Rockstar Romance: Julian (Contemporary New Adult Bad Boy Rock Star Romance) (Hard Rock Star Series Book 3) (60 page)

****

"Is it possible to go up into the torch?" Jake asked.

Hava looked up and saw him inching his way around the edge of the crown, his back pressed to the side so that he was unable to see through the windows. He was moving and not crying, however, so she decided to interpret that as progress.

"It used to be," she told him, "but no one has been allowed up there since 1916."

"Hey," Josh said, looking at her from his position against one of the windows, "Who's the tour guide around here?"

Hava opened her palm and gestured for him to continue.

"Be my guest. After all, you are the one who snuck us in here after hours and are putting your very job and future ability to support yourself at risk."

"Thank you for the acknowledgement. Anyway, technically people do still go up there. There is a 40 foot ladder that leads up into the torch, but only the maintenance workers who keep the floodlights up there going are allowed to use it."

"Why did they stop letting people go up?" Jake asked, "Not enough interest from insane people who would actually climb up even further than we are to teeter precariously above the river in a fake flame the thickness of two pennies?"

"I'm impressed that you know how thick the copper used to build the statue is," Josh started, "but the original torch wasn't actually made entirely out of copper. It had glass panels. People used to be allowed to go up in there just like we walked up into the crown, but the Black Tom Explosion in 1916 stopped that."

Jake promptly dropped to the floor to sit cross-legged with his back against the wall.

"What are you doing?" Hava asked.

"Starting my campout. I warned you about anything involving explosions."

"This was actually a real thing, though," Josh said, "It is considered one of the biggest acts of sabotage against the United States outside of Pearl Harbor. After the explosion, they closed off the torch and no tourists have been allowed to access it since. They replaced the original with the gold-plated copper one that is there now in 1984."

"Why did they replace the glass one with a gold-plated one?" Jake asked.

"Because…America."

"Fair enough. What happened to the original?"

"Did you see the huge torch in the lobby when we first came in?"

"Not really. I was too busy asking myself why in the hell I thought it would be a good idea to come climb a big giant woman in the middle of the night to notice any of the more subtle décor choices of the lobby."

"Well, that would be it. Do you want to see it?"

"Yes," Hava said.

"No," Jake said, his voice overlapping hers.

"I just dragged my sorry acrophobic ass up a thousand and eleven stairs to get up to this woman's crown and now you want me to turn around and go right back down?"

"Ooo, acrophobic," Hava said under her breath, "good Scrabble word."

"I know," Jake murmured back, "triple word score."

"It's only a little over 350 stairs, and at least you aren't tall," Josh said, "You could have had to walk the entire thing like this."

Josh ducked his head down and scrunched his shoulders over.

"I'm glad my genetic shortfalls came in handy for something."

"Come on," Hava said, taking Jake by the sleeve, "We were going to have to go back down at some point anyway, and I would think that you would be relieved to not be all the way up here anymore."

Jake let out a deep, dramatic sigh.

"I will be. I just don't want to go down the itty bitty staircase from hell again."

Hava stepped onto the first stair, taking care to keep her feet at the widest portion rather than the tapered side so that she didn't stumble. The steps were narrow and shallow, forcing them to walk in a straight line back down. She led the way, eager to get a closer look at the original torch. The Statue of Liberty had always been a special focus of her history studies. She knew its origin story, how it was built, and all about the various restoration and preservation projects undertaken over the years to keep it safe. Though it was only a small piece of history and something easily overlooked in its significance, the statue drew her in, like there was something more behind the anonymous woman's eyes as she gazed through blank stone out over the city that had changed so much in the hundreds of years since her construction.

When they finally made it back to the lobby, Hava crossed over to the metal bars that surrounded the original torch and gazed up at the impressive piece. It seemed larger than life, and yet smaller than it should be at the same time. She leaned forward on the bars and heard Josh make a scolding sound behind her.

"Miss, please step away from the bars," he said in his most professional tour guide voice.

"I’m not supposed to touch the bars?" Hava asked, leaning on them further.

"No."

"So you wouldn't like it if I did this?"

