by Holly Hook
My heart races. Save me? I'm not safe anywhere.
I can't let tonight end without saying something.
“Ember,” Silvia says, for obviously the third or fourth time.
“What?” I've been so lost in my thoughts that I've tuned everything out but that stray, loose piece of shag carpet.
“I called security. They're coming up right now, and I texted Becky.”
Wow, she's fast. I let out a breath and stand. “With them in there, we can go look at the damage. Thank you.”
Silvia opens her arms for a hug, and though I'm not the touchy feely type, I let her give me one. “Silvia, I don't think it's safe for me to stay here. Whoever's after me might go after you to get revenge for whatever horrible thing I've done.” It's a fight to keep my voice level.
Silvia slowly releases me. “I understand if you have to go.” She frowns with tears brimming in her eyes. “This isn't fair, for any of us.”
I'm way too angry for my good.
My heart turns into a chunk of lead as I follow Silvia back to my apartment, where three guys in black uniforms peek into the doorway like commandos. I'm relieved that they're human and that they're armed, probably with silver bullets in those pistols. Vampires are strong at night, but the metal has always been their weakness.
“Stand back,” the first man says, drawing his gun and pointing it into my apartment. The three fan out once inside, ordering any intruder to show themselves. The place must get cleared pretty quick, because the first guy, probably a former Marine with the name tag Peters, nods to me.
“It appears someone broke in through your back window,” he says. “A vampire, for certain. No human could have made the climb. Your alley-facing bedroom window shattered. The intruder seems to have left some time ago.”
“That's nice,” I say, forcing my pulse to calm down. So at least our guards didn't just let them in. “What are we going to do about that?”
“Do you know who could have done it?”
“Beatrice Silverton hates my guts,” I admit. Please, please, let her go tomorrow night.
Peters balks and frowns. “We'll look into that. In the meantime, protocol is to move you to another unit immediately.” He takes on a more sympathetic tone and sounds like what I imagine a good father would be. “We'll give you one with windows that look over one of our posts, so that no one will make the climb and break in.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“The new unit has no furniture or clothing as of right now, but it has working water.” Peters eyes my ruined clothes. “Would you like to see if you can salvage anything in your closet?”
“Yes,” I say, not liking the sounds of that.
One of the security men gets on the phone with Becky to plan. I hear Becky apologizing over and over, though it's not her fault, and I busy myself going through my bedroom and then my closet. Silvia helps me in silence. The place is just as trashed as the living room, but at least there's a breeze coming through the busted window to clear out the smell of drying blood. My bed looks like someone got stabbed in the jugular while someone else took a knife to the aorta on the floor.
Yep. Beatrice got in here, too, and tore down all my nice clothes and stomped them into the blood puddle as if trying to soak them up. There's almost nothing left in my closet. My tennis shoes which came with me from home are untouched. I see a pair of jeans with a hole in the knee, also from home. They're the ones I wear to lounge in while at home. And there's my T-shirt that I wear to bed, crumpled in the corner, the one with the yellow paint stains on the left sleeve.
“Nice,” I breathe. Beatrice is telling me to go home and to go back to my place on the bottom. A sense of violation burns in my chest and I hold back tears. I’m staying in tonight. No. Wait. I square my shoulders. Zara needs to know about this.
“You don't have any other clothes,” Silvia says. “I'd lend you mine, but--”
“You're six inches taller than me,” I say, the terror flowing into my chest. Silvia's not only taller, but borderline underweight. I'm not chubby or anything, but I'm definitely more squat than she is, and the disaster I imagine trying to fit into her clothes is even more terrifying than just wearing the ones I have. The hole in that knee isn't too big, nobody will notice my tennis shoes, and I can roll up the sleeves of my shirt a bit and hide the paint stain. This is just a dinner at a casual place. I'll live.
My phone buzzes, and so does Silvia's. “Oh. Dinner just got moved up an hour.” She frowns at me. “I guess the vampires don't want to wait until so close to daylight? I bet Jeremy's agents had to do with that.”
