Die for Me

I hesitated, and then forced myself to respond to the last text: Where?

She wrote me back immediately:

Meet you after school.

At four o’clock, Georgia was waiting for me at the gate wearing an expression of sheer amazement. “No way, Katie-Bean . . . you’re really coming out with me tonight?”

“Depends,” I said blithely, trying not to sound as desperate as I felt. “Where are you going?”

“There’s a dance party at this underground club. The owner’s a very good friend of mine.” She flashed me a sly smile. My sister, the incorrigible flirt. “Seriously, it’s a really cool place, in this labyrinth of old wine cellars that runs under a couple of buildings near Oberkampf. It’s always packed with musicians and artists; you’ll love it.”

Although my heart wasn’t into clubbing, this was my only offer for the weekend. Actually, for the month, if I was being realistic. “I’m in,” I said. “What time are you going?”

“Around nine.”

We took the bus into town, and then changed to the Métro. Once on our street I told Georgia, “I don’t feel like going home yet. I think I’ll wander. Don’t leave without me.”

“I’ll pick your outfit,” she said, smiling, and headed up our street. I turned in the other direction and made my way past the busy boulevard Saint-Germain to drift through the small winding streets crisscrossing the area next to the river.

On a busy corner stood a café with a large terrace where my grandmother took me as a child for the delicious tarte tatin, a baked apple tart served upside down with a caramelized glaze. The café was called La Palette, as in an artist’s palette, its name dating back to when it was a hangout for local painters and sculptors. It was too far from home to have chosen as my local café, but totally worth the occasional visit.

A frigid wind gusted through the streets, and the normally teeming terrace was almost deserted. I pushed my way through the front door into the warm, delicious-smelling café. A waiter caught my eye and gestured toward an empty table tucked into an almost hidden niche behind the front door. Perfect. Anonymity was exactly what I wanted today.

I sat down, stowed my book bag under the table, and began to check out the café’s clientele as I waited for the waiter to return. A group of students rowdily chatting in one corner. Several tables of businesspeople with drinks set atop their documents. A striking-looking woman in her late twenties sitting by herself.

I focused on the last of these. Thick blond, almost white, hair flowed down her shoulders, and her high cheekbones and light blue eyes made her look vaguely Scandinavian.

A man with his back to me approached her from the café’s bar. He sat down in front of her, picked up the coffee cup sitting across from hers, and drained the dregs with one quick motion. Then he reached across to hold her hand, which was lying delicately on the tabletop.

He said something to her, and her gaze dropped from him to the table. I saw a tear run down her lovely cheek, and the man’s hand rose automatically to brush it away. He smoothed a loose lock of her platinum hair back behind her ear in a motion that I recognized.

And with a sudden realization, my heart stopped. As an icy chill overtook me, I grabbed for my bag and knocked the glass salt shaker to the floor, where it shattered loudly. The woman’s eyes flew to me as she said something to her companion.

He turned in my direction, and then froze with a look of devastation marring his handsome face. My instincts had not been wrong. It was Vincent.

Just then the waiter materialized in front of me, holding a broom and a dustpan. “Sorry,” I managed to blurt as I grabbed my coat from the chair and pushed by him to stumble out of the café.

I ran all the way home, my face so numb it felt like it had been shot full of Novocain. I left him, I reminded myself, not the other way around. Why shouldn’t he have found someone else?

The thought came to me that he might have lied about not being in love with anyone since his childhood romance. He might have been with the gorgeous blonde the whole time. My shattered heart told me that was wrong, though. Vincent wouldn’t lie to me. And neither would Charlotte, when she said I was the first girl Vincent had fallen for since becoming a revenant.

Unfortunately, conceding that he was free of blame, and that I was the one who had walked away, didn’t make the pain in my chest hurt any less.

When I got home, I went straight to Georgia’s room and threw the door open without knocking. “Let’s go,” I said breathlessly. She smiled and held up a short, lacy dress.

Chapter Twenty-Four

AROUND NINE WE LEFT THE HOUSE AND CLIMBED into a car waiting outside. I squeezed into the backseat with two girls I recognized from school, while Georgia leaped into the passenger seat and gave a handsome guy I’d never seen a peck on the lips.

I knew that this was Georgia’s way of saying hello to boys she liked, so decided to ask for details later. She made introductions. “Lawrence—British; Mags—Irish; Ida—Swedish; this is my sister, Kate, who is in desperate need of a good night out. If she goes home bored, I will hold you all personally responsible.” She cranked up the radio, Lawrence steered the car toward the river, and we were off.

The bar was in a slightly rough neighborhood on the east side of Paris, an area popular with artists, models, and musicians who hadn’t yet made it to the big time. Several trendy bars had popped up there in the last few years, and the sidewalks were crowded with small clusters of ultra-hip people, shivering in the cold as they smoked outside.

We stopped in front of a building in an alley that seemed to quake from the pounding beat of the music inside. A huge bouncer stood at the door, wearing only jeans and a white tank top stretched tightly across his impressive chest muscles. Lawrence yelled something over the blaring music, and the man cracked the door open to let us in.

The space was as big as a ballroom, but only about eight feet high. A DJ booth stood to one side, with a long fluorescently lit bar ru

“Drinks!” shouted Georgia, and we headed toward the bar. In a buttery British accent, Lawrence asked me what I wanted, and got both of us a Coke. “Designated driver,” he said, winking at me and smiling. We clinked our glasses together in a toast, and then turned to lean back on the bar.

“So are you and Georgia . . . ?” I asked Lawrence, letting him fill in the blank.

“Nope,” he responded, his smile creasing his cheeks with dimples. “I like guys.”

“Got it,” I said, sipping on my straw, and we turned back to scoping out the room.

I never failed to marvel at Georgia’s impeccable talent for finding the newest, hottest places to hang out. Beautiful people danced in the middle of the floor, while others mingled at the edges, shoulders slumped in ski

My sister stood a few feet away from me, kissing a model-looking guy on the cheeks, when I saw a rugged figure walking slowly but steadily across the room in our direction. People clapped him on the back as he made his way through the crowd.