His mouth came down on mine and a nuclear explosion went off in my belly, incinerating every butterfly in sight and leaving mass destruction in its wake. His touch had such an effect on me that when his mouth parted from mine, I felt like I’d just survived the fallout of that blast he’d set off in me, weathered years in an apocalypse where I’d fought zombies and become the queen of a savage land.
His hand dropped to take mine, his fingers threading between my own and he turned, tugging me after him while I raised my chin and walked beside him. We climbed down a little stairway out of the plane and a warm desert wind caressed my cheeks, the dry air so different to the wet stuff I was used to.
A fancy black car was waiting for us and a man in a suit stood there, nodding to Niall before opening the back door and ushering us inside. We dropped into the back of it while the man got in the car and drove off across the airfield, not saying a single word while Niall released my hand and placed it on my knee instead.
“This is the right thing to do,” he murmured to himself and I looked to him for an explanation, but he just turned his head and gazed out the window thoughtfully. “Jesus, would ya look at the size of that palm tree over there?” he gasped. “That’s got to be the size of two palm trees sitting one on top of the other.”
“At least,” I agreed.
We were soon driving along the strip I’d seen from the sky and every building blew my mind as I gazed out at them. There must have been a bazillion light bulbs to make this place so shiny and I stared at the people on the sidewalks either side of us, hunting their eyes for that same light. There was such a mixture of misery and joy rolling through their expressions, I couldn’t tell if this place was hell or heaven.
There were girls in bikinis with big feathers pluming from their butts while men gawped at them and their wives pulled on their arms to keep them away. Tourists weaved among the crowd in Las Vegas shirts and hats, people dressed up for their nights out on the town, and people who didn’t have any shoes or teeth. It was a clash of rich and poor and everything in between, all of them milling along together, so many people even though it was late at night, everyone looked wide awake and ready to find out what Vegas had to offer them. I could feel the energy in the air, the excitement over the world opening up again in the wake of the Hades Virus. I could feel the promise of money against my palm and the sense of it already slipping from my fingers too. Everyone here was rolling the dice, praying their number came up and I wanted to roll one as well and find out if fate was in my favour tonight.
“Can we go there?” I pointed into a casino. “No – there!” I spotted a man dressed as a shirtless Roman soldier. “Actually, there,” I changed my mind as another wonder caught my eye. “No, no, I wanna go in there!” I tapped on the window, pointing to every building we passed, each one begging me to come explore it. When the Eiffel Tower whizzed by, I pouted at Niall, folding my arms. “Where are we going? It better be better than – oh my God, look at those fountains!” I scrambled over Niall’s lap, squashing my face to the window to see the huge sprays of water shooting towards the sky, the water lit up in an incredible display as Viva Las Vegas by Elvis Presley played through speakers all around it. “Stop the car, driver man,” I begged.
“Don’t stop,” Niall barked and I looked to him with my biggest eyes, a whimper leaving my throat. Niall pushed me back into my seat, shaking his head at me.
“We’ve got somewhere to be, Spider,” he said firmly and my pout deepened as I huffed. “I’ll take ya to see the fountains after.”
“After what?” I narrowed my eyes at him.
“It’s a surprise.”
“What kind of surprise? The kind where a ghoul jumps out at me from behind a bush or the kind where a seagull swoops down and steals my ice cream cone?”
“A less spooky surprise,” he clarified.
“Will I like it?” I asked hopefully and he frowned.
“I’m not sure,” he said, flexing his fingers against his knee. “Ya might, or ya might not. Either way, it’s happening.”
“Oh,” I breathed, chewing on my lip as I tried to figure out what it could be. A kitten in a boot? A whole bunch of evil guys for me to slice up? A new hat with spangles on it?
It drove me crazy as we headed off of the main strip while Niall took out his phone and started tapping on buttons, frowning in concentration as he filled out what looked like some kind of form. Maybe it was a waiver form for the skydive we were about to do. Yeah, I’d bet it was that. I’d always wanted to jump out of a plane with a parachute on my back, my life in the hands of a wiggly little cord that I needed to try and get hold of and pull in time before I went splat.
We eventually pulled up outside the most boring building I’d ever seen in all my life. And I’d just seen some of the most exciting buildings in the world, so it seemed extra dull.
“What is this?” I huffed as Niall got out of the car and pulled me after him.
He dragged me inside and towed me into a line inside what seemed to be some official government building. It was bor to the ing. And I couldn’t see a single fun thing in sight. There were a few couples ahead of us in the queue and one woman was wearing a flouncy white dress and a tiara.
I rounded on Niall, shoving him in the chest. “What is this? You’ve taken me through the heart of funsville only to divert me to boring town. Why would you do this to me, Hellfire, why?”
“We need to register for the fun before we can do the fun,” Niall explained and I relaxed, relieved at that.
“Ohhh, that makes sense,” I said. “Do they need to measure us before we get on the helicopter? Is that how they fit us for the parachute?”
I looked around for the stairway that must have led up to the roof. I spotted a door where a man in a uniform was standing and I gave him a wink. It was definitely that way. He must have been the pilot, ready to take us for our sky dive.
It wasn’t long before we reached the front of the line, mostly because Niall took my hand and towed me to the front of it, arching a brow at the couple who had been due to go next and smiling like a demon when the guy bowed his head and let us go in front of them. That was darn nice of him. We were ushered over to a woman behind a window who looked like a prune and an orange had given birth to her.
“I filled out the form online.” Niall pushed his phone under the slot to the woman and she checked it before tapping something on her computer. I got bored as Niall started talking to her about some stuff and I looked around and stared at the drunk couple who were making out at the booth next to ours while the attendant tried to get their attention.
Niall took my hand and I realised there was a form waiting for me as he a slid a pen between my fingers. “Sign here, love.”
I did so, making my signature into a big, fancy thing with frills and two big hearts instead of the Os. I drew a little man being stabbed in the chest too, but when I tried to add some blood, Niall pulled it away from me and slid it back under the slot to the woman.
She did a stampy thing and signed it herself then handed it back to Niall and he snatched it, dragging me away out of the building and back into the car.
“Wait – what about the sky dive?” I begged, looking back at the building forlornly.
“We can do one later, Spider,” Niall said, folding up the piece of paper and sliding it into his pocket.
He leaned forward, murmuring something to the driver and we took off down the road while I tapped my feet impatiently.
“Where’s the surprise, Hellfire?” I demanded. “Where is it?!”
Niall didn’t answer, his jaw flexing and making me grow impatient as I threw myself back in my seat with a growl.
“This is the most boring trip I’ve ever, ever been on,” I said, but Niall didn’t rise to my baiting.
We returned to the glittery part of the city again, sailing all the way along and I sat up straighter in my seat, hope bouncing through my chest as I spotted an enormous freaking castle ahead of us.
“Just drop us off here, fella,” Niall growled.