The Demon's Song - By Kendra Leigh Castle Page 0,4

little, wishing it could be that easy to clear away the lingering cloud of lust she’d stumbled into, and turned to the petite blonde looking nervously around them.

“Would you stop looking so guilty, Amy?” Sofia muttered. “If we were going to get busted, it would have happened by now.”

“I know, I know, I just... The vibe in here is a little weird, don’t you think?”

Sofia glanced at some of the people they passed as they moved deeper into the room that functioned as a swanky cocktail lounge and silently agreed. She’d expected the place to be full of beautiful people. Amphora was the opposite of a dive bar. Still, there was something almost creepy about how perfect some of these people were. Pale and young and gorgeous, with eyes that glittered strangely in the dim light provided by the modern-looking sconces lining the walls. She fought off a shudder and kept moving. She and Amy had come here for one reason only, and it wasn’t to see and be seen with DC’s most fabulous.

If it had been, they wouldn’t have taken the risk of sneaking in through the kitchen, a ploy that had only succeeded because their roommate worked here. Whenever they’d gotten a strange look, they’d just giggled, acted completely clueless, and asked where Sara Morgan was since she’d asked them to bring her forgotten wallet from home.

So far, it seemed that they were in without trouble. But no one had known where Sara was—at least, not that they would say, despite the fact that Sara always worked weekends—and that was a problem.

That was, in fact, why they were here. Operation Rescue the Roommate.

Sofia just wished she had a better idea of what they were rescuing her from. And whether Sara would even allow it.

“I thought you said you found her. Where is she?” Sofia asked. Amy rocked up on her tiptoes and craned her neck.

“I swear to you, I caught a glimpse of her just a few minutes ago. She’s in here.” Amy gave her a dark look. “And she sure didn’t look like she was working.”

Sofia felt a measure of relief at that. The three of them had been friends through college, then roommates, and even though Sara had been pulling away for a while, Sofia still cared what happened to her. First had come the job at Amphora, cocktail waitressing while Sara kept hunting for a full-time job at a law firm. That was fine. But then had come the stranger and stranger hours, the phone calls Sara didn’t want to talk about, and just lately, the long stretches of days away from the apartment with nothing but short phone messages left when she knew the other two wouldn’t be around to answer.

Sofia was worried...and so was Sara’s mother, judging by the number of calls from Mrs. Morgan she’d been fielding.

Amy felt the same. So here they were. It wasn’t ideal, busting in and ambushing Sara like this, but where else were they supposed to try to talk some sense into her when she’d basically broken off contact?

“Great. Maybe we can drag her into a broom closet and read her the riot act,” Sofia said, suddenly uncertain about all of this. What if Sara just told them off? That was a distinct possibility. It wasn’t until just now that Sofia realized the deeper, darker reason she’d felt compelled to come here tonight.

She’d begun to worry that Sara hadn’t returned home because she couldn’t. Because something bad had happened.

Anger was fast on the heels of Sofia’s relief. Sara was here having a good time? Great. Nice of her to let them all know she was alive and well. They’d been friends for what, six years now? And this was what they got?

Sofia looked behind her and caught a glimpse of a familiar head of brown hair streaked with red heading out the doorway they’d just come in through.

“Damn it,” Sofia said, spinning on one spindly heel and dragging Amy back in the other direction. “There she goes. And you’re right, she’s not in her work clothes. She’s with some guy.”

One of the preternaturally gorgeous, unusually pale guys, to be exact. Nerves pooled in the pit of Sofia’s stomach. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off here. The brief glimpse of Sara’s face had shown her friend laughing, but also looking almost feverish, her eyes glassy, two bright points of red riding high on pale cheeks.

“She looks weird,” Sofia told Amy, who stumbled as she tried