Chapter 17: Surprise

Noemie didn't really answer him back, just returning his gaze with a stoic face. He tried to read her as he leaned back a bit while waiting for the light to change, his eyes wandered on her. His hand that rested on the box between their seats moved closer to hers that also laid to rest on it, she made no movement as he gently took hold of her hand in his. 

"Alright, what are you hiding that not even your coworkers of the day are worthy of knowing?"

"A past full of regrets." She told him adamantly.

"What kind?"

"About last night." She changed the subject as she turned her head away from him and focusing on the front.

The red light turned green, and the car continued on. 

"It's on this street." She pointed to a sign up ahead, and Roman followed, still driving smoothly. 

"About last night, how are you feeling?" She asked a bit nervously. 

Roman thought for a minute, and his answer sounded very sure and calm, likely not what she was expecting. 

"I have no regrets of being open like that with you last night." 

Noemie looked out the window to all the passing buildings and street signs, to all the people walking along the sidewalks or waiting for the bus or cars to pick them up, feeling the sun through the window that may have mixed with the warmth already crawling up her cheeks. Though she shook it off as a frown mixed into her expression. 

"You know that now if the manager notices any suspicious movements from me, she'll view you as an accomplice?" She turned to look at him, watching his eyes that were still focused on the road and the cars around him. She was searching for whatever emotion he may be hiding or not showing. 

"Do you really have no regrets?" 

"Do you?" He asked back. 

Her company building was now in view, and he drove the car into the parking lot, finally able to look fully at her as he parked. 

There was something in the woman's eyes that now seemed more awake in that moment, throughout the last few days, from when she was cooking her old coworker's brain, to the night she first starting planning with Gavin, and then to now, she seemed to look less dim and out of it. Even more so than when she had the encounter with the lady in the trench coat, the manager they always talk about. 

"I, " She held her head in her hand. It seemed as though now her head was getting fully screwed back onto her shoulders. "I have no regrets; I won't let any of you get hurt because of me." 

Her nimble fingers circled around the buttons of her camera, she slowly unbuckled herself but didn't get out yet. She faced him one more time.

"I have your number and Everett's. Tonight, we'll find another excuse for staying over at the motel and I'll figure out another excuse for us to explore the rest of the place, I don't like it, but we'll need to go slow for now." 

"Is there no other way to figure out where her office might be? What if it's not even in the motel building?" Roman knitted his eyebrows together, leaning fully back against his seat, still looking at her. 

"I know her, she likes to keep everything convenient, and that includes the location of her possessions. This much trust you should put in me, but feel free to pretend you knew nothing if I do something wrong, it won't bother me, and I'll understand." The woman said as she pulled her purse further onto her shoulder, about to unlock the door to leave. 

Roman swiftly put a hand on her shoulder, preventing her from moving and catching her attention as he bought time to say a few more words. 

"Sorry" was one of the ones he mumbled as he let her go and reeled his hand back sheepishly, he kept his gaze on her confidently. 

"I won't leave you if you get in trouble." He said seriously. "I don't have a lot of skills so please try to let me support you at least, the other two have their own roles." 

His hand slowly lifted up to try and reach her again, her eyes saw his hand as he moved to lay it gently over her hand. He was practically leaning over to her; it was like he wanted to kiss her goodbye. Noemie gave him a curious look, one added to her mind that was currently thinking. 

"Somehow I don't believe that." 

He gave her a concerned look before she corrected. 

"About you not having a lot of skills, I mean." 

He observed her face, as she gave this knowing glint in her eyes, like she was reading more about his then just his intentions through all the foreplay last night. The woman brushed this topic off as well with just a smile.

"I should be getting to work now, please, stay safe." 

Roman chuckled. 

"I'd gladly show you all of them if we had enough nights."  

The woman smiled as he didn't really understand what she meant.

