Indigo Rain Read Online Free Page B

from an important meeting he was supposed to have an hour before midnight. When I broke into his room this morning, it was empty and very clean. But the cleaners couldn’t quite mask the scent of human blood.”
    “I didn’t know what was in them!” Roulette shrieked.
    The vixen narrowed her eyes. “What was in what?”
    “The perfume bottles. They—they—he tried to rape me.”
    The pressure on her shoulders relaxed, and it took a few seconds before the vixen spoke, now softly. “Start at the beginning.”
    Roulette swallowed. “All I was going to do was dance.” Tears started to mat the fur under her eyes. “He said he’d pay me a lot, and he agreed—no touching. But he got worked up and—and bent me over the dresser…”
    She risked a glance up at the vixen’s face. Her expression remained frozen, unreadable.
    “He had…bottles on the dresser. He said they were perfume. I grabbed one—sprayed him in his face to make him let go—and—and—his face started to burn. And bleed.” Her voice broke. “And I ran. That’s it. I swear.”
    The vixen dropped her arms away and remained quiet for several seconds. “Acid in perfume bottles.”
    “Yes! He…” Roulette shuddered. “I think he was going to use it on me. After the dance.”
    At that, the vixen showed the most emotion the raccoon had seen from her so far: she closed her eyes for a full second and clenched her fists. “You don’t know who he was, do you?” she finally murmured.
    Roulette shook her head, sniffling.
    “An influential businessman in another town. A friend of the damned assistant mayor here. And someone I’d been watching for a month because I’m sure he is—was—planning something.” She ran a hand through her hair, then focused her gaze on Roulette again. “Get your things. Just what you can carry.”
    “What?” The raccoon shook her head. “Look. Look. I just want to get out of here. I’m going to go to Raneadhros and—”
    “The Brothers are going to be looking for you, and if they find you, they will kill you. They can’t take the chance, however small, that someone official might actually listen to you. You’re not going to make it to the border.”
    “What? This is crazy! Who are the ‘Brothers?’ Why should I—”
    The vixen took her shoulders again, more gently, but her expression remained hard as ice. “This is why we don’t have time for this. Get your things. Now.”
    Roulette stared into her eyes. She could tell the vixen believed what she was saying, although that didn’t mean she wasn’t crazy.
    “Dammit,” she swore aloud, then crouched by her trunk, surveying its contents. Clothes, mostly none too fine. Jewelry. Three pairs of sandals. Four books. Her knapsack. A few mementos of home. She began stuffing clothes hurriedly into the sack. “I at least need the strongbox—”
    “You need to be alive, and that means you need to move fast. I don’t want the next place I see you to be the morgue. Lock the trunk, shove it back under your bed, and lock the door. How long is the room paid for?”
    Roulette did as instructed, re-locking the trunk and pushing it under the bed until it was well-hidden once more. “Through the end of the week—hey!” Her ears folded back as the vixen pulled her out of the room.
    “Lock the door.”
    “I know,” Roulette snapped, locking it.
    “Then come on.” The vixen rushed her outside, marching her at a military pace away from downtown, glancing from side to side constantly.
    When they reached a corner two blocks away, she abruptly pointed to the right. “Go down the street another block, turn right at Andersen, then three blocks. The Aid Society will be on the left side of the road. Tell them Lisha sent you.”
    “Where are you—”
    “To check out your story.” She spun on her heel and walked the other direction.
    Roulette stared after the vixen in stunned silence for several seconds, then swore again and hurried down the street.

Lisha’s