by Holly Hook
I struggle to absorb his words. Shit, I'm so tired, but my stomach is rumbling at the heavenly smells. “Zara made money for tossing me and Silvia to this program?” That explains why she brought us in, despite us disagreeing with her about how to tackle the Dream Developers problem. And then Beatrice and God knows who else has targeted me for elimination. Zara gets paid, and either way the vampires benefit. Turn the good ones and kill the threats.
Jeremy lowers his brows. “Never underestimate what people will do to each other for money.”
“Trust me, I get it.”
“You look like you need to sit,” Jeremy says, his tone rushing me to the chair.
Maybe he is here to give me answers. I take the chair which is comfortable. That's good because with comfort, I haven’t seen the shore for weeks now. The two of us stare at each other. The pressure builds, and the air is full of what do you have to say for yourself? Finally, I have to speak.
“Look, I'm sorry if I put you in a bad spot earlier. I don't know what happened with Senator Warrington, but I could tell that it wasn't good and was probably more than just shitty politics.” Why do I have to put shitty before politics? There's no need.
Jeremy frowns. He waits. The door opens, and the server brings in a tray of appetizers (for me only) and leaves before he speaks again.
“Why are you apologizing?”
It's a real question, with none of that sarcasm and mockery I associate with the First Son.
I shrug, but frustration tenses my shoulders. “Well, I have a tendency to get into trouble and piss people off.” At home, and here.
I eye the appetizers, almost too scared to see Jeremy's reaction. There's shrimp. Fancy little rolls. Sushi, too. I grab one and stuff it into my mouth, only realizing too late that there's probably a piece of silverware for that.
“Sometimes that's a good thing.” Jeremy winks.
My whole being heats. How can he light me on fire with just that? But there's more behind the gesture.
“And by the way, I was not calling you a blood bag. Blood bags have accepted their place. That is not you.” And then he smiles, showing his fangs, as he motions for Nathan to grab him a blood bottle.
But Nathan opens it and sniffs carefully before handing it to Jeremy.
That's a compliment.
I can't breathe.
“And I said that because the other diners don't know I'm here. It's good that they think you were a blood bag for some super rich, private guest.”
“It is?” Jeremy's given me a covert compliment. Or a backhanded insult. Do those even exist? Maybe that's just his way, but hell, it makes reading him difficult.
“Yes. Very good. Ember, you have nothing to apologize about. You must deal with some unpleasant people.” He takes a sip of his blood. “So do I, so the pain is mutual. If anyone needs to swallow some humble pie, it's me.”
“But you don't eat pie.” That's all I can manage? Jeremy just said something profound.
He gave me an actual, sincere apology, and I make some stupid comment about food?
I drop the next sushi roll I'm about to eat.
“Just the elixir of everlasting life,” he says, glaring at his bottle as if it's wronged him. He sets down his blood bottle, and he lowers his perfect eyebrows at me. “I have to be cruel to you in public and treat you as my inferior. It's one of the few accepted ways for vampires to interact with humans. The other three options are employment, deception, or—well, never mind, because that would be even more dangerous than this little play we're putting on.”
“What would be?” I ask.
“The world of vampires is dangerous, Ember, and not just for humans. Violence is how vampires die. We have families, and families fight. Rivalries form. We divide into political parties and face down opponents. And we even kill each other just to gain more power. It's always been that way. We're a violent species, and we value survival of the fittest.”
“You’re admitting it?”
He’s not done. “Goodman has had opponents killed just to stay the Majority Leader. He's had other members of Congress murdered to keep majority control. And the higher you are in government, the more dangerous it becomes.” He motions to his guards, and Nathan just nods.
I gulp. He's right, of course. “It must have been hard to plan this dinner, then. And what’s the other acceptable way vampires can interact with us?”
