The Coldest Girl in Coldtown (10 page)

Aidan smiled. “Definitely.” He looked back at the car, toward Tana. She wasn’t sure if she should get out. It was bad enough that he was promising people rides.

“Heading to Coldtown was kind of an impulse for us,” he said. “So we could use a guide.”

The girl—Midnight—touched Aidan’s shoulder. “Reckless,” she said, as if there were no higher compliment. Her hair was much longer than her brother’s, parted on one side to hang in her face, falling completely over one eye. She wore skinny jeans with a blue velvet top and grubby, home-dyed ombre blue ballet slippers. Two rings threaded through her lower lip and the one in her tongue clacked against her teeth as she spoke. “We’re part of this online network for people who are planning on going to Coldtown. We used to post all the time about meeting our destiny. Claiming all the stuff that normal people don’t want. We’d talk and talk and talk, but how many of us actually did anything? We say that you’ve got to be willing to die to be different. I bet you believe that, too.”

Winter pointed a painted fingernail at Aidan. “You don’t even know him, Midnight. He could be doing this on a total whim. He might not be serious. He could be high. He could balk. Look at him. There’s something wrong with his eyes and he’s sweating.”

Midnight rolled her eyes, sarcasm in her voice. “That’s a nice thing to say about someone who’s offering us a ride.” She looked at Aidan. “Don’t mind Winter. He’s overprotective.”

“So
are
you willing to die to be different?” Aidan asked them, and Tana heard the hunger in his voice.

“For sure,” she said. “I wanted to go last year, but Winter didn’t want to be sixteen forever and I had to admit it was kind of lame. So we compromised. We’re going to be eighteen in a month and that seemed old enough to go.”

Midnight and Winter
, Tana thought. She knew that the names had to be fake and that the way they looked was an elaborate artifice, but they wore their strange beauty like war paint. They made an intimidating pair.

Winter looked down at his calf-high boots, buckles running back and forth over the length of them, frowning as though he wanted Midnight to give Aidan a different answer. A long metal chain ran from his belt loop to his back pocket; he twisted it around one finger idly, in the same fidgety way that his sister bit her lip rings.

“I’m going to blog the whole thing,” Midnight said. “That’s how we’re going to pay for stuff after our trade goods run out. I’ve got a tip jar on the site, and there are ads and stuff—my readership was already pretty good, but it’s gone through the roof since we ran away. A hundred thousand unique visitors are watching Winter’s and my adventure. We made a promise to each other—and to them.”

“No more birthdays,” they recited more or less at the same time, then flushed and laughed a little. It was a vow, a piece of a chant, their scripture, something they took so seriously that saying it aloud embarrassed them.

“Because you’re planning on dying and rising again?” Gavriel said from atop the car hood. They glanced at him in surprise, as if they’d forgotten he was there. His face was shadowed enough to hide his eyes, but his unnatural stillness should have unnerved them.

“I just posted about our Last Supper,” Midnight said, taking her phone and holding it out to Aidan, leaning closer than she had to. “It’s kind of a tradition. Before you go through the gates, you eat one last meal. All your favorites. See, Winter had pizza with olives, ketchup chips, and bubble tea? And here’s the picture of mine—steak and eggs with a slice of apple pie. I was so excited that I only took a bite of each. You know, like how you get one last special meal of your choosing before you go to the electric chair.”

Because they were hoping to die, Tana realized.

She saw how Aidan’s gaze drifted over Midnight’s skin. She really was beautiful, with large black eyes and all that blue hair, with earrings in the shape of daggers swinging from her earlobes. He grinned as if what she’d just said was very funny.

He was going to bite her.

Tana got out of the car, slamming the door behind her. They all looked over, Midnight frowning at having her conversation interrupted.

“Aidan,” Tana said warningly. “Everything okay?”

He turned toward her, a strained smile relaxing into a real one as she got closer. He shrugged and threw an easy arm over her shoulder. “Midnight, Winter, this is my girlfriend, Tana.”

Midnight took a step back from Aidan. Winter looked at Tana in a way that told her just how bad she must appear in her ripped and filthy dress, hair sticking up all over the place.

“I’m not—” Tana started, pulling away from him.

But Aidan was still smiling. “And she’s worried because I’m sick. I’m Cold. She’s worried I’m going to bite you, and she should worry, because I want to bite you. I want to real bad.”

