Chapter 7 Seven

She heard the roar of motor bike and peeked out the front window thinking that Raiden had turned back, but it was Brock returning Paris to get ready for work.Lia headed to the shower before Paris finished kissing Brock goodbye in order to beat her to the hot water.She showered quickly anyway, to leave enough for Paris, and dressed in her black underwear, stockings, and garter belt in order to do her hair and make-up.

Paris let herself in to the bedroom and whistled."Looking sexy, Lia.So, word on the grapevine is that you spent the day with a certain somebody."

Lia watched her blush crawl up her chest and neck before disappearing beneath her foundation.She shrugged and returned to applying her eyeliner."You passed him on the road and that is how you know."

"Yeah," Paris' grin was wicked."Doesn't change the fact that Raiden was spotted leaving our house."

"I didn't know that he lived so close.My run takes me right past the house he is renovating.We bumped into each other."

"Fated," Paris dumped her make-up case on the counter and started her own transformation.

"He has invited me to a family barbecue tomorrow," Lia added."Isn't that like… a bit soon?"

"Not for them," Paris replied confidently."Brock took me to one the day after he met me.He wanted me to move in with him after three days and asks me daily."

"Really?" Lia looked at her in the mirror."And you haven't said yes?"

She shrugged."I have got a good deal here with my bestie, and it would mean you would have to find another housemate to help with costs.Plus, moving in with Brock…" She paused whilst she applied eye-shadow."I get the sense that it is going to be a quick path from moving in, to married with babies, which means giving up my dreams of dancing.I am just not sure I am ready to do that yet."

"I thought the plan was to marry a rich man, to finance dancing."

"Yeah, I know.But Brock's a family man.They all seem to be, you will understand when you go to the barbecue.Brock says things," she heaved a sigh."So romantic, really.Like I am his, his perfect person, the other half of him, his mate, and wants me to go look at houses with him… I am twenty," she waved the mascara brush that she held."I want to dance and f-k, not plan how many bedrooms we need by how many kids we plan to have."

"You could be fifty, and I think you will still be wanting to dance and f-k," Lia observed with a laugh.

"Yeah," Paris laughed back."Probably.So," she leaned her hip against the counter and turned Lia, taking the blusher from her and applying it with expert strokes."Did you finally do the deed?"

"No." Lia was tempted to leave it there, but it was Paris."We did… other things."

"Oh?" Paris' eyes lit."Pray, do tell!"

Lia turned back to the mirror and took the magnetic lashes out of their case using the tweezers and carefully applied them."Well, you know, we used our hands… and then, we had a nap together, and when we woke, we sort of," she wasn't sure she had the terminology for it and gestured with her hand."On the outside.He was…" She shrugged awkwardly."Really sweet.Didn't pressure me into things."

Paris snickered."Oh, he is so gone."

"What do you mean?" Lia brushed her hair up into a high ponytail.

"Oh, Lia, the man is head over heels for you.He has gone back to dry humping for you."

"Is that what it is called?" Lia wondered.

"It is what they called it when I was sixteen and dry humping."

"Hmm," Lia flicked her eyes to Paris.There was a criticism in Paris' comment, a gentle and amused criticism, but it was there."I am just not… I haven't met the right person.I have just been waiting for the right person."

"Until now," Paris prompted.

"Maybe," Lia conceded.When Paris jerked her eyebrows up, she sighed."Alright.A very strong maybe."

Lia pulled a t-shirt dress over the underwear, and a coat over top, thinking that she looked like exactly like a stripper-gram, her dress hidden by her coat, and the fishnet stockings and black high heels on full display.She looked at herself in the mirror and sighed.She needed the money, she told herself.

They hurried out into the night, making sure to leave the porch light on and lock the door behind them.It had rained whilst they had showered, the night bringing in a cool change again, and they had to pick their way around the puddles.

"The bus!" Lia could see it's yellow roof over the cars as it turned the corner onto the street.They ran, giggling and breathless to the bus stop, arriving just as it pulled up with a blast of metallic air from its radiator.

