Trace (TraceWorld Book 1) by Letitia L. Moffitt

back.”
    “Hope you know the secret handshake,” she said lamely. She felt unaccountably too on edge to make anything resembling a truly witty remark.
    He chuckled anyway. “That and the password should get us in, but if not, you look smashing, so dazzle the doorman with a smile.” He took a second approving look at her red silk dress and silver sandals.
    She smiled at the compliment, though she hated to recall how much time she’d spent trying to make herself look “smashing” for this—date? What in the world was this, anyway? He had called it an “experiment.” It could have sounded ominous except that it struck her as comical, like they were two teenagers about to try drugs and sex for the first time. And really, what could happen in a packed restaurant that would be so terrible?
    She tried not to imagine the possibilities.
    There was no secret handshake or password. Grayson merely gave their names to the man at the back door and they were ushered in, up a winding wrought-iron staircase and to a small room that was mostly kitchen. Two other couples were already seated at the bar where they apparently were to sit as well, but Nola didn’t register much about them other than the fact that they were all well-dressed and all wore looks of anxiousness mingled with excitement struggling to be contained under an unsuccessful veneer of blasé. As soon as Nola and Grayson were seated, and without any explanation or fanfare, the dinner began.
    Nothing about the preliminaries suggested anything remotely related to Japanese cuisine, so Nola felt even more uncertain of what was to come. There were ordinary cocktails to start, followed by beautifully crafted appetizers made from easily identifiable foodstuffs—perhaps, Nola reflected, on purpose, giving them all a false sense of security before the snakes and spiders and severed fingers appeared. She thought about making some kind of Fear Factor joke but had the distinct feeling it would not go over well with this bunch.
    Then the show began. One of the waiters wheeled out a cart draped with heavy black velvet, and when he pulled away the cloth, the six patrons leaned forward. But there was only an ordinary fish tank there, exactly like the one at the front of the restaurant, with four silvery fish swimming lazily within.
    Two men in chef’s garb appeared, one with a net and the other with a knife. The net man scooped out a fish from the tank. It had been gazing calmly at them, but now it thrashed with terrifying vigor, making Nola think for a second that it might snap its own vertebrae. When they got it onto the chopping block, the man with the knife held the fish’s body still. And then the knife came down, hard. Almost before she could react to the sight of the fish’s head severed from its still-shuddering body, the knife handler had sliced into its side with now-gentle strokes until, again just moments later, a dozen small pink ovals fanned on a white plate were presented before them. He nodded to the diners with an inviting smile. They each took a piece, looking fixedly at it and not the glassy eye of the creature they were consuming. Nola could barely register the taste; she was too wired with unease about what would follow this alarming first course.
    She soon found out. A second live fish was caught and put on the butcher’s block. One man stood on one side of the block holding down the fish’s head and tail, firmly but not hard; the diners could see it squirm. A second man stood opposite with a knife.
    With the fish still writhing, he sliced a thin strip off its side.
    “Now!” he shouted. Lightning fast, he had the strip of flesh on a plate sliced into small squares. The diners each snatched a piece and consumed it immediately. What was left of the fish twitched before them.
    An uncomfortable silence followed. It wasn’t the fact of the raw fish—Nola had eaten sushi and sashimi before—but seeing the animal traumatized and then dying before her eyes