But I can’t turn back now. Because if I can just make it upstairs to street level, maybe there’ll be people there who can help. He can’t have frozen all of Los Angeles.
I careen around a corner and make a mad dash for the escalator, leaping the moving stairs two at a time. My chest burns with every gulp for air, adrenaline pushing me forward like an Olympic sprinter. Hollywood Boulevard comes into view. I jump onto the street and blindly hang a right. That’s when I spot them: people. Moving, living, unfrozen people, milling around outside the Hard Rock Cafe. Sure, the women wear miniskirts and six-inch heels and the men sport shirts unbuttoned to reveal waxed chests, but they’re people. They can help me. My heart pounds so hard I think it might break free and make a run for it if my pesky rib cage weren’t getting in the way.
I run toward them. “Help! Help me!”
Heads spin in my direction, and I notice their eyes: red, burning, demented. As if on cue, they surge toward me like zombies in some cheap horror film, shrieking and frothing at the mouth, flailing their arms in their desperation to reach me. Behind them is Frederick, leaning against the huge windows of the bar, casually pushing back his cuticles.
I stumble backward and run. I run past the Dolby Theatre. Past a Starbucks. Past a knockoff Madame Tussauds wax museum. I run so hard and fast over the stars of Hollywood Boulevard that sweat breaks out in beads on my lip, and my chest burns, and my muscles ache with lactic acid buildup.
The tip of my shoe catches in a crack in the pavement, and I pitch forward. I hold my hands out against my fall, thudding hard against the ground. Shrieks and moans and the clacking of heels draw nearer. I push myself up, gravel stinging my palms, and run for my life. Exhaustion weights my every step, but I don’t dare stop, don’t dare slow my frantic pace. And just when I think I can’t possibly make my legs move anymore, that I’m going to have to find somewhere to hide until I regain energy, I realize that the sounds of pursuit have stopped. I slow to a jog and wheel around. No one is there.
Relief floods me. I did it!
“Spot of tea?”
I yelp and spin around. Frederick is seated at an outdoor bistro table across the street.
Shit, crap, shit.
I dart down the street, across four lanes of halted traffic. Around a car with a driver paused in the action of applying her lipstick in the rearview mirror. Around a black Escalade that must hold a celebrity, based on the sheer number of people pointing cameras outside their car windows at it. I veer onto Las Palmas, careful to stay in the light so that Frederick can’t jump out at me from any more dark corners.
A streetlamp crashes down inches from my face, inches from flattening me. It hammers the earth so hard I jump three feet into the air. A firework of sparks rain down from the exposed cables.
“Just break the spell, Indigo. It’s that easy.” I look up. Frederick sits on a window ledge five stories above me, swinging his legs like a kid in a too-big chair.
I whirl around and bolt in the only direction left: a dark, narrow alley.
One hand on the cool wall and the other clawing the air in front of me, I move into the dark. Moonlight fractures a patch of graffitied stucco and the overflowing Dumpster beneath it, and absolutely nothing else. The reek of garbage and sweat clogging my nostrils would be enough to make me gag if I didn’t have other reasons to want to puke, and a steady, syrupy drip sounds from somewhere just ahead. I slow my steps, despite everything, for fear of what I might smack into in the dark.
Footsteps thud on the pavement behind me, echoing against the walls. My mouth turns dry and parched. What does Frederick have in store for me this time? Rabid dogs? Buildings collapsing onto me, burying me under a ton of brick? I sob, because I know I can’t keep running forever. It’s pointless. This ends when he wants it to end.
Steeling myself with a big breath, I turn to face Frederick. “I’m ready.”
“really, now? And what on earth changed your mind?” He laughs, his sharp nose and open mouth backlit by the streetlights.
I swallow the cry of fear bubbling up inside me. “I-if you take me to the book, I’ll break the spell.”
He stops laughing now and tips his head to the side, as if to judge whether I’m serious. And then he disappears—vanishes before my very eyes.
Before I can even whirl around to look for him, his breath warms my neck as he leans over my shoulder. I scream, but the sound is muffled when his long, cold fingers clamp around my neck.
19