A/N - Thanks for all the lovely reviews, favourites and follows so far. Keep them up! It's great that so many of you are liking this fic. This chapter's another long-ish one, but I had a lot to fit in. Let me know what you think!
Chapter Two
"Ma'am, would you mind helping out for a second?" Merritt McKinney asked.
A middle-aged woman in the arena section nervously got to her feet. They were on the final trick, the big finale.
"Now I want you to pick a seat," Merritt said.
"Whoever is sat in that seat," Henley Reeves picked up, "will be lucky enough to come on stage, and so will whoever is sat on their right."
"Doesn't matter if they're your wife or your brother or a total stranger, the person sat to your right comes too," J. Daniel Atlas finished.
Eden shrunk a little lower in her seat, as if that would give her any immunity against the random choices of a woman she didn't know. Eden hoped the woman wouldn't choose the boxes, anywhere but the boxes. Getting up on stage was not something Eden had any desire to do. She'd barely got over the fact Jack Wilder, the magician, had leaped into her cab earlier, and she didn't feel up to facing him again. Embarrassment was still raging through her veins.
"First of all, I want you to choose a section of the venue. Arena, stalls, the boxes or the circle," Merritt went on.
The woman flapped her hands like a nervous bird. "Urm, boxes."
"Alright, now let's see if I can remember the names of the boxes. You can have the... Loggia boxes, Grand Tier boxes, or the Second Tier boxes. Take your pick."
Eden could feel herself getting more nervous as this went on, even though she knew it was irrational. Not Loggia, not Loggia, pick any of the boxes just not Loggia.
"Loggia."
Shit.
Merritt smiled. "Okay, ma'am, now just choose me a number between 5 and 35."
The woman chewed her lip, thinking. Please don't choose seat 31. "Um, 30, seat number 30."
Eden relaxed. So close.
It only dawned on her what had happened when Maisie punched her arm. Eden looked to her and saw the squeal trapped in her throat. The woman had chosen Maisie's seat.
And whoever was sat on the right of the seat chosen had to accompany them on stage.
"Would whoever's sat in the seat LG30 please stand up!" Jack called out, and Maisie got to her feet looking a little bewildered, everyone clapping.
Eden, on the other hand, wished her seat would snap shut, sandwiching her inside.
"What's your name?" Daniel called.
"Maisie," came the answer, her voice a little too high-pitched.
"Now who's that sat to your right?"
"My friend Eden."
Maisie looked to her, grinning wildly. This was a pure adrenaline rush to her, but to Eden it was adrenaline of a different kind, the fear kind. Maisie gestured for her to stand up, but Eden remained frozen, her palms slick where her fingers were laced around the arms of her seat.
"It seems we've got a shy one," Daniel said, and Eden didn't have to be looking at him to hear the smile in his voice. Laughter bubbled through the room and Eden felt herself blushing furiously. "Come on; Eden, was it? I don't bite, Eden, I can promise you that at least."
The other Horsemen called for Eden to stand up. She tried not to focus on Jack's voice among them as she grudgingly got to her feet, helped by Maisie tugging on her arm. "Relax, Eden," Maisie whispered to her, still smiling like a lunatic.
The crowd erupted into what she guessed was encouraging applause.
Someone came to escort the two girls down to the stage. For each step Eden's heart beat double. She wasn't a limelight kind of person, not at all. That was strictly for Maisie, who was lapping up every moment of it like a cat with milk.
When the two of them appeared on stage, Maisie dragging Eden behind her, the crowd erupted into applause again. Eden's breath caught in her throat at the sight of the venue, all those eyes trained on her, the vivid lights hammering down like miniature suns.
She couldn't help but almost jump out of her skin when Jack materialised at her side. He grinned knowingly, all high cheekbones and bright eyes beneath the throb of the lights. Eden could do nothing but stare, all words alien to her. He stretched out an arm ahead of him, back to business, and said to both Eden and Maisie, "This way please, ladies."
He directed them to the centre of the stage as Daniel began to explain, "Now, this wouldn't be a Four Horsemen show if there wasn't any money involved."
"And we're not talking about the money you paid to be here," Henley added.
"Now," Merritt started, turning to face the two girls, one glowing with excitement, the other with nerves, "let me guess. Maisie your lucky number is... 8, and Eden yours... 17."
The two girls exchanged surprised glances. He was right, and he'd done nothing but look into their eyes. "Yeah," they answered in unison.
"Great, so," Merritt went on, and he turned back to face the audience, "would everyone whose seat is numbered either 8 or 17 please stand up."
People popped to their feet throughout the room. Eden watched them appear one by one.
What the hell am I doing here?
"Would everyone who's stood up please look under their seats? I think you should all find a piece of paper. Now, careful not to show it to either Maisie or Eden here, keep what's on the paper facing you."
The people obliged, mutters going around the venue.
"Eden," Merritt continued, spinning around to face her. Her heart kicked up another notch. "I want you to think of a name, any name, and spell it out. Whoever out there has a letter on their paper that matches a letter Eden says, please turn the paper around and hold it up for everyone to see. Okay, Eden, you ready?"