But Jeremy doesn't answer that question. He slowly lifts his eyebrows and studies me as he speaks. “I am sorry I can't be kind to you in public. Getting mocked is like getting stabbed with a rusty knife, over and over. This is the safest way, but it might not stay like that for much longer. I might have made a bad chess move today.”
“With Warrington? And you're saying that this whole being an ass thing is fake? No offense, but you mastered it.” I can't imagine Jeremy ever being mocked, though, except by The Heart News Network. But it’s not as if he has to tune in.
Jeremy grins. “Thank you.”
“Seriously.”
I eat a piece of shrimp, which is cooked to perfection, relishing the sauce and the crunch. Jeremy bought me this food. He bought me dinner. Yes, he really is apologizing, or maybe the endorphins that eating this meal is giving off is just making me more vulnerable to his traps. That's why companies bring food to other companies when they’re trying to sell products.
The server comes in to check on us, and we go silent as he lifts the lid to reveal, what? Duck? Pheasant? It's not chicken, but the smell itself is to die for. He serves only me and nods to Jeremy as if to reassure him. Jeremy must have paid him to stay quiet, then.
I thank the guy, and Jeremy hands him a hundred-dollar bill before he leaves. Yeah. Money talks. At least it's doing some good for once.
“So, what went down with Warrington earlier?” I ask.
Jeremy taps his blood bottle. “Do you know what it's like to get turned into a vampire?”
That's a weird change of subject, but Jeremy holds the cards in this conversation. I have to let him lead. If I demand the answers I want, now, it probably won't go so well and it'll waste time to boot. “Obviously, no I don't.” Is he going to describe the process? It's a process that, if I survive and can't escape this trial, I might face. “Thanks for bringing that up, by the way. I feel much better.”
“You don't wake up from it and say, 'I want to go subjugate and feed on some humans today,'” Jeremy says, eyeing the red liquid in the bottle as if it has answers. “You wake up from it and say, 'Shit, I'm a monster and I'm probably going to Hell.'”
As he speaks, he squints his eyes. The first stress lines I've ever seen on Jeremy appear. They look familiar, as if I've seen them before, and emotion wells into my throat, forming a lump. Jeremy can feel pain.
He doesn't enjoy being a vampire?
Jeremy levels a stony expression at me, irises narrowing in the light. “Vampires think very much like humans until they make their first kill.”
“What?” I drop a random fork.
He clears his throat. “It wasn’t easy, but I escaped from that fate.”
I stiffen. “You escaped? What? Do they make you kill someone so you turn evil?” I'm well aware of the guards standing by the doors, and neither Nathan nor the human guard react to what we're saying.
Jeremy nods. “Ding, ding, ding.”
I swallow. “How the hell did you do that?”
“That's sensitive information.” He shakes his head. “And not something I can share.”
I bunch the tablecloth in my right hand, trying to absorb the sweat on my palm. If I live through this and they turn me, they'll make me murder someone? This is even more horrifying than I imagined.
“Does anyone know?” I ask. One thing at a time.
“Well, Nathan and Carl here are aware. Nathan tricked them into making them believe he killed, too,” Jeremy says. “He helped me.” Jeremy leans forward and lowers his voice. “The President doesn't even know what I've done. The point is, vampire society
doesn't tolerate those like me. We're too threatening. We want to change things for the better, and if we're ever found out, we'll be lucky if they only force us to kill. Do you understand?”
I force down a piece of pheasant. Even the taste can't save me. “They could murder you, too.”
“Yes. The reason we young vampires are on the Panelists program is because we’re being tested, too. They have to make sure no compassion got through.”
“How many vampires still think like humans?”
“I don't know. But we exist, Ember. And we're working on changing this whole corrupt system.” Jeremy takes another sip of the liquid he's cursed to need. “Being accused of dodging your kill is what it's called, and it's very dangerous. By helping you with your case today, I planted the seeds of suspicion in Senator Warrington, who wants more than anything to take power away from the Spade Party.”
