Choose Your Enchantment

I took a deep breath and stepped into the elevator, metal walls showing a warped reflection of my dark hair and blue eyes. I stepped to the side while a young couple then an older woman with sun-baked skin and a cigarette voice followed me in.

“Are you going on a ride?” the leathery woman asked all of us with a large smile.

The couple nodded and smiled brightly while I moved closer to the wall and gripped the metal bar. I was trapped in the elevator with three psychopaths. They thought it would be fun to climb into an aluminum box at the top of the high-rise before the retractable arm extended out over the strip. And then the flimsy box would spin around and around a million miles above the earth.

My breath came short and my nails slid on the metal bar that I couldn’t grip tight enough. Yeah, this was fun. Panic closed up my throat. I couldn’t do it. I had no intention of taking a ride on the top of the building, going up in the elevator was enough. Actually, it was too much. I’d try again next year.

I stepped towards the door as it was sliding shut. A hand appeared in the opening, holding the elevator. In another second the doors opened revealing a tall, broad-shouldered guy in sunglasses and black cap, head down as he looked at his phone.

He was completely blocking my way. That was fine. I’d stab my way through him to freedom.

I checked the harness under my shirt for my knives, but I’d taken them off. Why did I take them off? Oh, that’s right, because I’d thought it would be a bad thing to stab someone on this elevator with cameras and witnesses when I got stressed out.

Not that I was stressed. I wasn’t really afraid of heights. They just made me nervous. Like not-being-able-to-move, completely-paralyzed nervousness. Not petrifiededness. Petrification? Whatever. I wasn’t it.

The doors slid closed, and then with a lurch, the elevator started to ascend. To doom. To death. To being flung off the edge of the world, screaming into an endless abyss.

I lunged for the rail and dragged myself to it, clinging with my eyes screwed shut. The music from the speakers was fast, loud, matching the frantic racing of my heart. The air in the elevator was warm and heavy. Maybe that was panic. Everything was starting to get blurry around the edges. I needed to breathe and unclench from the rail. I took a gasping breath. I did it! See? Fear couldn’t defeat me. There was nothing to fear but fear itself. That’s what my minion Toni always said. Of course, she was insane. That’s why we got along so well.

I gasped another breath and forced my eyes open so I could stare at my reflection in the wavy metal. My eyes were bugged out, my face bloodless, nostrils pinched, every muscle tensed. In other words, I looked more unhinged than the psychos whose idea of a good time was to take a ride out into the abyss.

I was going to die. Not that heights would kill me. It was hitting the ground after falling that would end me. I didn’t want to die! I bit my lip until it hurt. The pain should help distract me from the fear, but I’d been taught to cope with pain from an early age.

It took me a moment to notice the guy’s reflection behind my head, staring at me through his sunglasses, lips pressed together in a line of disapproval.

Seriously? I’m dying, and he has the time to judge me?

I spun around, one hand leaving the safety of the rail to pull a knife I hadn’t brought. I ended up swishing the tail of my sweater awkwardly as I looked up at the guy frowning down at me.

“Do you have a problem?” I demanded. I mean, I meant to demand, but my voice hadn’t been fed enough oxygen, so it was mostly a squeak.

His frown eased until his lips were soft, supple, kissable. His voice was low, smooth. “I’m fine thanks. Aren’t you Nitro’s cousin’s friend?” He grinned and showed a flash of a dimple in one cheek. “When Nitro said that Tony and Danny were coming, I didn’t expect two young women, including twinset.” He tugged on the tail of my cotton cardigan. It wasn’t technically a twin since the pale pink shirt was a shade lighter than the cardigan. I didn’t wear pink, was a total black and white person, but this sweater set was the one I’d been wearing the first time I went to juvie, so that’s what Toni had for me at her place to wear when I snuck out to fly to Vegas to celebrate my eighteenth birthday. Toni supplied the fake ID’s while I brought the cash. My twinset had been white before Toni left a tube of red paint in her pocket when she was working the laundry shift. She hadn’t made many friends in juvie with that blunder, dying everyone’s whites pink, but she only needed one since it was me. I’d always have her back. And she’d have mine when I didn’t sneak off without her.