Hava rested her stomach on the upper bar and pulled herself up so that she was balanced nearly horizontally across the metal.

"Stop it. Get down."

"You probably really wouldn't like it if I did this."

She leaned forward, causing her body to flip upside down so that she dangled on the opposite side of the bars and stared at the boys through the bars.

"Hava, you’re a grown woman, get ahold of yourself!"

Hava laughed and tried to right herself.

"See? You didn't think that through, did you? This is why twenty-something year old women do not dangle from bars like they are on the freaking playground."

Josh reached for her shirt to help right her, but the movement made her lose her balance even more and she slipped, tumbling to the floor on the opposite side of the bars.

"You can't be in there," Josh said, his voice reduced to a hiss, "That's why those bars are there."

Hava pulled herself up to her knees and started to stand.

"I know why the bars are there, Josh. And I'm perfectly fine, thank you for your concern."

She was nearly on her feet when something on the bottom of the torch caught her eye. She took a step toward it.

"No, Hava. That's the wrong direction. Come this way. This way is the way out of the forbidden area so that you don't get me fired."

"Hold on," she said, taking another step closer to the torch and crouching down to look at the bottom. "The torch is made of copper and glass, right?"

"Yes."

"And it contained electrical arcs for a while so that they could use the statue as a lighthouse?"

"Yes. Thank you for the trivia, we'll be sure to whip it out next time we are embroiled in a heated game of 'Jeopardy'. Please get out of there now."

"Would there be any reason for one of the glass panels to be open like a door?"

That question seemed to strike Josh as strange because he stopped gesturing for her to get out of the torch enclosure and stepped up a little closer to the metal bars.

"Open like a door?" he asked.

"Yeah. Open a little bit like it's on hinges. That's not how they would have maintained the electrical arcs is it?"

"I don't think so."

Hava eased forward until she was standing beneath the curve of the torch and narrowed her eyes to look more closely at the glass panels still several feet above her head. One looked like it was hanging open just slightly. Not thinking beyond the next moment, she grabbed onto the patina-covered metal base of the torch and pulled herself up so that she could climb closer to the glass and copper flame.

"Oh my god. You are going to fall and kill yourself and I'm going to have to explain it to your mother. Or worse, we're going to get caught and I'm going to have to explain it all to both of our mothers."

Hava ignored Josh and continued to climb until she was close to the glass panels. Her heart was pounding. She knew that what she was doing was not only highly illegal, but also dangerous. As she did it, though, she didn't care. She felt drawn to the torch in an intense, almost irresistible way and she needed to know why that panel seemed loose.

As she drew closer to the out-of-place looking panel she realized that it was not just one of the copper-outlined glass panels that appeared open, but two that were open in opposite directions like cabinet doors. Hava carefully balanced herself on the metal bar where she stood and reached up to touch the panels. One opened further at the touch of her fingers and she found herself staring up into the torch.

****

Liberty.

"What's going on?" Jake called up to her, but Hava was too focused on the glass doors in the torch to acknowledge him.

She reached up with her other hand and grasped the other loose panel so that she could both balance herself and open the doors. For a moment she lost her balance and she heard Josh gasp, but she was able to right herself and turn her attention back to the inside of the torch. She could hear the blood rushing in her ears and her heart was pounding so hard it seemed to tremble in the base of her throat.

The original electrical arcs placed inside the torch more than a century before were no longer there. Instead, she saw what looked like a ball of light emanating from the center. When she held her hand in front of it, however, there was no reflection of the light off of her skin and it did not seem to be pouring out of the torch as she would expect it would.

"Do you guys see any light coming out of the torch?" she asked, not looking back at them.

"No. That thing hasn't lit up in about 100 years."

"That's what I thought, too."

Hava adjusted her hands so that she grabbed the bottom edge of the torch and jumped, pulling herself up into the torch despite the shouts from Jake and Josh below. As soon as she straightened inside the torch she saw that what she saw as a ball of light seemed more like a faintly glowing orange disc that appeared to sink down in the middle like a whirlpool. She heard Josh and Jake scrambling up the sides of the metal base of the torch, but she was so enraptured by the disc that she didn't even turn to watch them drag themselves into the space with her.

