Rendezvous

The last thing Nora expected to find on the rooftop of their office building at the stroke of midnight was a cute guy.

She’d suspected all along that Luella, her workmate and the closest thing she had to a best friend, was some kind of weirdo. An annoyingly pretty one, but a weirdo all the same. She had her strange habits and inexplicable contradictions, or at least they were strange by Nora's standards.

But she didn’t expect Luella to be scandalous. This was the girl who would party all night long yet appear perfectly sober in the morning and for the rest of the workday. She was hardly tardy or incurred unusual absences. Now she was trespassing with some guy, secretly meeting on a foggy night like star-crossed lovers?

Nora pressed herself up against the nearest wall just as the guy said, “I came as soon as I could.” She was pretty sure they were hugging, and she felt another pang of jealousy. For all of Luella’s faults, everyone seemed to like her just fine. What made her so different? She wasn't particularly smart, and whenever she sang in karaoke, she sounded like a dying whale.

“I called Eli, but they’ve cancelled all flights,” the stranger continued. His voice was a deep bass, and it was laced with concern, though overpowered by a strong accent that had Nora concluding he wasn't from town in two seconds. “We’ll have to do it ourselves.”

His last words suddenly made Nora nervous. So this wasn’t a date?

Even Luella sounded anxious. “Jonas, you know I’ve never done anything like that before. What if it goes wrong?”

“This is already wrong."

Nora caught the shift of his shadows. He was probably gesturing to the fog that had thickened around them, which in turn led her to look down. A cold shiver ran down her spine and settled in the pit of her stomach as she realized that the fog had already crept past her knees. She couldn’t see anything beyond it, not even the glint of her newly purchased leather pumps. This is not good.

Before her mind could start conjuring images of snakes eating her toes or her legs melting like plastic, she forced her attention back to eavesdropping on Luella and Jonas, and started hoping they were merely speaking in code and they would kiss. She'd rather stand through a makeout session than whatever danger they both seemed to be implying.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” she heard Luella mutter with gritted teeth.

“Just do it.”

Unable to resist the siren call of her curiosity, Nora slowly leaned forward and peered out from behind the wall enough to see the guy, Jonas, holding up his phone in front of Luella's face. Her friend had her arms out and was moving them up and down and around. What was this now, yoga class? It had certainly crossed Nora's mind more than once that yoga enthusiasts were cultists.

All traces of her humor evaporated when Luella started singing.

She knew she should be proud that her friend no longer sounded like a dying animal. But she also felt betrayed, because Luella's voice was clear despite the strange air that night, and she sounded like she was straight off a choir or even the opera, vocalizing in Latin or something. Why did that have to be a secret? What else wasn't she being told? Did she even know her friend at all? What in the world was going on?

And then, without warning, Luella froze.

“Somebody’s here.”

Nora jerked back with a start, frightened that she’d been discovered. Her first instinct was to run away and pretend like nothing happened... but then she caught herself. Or perhaps anger caught her. Why would she need to do that? She hadn't done anything wrong for her to flee the scene of the crime. It had been Luella who’d snuck inside the building way past office hours with no official business, meeting up with strangers and singing creepy songs on foggy rooftops. As her colleague and team lead, it was Nora’s job to be here.

She straightened up, about to tell the other girl that she was going to report her, but the look on Luella’s face stopped her short. It was apologetic – and several shades too pale.

“I didn’t mean you, Nora.”

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