She looked at Merritt, her arm still looped through Maisie's for support. Did she have a choice? Probably not. She nodded. "Yeah, ready."
"Okay then, just spell out a name."
Eden thought it easy enough to just spell out Maisie's, so she began, "M."
A couple of seconds later there was a flash of movement, and someone in the stalls held up their piece of paper, the letter M printed on it black and bold.
"A," she continued. Another piece of paper turned around, up in the Second Tier boxes.
"R." Paper turned.
"T." Another.
"I." Another.
"N." And the final one.
"Martin?" Merritt said. "Okay then, Martin it is."
He had turned back to the audience, both him and Henley beginning to explain something else, when Eden realised what she had just said. She hadn't said 'Maisie', she'd hadn't even been close. She'd said 'Martin'. Her throat constricted. She'd said her dad's name, the name of the man who'd walked out on her and her mum when she was only seven.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Maisie frowning at her. "Why did you say your dad's name?" she whispered.
Eden could barely get the words out. "I don't know, I didn't even know I was saying it."
She tried to calm her breathing. It didn't matter. She had clearly been so nervous she'd just made a mistake. It was only a name. It was nothing.
Eden focussed on what was happening before her. More people throughout the room were standing up. She tried to think what Daniel had asked. Something about knowing someone called 'Martin'.
"Okay, so," Jack said, walking past the two girls, addressing the audience; Eden tried not to jump this time, "those of you who have stood up, if you can we want you to call the Martin you know right now. Get out your cellphones and call them. If you know more than one, just choose the one you know best or the first one in your contacts."
The selected members of the audience obliged, phones going to ears.
"Once you've got hold of them," Henley went on, her copper hair vibrant beneath the lights, "I want you to ask them all what their lucky numbers are. Sounds strange, but once they've told you, shout the number out to us."
It didn't take long before people began to call out numbers. And it didn't take long till Eden realised they were all saying the same ones. 8 or 17.
The rest of the audience began to notice, the mutters rising.
"Okay, okay," Daniel said, quelling the murmurs. His smile was a little smug, but it was fiery. Everything was going to plan. "Those of you who held up the letters spelling out 'Martin', I want you to look in your wallets right now and call out how much cash you have in there."
Once again, the people obliged. Eden's nerves were beginning to fizzle away, intrigue taking over.
"£8000!" someone called out in disbelief.
"£17,000!" came another voice.
The others shouted out the same.
"Maisie," Daniel said, hurrying over and taking her hand, "I want you to do something for me."
He led Maisie away. Eden watched her go, wondering what was about to happen. For the third time that day, Jack appeared at her side, smirking. This time a blush didn't rise in her cheeks. Her whole attention was focussed on the trick.
"We used this safe in an earlier trick, Henley getting inside and disappearing, right?" Daniel was saying, gesturing to a safe perched at the very edge of the stage. "Can you confirm that the safe was empty every time you saw inside it?"
"Empty except for me, that is," Henley chipped in.
"Yes," Maisie said, answering Daniel.
"Could you open it for me now, please? The code is 817817," Daniel said.
Eden could see Maisie grinning as she bent down to turn the dial. Right before she twisted the handle to pull it open, Jack leant a little closer and whispered, his breath tickling Eden's neck, "Get ready."
The safe door sprang open and out shot plumes and plumes of bank notes, orange and purple and green and red, far too many notes than could actually fit in the safe. But they kept coming, flying out and fluttering down through the venue, the audience cheering and leaping to get their hands on them. Notes filtered down around Eden, and as she held her hands out to catch them, she caught sight of Jack's grin between the falling money.
"Thank you everyone, we are the Four Horsemen, goodnight!"
The room was a wild fury of commotion. Eden was watching amazed as everyone scrabbled for the money. She felt a hand on her arm, turning her around. Jack. "This way!" he shouted to her over the noise.
"What?" She tried to see where Maisie had got to, but she was no longer on the stage. Everything was a riot of colour and sounds, and the lights now seemed too sharp. She could feel a headache coming on, pounding in her skull.
Jack tugged harder on her arm and she reluctantly let him lead her away; she'd just have to find Maisie once things had died down.
The other Horsemen caught up to them, moving at a brisk walk as they entered the labyrinth of backstage. None of them seemed surprised to see her there. She presumed Jack was just taking her back to her seat, avoiding the crowd, which she could still hear roaring behind them.
"Right, we have about three minutes to get out of here," Daniel said, looking a little rattled.
Eden presumed the "we" didn't include her, yet when they passed the door Eden had entered earlier to get to the stage, she felt a twinge of confusion. It took her a few moments for her to ground to a halt. All Four Horsemen stopped abruptly at the sight of Eden standing still. She was acutely aware of Jack still holding her arm. She forced herself to speak. "The show was great, thank you, but I really need to get back to my friends. I'm sure I can handle the commotion out there, it's not that bad."
The four of them glanced at her, the same mixture of apprehension and determination on their faces. For the second time today, something didn't seem entirely right.
"Merritt?" Daniel said. He wasn't smiling smugly any more.
Merritt sighed. Eden felt her pulse start to pick up pace again."I'm sorry about this, I really am," he said to Eden. And then came that fateful word, "Sleep."
Everything for Eden went black.