Johnny just stared at her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Drake waved and gave her a smile. Lizette kept her eyes firmly above his waist as she waved in return, then she nodded to Johnny. “I’m ready. What is our plan?”
“The plan is to run past the alligator. If he snaps, I whack. That’s it. Nothing fancy.”
“In other words, you do not really know what to do.”
“Exactly.”
Well, she supposed she could appreciate his honesty. “Understood. Shall we? On the count of three?”
“Let’s just go.” Johnny pulled open the door and they both ran.
Which was something of a challenge, given that they were attached at the wrist and they both tried to squeeze to the left, out of the path of the alligator’s jaw. They were stumbling and bouncing, Johnny’s free arm swinging with the crop even though the alligator wasn’t doing a damn thing. He just sat there looking like they were a couple of complete idiots. He was probably right.
Johnny was dragging her down the hallway and he opened the first doorway on the right. It was the bathroom. “Shit!” he said. He kept dragging her, and the next door was a bedroom. They ran in and Lizette slammed the door shut. Then locked it. She’d seen Jurassic Park. Who knew if an alligator could figure out how to push open a door?
They stood there, both moving away from the door before Johnny burst out laughing. Lizette couldn’t help but smile with him. It was more than a bit absurd.
As was Zelda’s bedroom. Lizette felt like she’d fallen into Barbie’s dream house. There was hot pink everywhere and lots of shiny surfaces and crystal, from the chandelier to the candlesticks on the dresser, to the gigantic crystal-rimmed mirror. Where there wasn’t bling, there was pink, and as Lizette turned, she could see six of herself in the many mirrors and reflective surfaces.
Johnny laughed even harder. “Wow, when you’re on the bed, you can see yourself getting plugged from every angle. That Zelda. What a fun gal.”
“Plugged . . .” Lizette suddenly realized what Johnny meant. “Why I’ve never even considered . . .” Then she cut herself off. Johnny Malone didn’t need to know the details of her sex life, or lack thereof. Even if she had slept with him the night before.
“Maybe you should,” he said mildly.
That annoyed her. “Can we just get some shoes please and get out of here?”
“Of course. Though looking at your feet, Zelda isn’t going to have much you can wear. What size are you?”
“I don’t know American sizing.” Lizette went with him to the closet, because of course, she had to go wherever he went.
“You are size teeny weeny. Zelda is American-basketball-player size. But maybe these will work.” He held up a pair of heels with pink poufs on the ends.
“I’m not wearing those!” Those were stripper shoes. She did not wear her sexuality so blatantly on her feet. She just didn’t.
“How about these?”
They were flats, a big improvement, but they were bedazzled. “I am going to look ridiculous if I wear those. Everyone will be staring at me.”
“So?”
“So the point is to blend in, not to stand out. We’re vampires already, with odd habits. If we draw attention to ourselves, we’re at risk.”
Johnny scoffed at her and pulled out a pair of boots that had a mouth painted on the front. “That’s ridiculous.”
“I don’t want to argue with you about this again. That is how I feel.” And she was right.
“What do you think is going to happen?”
“I could be killed! I don’t want to die!” What was difficult for him to comprehend about what she was saying? Lizette grabbed the boots out of his hands and tossed them back in the closet.
“Well, I want to live,” he told her emphatically. “What’s the point of being here if we have to be afraid of our own shadow? I’d rather die than live forever as a pale, boring, zero-fun version of myself slinking around in the dark.”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” she insisted, though she had to admit, there was something about his statement that stung. She lashed out at him, unwilling to admit he could be right. “And I was never fun!”
Wait a minute. That wasn’t what she’d meant to say.
What she meant was that she had seen horrible things done to first her parents, then Jean-Baptiste, and it had changed her forever. She wasn’t carefree, and that wasn’t a crime. There was nothing wrong with exercising caution.
So why did she suddenly feel so terrible?
Lizette lifted her right hand and eyed the handcuffs. “We should try to get these off now.”