He was trying to help me by using another backhanded insult. But now it's blowing up in his face. “Oh, shit,” I say. “What should we do about this?”
“For now, you need to hate my guts in public, just like you have. I need to be an ass. With luck, Warrington will see her suspicions blow over.”
“And what if that doesn't work?” It already goes without saying that Warrington will employ spies to see how Jeremy acts around me and any other human even remotely close to him.
“Then there's another plan, but it's even more dangerous and wouldn't be fair to you,” he says in a tone that tells me not to press any further, and that I won't like what it is. “For now, we need to walk on this razor.”
“Will Beatrice care that I’m your favorite victim?”
Jeremy takes another sip. “Beatrice is scared to piss me off.”
“I can tell.” Yuck. Sure, they're not the same party, but I’ve already seen Beatrice trying to convert him.
I realize that I've finished my plate, and I push it away.
“It is four twenty,” Carl warns, eyeing his watch.
“Yes,” Jeremy says, shaking his nearly empty blood bottle and placing it at the edge of the table. “You're right. We need to conclude dinner.” He dabs his mouth with his cloth napkin and rises.
Already? We've been talking and dining for that long? “Wait,” I say, standing. “Why are you helping me? I'm from a mud hut, remember?”
Jeremy blinks like he's not sure what to say and breathes out like he's choosing his words carefully. What is he going to say? That I'm a way for him to hold on to his humanity? A tool? No. Don't let it be that. “We might be more alike than we're different, Ember.”
And then he shocks me by striding up to me. We stand there, face to face, and then he leans down before I can react.
Perfect lips graze mine before snapping away again, and Jeremy Haywood straightens, turning a wicked smile into a statue's stare. Electric pressure dances across my lips even as the deathly serious curtain comes down over the rare warmth in his eyes.
“Don't make me regret that.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I can't get the events of that dinner out of my head.
Silvia doesn't believe me when I tell her what happened, and about that, but it doesn't matter. There is another side to Jeremy and not all the vampires are evil monsters. And if Jeremy is, well, he's doing an amazing job of hiding it. Maybe he's an evil monster pretending to be a normal dude who's pretending to be an evil monster? But the more I think about that, the less likely it seems. If Jeremy wanted to trap me and kill me, he would have done so at our dinner. No one will stop the First Son from taking what he wants, so long as it's out of the public eye.
My brain hurts, but at least I have something I didn't have before: hope. With Jeremy's help, Silvia and I just might make it out of here.
Stay alive first.
And keep Mike alive, too.
“Okay. So maybe I believe you,” Silvia says as we walk into the Senate building a few nights later. “It's just insane. He's the First Son. He sees the President every day, probably.”
“I know it is.” Can my life get crazier?
We head upstairs, and I see Jeremy nowhere as we head up, which is unusual, because he usually stands at the door, near the guards, and taunts me and Silvia when we walk in. But we find him upstairs in our meeting room of the day, deep in conversation with Beatrice, Wendy, Asha, and William.
“What’s that stench?” Beatrice asks, holding up her nose and raising her voice.
I don't look right at Jeremy, though I want to. I hurry past the vampires to our table, where Victor is already sitting. Jeremy snorts and says something in a low voice, probably an insult, and I slam my binder down on the table.
“Hey. Just ignore them,” Victor says as Silvia and I sit.
“They do this all the time,” I say. So far, he's been cool-headed, which might be a bad thing as the vampires prefer their future children to be bold. “Tell them to knock it off.” I drill my gaze into Victor so hard that he goes to push his chair back. I can't even tell him I'm trying to save his life.
“Um, knock it off?” Victor asks the vamps.
Colleen and Ariana walk into the big meeting room beside Becky, who has a laptop bag clutched to her chest. “Okay, team,” she begins, silencing everyone in the room. “Everyone please gather at the middle table. We have eight staffers coming in tonight to hear us out, and we have a mixed bag of Heart and Spade. This is a chance to get our concerns to multiple lawmakers at once. Remember, every vote will count when it comes to passing or stopping the Act.”