At that, Gavriel looked up again, his gaze catching Tana’s. She couldn’t read his expression, but she could tell he wasn’t pleased. One of Midnight’s hands flew up to cover her mouth, chipped silver nail polish and onyx rings on her fingers.

Winter studied Aidan’s face. “You really are, aren’t you?”

“He was bitten last night,” said Gavriel, leaning forward, black hair hanging in his face. “He can control the hunger now, for short periods, more or less, but it will become worse. He has maybe another day or two before he ought to be restrained.”

Tana expected Aidan to give some response, but he was quiet. Maybe he hadn’t realized it would get worse. Tana thought of her mother screaming up from the basement and shuddered.

She thought of the way her skin had felt chilled when she’d woken. She wasn’t sure why Aidan hadn’t said anything about the possibility of her being Cold—whether he was being nice or whether he figured they would be less impressed if it wasn’t him alone who was dangerous—but either way she was grateful.

“Can I interview you?” Midnight asked Aidan, pulling out her phone and fiddling with it, opening some app. “For the blog? Can you describe what it feels like—the hunger?”

“Careful,” Winter said, putting his hand on his sister’s arm.

Tana could see that Midnight wasn’t listening. Her mouth was slightly open, fascinated, a mouse in love with a snake.

“Come on,” Midnight said to Aidan, losing her cool affect entirely. She bounced on her dirty ballet flats. “Please. I’ve never talked to anyone experiencing what you are. I am so curious—and my readers would be supercurious, too. It must be amazing to have all that power running through your veins.”

“It’s like you’re hollow,” Aidan said, looking into the camera as if he was ready to devour all the viewers, looking as if he were an understudy for one of those online vampire celebrities. “Hollow and empty, and there’s only one thing that matters.”

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Tana said, walking over to Gavriel.

He held out a cup to her, the one she’d seen beside him on the hood when she woke. His black shirt was stretched tight against his chest, and he had a crumpled paper bag resting beside him. “They say a long sleep is the best cure for all sickness.”

She took a long swallow of the coffee. It was too sweet and choked with cream, as though it had been mixed by someone who had no idea what it was supposed to taste like—someone who hadn’t tasted food in a long while. She reached for the bag. “What’s in here? Doughnuts?”

He turned away, as though he didn’t want to watch her open it. “Take it. That’s for you as well.”

The bag turned out to hold a necklace of Bohemian garnets clustered together like pomegranate seeds, with a huge garnet-studded locket the size of a fig hanging from the center point. The gold clasp on the back was broken, as though it had been ripped from someone’s throat, and the locket itself was empty. It rested on a bed of loose
bills, some ink-stained, some smeared brownish-red, some single dollars and some twenties mixed in with a few euros, all jammed together in a messy pile.

“Where did you get all this?” she asked.

At that moment, Midnight screamed. Tana whirled toward them and felt Gavriel’s cold hands closed around her. Frozen fingers dug into her skin just below her rib cage. His grip was so firm it was like being held by a bronze figure.

Midnight was on the ground, her phone tossed to one side, her hands scrabbling to push Aidan away. He crouched on top of her, pushing her velvet shirt off her shoulder. Winter had hold of one of Aidan’s arms and was trying to pull him backward.

Tana’s feet kicked out ineffectually against the car bumper as she was dragged up into the air. She felt Gavriel’s chest against her back, smooth and chilled as stone. She felt the icy curve of his jaw where it rested against the top of her head.

“Hush, Tana,” Gavriel said, sliding his cheek downward over her hair, so that he could murmur against her throat. Terror overwhelmed her, vast and animal. Her body took over, twisting and writhing and clawing. It was like being in that dark basement again, her mother’s cold lips giving her one final kiss.

“Hush,” he said. “It’s almost over.”

“No!” Tana shouted, struggling uselessly. “No, no, no. I have to help him. Get off of me.”

Then, suddenly, he did, hands sliding free of her. She staggered away, nearly falling to her knees.

Winter had let go of Aidan’s arm in preference for pulling him away from Midnight by his hair. His head lashed back and forth,
Midnight’s hand up under Aidan’s jaw, pushing him away from her. But he was close, close enough for his teeth to snap just above the bare skin of her arm. His fingernails raked at her shoulder, making bloody runnels.

