Where are you taking me?" I asked, a sudden spike of anxiety piercing through the hum of the luxury sedan. I was worried I'd be whisked away to some remote, unknown research facility again. That would make for a long evening, regardless of how short the actual consultation was, and I still had a 9:00 AM macroeconomics lecture to survive in the morning.
"Mr. Jason has made arrangements in the District," the chauffeur replied, his voice a neutral, professional drone.
Vague, but better than "the middle of nowhere," I supposed. I set my phone to silent, another habit of the "old" me and settled back against the leather. I watched the lights of the city blur through the tinted window, a rhythmic yellow pulse against the cold outside the car's heated cocoon. Each block ran into the next in a repetitive blur of cement, wet asphalt, and dark brick.
I didn't realize I had fallen asleep until the soft, heavy clunk of the car door opening and a sudden, sharp breath of D.C. air roused me. I blinked a few times, my vision swimming, and surreptitiously wiped a stray bit of drool from the corner of my mouth.
"We've arrived, Ms. Amanda," the chauffeur said helpfully, standing by the open door.
"Where... where am I?" I ducked out of the car and stood on the sidewalk, stretching my stiff, aching muscles. I was standing in front of a nondescript, elegant beige rowhouse.
"The restaurant," the chauffeur said patiently, as if I were a particularly slow child. "Mr. Jason is waiting for you inside."
I looked up, and my heart nearly stopped when I saw the modest sign: Komi. I swallowed hard. Even on a student budget, I'd heard of Komi. One meal there cost roughly the same as two weeks of campus dining hall food. it was the culinary mecca of the capital, a place where reservations were a blood sport, impossible to score unless you called the second the lines opened exactly one month in advance.
The limo was already purring as it pulled away from the curb, leaving me no choice but to mount the iron steps to the front door. I felt a wave of desperate gratitude that I'd listened to my Grandma's voice in my head and dressed up. If I'd arrived in denim and sneakers, I would have died of pure humiliation right there on the sidewalk, sparing the cancer the trouble of finishing me off.
I pushed open the heavy door and stepped into a foyer where I was immediately greeted by a host dressed in sharp, minimalist black.
"You must be Ms. Amanda," he said, his voice a hushed, respectful murmur. He relieved me of Elisa's swing jacket before I could even stutter a greeting. "This way, please."
I followed him deeper into the building, my head still muddled with sleep and a mounting sense of disbelief. I wasn't entirely certain I could trust any of this to be real—it felt like a vivid, high-budget hallucination. The narrow dining room was dim and intensely intimate, with only about twelve tables tucked into the warm, wood-accented space.
There was a sudden movement in the shadows of the farthest corner. I raised my eyes as the host led me toward the back, knowing who was there even before my brain registered his face. I could feel him, a strange, magnetic pull in the darkness that made the air feel electric.
And there he was.
Mr. Jason stood as I approached, his height and presence dominating the small corner. He was wearing another impeccable three piece suit, the fabric so dark it seemed to absorb the candlelight, paired with a black silk tie. He carried an aura darker and more profound than anything I'd ever experienced, if I'd ever truly experienced an "aura" before. He watched me with those same hungry, piercing eyes, and for a second, the bustling restaurant disappeared, leaving only the two of us in a circle of shadow.