I exhaled and nodded, gripping the bar even tighter. “You know Nitro?” Nitro was Toni’s cousin, and that’s why we were in Las Vegas with great hotel rooms that the high-rolling female racer had paid for. She’d also gotten us tickets to the Three-Hundred, the insane race that took two days to get across the desert, interspersed with mixed martial competitions.

He smiled slightly and pulled his glasses down his nose so he could peer over them at me in an intense and dangerous brown-eyed stare that I’d seen on billboards all over Vegas. Dirk Dagger, the team leader and Nitro’s famous boss, also person idiot-me had as her secret screensaver, was on an elevator with me, witnessing my humiliating terror.

My stomach tangled as I stared at the man I should have recognized immediately from the ridiculous pectorals outlined under the snug t-shirt, but I’d been too panicked to notice that or the black jeans and scuffed boots that had done their share of kicking people’s faces in. Some of it was just for show, but I’d watched him fight, and he knew what he was doing as well as my own trainers did. Maybe I could take a few private self-defense lessons from him while I was in Vegas.

The elevator lurched and I gasped, returning to the rail with both hands, squeezing my eyes tight. I was going to die, plummeting to my death with three psychos and the only person in the entire world I’d ever crushed on. He was just so handsome, smooth, and fearless. He ran the crazy team, the only one with a crew who didn’t mind Nitro’s driving. He didn’t win as regularly as the other team leaders, but he made up for it with all those crazy shots of Nitro launching into space, or him doing some wild acrobatics out of a helicopter.

My cheeks burned with heat that I pressed against the cool wall of the elevator. It smelled like disinfectant. That was better than vomit. Too many things smelled like vomit in Vegas. Was I going to throw up? It didn’t matter when I was going to die. Except that it would be better to not vomit in front of Dirk Dagger.

He was so fearless, witnessing me and my cowardice. If only I’d brought my knives. I could have put both of us out of our misery. Too bad he wasn’t a real dagger.

The elevator lurched again and my sweaty hands almost lost their grip. I was already too high up. I needed to get out. Now! What would happen if I climbed up Dirk Dagger and then on through the panels at the top of the box? Would it be better to die on top of the metal cube or inside it?

Dirk Dagger leaned close enough that I felt the brush of his hat brim on my ear as he murmured, “Where is Toni?”

When I turned my head, he smelled so good, like cherries and chocolate. He looked like liquor and violence, but he smelled like two of my very favorite things. I wanted to put my face against his neck and inhale his surprisingly comforting scent until I forgot about certain death. What would his skin feel like? Not that I’d ever know. He was the kind of crush that I could indulge in because there was no chance of anything happening. I was a nobody as far as he was concerned.

I looked down at my hands gripping the bar. No, I was more pathetic than that. A nobody was neutral. A ball of terror in a cardigan was more pathetic than neutral. I should have brought Toni. She’d flirt with him, distracting him from me and my new besty, the metal bar.

“Nitro,” I mumbled. “Talk cars.” My breath caught and panic grew in my chest. I’d left Toni to talk with her cousin because I needed to do this on my own. Ever since I’d been four, pressing my cheek to the slate, arms outstretched with my toes gripping the gutter on the roof of my grandfather’s four-story mansion, I’d been terrified of heights. It was time to get over it. I was eighteen as of this morning, and I couldn’t let childhood issues get in the way of my future. Although Toni would kill me if she found out I was doing something reckless without her. Her job was to act reckless; mine to get her out of it. This felt incredibly foolish, but I knew logically that it was fine. Dirk Dagger was in the elevator along with the other people who were ogling at him, his whole body relaxed like nothing bad was going to happen.

