Hidden Heart (7 page)

“Yes. I’ll help you. It’s why I’m here.” He lifted his hands to the sides, indicating our luxurious surroundings, as if to say
why else?

“So then… I guess that means I’m staying here… as one of your ‘fan pod members.’ Where should I sleep?”

There was a new gleam in his eye that alarmed me for a moment, and I caught a hint of a suggestion from his mind—
with me
—but it was quickly whisked away, like smoke from a match that’s been blown out. I wasn’t even sure if it was something I’d picked up from his thoughts or if I’d imagined it.

He coughed and cleared his throat. “The other… the girls who’ve been recruited have their own quarters on the other side of the house, but you can keep your own room, the one where you slept last night.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Where’s
your
room?”

“Next door to that one.”

“Then I’ll stay in the harem.”

We were both laughing as I preceded Nox into the kitchen from the deck, but the sound was drowned out by loud squealing. When Nox came in immediately behind me, the squeals turned to screams.

“Oh my God—it’s him!”

“There’s Nox!”

              “You sure about that decision?” he muttered close behind my ear. “I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer to stay as far away from
that
as possible.”

              “Ladies, ladies—gather round. It’s not time to meet Nox yet. Please, stay together.”

A tall, gorgeous woman in her early twenties with cascading dark curls spoke sternly to the new pod recruits. Then she glanced over at me. Clearly taking me for an escapee who’d gotten far too close to her master, she pointed at me and ordered, “You! Get back with the group. Stop bothering Mr. Knight.”

              With one last peek back over my shoulder at Nox’s face, I stepped forward to join my fellow pod sisters.

“Oh my God, he is so beautiful. Did you see those eyes?”

              “I know. I’ve only seen him in concert, never up close except for videos. He is
way
hotter than I realized. I can’t believe we’re here!”

              I was in fangirl Hell.

Not since my tween One Direction and Belieber phase had I experienced anything close to this. But the girls crowding my room were all my age or older, and they were acting completely over-the-top delirious about Nox. 

When had he managed to glamour all of them? He’d said he hadn’t even met them yet. Or maybe they were like this
without
glamour—scary thought.

              “You’re so lucky you got to have dinner with him. How did you pull that off?” a short baby-faced girl asked me.

              “Oh… I don’t know. Right place, right time, I guess.”

              “Well, what did he say? What’s he like? Did he sing for you?” a Latina girl with glasses asked.

              He
had
sung for me in the past, and if I could help it, I’d never hear him sing again—I was far too susceptible to his musical glamour. Lad had told me how different family lines of Elves had different kinds of glamour in varying strengths. Though Nox didn’t seem to be able to glamour me through words alone, when he sang—well let’s just say I should probably be more sympathetic about girls like these losing their minds along with all notions of free will.

              “We talked—about Los Angeles, his upcoming tour, stuff like that, no big deal,” I explained.

              More squealing. “But he
talked
to you—like individually. How can you stay so calm? I’d die if he even looked directly at me.”

              There were nods and laughter all around as the others agreed. Part of me wanted to be disgusted with them, but the other part could commiserate. Maybe if I weren’t a quarter Elven, I’d be just like them. That bit of Elven blood had made me immune to Nox’s Sway. And Lad’s. I had fallen for him the old fashioned way, much good it did me now.

When it came to Nox, I guessed I’d have to pretend to be more overwhelmed. “I’m really jet-lagged,” I said, making an excuse for my previous lack of hysteria over my exclusive dinner with our pod-master. “When I get some sleep and wake up tomorrow, I probably won’t even be able to believe it happened.” I ended with a big smile I hoped conveyed my “excitement” at being here.

              Speaking of sleep, the pod quarters were sort of like the college dorms I’d visited at Ole Miss and Mississippi State when I’d gone for tour weekends. I was in a suite with three other girls. We each had a single bed and shared a common bathroom, though this one was definitely nicer than the dorms’ bathrooms had been.

My suitemates Gigi and Kim were about my age—soon-to-be high school seniors, the fourth girl, Bonnie, was in college. They were all cute and friendly, but none of them seemed to have any other ambition in life than to serve Nox and meet his fellow celebrities. Maybe they had before they’d succumbed to the glamour and forgotten everything else existed.