She raised her body up from her seat and gave him a light peck on the cheek, it made him smile gently and slightly bashfully as he sat back in the driver seat, but not before he returned a kiss on the cheek back to her. 

They may have both been acting shy in that moment, Noemie held her things carefully as she got out of the car, leaving a joke to ease the atmosphere a little more. 

"Funny, in France, kisses on the cheek are for greetings, not goodbyes, yet I seem to be using them a lot as goodbyes." 

"I'll fix that for you then, I'll give you a French greeting when we do our shift tonight?" 

She made no response, just a bashful turn of the head as she closed the car door. His vehicle engine could be heard turning back on again as she walked into her office building, her smile faded as his presence was completely gone. 

Her eyes searched around after passing through the front entrance and scanning her work ID as she walked to her desk, and they landed on a certain person sitting on one of the couches in the open, the person was discussing with someone else and didn't notice her at all. Why would that person ever notice her? They worked in completely different areas, and the difference in their pays were immense. The person she saw eating with other cannibals in the red room last night, she was someone who would've noticed Noemie, by curious hunger of a wealthy person. 

Noemie shook a grimaced expression off her face and quickly walked away, avoiding eye contact with anyone before she started to feel sick again, and turning on her computer. 

This sick feeling was later buried under coffee and a random pastry she bought when her stomach wouldn't stop making noise, her eating habits haven't gotten any better as she still forgot to eat dinner before her shift again. 

But perhaps it was a good thing. Compared to the comfortable office building where a human body can freely growl for sustenance and the worker can go to a nearby place to get food, no worries about anything but focus and work, she lost any thought of her appetite immediately when she received an email on the computer. Noemie was working on some special photo editing program on the computer, like practicing, until the email came. 

'All chefs needed to prepare for the casino party tonight; make the food look more normal, Noe!'  The simple message whispered to her in small fonts.

Were it not for her ability to fade into the background of other people's perspectives, many would ask why she suddenly looked so pale in that moment. Perhaps it was good to do tonight's work on an empty stomach like the other nights, she might have almost gagged at the spot. 

The presence of the email sent on her phone was difficult to ignore for the rest of the daylight, even as she refused to look at her phone the entire time. Some of her daytime coworkers passed her by, complimenting her diligence, while others said she was being a workaholic. Human opinions are so funny. 

The nickname sends shivers down her spine when she thinks about it. 

A more human manager will walk up and talk to her about the latest project for Halloween, Noemie will unintentionally bring up blood and human hanging from meat hooks, and the manager, with a forced smile, will pat her in the shoulder, telling her to file that idea for another time. 

I can see the woman mentally facepalming herself, the message still loud in her mind.

The others must have had the same experience as well with their own messages, as all the chefs and waiters arrived at dawn to the casino somewhere in a deeper part of the city, the address at the bottom of every email, a very new experience for some who were used to going to the building in hiding. 

Instead of underground, the floor they worked on was high up, on the 7th floor, the manager must've rented it out. It also had a classy style to it, unlike the other places where the walls are just glass windows and squares, and the color schemes of grey to brown, this place had vanilla walls, leather furniture, hard carpet floors with linings on the walls, a chandelier, and so many assorted rooms with creative halls. 

There were also paintings on the walls, of the beachside, and coastline cities. Noemie who actually enjoyed looking at pictures of lighthouses or art based on skies or prairies couldn't enjoy the sight of any of them as she walked in. 

On the way up, she'd show her ID and the message from her phone screen to the person on the first floor of the front desk, who made a blank expression and called for a person in a suit to escort her up, the person in the suit being someone who seemingly worked under Carmilla. 

In the elevator, they handed her a new type of access card, solely for this building, along with her chef coat. The card had a drawing of a hand in a hush symbol, red and black, and what looked like a signature or someone's name. 'Carmilla', and they had to show this to the men in suits at the casino who were guarding the doors, the ones who worked for the people who owned the building. 