Staffers. That's not as intimidating as some people we've faced, and it turns out that half of the staff members are human. One of them is Goodman's assistant, who still has pink bite marks on her neck.
That means we’ll have fewer people going over us, as if we're pieces of meat. Unless the vampire staffers, who are all older and have that twenty-five forever look, want children too? They probably get stuck with the sloppy seconds.
As I tell my story again, I wonder if we're wasting our time.
If we human panelists are here just to get selected by vampires for our strengths, and the vampire panelists are here to prove that they've lost their compassion, then are the lawmakers even listening to us at all? The thought gnaws at me more and more while the staffers ask questions. Ugh. I silently count six, seven, eight, and nine of them on the other side of the long table.
Wait. Nine?
A vampire man I haven't seen before has appeared at the other end of the table, across from Jeremy, and he's watching the First Son from the corner of his eye as he scribbles notes. When did he come into the room? Jeremy, I notice, is quiet for once, not daring to interrupt Colleen as she speaks.
Something's wrong here.
Finally, Jeremy speaks when it's his turn. “We have all heard these stories over and over. We need more input from those who know how the housing industry works. Now, I believe that the solution here is to force these companies to stand on their own, so that the most competitive among them can rise to the top. This means cutting down on government help. These companies—Dream Developers and Sub Urban Enterprises—will then need to duke it out among each other, so that the strongest comes to the top.”
He's saying the same thing he told Senator Warrington, but with new words, and it sounds a lot more like that political jargon I hate. The new vampire just takes notes and nods, but says nothing.
I don't like him.
And then he nods to Beatrice as if the two are sharing a secret.
I can't listen as each of the vampire panelists speak, talking about benefits to companies and getting voters to swing a certain way. There's a darker-than-usual undercurrent here, and when the meeting ends, the new vampire nods to Beatrice, and the two quietly slip out of the room.
I'm packing up for “lunch” when it happens, and I look across the clearing room to see that Jeremy hasn't noticed. He and William are talking and for once he's not sneering at me, but he can't make his act too obvious, of course.
“Who was that
guy?” I ask Silvia.
She draws close to me and grips her chair. “I think he was one of Warrington's staffers. I heard Goodman's staffer whispering about it to another woman, and--”
“Shit.” I'm out the door so fast that Silvia goes silent and follows.
Beatrice and the staffer are already rounding the corner to the elevators, and they vanish from sight. The elevator dings. The two are moving fast, and they must be going to Warrington's office downstairs so they can talk. I wait for the hum of the elevator to hop in the next one, and Silvia gets in with me.
I'm glad I've already caught her up on what Jeremy told me. “Why would Beatrice be talking to her staff?” she asks.
“I don't know, but it might have to do with me or Jeremy,” I say. “Beatrice is Heart Party, too, and she'll want to defend Mommy's ideas. Or throw Jeremy under the bulldozer because he’s not giving her the light of day.” There's no better way to put it.
We get out of the elevator, and I curse the vampires' superior speed. Beatrice and the staffer have cleared the hall, and just a few people, some of them activists from other groups, meander around the first floor with folders and laptops. I ignore a wave from two other young women and head toward Warrington's office, which is on the other side of the square.
“You're going to spy on them?” Silvia whispers.
I just nod, since I know there are vampires with great hearing all around this place. There don't seem to be any cameras, though. But I get why. Cameras can get hacked and their contents broadcast to the world. The vampires do not want their secrets to get out.
We reach the corridor that holds her office, and I take off my shoes to muffle the sound of my footsteps by the time we reach the bathrooms. Warrington's door is closed, but shadows move on the other side, visible only under the door and through the mail flap. Beatrice and the man seem to have gone inside. Muffled voices float out. The rest of the hallway is empty, which shocks me.