"What the hell is that?" Josh asked when they had gotten inside.

Hava looked up at him.

"You don't know?"

"No. I didn't even know you could climb through the glass and get in here."

"I don't think anybody does," Jake said, flattening his hand on one of the glass panels and pulling it away to reveal a layer of dust, "It doesn't seem like anyone has been in here for a very long time."

"What do you think it could be?" Hava asked.

Without waiting for an answer, she reached forward. She intended to place her fingertips on the edge of the disc, but instead felt like someone had grabbed her wrist and was pulling her harshly into the whirlpool center of the glow.

Hava tried to resist the yanking feeling, reaching back to try to grasp anything that would allow her to stay in place. Her fingers brushed against Josh's hand and she heard his voice call her name, but it sounded like it was coming to her through water. Cold air rushed past her and a vibrant swirl of colors went past her eyes so quickly she couldn't see anything else.

She no longer felt the floor beneath her feet and suddenly it seemed like there were walls closing in on either side of her. In a matter of seconds she felt herself hit the ground hard, pain shooting up through her knees as she made contact with a metal floor. She gasped for breath and tried to stand, but something hit her in the back, sending her forward so she sprawled on her belly across the floor with her face only inches from what looked like a pair of heavily studded black boots.

She heard a groan that sounded like Josh and she pushed back, forcing the weight on her back off of her so that she could roll over. Josh and Jake lay on the floor, crumpled as if they hit the ground with the same hard intensity that she had and were trying to recover from the shock.

"Who are you?" a deep, growling voice demanded.

Hava turned her eyes sharply back to the studded boots and then let them travel up along tight black pants, a studded belt, and a chiseled, smooth body that made her bite down on her bottom lip despite the fear and confusion rolling through her.

"Who are you? Where did you come from?" the voice demanded again, louder and more aggressive this time.

The force behind the words had what she suspected was the opposite effect of what the speaker had intended, filling her with anger instead of fear. She climbed to her feet, ignoring the pain in her legs and hands, and lifted her face to confront the man. As she did, the breath caught in her throat and she took an involuntary step back.

Standing still and strong, the man appeared to be nearly a foot taller than Hava and carved out of marble. His body rippled with muscle and his stance told her that he was not frightened by their sudden appearance. What had startled her, though, was his face.

A black mask concealed his face, covering from the top of his head down to his neck with what looked like smooth, dark leather. The mask only closed over the front of his face and connected at the back of his head with a series of strings tied together. Hava could see a thick, dark ponytail running along the back of his neck and settled into the curve of his neck and shoulder.

"You aren't supposed to be here," the man snarled, "We are supposed to receive a transmission from 1776. How did you get here?"

His words swirled around her in a confusing cloud. She tried to sift through them, but she wasn't understanding what he was saying to her.

"What do you mean a transmission?" she asked.

"How did you get here?" he demanded again, his voice becoming angrier and more frantic each time he spoke.

"We climbed into the torch of the Statue of Liberty."

She felt dumb with the words coming out of her mouth, but it was the only explanation she could give him.

"That portal is not supposed to be open yet. How did you get through it?"

"Portal? I don't know what you're talking about. We didn't mean to go through anything."

"You have to go back."

Hava turned and saw her friends staring at the wall. Josh flattened his hand against it, but it didn't move.

"The wall is solid, Hava."

She turned back to the man and pointed behind her at the wall. The fear that she had forced away with her anger was creeping back and the look of the mask on the man's face was causing it to ripple down her neck and coil in the center of her chest.

"There's no door. How are we supposed to get back?"

The man suddenly took a long stride forward and Hava moved out of his way. He touched his hand to the wall in several places and then balled his fists and slammed them into the surface, letting out an angry sound as he did.

"The portal sealed itself. It's like it doesn't exist."

"How is that possible? We just came through it. It has to exist."

"That's not necessarily the case. That portal was not meant to open for another fifty years, which means that it didn't exist when you came through it and it seems to have ceased to exist again. The question is, though, whether it is just the portal that doesn't exist, or its vessel."