It must've been an interesting sight for Noemie as she walked through the casino's bright and colorful game rooms. Just after showing her given invite card to the man in the outside door, she was let in to the seventh floor where there was red fabric furniture brighter than the red rooms' colors, there were games in machines and on the green felt tables, a wide room with lots of people who were quiet and smelled of cigarettes, each staring hard at their own set of colorful coins and cards. 

There were some halls with empty rooms being prepared for other people, and not for playing; walls outlined by the color of gold, round tables of bright yellow wood and polish set up with those fancier poker and card games all around the wide room. The doorways separating each room were large arches curved at the top, other rooms had things like smaller tables and tall chairs for more relaxed activities, they were bars and lounges, serving whatever food humans will eat with the bitter drinks. 

Food, no one was being served anything but wine from trays carried by servers not belonging to Carmilla, for now. It seems some of the casino regulars and patrons were excitedly whispering as they gambled, about some special dished being served tonight.

With the way her chef's coat was dressed on her, she almost looked like a lady in white, walking through a place soon to be corrupted, and the paleness of her skin from the oncoming fear and lack of eating lately almost made her look like a ghost. All the other chefs who were already in the kitchen, making her the last chef to arrive as usual, looked livelier than her.

The men in suits who belonged to the casino did not dare to go into the kitchen, and so the door was closed immediately after she entered, even the window where the plates of food would be sent out was closed until the dishes were prepared. Gavin who was standing next to Roman, silently, turned to see Noemie, and nodded a greeting to her. The two men had the same curious look as her ever since she read the message, to when they all got here. 

Some looked scared, others were apathetic, so with that, Gavin, Noemie, and Roman stuck out with their expressions of mixed fear with curiosity.

All the meat they had to cook and prepare for the night were either just recently placed on hooks int he freezer, or on the metal table in the center of the kitchen, it looked completely different from the red kitchen that they were used to, untainted. Some bodies that were already cut and taken apart by the limbs and joints were on the table in sets of pairs. 

Have you ever seen those piles of skeletons in caves or places discovered by archeologists? Or more specifically, skeletons turned into artworks, like the church whose interiors are decorated by bones because the graveyards weren't big enough? 

I'm getting reminded of that. However, the bones here still had meat on them, and they were more set up like surgeons were about to put together human puzzles. I'm getting sidetracked.

There was another door in the kitchen, no one had inspected it thinking it was just a closet and it was locked anyway, until someone from the other side unlocked it. 

It was like a closet with a surprise, because out popped the manager who looked happier to be there than them. She wore a black one-piece outfit, limbs tucked into leather heel boots and gloves that snapped when you pulled them, and a large V opening on her chest that ended at the start of her stomach. She had red colored lenses as she walked through the kitchen with a bounce in her step, excited, giddy as all the chefs stared at her in silence, wary, seeing her stopping in front of Noemie. 

Her face was like a venomous snake, creeping in close to take a sniff if her, her smile almost looked like a long-forked tongue would flicker out at any moment as Noemie held her breath. 

"I know it's a surprise change, it's much bigger than what you'd usually do." The lady intimidatingly threw her face at the stiff woman, tilting it at a weird angle for facing another person. 

Noemie looked at her curiously as the others slowly stepped away from the two, Noemie simply returned her eye contact. 

"We're cooking for a much bigger party, correct? You've certainly made things harder for us tonight." 

The lady in black leather smirked, one of her hands reached up to pat her shoulder as she walked around her, her finger catching onto one of the locks of hair from her ponytail, curling it around her finger before letting it slip away. She gave Noemie this eerie side eye just before she pushed open the door leading out into the gaming rooms. 

"Yes, and it might get harder later on, depending on my plans. I hope you're ready." 

The lady turned away, taking a step outside, and as the music was slipping inside the room, the lady told her one last thing. 

"Oh, and stop covering for the boy, I'll know if you do."

Noemie side-eyed sneered at the lady as she left out the swinging door.