After we’d all introduced ourselves and chatted a bit, we took turns taking showers and getting ready for bed. It was three hours later back home in Mississippi, and I really was jet-lagged, but I didn’t sleep for a long time. Instead, I lay awake thinking about Emmy.

Was she lying in bed right now in a room like this one behind those ivy-covered walls at Vallon Foster’s estate? Was she homesick, or was she as happy as these girls all seemed to be? And what would happen to her between now and the time I was able to get to her, whenever that was?

This fan pod thing was worse than I’d expected. Judging from the behavior of my roomies, they would be willing to do anything and
everything
Nox wanted them to.

Like me, Emmy was a virgin—or she
had
been when she’d left home. Had she met Vallon already? Had he selected her out of his harem for his special attention one evening?

              And then a new thought occurred to me—was that what
Nox
would do? Housed in separate rooms as we were, I’d have no idea if he were to summon one of his podettes to his suite. That’s what they were here for, right? To serve and entertain their master?

Well, it was none of my concern if he did. As long as he helped me find Emmy, it was none of my business what he did with his time. Or these girls.

*     *     *

              I woke to the shrieking, giggling evidence of near hysteria sounding through the hallway the next morning. Gigi opened our door to find out what was going on as Bonnie and Kim emerged from their room.

              The same knockout woman from the prior night stood amid a crowd of girls in the hall, holding a clipboard.

              “Ladies, Nox will be appearing on a morning TV program today. We’ll need you to come along and cheer him on. Anybody ready for a bus ride to Burbank?”

              You would have thought she’d announced a free trip to Maui from all the resulting commotion. Girls were jumping up and down, gripping each other’s hands.

              “You have one hour to dress and report for breakfast. Then we’ll go to the station together. Be sure to wear your swag and bring your signs.”

              My suitemates ran back inside, going through their suitcases and chattering as they pulled out clothing and some other small items.

              “What’s that?” I asked, looking over Gigi’s shoulder at the baubles in her hands.

              “This is my swag. Don’t you have any?”

              She held the items up to me—a necklace with Nox’s picture at the end, a charm bracelet with several charms. One of them was his name spelled out in black, glittery block letters, another was a guitar with “The Hidden” written on it in a cool-looking script.

              Bonnie and Kim also displayed similar items—was it like the podette uniform? Later, as I stepped out into the hallway, dressed in my regular slogan-free clothes, I concluded that was exactly what it was.

The other girls were decked out in The Hidden t-shirts and swag, some carried glittery hand-made signs bearing silly sayings like “Nox Rox” and “Come Nox my sox off.” I stifled giggles, embarrassed for them.

              Falling into line, we filed through the mansion, first to a dining room for a quick breakfast, and then out a side door to where a private bus waited in the drive for us. The ride to the TV station seemed interminably long, partially because of the L.A. traffic, which lived up to its nasty reputation, and partially because of the unbearable fan-girling that surrounded me.

              “I was one of the first applicants for his fan pod. I applied over a year ago,” someone behind me said.

“Well, I applied two years ago,” countered a girl from the opposite aisle.

“You did not. He wasn’t even playing two years ago.”

“He was! I heard some underground club recordings of the band from when he was like, sixteen.” 

I snorted, imagining it. The only thing that could possibly be more obnoxious than Nox at eighteen would be Nox at sixteen.

              “Hey, you okay?” Gigi bumped my shoulder with hers. “You’re so quiet.”

              “Oh. Yeah, I’m fine. I just… miss home, I guess,” I said, grappling for an excuse.

              Her face quirked in an expression of amusement. “Really? I haven’t even thought about home.” Something like melancholy ran across her face. “Until now. That’s so weird. I said I’d call my mom as soon as I got here, and I haven’t even called yet.”

“You should.” Maybe if she thought about calling home, she’d realize she didn’t even have a phone anymore—maybe she’d start questioning things.

“Yeah, I really should. I’ll call today, when we get back. It’s all been moving so fast I guess. And everything’s so exciting—don’t you think?”