He studied my hands where they were turning white from clutching the bar. “This seems like something that Toni would like. You look less than excited.”

How humiliating to be visibly weak. I shrugged and tried to look as cool and in-control as I usually was and failed miserably since I was wrapped around the bar as close as I could get. “I’m fine.”

He put away his sunglasses so he could focus on me with his soft brown eyes, soft eyes that a vicious fighter shouldn’t have. Where was the wild fearlessness? Somehow that look, the soft gentle thing was even more irresistible. I wasn’t a weak woman who needed gentleness, but from him, it was everything.

His voice was low when he spoke. “I’m afraid of spiders. I was bitten once in the wine cellar. My forehead swelled up five times the normal size. I had a fever for days, all these fever dreams about an enormous brown recluse…” He shuddered and pushed back his hair so I could see a white line that went into his hairline.

I studied him while I held onto the bar. “I’m not…” shudder, “scared.”

His smile was so soft, like butterfly kisses. I had a weird flashback to my mother giving me butterfly kisses on a blanket in the park, before the elevator walls closed back in. The tourists were staring at me, at him, at us, wondering why someone like him was wasting his time talking to someone so close to having a complete mental breakdown.

I’d wonder later. Why was the elevator taking so long to get to the top? Not that I wanted it to hurry. Except then I could go back down.

He humored me, nodding seriously. “Okay. You’re not scared. Still, doing the rooftop rides is a lot of money for something mediocre. Why don’t you catch a show or play some tables? You should enjoy your birthday.”

I shook my head tightly. “I’ll enjoy my birthday later.” I never liked my birthdays until I met Toni, and even then, going to the amusement park, ‘Neverland’ was stressful. Rides tended to involve elevation. I’d gone on one ride with Toni, and tried to climb off when it was halfway to the top, which made them shut it down and kick me out for getting out of the little car climbing down scaffolding. Happily, I’d had a fake I.D. so they’d never know who the real culprit was. Toni was always good for a fake I.D.

“You can’t enjoy your birthday later, because it won’t be your birthday. You only have one day to make the most out of self-indulgence. What do you really want? You’re in my town. Let me help you find what makes you happy. I know this place with amazing waffles, open twenty-four seven. You could go there and eat waffles for days. I’ll buy, just for Nitro’s friend.” He winked at me while the thought of eating waffles while I was rushing to my death made me all kinds of queasy.

“I want to not be afraid,” I whispered.

His smile faded as he studied me thoughtfully. “So, for your gift to yourself, you want to actually make your life better long-term? You’re too wise for Vegas. All right. Let’s do it. We’ll face your…nerves, since you’re not actually afraid, and then go get waffles. We’ll call Toni and Nitro, and they’ll bring the presents.”

He held out his hand, strong, calloused, bruised and cut knuckles that proved he knew how to hurt. That’s okay. I wasn’t afraid of pain, just heights. Not that I was afraid.

His hand was still there, waiting for me to let go of the bar and hold onto him instead. He wasn’t fused to the metal box. How was he supposed to save me? Not that the bar would actually save me if the elevator dropped down the shaft a million floors to explode into dust.

“Come on, Dani. You don’t have to be brave all by yourself.”

I hadn’t been alone on that roof fourteen years ago. My mom had taken me, but after she jumped, I held on. I could still hear her scream and then the silence after she hit the ground. It had felt like hours until someone got me down. Adrenaline filled me now like it had then. I was going to die. I should have made a will so that my cello would go to the symphony hall. Nothing else I owned mattered.

I wasn’t getting enough air. My eyes got blurry and my ears started to ring in spite of the tunes playing.

Sweating, I slid my hand off the bar and into his. He gripped my hand, painful, but so present. I held him back, squeezing the life out of him while he returned the pressure with interest. He stepped closer, wrapping his other arm around me, covering my white hand where it still clung to the bar.

For a second the blind panic was interrupted by an awareness of the raw muscle wrapped around me, his chest against my back, warmth beating against me like an invading army, rattling my cells, calling me to arms.