Her screams spiraled up into the night air.

For a moment, Tana’s mind was blank. Then she rushed over, crouching down, so she could dig her hands into Midnight’s armpits and haul her.

Aidan looked at Tana, and for a moment, it was clear he thought she would help him. Then she scuttled away, pulling Midnight as hard as she could, and he snarled in comprehension.

Aidan went for Midnight’s legs, but she was fast enough to kick him in the chest, hard. Even though she was wearing only slippers, he stumbled to one knee, gasping, one hand held out as if to ward off more violence.

Winter locked his arm around Aidan’s neck and held him like that. For a moment, Aidan’s body went slack, then he brought up his shaking fingers, stained red. He was about to lick them clean. Tana leaped forward, grabbing his wrists and pulling them to her, wiping his hands against her dress. She wasn’t sure how much human blood would turn him, but she didn’t want to take any chances.

Aidan started to laugh, a choked sound with Winter’s arm against his throat.

Midnight sobbed softly, red soaking her torn shirt, turning the blue velvet to black.

Tana looked at Gavriel. He was watching her with half-lidded eyes of glittering scarlet, an intent and covetous stare.

“You didn’t do anything,” she accused, pointing a trembling finger.
He swayed slightly toward the scene of carnage, like a tree bending in the wind, as if she had beckoned him. “You could have stopped him and you just let it happen.”

“It’s dangerous to go to Coldtown infected but not yet turned.” His voice was distant, but something in the way he moved his mouth, some languorousness, showed that the blood in the air and feel of her struggle against him had ignited his desire to feed. “It would have been safer if you’d just let it happen. Every new vampire born in Coldtown is a drain on the blood supply and there are only so many donors.”

“It’s dangerous to be infected anywhere,” Tana said. “I just don’t want him to die.”

“One way or another we all wind up dead,” Gavriel said, his eyes on Aidan.

But then he bent and picked up the coffee cup from the ground, bringing over the remaining liquid to wash off Aidan’s fingers. Tana knelt on the cool asphalt of the parking lot, carefully scraping Midnight’s skin from underneath Aidan’s nails with her own.

“Buzzkill,” Aidan said, low. Cold sweat dampened the bangs of his forehead. He grinned up at Gavriel, his head lolling against Winter’s arm now, as though there was no more fight in him.

“You owe me,” Tana told Aidan. “I hope you know just how much you owe me.”

Leaning over them, Gavriel’s face was no longer shaded, his eyes catching the blinking lights of the rest stop sign, his skin too pale to belong to a living human.

Winter stood abruptly, freeing Aidan and backing away from the vampire.

“Something the matter?” Gavriel asked him.

Aidan stretched out, looking up at the stars.

Midnight pushed herself to her feet a little unsteadily, wiping tears off her face and smearing her black mascara. She saw Gavriel and froze as her brother had.

“Red as roses—yes, those are my real eyes. Am I not what you’ve been looking for?” Gavriel’s smile was all teeth. “I have been here all along waiting for you to notice. I can give you what you want. I can give you endless oblivion.”

“Stop it,” Tana said, hitting him on the shoulder, continuing to pretend he was a regular person who wasn’t scary in the hopes he’d forget, too, continuing to pretend she had any power at all in this situation. “Stop it
right now
. I’ve had enough of everyone attacking everyone.”

Her words seemed to break the spell he’d had over Winter, who put his hand on his sister’s unhurt shoulder. “We should get you to an emergency room.”

“No hospital,” Midnight said groggily. “I just need bandages—we can get them inside.”

“
Jenny
,” said Winter. “Please. Let’s go home.”

She looked at him with wide, black, furious eyes. “We have everything we need right here. And don’t ever call me that name again. Ever.”

Tana looked toward Aidan, still staring dazedly up at the stars. He was breathing faster, as though he couldn’t quite inhale fully. One of his hands was pressed to his heart. He barely seemed to notice when she called his name softly.

“Go with them,” Gavriel told Tana, sitting down beside Aidan
and pushing up the sleeve of his own T-shirt. “Since you wish it, I won’t let him feed on the living, but there’s no reason he can’t drink from the dead. It will curb his hunger. Go, Tana. We’ll be here when you return.”