“We have to go earlier?” I ask, eyeing my adjoining bathroom. At least that is clean. I can take a record-breaking shower and change. “That's in...that's in twenty minutes!”
Silvia nods. “If you can't get there on time, I'll let Zara know what happened.” She pales and I know she's not looking forward to it.
“Go ahead,” I tell her. Raz's Steak and Grill is just two blocks away, and the guards can probably see the place from the front door. “They won't want me to shower here, I'm sure.”
Silvia goes ahead, and the guards lead me to another unit across the hall from my ruined apartment. They talk to each other about having a cleaning team come in, and having Beatrice pay for it, which lifts my mood. The new apartment has the same shag carpet, but only one couch and no TV, but I'll pay more attention later. I'm just grateful for Silvia.
Showering is a pain in the ass, because some petroleum jelly got in my hair and it takes three rounds of shampoo to get it out. I feel better afterwards and dress in my comfy clothes. Since it's summer, I have no coat, so there's no covering this up. Well, Silvia went out to eat in jeans twice, so I've got the feeling she'll do the same tonight in solidarity.
Once my hair's nice and combed, I toss the bloody dress clothes in the plastic bag the guards gave me, using the supplied gloves. Once I leave the new unit, I hand the bag to Peters, who tells me to enjoy dinner and that Becky will order more furniture for me in the morning.
I check my phone.
It's one-ten. Dinner has already started.
I quicken my pace to the elevator and go down. The two door guards are still there, which makes me feel a lot better. Raz's is just around the corner so I won't bother with a cab.
The traffic is light, with most human residents home for the night. Sensing the guards' stares on me as I jog down the sidewalk, I remember that Raz's is down a side street, near the river, so I turn and break into a run down a sidewalk that sparkles under the streetlights. I pass lit hotels, apartment lobbies, and open stores. The orange sign for Raz's glows just another block down the street.
I'm just going over what to tell Zara in my head when two dark figures step in front of me, blocking my way, and before I can react, powerful hands seize my shoulders.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“What the hell?” I burst, kicking at one of the dark blurs.
“Well, what do we have here?” The blur solidifies into the shape of a man as I straighten. A vampire in a suit and with combed-back hair. His red-streaked eyes are wide. Hungry. There's a woman with him too, a black-haired hawk in a glittering evening dress.
He lifts me by the shoulders. My arms tingle as he cuts off my circulation. And his nostrils flare as he eyes my throat, where my pulse hammers.
“Let go of me,” I shout as the meaning of this comes crashing down.
“Feisty,” the woman says, clawing at the air with a wicked grin.
They think…they think…
“I'm a panelist,” I say. “And I'm expected at dinner just down the road. I'm here to help work out new laws.” Vampires only attack tourists and the homeless. Right?
The man looks at the woman as I stand there, one foot in the air and the other barely touching the sidewalk. And he snorts. “They all say they're important.”
My heart sinks.
It's my clothes.
I look like their favored prey. Someone planned this.
The woman glances back into the dark alley they came out of. And I know what they want.
I'm no more important than a piece of meat.
Rage fills my chest and I swing at the guy, cursing as loud as I can, but I might as well hit a wall. The woman motions for him to drag me into the darkness. All of my senses sharpen as I kick, but the man just ignores each blow to his shin, grinning and relishing the time it's taking to drag me into death.
A low motor sounds, and the woman clicks her tongue. The man stops. “What?”
The hawk just motions to the road.
The man whirls, making me stumble, and there's a black SUV parked on the curb, complete with tinted windows.
The male vampire releases me as if I’m a hot plate. “Shit.”
The back window rolls down, and a pair of green eyes with ruby red streaks focuses on the man. “Release her. She is a panelist in the Young Activists.”
It's Jeremy.
And judging from that jagged edge to his tone, he's not happy.
