More silence throbbed.
Her pulse pounded in her ears as she crept closer to the slatted door. Slipping her fingers around the edge, she whipped it open, half expecting the women to charge out, guns blazing while shouting orders for her to stay where they could see her. Which was, her rational mind told her, ridiculous. Three grown women and a pale man-child couldn’t all fit in the one changing room.
Yet there was nothing but a small whoosh of air, undoubtedly peculiar in a tiny room with no vent or window, but not nearly as bizarre as those women disappearing.
Her eyes caught sight of the soft beige-and-melon scarf on the floor the woman Wanda had been wearing when she’d entered the store.
Toni knelt down to scoop it up and the entire space shifted, tipping her completely upside down. Her head smacked against the carpeted floor just as weightlessness occurred, leaving her falling fast and furious.
Fear set in with a rapid jolt, her brain reeling as she clawed at nothing but black air. Her eyes watered from the vacuum-like effect of the swirling, downward slide her body had been forced to take.
She clenched her eyes shut and swallowed back bile just before she crash-landed onto what felt like…
Toni let her hand move with caution over whatever was beneath her.
Was that a hand? An arm? A person?
A person?
Aw, hellfire.
Just as she rolled away, her stomach pitching and her head throbbing, Toni heard, “Are you fucking kidding me? This is a fine, fine mess, you two crazyfaces. Look what the hell’s happened now! Christ and a GD road trip, Marty! You and all this bullshit girls’-day-out baloney. How many flippin’ times have I told you, I don’t need to damn well shop with you two to bond? In fact, I don’t need to bond at all. I’d rather have my skin peeled off at high noon and have vinegar poured on my seeping wounds on a hot July day under a Texas sun than bond. But no. Nah. No one ever listens to the vampire. ‘Oh, she loves us and she knows she does’.” The gruff, husky voice rose an octave, clearly mocking one of the women’s words. “‘She doesn’t mean it when she says that because we’re BFFs and that’s what stupid-ass BFFs do!’ Well. I’m here to tell you, ass-sniffer, the fuck I like to shop! The fuck I want to bond over some lip gloss I’ll never wear and hair gel I want to squirt down your throat until those stupid doe eyes of yours swim like little fishies!”
“Nina!” one of the women yelped.
“Don’t you damn well ‘Nina’ me. I have on a gown, Wanda Schwartz-effin’-Jefferson. A yellow flippin’ gown. Yell-the-fuck-oh. And wings. I have wings. Hear that?” she asked as a tiny flapping noise flew to Toni’s ears. “Those are my motherfluffin’ wings! Why do I have wings, Wanda? And why is my hair the size of the Eiffel Tower and as stiff as a ten-day-old corpse? What in the ever-lovin’ fuck is going on?”
“Nina!” yet another vaguely familiar voice from the store chastised. “When, I ask you, when has all your carrying on ever helped in a situation like this? Now come over here and give me a yank up because in case you haven’t noticed, Mouth, I have a gown and wings, too! Everything isn’t all about you, Selfish Pants. Now, my gown’s stuck in something sticky that rather smells of cotton candy and horse puckey. Help me up and shut up!”
Her gown? That made it plural gowns.
Toni’s brain told her to open her eyes and explore, but whatever, in Nina’s words, GD fine, fine fucking mess these women from the store had gotten into, she was clearly into it, too. And whatever the mess was, it sure didn’t sound good. Or feel good, judging from the lumpy pile of whatever was beneath her.
“Holy just-like-Disneyland,” one of the women whispered before she whistled.
Disneyland?
Aw, c’mon, Toni. You gotta open your eyes, you big ol’ wimp. It’s Disneyland! When have you ever closed your eyes? You didn’t even close them when Stas had his hand around your throat while he used you like a punching bag at the gym and the barrel of his gun was stuffed clear up in the roof of your mouth. Man up, pantywaist.
She forced her eyes open. Then they opened wider.
And her mouth quickly followed their lead as her jaw dropped and her brain buzzed to life.
Toni rubbed her sockets with her knuckles and reopened her eyes. Just in case she’d been drugged—or was hallucinating due to her recent sleepless nights.
Naturally, it changed nothing.
But she tried again just for good measure, giving her eyeballs one last good scrub with her fist. Forcing them open one more time, she took a good, hard look around.
Yeah. She could see the Disneyland reference making sense.