"Close one," the driver, Larry, commented as they scanned their cards.Larry was a regular on the route and knew them well.He bought tickets for his granddaughters to the performances put of by the ballet academy that Lia and Paris attended whenever he could get them, and Lia had snuck them entry to backstage and the change rooms during the intermission of the last performance, much to his granddaughter's awe and amazement."I would have stopped for you, though."

Paris blew him a kiss.

Lia eased her way between people holding on to the straps, until there was a space near the back doors.She and Paris clung to a pole as the bus lurched into motion ignoring the interest of a group of young men on their way to a good night out, the male laughter and cat calls filling the chamber of the bus with sound and causing other passengers to look up from their phones or books and shift uncomfortably, recognizing the tone of those voices as young men looking to stir up trouble.

Rain streaked across the windows, making Lia glad to be inside the bus despite the overtures of the half-drunk men.

"You would think," Paris said, "they would get the hint."

When they failed to draw them, the men created a V with their fingers and stuck their tongues in the space created, causing the others to laugh, and thrust their hips in their direction.

"D-kheads," Paris muttered under her breath, pretending she was not threatened by the men's carry-on.

Lia drew her power."Blactero," she murmured and sent it over to them.

The loudest of the group, gripping a pole and mocking w-king off in their direction, paused suddenly."Baa." He looked startled as the sound exploded from him.

His friends burst into laughter, until their laughter turned into baa's.

"Baa?" One of them said to another, looking alarmed.

"Ba-aah."

They had attracted the attention of the other passengers, who snorted with laughter.

"Bahaha," one of the guys said seriously.

Paris' almost spat her chewing gum."Oh my god," she said over her shoulder."You guys are hilarious."

"Baa!"

The bus pulled up at their stop and Paris and Lia stood.

"Finis," Lia said, drawing the power back.She paused on the bus step."Baaa." She wiggled her fingers in a wave and stepped off, leaving them, bewildered, behind.

"That was just… so weird," Paris giggled."Whatever drugs they are on, I want some." She threaded her arm through Lia's.

Their breath blew out like steam as they hurried through the busy city center, indistinguishable from all the other young women doing likewise on their way to meet their friends at clubs, ducking their heads into their collars in an effort to stop the mist of the rain from melting their make-up.

"I will be happy when the weather brightens," Paris continued."This rain is ridiculous."

"Mmm," Lia agreed, her mind already on the club and seeing Raiden again.

There were two women, now, huddled into their scarves and jackets, standing in the circle of illumination shed by the streetlight, doggedly handing out flyers despite their obvious discomfort and awareness of the dangers of standing on a street in the nightclub area in the night, and subject to the scrutiny and derision of passers-by drunk and emboldened by being surrounded by intoxicated friends hyped up by hormones.

"Please," they entreated the passers-by, trying to see past the drunken rowdiness to the other mothers' sons that they were."Young women are going missing in this area of town.This is my daughter Charlotte.She is just twenty-one, your age.She is a dancer, a good girl, with a position with a company next year.She would not just run away - something has happened to her.We have not seen her in a month.We love and miss her.Please."

Moved by their grieved pleas, and by the similarity between the girls and herself, Lia paused and took both flyers."I already have this one," she handed that one back."But I will take the other.I wish you luck."

"Thank you," the women looked at them with gratitude out of proportion with the small acceptance."Be careful.Our daughters were just like you.They never came home."

Paris told them."We work here."

"Be careful."

The women's warnings nipped at their heels, and they picked up their pace as they turned down the alleyway towards the back entrance to the club, the shadows seeming to leer out at them and hide menacing secrets.

"I don't know about you," Paris' teeth chattered as she spoke."But I am seriously weirded out by that."

"I know," Lia agreed."They are so close to our age.They could be us." There was no one to look for her, however.She had no mother, no grandmother to miss her coming home.No father or brother to search the streets for her.No sister to call after her.Just Paris.

She clung closer to her friend as they approached the door, seeking reassurance from her friend.

Would Raiden search for her? She wondered.What there was between them… It was not ordinary.It was something to do with the Other world, his Other and her magic combining into something not of human-kind's world.She was not entirely sure of what it was, but it felt good to be with him, it felt right.She had to believe that it felt the same way for him.