He goes to open the door, but it's locked. So instead, he rolls down the window all the way and leans out of the window. The First Son looks ready to tear some heads off. Slowly, he bares his fangs at the other vampires.
“Sir--” a man says from inside the SUV.
“This young woman is off limits!” Jeremy shouts as I cradle my aching wrist. “You know the rules. Do not touch the Young Activists or I will end your careers for making me look bad.”
“We--” the woman starts.
“Get in,” Jeremy growls at me. “And why are you dressed like that? What an embarrassment. You'll make us all look unprofessional.”
My throat catches. He's just as furious with me as he is with the other vampires.
But I'll take the ride.
“Sir, you cannot--” an agent begins from inside.
“I can legally dismiss your protection,” Jeremy says as I rush to what I’m guessing is an armored vehicle. “Let her in.” He motions for me to go to the opposite door.
I do. The SUV clicks as it unlocks, and instead of Jeremy, I'm met by an agent, this one a vampire man who immediately checks me up and down as Jeremy rolls his window back up. I'm subjected to an ultra-fast pat-down and I bite in my protests. After rolling up my pant legs, the agent nods at me in silence. I get it. I'm not to give the slightest sign that I could ever dream of hurting Jeremy, or I won't live long enough to make it one block to Raz's.
I get into the SUV, dizzy, climbing into the seat in front of Jeremy. It's the only one available, because there's an agent at the wheel and another riding shotgun, studying the two cowering vamps at the mouth of the alley.
The agent slams the door behind me and goes around to get in on the other side.
Jeremy and I stare at each other.
And now my pulse quickens for another reason. I'm in the same vehicle with the President's son. I turn in my seat to face him. He's there, in the back, alone, just two feet away. I could reach down the SUV’s aisle and touch him. Jeremy's all decked out in a sharp suit, which hugs him around the ribs and hints at what's underneath.
Shit.
I should thank him and go all rescued damsel mode, but I'm not capable of that. “Someone broke into my apartment and apparently thought it was a good idea to waste blood, so this is the only outfit I have left. I'm sorry if it offends you.”
A flicker of shock comes over his face before he regains control. Jeremy deepens his glare as his eyebrows come down. His eyes flick as he reads my shirt. “'Politicians and diapers need to be changed often for the same reasons.'”
The SUV gets moving and I feel all the blood drain from my face.
Did I seriously throw on that shirt? I look down. I never meant to show it in public, but in my desperation to get to dinner and tell Zara what happened, I completely blanked.
“Um...” I start, but Jeremy shocks me by letting the corner of his mouth turn up into a smile.
He's not pissed off?
Then he laughs.
“You think it's funny?” I ask, well aware of the agent sitting next to me and watching each breath I take. What the hell is up with Jeremy?
“That type of humor is more appreciated around here than you know.” He reaches beside him and pulls a tan, elegant dinner jacket off a hanger. “Of course, not everyone is on that page.”
And just like that, he drops his grin. And shoves the dinner jacket at me.
“Humor aside, don't embarrass me.”
“Um, thanks?” I look down at the coat. It’s going to be too big for me, but at least it’ll look nice and almost reach down to the hole in my jeans. Yeah. Beatrice is going to love me walking into the restaurant in Jeremy's dinner jacket. Maybe that'll just add another element to what I'm hoping is pro revenge.
Before I can gauge what he actually thinks of me, the SUV parks in the back lot, closest to the door. I wonder how the hell Jeremy lives this way. But I'm out and throwing the coat on. At least it’s unisex and I won't look like a beggar compared to everyone else.
But that's not the important thing here.
As I stand there eyeing the back entrance, the implications of what happened hit me.
Whoever ruined my clothes wanted me to rush to dinner looking like an outsider.
They wanted me to get attacked. Maybe they even knew that some vampires hang out around this street, waiting to nab dumb tourists or homeless folks.
I'm on Beatrice's shit list. Minus the S.