I didn’t like physical contact. I should fling my head back and break his nose. Or drive an elbow into one of the delicate nerve clusters in his neck. Weirdly, the kind of war I wanted to do with him involved pushing back into him, not to push him away, but to embed my flesh into his. He felt good in a world of bad. Like hot chocolate under a fort blanket with Toni, or an episode of Scooby Doo on a stormy night. Only he felt like other things I’d never noticed with my best friend. My only friend. For instance, Toni did physical contact, so I put up with random hugs and playful shoves. I didn’t like it, but it was Toni, and that made it bearable. Dirk’s physical touch was like fire, melting the frozen statue I’d become, turning me into something alive and burning.

Maybe it was my crush on the fearless pretty boy with enough muscles to make the pretty much more interesting, or maybe it was who he was on the inside, the team leader who thrived leading the insane, the unbalanced, the out-of-control. I was always in control. I made a point of it. But not tonight, and he didn’t miss a beat, thinking of me as Nitro-adjacent, and therefore his problem. He brought out the crazy in people and turned it into something beautiful. I’d watched Nitro over the years become someone who used her implicit need for risk in a way that was sustainable. He’d shaped that self-destruction into something beautiful. What would he do with my flaws and character deficits if given the chance?

I released the bar and turned in his arms to face him. He was so handsome, with balanced proportions, cutting cheekbones, soft mouth, with that James Dean rebel in those pretty eyes, but beneath that, concern for someone he felt a tie of responsibility towards.

He raised a brow over those soft brown eyes. “The elevator’s about to open. Are you sure you want to go out and face it?”

I swallowed hard while fear thumped beneath my breastbone, trying to beat its way to freedom so it could run screaming into the night. Or maybe that was my heart. “You’re very handsome,” I croaked.

That time he raised both brows. He cleared his throat. “Thank you. You’re very beautiful. I, um, don’t date seriously. You seem like a serious person.”

Did I? Really? Seriously mental for going into an elevator of my own free will.

I stared at him. Why would he bring up his dating habits with me, a mere mortal, a nobody who would never perform in a public sphere, not with my cello, or my fighting skills? It took me too long to figure it out. Fear made me stupid. “Oh. You thought I was flirting with you.” I almost smiled at such a ludicrous idea. Instead, I shook my head and stepped into his space until his warmth pressed into the front of me. I slowly raised my hands and placed them on the slope of his pectorals. “I’m currently flirting with death. I don’t have the head space to flirt with people. You’re warm. Solid. I want to use you as my emotional support person.” I winced. “Not that I need anyone.”

His smile curved over his fascinating mouth and he slid his hands around my waist, anchoring me to his solid stance. “And my handsomeness is somehow relevant?”

I leaned against him, turned my head and closed my eyes, pressing my cheek against his beating heart. It was a good, solid rhythm. It did seem to be crescendoing slightly. Maybe he was also nervous about heights, but not to the point where he was paralyzed. “The better to distract me from the fear. Beauty is like that sometimes.”

“Not that you’re afraid. I see. Have you ever tried other methods of distraction?” His heart was definitely beating faster.

The doors opened and a gust of cold swept around me, making me press as close to him as I could get. “Death is a cold breeze,” I muttered before I lurched towards the door, gripping his shirt in one fist as I followed the others out onto the large platform.

He kept one hand around my waist as he let me pull him out of the elevator and towards the nearest rail. I held him tighter, sliding my hand up his well-muscled forearm, digging my fingers into his flesh. I wasn’t a touchy-feely person, but he felt good, almost as good as playing my cello. He was indeed a worthy distraction.

That feeling lasted until we reached the railing. The wind whipped my hair around my face, blinding me. He pulled my back against his chest and caught my hair in one hand, locking me in the safety of his arms. The way he handled me should have triggered all of my defense reflexes, but he felt so good, and everything else was spinning out of control. Still, I’d done it! I’d gotten in the elevator by myself and hadn’t fainted or vomited! I’d officially faced my fears and wasn’t dead yet.

