Charlotte After Dark

Chapter 11: Rules Were Meant To Be Broken

"What? No," I protested. "Cormac said-"

"Cormac isn't here, is he?" Audra interrupted me.

I paused. "Well, not technically," I admitted. "But there is the fact that my face has been plastered all over every news station in the city."

"Do you even know how many people there are in the city of Philadelphia?" Audra asked, dragging me to a nearby hallway closet. "No one will even notice you."

She threw the door open, looking through the stock of jackets the closet held with a fervent flourish. I could hear her disagreements as she perused through the endless closet, finally settling on a khaki hooded trench coat. She threw it over me in a fanfare, carefully arranging the hood over my head.

"It's a shame we have to hide this," she said, grabbing my chin and examining me. "It's my best work yet."

She opened the door, beckoning me to follow her as she headed to the elevators down the hall. I looked down at the threshold as I cautiously stepped out of the doorway; I felt like I was being released from prison after a life sentence.

"Come on, Charlotte. I don't have all night," Audra bellowed from the end of the hallway as she scrutinized her flawless fingernails.

I decided to give my speed a try as I attempted to glide gracefully to the elevators. Instead, I sped right into the wall, knocking what was probably a very expensive painting to the ground.

"Try not to do that in front of the Mundane. They tend to lose their composure when they see something like that," she warned me, looking up from her nails.

I heard Audra laugh as I corrected myself and looked in front of me. There were tiny cracks in the wall where my hands had desperately connected in an effort to slow myself down. I guess it worked.

"Don't worry about that, they're used to it here," Audra said. "I hear the werewolves down a few floors once forced them to evacuate everyone on the floors above them because of structural damage."

"Werewolves?" I asked inquisitively.

Audra didn't respond to me as the elevator doors swung open. She slinked into the elevator and leaned against the far wall, placing both her arms on the gold rails seductively.

"Well, are you coming?" She asked.

I stepped into the elevator and breathed a sigh of relief. Since arriving at the high-rise, this is the farthest I had ever gone. It felt liberating. The elevator moved quickly as we breezed through the almost unending floors of the building but I no longer felt the unusual feeling of my stomach falling as the elevator descended. Instead, I felt perfectly balanced and still. Even as we finally reached the bottom floor, I didn't feel myself lurch at the sudden stop. Instead, we glided out without even batting an eyelash.

Audra was greeted pleasantly by all of the staff. I could tell they were all Mundane--the wafting smell of something delicious was so much different than up on the top floor. I could almost feel myself salivating. As if she already knew, Audra grabbed my wrist tightly.

"Keep your composure," she whispered in my ear. "It only gets harder once we walk out those doors and onto the street."

I tried to drown out the overwhelming smell as we approached the large glass doors at the front of the reception area. A stout man in a pressed navy suit smiled at Audra.

"Have a wonderful evening, Miss Novak," he said as he swung the door open.

"Oh, I will," she assured him before we finally passed through the doors. The sight and smell of the city hit me like a punch to the stomach and suddenly it was like a whole other world than watching it from atop the building. I looked up to the sky and was amazed by what I saw.