“Ember?” Jeremy asks, getting out of the SUV. “Why are you standing there in la-la land? We're already late, and you just made me later.”
I whirl on him, careful to keep my expression neutral. “Someone tried to kill me, okay? It was a trap, so they wouldn't have the blame traced back to them. By the way, thank you. I appreciate what you did, but I have to get out of here.” Panic seizes my limbs. Beatrice isn't following the rules. She's just improving her game.
“Ember--” Jeremy starts, but I'm already going through the back door. Inside, a human employee waits with a clipboard. The restaurant behind him is mostly empty, with just a few vampires sipping blood goblets under a chandelier of tube lights.
“Are you with the Young Activists?” the employee asks.
I nod. “I'm late and I'm sorry.” Where the hell is Zara?
“Elevator,” he tells me with a nod.
There's one to the side labeled Private, so I take that up to the second floor, where I find a private dining room complete with wooden walls, ranch art, and two long tables and another server with a long, rolling cart of blood goblets. Silvia and the other human panelists sit with Becky at one table, and Silvia is talking to Becky—and wearing jeans—while the other human panelists dig into steaks, bread rolls, and other staples.
But it's not them I need to talk to. I can't get my thoughts straight. The elevator dings as it descends to pick up Jeremy, and I force myself to look at the vampires' table. Most have goblets of blood. But Beatrice sits on the opposite end as her mother, and she's got a young male server on her lap, who grimaces as she caresses his neck with her fangs. She pauses just before biting him and stares at me.
Gulp. My ears ring. I've got to get out of here. Is that her celebratory drink, interrupted?
Zara's at the head of that table, and her eyes widen as she snaps her gaze to me.
“Ember,” she says, studying Jeremy's dinner coat. “You're late.”
“I'm sorry,” I say, shaking. Then, wanting to preserve a bit of dignity, I walk up to her table and lower my voice, avoiding the vampires' gazes. “I'm sorry again, but I need to leave this program. I won't tolerate murder attempts. That was not in my contract, which says that panelists can’t hurt each other.” I've read it, all right. “Since someone breached it, I can legally leave.”
“Ember?” Zara's eyes widen as she collects her leather bag. “Right now?”
Beatrice snickers. She's not good at hiding things.
You don't like my ideas, anyway. How is she
so shocked? Well, we've all met parents who think their kids are angels. If I can get her to follow me and ask why and say please, at least I can throw Beatrice under the train.
Jeremy emerges from the elevator with the Secret Service, muttering about embarrassing wardrobes just as I pass Silvia, nodding my apology. Then I step inside. I hit the button to go back to the first floor and I'm plunging my hand into my jeans pocket to call a cab, but just as the doors slide shut, a dark shape enters the elevator with me.
And Zara stands just a foot away from me, her dark, red-lined eyes asking where the hell I'm going. Her gaze is so dangerous that I back away. She adjusts her leather bag.
She’s not begging, as I hoped.
The elevator doors close, shutting me and her inside our little box.
Alone.
“Your daughter trashed my place,” I say. “She wrecked my clothes and tried to get me killed by other vampires. And she did it by giving me no choice but to wear stuff that makes me look like an outsider.” I motion to my jeans in the vain hope that Zara’s gaze will soften.
The elevator dings as it descends.
But as soon as we get to the first floor, she presses the button for the second with one hand and stops the doors from opening with the other. The steel doors try to move outwards, but she's holding them together with one splayed palm.
A shudder races down my spine.
“I highly suggest that you stay,” Zara says in a low voice, flashing her fangs. She’s abandoned her reserved nature.
“I need to leave,” I say, louder. “The only way I can stay is if you deal with your daughter, who's had it out for me since I got here. I don't know what threat she thinks I pose--”
Zara holds up her free hand, the one she used to press the button. The elevator clicks over and over as she continues to hold the doors shut with her other palm. “Ember, are you planning to go back to your family?”
That's a loaded question. “What do you mean?”
