toward the elevator. She had almost balled up the strip of paper and tested her aim by tossing it the long distance to the incinerator pail, when scratches of handwritten text caught her eye.
Salmon Springs Fountain. 4:30.
—Your Neighborhood Mohawked Moleman
Elodie squealed a high-pitched bleat of excitement. She clapped her hands over her mouth. This is exactly what Astrid had mentioned.
Would you want to talk to him again in real life?
Elodie had never answered the question; instead, she’d just reported on her horrible gun-filled non-date date with Rhett. She hadn’t thought there was a reason to say anything about Mr. Mohawk, er, the Mohawked Moleman. When would she actually ever see him again?
Today. The word chimed between her ears. Four thirty. Salmon Springs Fountain.
Elodie placed the strip of paper on her textbook.
What would Vi do?
Elodie worried the edges of the folded note. No one had ever written her a note. Not a real one, using a pen and paper, that is. Actually, now that she thought about it, she couldn’t remember anyone who had written anything down on paper ever. That’s what Holly was for, and holopads, and, well, computers in general.
She flipped up the hood of her rain jacket and activated her Violet Shield as she passed through the automatic sets of glass doors of the downtown MediCenter building and onto the rain-slicked brick sidewalk.
The corners of the paper were furry beneath her fingers as she smoothed them over again and again. It wasn’t technically an invitation, but who went around telling people where they were going to be for no reason at all? Then again, who wrote a note and taped it to a bot? It was like something out of Death by Violet—except for the bot, of course.
Rain fell in fat droplets and lapped against her boots as she splashed through shallow puddles on the five-block walk to Waterfront Park. She slipped the note into her jacket pocket and balled her hands within the sleeves. She wasn’t doing anything wrong. Elodie knew that for a fact. But if she wasn’t breaking any rules, why did she feel so … quaky?
Elodie shook her head. She’d never make it to the fountain if she continued down that path. Plus, there would be plenty of time to assess where her current bout of anxiety had come from as soon as she was home.
Across the street, the stretch of grass that bordered the walkway along the river’s edge sparkled vibrant green through the steady rainfall.
Okay. She was nearly there. She hadn’t stopped or convinced herself to go on home. For all the losses she’d acquired at work that morning, she was finally winning at something.
Well, almost. She still needed to cross the street. And all sorts of things happened to pedestrians. None that she could actually recall, but that didn’t mean getting flattened by the MAX or run over by a rogue Pearl wasn’t a thing.
She chewed on the corner of her nail and searched the concrete benches that surrounded Salmon Springs Fountain as she waited along with a handful of other Violet Shielded pedestrians to cross the two-lane street.
There he was, mohawk and all, casually leaning against a tree, a lightweight jacket over a tight T-shirt, no violet orb around him, without a care in the world. Like he’d somehow been able to transfer all of his emotions to her. That would explain the terrible clenching in her chest and stomach.
He pushed himself away from the tree and waved.
The pedestrian light flashed white, and Elodie suddenly had no idea what to do with her arms or her face. At least her legs were busy carrying her forward, although she’d forgotten how to walk normally, and skipped over to him. Her insides knotted, and she wished she had her backpack to hide behind. She’d left it in her locker in case they were going to go do something.
But why had she assumed they’d go do anything? What if he was trying to return something she’d dropped when they’d met, both the unofficial and official times? Crap, had she ever managed to be a normal, functioning human being when he’d been around? Or what if he was a complete weirdo like Astrid had said? He did work down in the morgue. What kind of craziness did you have to display in your testing to make them assign you to a career dealing with dead people? Part of her knew he was a bit weird (he had attached a handwritten note to a bot),