Free Vivian Divine Is Dead by Lauren Sabel Page B

gun?”
    “I didn’t want to scare you,” he says. “But I guess I did.”
    “I guess,” I say, like it’s no big deal, like people pull guns on me every day. Actually, they do, but it’s in a studio and the guns are loaded with blanks.
    “Would you feel better if I took the bullets out?” Nick asks.
    He has the bullets in? I nod, not able to get my voice back yet. Doesn’t he know he could shoot his private parts off carrying it in his pocket? (It happens, at least in movies.)
    Nick takes the bullets out and puts them in his back pocket. Then he smiles, and to my surprise, it’s a beautiful, better-than-Hollywood smile. Despite his macho attitude and the gun in his hand, my heart melts a little.
    “By the way,” he grins. “Nice butt.”
     
    By the time we stop again, the sun is setting over the mountains. Billowing clouds of fog soak the tops of the trees, making the entire world glow a deep orange. The air is thick and damp on my bare skin, and it smells moist and new.
    The forest floor is a soft orange rug, whispering in the slight breeze. Even the trees look like they’re wrapped in orange silk. I’ve never seen anything like it: it actually looks like the trees are breathing.
    “Let’s stop here,” Nick whispers, stepping into a small clearing and gesturing for me to sit beside him in a patch of grass. “This is a good place to build a fire.”
    “Why are you whispering?” I ask, my voice booming through the forest.
    Suddenly the whole forest floor shifts, lifting in one fluttered movement, like a magic carpet. Then millions of orange wings burst into the air, stripping the trees and fields of color.
    For a moment, the world fills with butterflies.
    I feel wings flutter against my cheek as thousands of butterflies surround me. I feel like I’m in a remake of Cinderella where butterflies have arrived to sew my dress and escort me to the ball.
    “Where did they all come from?” I whisper.
    “You don’t have to whisper anymore.” Nick laughs. “They know we’re here.”
    I raise my arms, palms up. In the deepening light my skin looks exactly how photographers airbrush it to be: golden, limber, supple. I hold as still as I can as countless butterflies land on my arms with their soft, tickly feet, covering me from shoulder to wrist.
    “I think they like me.”
    A slow smile creeps over Nick’s face. “Smart butterflies,” he says, sitting close beside me on the forest floor, his gaze locked on mine. It feels like butterflies have inhabited my chest, beating their wings unbearably fast. “They fly thousands of miles just to rest in this forest every winter,” he says.
    “Why here?” I ask, noticing how my arms, still extended straight out, are starting to shake. Butterflies are jumping off my quaking skin, joining the circling orange-and-black sky.
    “Nobody knows,” Nick says. “But when the locals look at them, they see angels.”
    “What do you see?”
    “Something even better,” Nick says, looking right at me.
     
    After the butterflies have resettled, covering the forest in rich orange velvet, Nick helps me start a fire. And when I say help, I mean he does the whole thing and gives me credit. Just the way I like it. If Pierre was here, he’d pretend he knew how to do it, burn himself, and then make me start the fire. In the end, he’d take all the credit anyway. But not Nick; his praise is so believable I almost think I did it myself.
    Once the fire is roaring, Nick extracts his gun from his side pocket and holds it out where I can see it, careful to point it away from me. He’s so nervous about scaring me. How could I ever have doubted him?
    “I’m gonna use my gun now,” he warns, “to get us dinner. Unless you want me to head butt a bunny.”
    “I’d really love to see that,” I say, “as long as I’m not the bunny.”
    We grin at each other before he heads off into the forest to hunt.
    Seconds later, I hear a gunshot, and then Nick returns, swinging what looks