The view of the strip lit up at night was beautiful, breathtakingly beautiful because I couldn’t breathe, not with how far down it was, and the music, the pounding and throbbing of two cellists smashing through Thunderstruck matched the way that I couldn’t breathe. It was so very far down. My breath caught in my throat and then started coming faster and faster as I realized how much space was between me and the ground. A lot. So much space.

“I’m going to die,” I whispered, shrinking against him.

He chuckled a low rumble as he held me even tighter against his strong chest. “We’ll die together. I have a different philosophy about fear. I think that if you face it head on, it will see you coming and be more likely to devour you. I like to sneak up on fear, dance around it like a fighter in a ring feeling out his opponent, or one toe at a time to check the water.”

He felt so wonderfully secure when the rest of the world was a whirl of terror and uncertainty. “I dive in headfirst after I’ve made preliminary measurements.”

He spun me around and smiled, his eyes drifting down to my mouth. “May I offer you another distraction?”

My vision was becoming spotty. I clung to him, staring up into that handsome face. “We’re all going to die. I can’t breathe. I need to get back in the elevator. I can’t…” black specks filled my vision as I hyperventilated, gasping in too much air until his hand slid up the side of my neck, tilted my face up and then he brushed his lips over mine.

What was he doing? We were going to die! This wasn’t the time for distractions, if that’s what this was. He shifted me until I was pressed against him. I seemed so soft compared to his hard muscles, but I wasn’t soft. I was Vil, capable of absolutely anything other than going up an elevator. Except that now…

Oh my. So soft. So sweet. So safe.

He kissed me slow, sliding and tugging on my bottom lip in a way that made me forget all about impending doom. My stomach tightened as his hand slid over my back and his lips persuaded mine. He tasted even better than he smelled, like chocolate and rum with a hint of mint. He was warm, hot almost. I leaned into him, wanting more of that tantalizing taste.

I moved my lips, hesitantly because while I’d been kissed before, I’d never felt like this, with my stomach tightening and other things softening, wanting more of him when I never wanted anybody. I slid my hands up his arms to his shoulders, soaking in the feel of his strength, his protection. He would hold me safe as long as the danger remained. I relaxed in his arms, sinking into him, trusting him.

“Get a room!” The voice was loud, sharp, piercing.

I gasped and jerked away, an unknown terror rushing through me as I gaped at Dirk Dagger with his soft eyes and softer lips. He’d kissed me!

And I’d let him!

And maybe we were all going to die, but what kind of excuse was that? I didn’t feel like I was dying. I’d never felt so alive before. And that was terrifying. No one should be able to make me feel like that.

He cleared his throat, pursing his soft lips. “You look quite shocked. Not the distraction you had in mind?”

I sputtered, staring into those bemused eyes, eyes that were on my secret screen-saver for the past two years. Real was incomprehensibly better.

I thumped on his chest with my fists. His muscles were so solid, warm, flexing under my attack while his eyes smiled beneath those half-closed lids. He liked me thumping him as much as I liked the contact.

I snatched my hands away from him, pressing my palm to my racing heart. “What was that?”

He raised a brow then glanced around before stepping back into my space without touching me and murmured in his deep growly voice, “An emotional support kiss. Didn’t you like it?”

I felt my cheeks get hot while shame swept through me not getting swept up in him. I hissed, “No, I did not. You have no idea about my emotional support needs. You are a meat-brained muscle-man who doesn’t understand anything about women! I don’t indulge in flagrant demonstrations of vulgarity on rooftops for any passersby to witness. Moreover, however handsome and well-muscled you may be, I am not motivated by such superficial and…” I looked past his shoulder and realized that the distant shouts and screams that I thought were in my head came from the ride, the ferris wheel thing attached to the top of the building.

