Utter chaos.
Hallie took my hand and pulled me in the direction she’d indicated to Kaleb and Lily. We found them on the sidewalk, looking confused.
“It isn’t there.” Kaleb’s voice barely carried over the noise of the revelers on the sidewalk as he pointed to where Saints & Sinners used to be. “We saw the sign, and then we didn’t.”
I turned to Hallie and tried to pitch my voice over the heavy sound around us. “Do you recognize anything?”
She wrinkled her nose as she scanned the crowd. “Beer and sweat with a top note of vomit is how it usually smells here, but I’m guessing from the costumes, this is Mardi Gras. Parades on Bourbon were rerouted in the seventies. Oh, look. Love beads and Birkenstocks.”
“Great,” I replied. “The sixties. Booze and free love. Way to keep it classy, space time continuum.”
Kaleb took stock of the throng of people around us. “Look around. It’s not just the sixties.”
“I don’t see any eighties bangs. I don’t think it goes beyond the seventies, just back in time. And … the buildings have changed. Kaleb.” Lily grabbed his arm. “This is a rip world.”
My blood turned to stone. “It’s sucked us in.”
“How do we get out?” Hallie’s voice was frantic as she focused on the people around us. Not people, rips.
They stopped to stare at Hallie.
And then they started toward her, moving as one.
Chapter 17
Hallie
I could feel them coming.
“You can see them?” I asked Dune, squeezing his hand.
“I can.”
“They know what I am.” Panic made my heart race as my joints went loose. “They know, and they want me.”
Dune kept his voice as low as he could in the middle of the crowd, speaking into my ear. “I won’t leave you, Hal, I swear.”
My shirt was soaked with sweat. “Get me away from them.”
Dune didn’t wait for me to finish. He jerked me toward the alley we’d just left, running hard, pulling on my hand. Lily and Kaleb followed.
grinned. “That’s the way we do.”
“I’m Lily.” She gave me a beautiful and genuine smile. Kaleb tucked his arm around her. They were breathtaking.
Ten to one they did it with the lights on.
“Welcome to New Orleans,” I said a little too brightly. “Let’s get some hospitality going.”
We took a seat and ordered, the lights above the table dimming slightly when Michael and Emerson bumped hands. Same as with Amelia and Zooey, it calmed after a few seconds. Everyone talked a hundred miles an hour, catching up while we waited. Except for me, since I had nothing to catch up on. I held Dune’s hand under the table and observed.
Lily and Emerson both made attempts to pull me into the conversation, but they were gentle attempts. Kaleb rivaled paid entertainment, engaging everyone, but Michael was quiet. Enough to make me feel comfortable, like I wasn’t the only person at the table who wasn’t a talker.
Dune leaned close to whisper in my ear. “They like you. I can tell.”
“I like them, too,” I whispered back. “But I have no idea what to say.”
“You’ll figure it out. Or they’ll figure it out for you.”