              “It is,” I said, without much enthusiasm. “What do you think we’ll do at the TV station?”

She seemed to be so much more in the know than I was—they all were. Had the new pod members been given a brochure at the door or something? Maybe it was part of the glamour program.

              Gigi lifted her shoulders and let them fall. “Show our love, support Nox—you know. There will be cameras everywhere. We have to show the world Nox and The Hidden are the best band ever. Maybe we’ll even get on TV.”

              “So, we’re going into the studio with him?”

              “Oh, no—there’s an outdoor stage. We’ll be in the front few rows of the crowd.”

              A chill seized my heart. “He’s going to
sing
?”

              “Yeah, silly. He’s a singer. What did you think was going to happen—juggling?”

              “No. I… it’s a talk show. So I thought he was going to, you know, talk to the hosts or something.”

              “Well, he’ll probably do that, too. Oh look—there it is.”

She pointed out the window to a huge modern structure topped by satellite dishes just off the highway. How many people must work in a building that big? To my eyes, the whole population of Deep River would fit into the place. The bus pulled around to the building’s rear and parked.

As soon as it rolled to a stop, Amalia stood at the front and gave us our instructions. “Now this is not national TV—not yet—but it’s equally as important because the eyes of the world are on California, and whatever viewers and music fans here adopt, the rest of the world wants to know about. We want everyone to know about Nox and love him as much as we do, right?”

              Screams rebounded through the bus.

“No one will ever love him as much as I do!” vowed a girl one row ahead of me. I fought the urge to roll my eyes. She’d never even met him.

              At Amalia’s instruction, we filed down the stairs and lined up in front of a stage erected in the station’s parking lot. A crowd—mostly girls but some boys, too—had already accumulated on the other side of the lot, though they were being held back from the stage area by ropes and security guards. Once we were in place, the ropes were removed, the guards stepped back, and the mob surged forward, coming to join us.

It was strange to be at a concert in the morning. Clearly everyone here had enjoyed their Toffee Mocha Frappuccinos already—the faces around me were wide awake, bright with expectation.

The warm California air was so different from the clingy humidity of Mississippi summers, but the atmosphere still felt thick with anticipation, with a buzz of excited chatter. Laughter and conversation filled my ears from every direction.

              A thin bald guy dressed in all black and wearing a TV station I.D. badge and sunglasses came out onto the stage. “All right—listen up please—Darcy and Brad will be out in about five minutes. They’re going to announce The Hidden, and then the band will take the stage. We want lots of enthusiasm and lots of noise—do you think we can do that?”

              A chorus of screams erupted, making the guy laugh. He held both arms over his head to calm them. “Okay, okay—save some for the show.” He looked down at his wristwatch and announced, “Four minutes,” and then walked away toward the station’s back door.

              The noise died back down to an animated murmur. “Anticipation” was the wrong word for what I was feeling—the swimming sensation in my belly was more like anxiety. In a few minutes, Nox would be standing on that stage. The microphones and amps would come on, he would play his guitar. He would sing. And then I wasn’t sure
what
was going to happen.

Would I lose my mind, lose my own will, behave like these girls around me? Would I become a podette for real?

              I searched the area for an escape route. I was boxed in by bodies as well as our bus on one side and the back wall of the TV station on the other. Rotating all the way around to inspect the back of the parking lot, I spotted Amalia.

She was scanning the crowd with a serious expression, focused on her job. And what
was
her job exactly? Chaperone? Zoo keeper? Pimp?

Had
she
cast the glamour over my fellow pod members? She was obviously Elven, and she certainly kept a watchful eye on us all. Maybe she was combing the sea of other girls here, looking for new recruits.

Now that I thought about it, these fans were probably hoping for exactly that—to be noticed—to be chosen to become part of our elite and
privileged
group. As if to prove my point, a girl behind me tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to see her face.

“Are you in Nox’s fan pod?”

I had to swallow a hard lump in my throat before answering, “Yeah.”

Her curious expression melted into obvious envy. “You are
so
lucky. I didn’t get in. I thought I was one of the first to sign up—they played the Roxy six months ago, and I immediately contacted his agent and left my name. I guess a lot of people did.”