A spotlight shone up, and there was a kid, a teen boy a few years younger than me dangling from his cage he’d been riding in. He must have climbed out, showing off for his friends.

I gasped while the Scooby Doo theme started playing, amusement park version. It was a startlingly odd moment as I looked into Dirk Dagger’s eyes, not feeling enough fear for myself. The usual fear had shifted to concern about the kid.

For a split-second he froze, calculating the situation before he acted. He pulled out a pair of handcuffs and snicked one side around my wrist, the other to the rail.

“You can’t fall. You’re safe. I’ll be right back.” He turned, sprinting, and then vaulted up on top of the ticket booth, muscles smooth, body graceful, effortless, like he was one of the circus gymnasts instead of the mixed martial pro.

My breath caught while I watched him scale the scaffold of the stopped ride. It was like that time I’d climbed down, but the kid couldn’t move, could only dangle there while his screams dimmed to creaky sobs, and Dirk came to the rescue. It was only seconds, and then he was there, grabbing the kid’s wrist and pulling him up into the cage, before strapping them both in. The kid clung to Dirk Dagger like I had, only hopefully I’d been less blubbering.

Right. I’d never actually cried. That was something.

“Hey,” Toni said, pulling out a pin and starting on my handcuff.

Toni was here. Time to straighten up and look like the cold and calculating villain I had to be. It wasn’t as difficult as I expected, not when Dirk had taken away my fear with the kiss.

Why did Dirk Dagger have a pair of handcuffs on him? Did it have something to do with his show? “Too bad the ride’s going to be shut down all night. Idiot. If you’re going to climb out, make it all the way to the ground, amiright?” She hip-checked me, and with a click the cuff was off.

I gave Dirk and the ferris wheel one last look before I took the pin from Toni and undid the cuff around the bar, tucking them in my pocket. I was keeping them as a memento. Not of the first time I’d kissed someone and gotten lost in bliss, because that would be too stupid, but to commemorate the moment I faced my fears, conquered them, with a little help from the Hero.

Dirk Dagger was a hero, as demonstrated by his fearless rescue of the kid, and me.

I smiled stiffly at my best friend. “Too bad.” I linked my arm in hers and dragged her towards the elevator. Heroes were for princesses and other helpless, sweet, good people. I was a villain. The only thing I could do with a hero was try to break him, or be broken by him. The way my heart throbbed, I was pretty sure that’s what would break. “I heard that there’s this amazing waffle place. Open all night.”

“Waffles, hm?” she said as I pulled her into the elevator. “Kissing Nitro’s boss must have worked up your appetite.” Her eyes danced with laughter while her face showed nothing.

I held perfectly still. “You saw that?”

“When I got here, I started timing you. Twenty two minutes, and forty-three seconds you spent making out with the Dagger that I saw. Is he your target? What can I do to help?”

I shook my head. “He’s family-adjacent. We don’t target family.”

She snorted. “Someone should give that memo to Philip. Your cousin is…” She shuddered eloquently. “So you just made out for a half hour with Dagger for the fun of it? I approve. You don’t have nearly enough fun, and it is your birthday.”

Before the doors closed, an older man stepped into the elevator. He looked at me then at Toni with a salacious smile. “I’m having a small party. Would you two lovely ladies like to join me?”

“I’m underage,” I said with a helpless shrug.

His smile broadened. “I don’t mind.”

I exchanged looks with Toni.

“Happy Birthday,” she whispered.

Five minutes later, we were stepping out of the elevator into the bright flashing lights of the lobby.

“I think he had a heart attack!” Toni cried with the right levels of panic in her voice as she pointed back into the elevator at the man on the floor.

There was a rustle as the employees converged, and Toni and I made our escape.

As we stepped outside, she grinned and waved the billfold she’d confiscated. “Waffles paid for by the gentleman on the floor. Happy birthday, Vil.”

We linked arms and headed out into the night, the memory of Dirk Dagger, the hero, burned onto my lips.