porte-cochère.
Cole reached over me and opened the glovebox. Inside were two masquerade masks. He put one on and handed me the other.
“So it’s a masquerade party?” I asked.
“Yeah, I told you that.”
Right. When I was sleeping like a baby. A valet opened our doors. Cole tossed him his keys and then slipped him a hefty wad of cash. I couldn’t hear what Cole whispered to him, but I assumed he was telling him that he’d kill him if he dented his Ferrari.
Another armed guard stopped us at the front door. “Names?”
“Cole and Raven,” said Cole.
The guard started flipping through a clipboard.
“You won’t find our names on your list,” added Cole.
“Then I suggest you turn your ass around. If you’re lucky, I’ll forget I ever saw you.”
“Actually, I have a standing invitation from Kat.”
The guard narrowed his eyes and adjusted his gun. “You really want me to call her?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. But if it turns out that you shouldn’t be here…”
“Yeah, yeah. You’ll throw me out on my ass. Just call her.”
“It’s your funeral,” muttered the guard. He turned away and said something into a mic clipped to his collar.
I wanted to ask who Kat was, but I was worried that any sudden movements would get me shot by Meathead McGee. That was the guard’s name, I assumed. MM for short.
MM stared us down for a good five minutes until the door opened. A woman in a black leather catsuit and a cat-eared mask slid out.
Well…that’s definitely Kat.She looked familiar, but with the mask covering half her face I couldn’t quite place her. Had she been on one of the teams today? Or had I seen her at Club Onyx? I wasn’t sure.
