The Night House (16 page)

“Are you telling me not to see him?” I glare into his black eyes.

He does not blink. “I am telling you not to be indecisive. If you see an opening that you can trust, you should take it. Just don’t drag someone else down with you while you make up your mind.”

There is anger in his voice. I grit my teeth and feel my muscles bunching in my jaw. “Don’t judge me.”

“There was a time when I didn’t have to.”

We stay in this position for several seconds before Finn moves his hand from my chin to my neck. “This is a mess.”

My gaze is on his, but he doesn’t meet it. “Why did you do it?”

He blinks once, slowly. “Why did I take you in?”

“There are a million other homeless girls in this city. Why did you bring me here? You must have known I was going to wind up working with clients. And now you’re all disappointed, as if you didn’t see it coming.” Tears sting my eyes as the truth hits me. “You could have stopped this from happening.”

He looks at the wall, at the ground, then finally at me. “I knew you would bring in money. Your blood is different; I could smell it. I knew you would be the biggest sell.”

“What is it about my blood?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “Truthfully.”

I’m surprised to find that I believe him. Hot tears drip onto the floor. “From the start, I was just a product for you.”

“If that makes it easier for you, then yes.” His voice is forced. Finn stands. “I need you to get ready. Jeremiah has sent a colleague in his stead. Priscilla.”

“A female?”

“She has done him a favor. He wishes to reward her. He recommended you. Please, make her feel rewarded.” This is not a command, but a plea. If I screw this up, Jeremiah will know. He’ll have a reason to punish me.

I’ve already given him too much.

Finn leaves the room before I can reply. I can’t figure him out. I’ve been living with him for years, and I still don’t know him. There was a time when he felt like my guardian. But we’ve just been growing farther apart.

I don’t need Finn. I have Micah, and Alex. And James. My mind willingly slips back into his arms as I remember the museum. Maybe he’ll be different. What if he’s telling the truth? He could help me get out of here. I close my eyes and wish over and over that James will be different.

I’m going to hate Priscilla for hurting him.

James

“Why do we need to go to Shiloh’s to talk about this?” Ally pulls my arm. “I have to get up early tomorrow. The ‘rents are taking me to Holmdel for the music fest.”

I’m about to tell Ally that I don’t want to tell the story twice, which is a lie. I’m just terrified of trying to tell them both about the fact that vampires are real, and I want to delay this conversation for as long as possible. That’s when another presence invades my mind. There is a man leaning against the building about a block away. Even from this distance, I can feel his arrogance. His gaze is trained on us.

Ally starts to walk in his direction, but I put my hand on her shoulder. “Let’s go a different way.”

But it’s too late. She sees the guy. “Do you know him?”

“No, but I think he knows me. Seriously, let’s go a different way.”

“Maybe he has something to tell you,” she says and tries to head toward him again.

“And maybe he’s a murderer. We’re calling a cab.”

Her eyes go wide. “James, is he with Bianca? Does he work with her?” She seizes my arm so tightly it hurts, both fear and excitement coursing through her.

I hiss at her to shut up and turn around, but he’s there, leaning against the wall, eyes fixed on the ground. I shove Ally behind me. She lets out her air like she’s been punched. The guy stands upright and takes two steps closer. I’m not exactly short, but my face comes up to his neck. He’s so close, I can taste his metallic breath. He’s calm as a still pond. My pulse races.

He reaches into the pocket of his jeans. When I try to take a step back, he fixes his gaze on me like a knife. His eyes are ice blue. Everything about him is sharp.

He says, “I didn’t say you could leave.”

I freeze, terrified of what he has in his pocket, but it’s only a pack of cigarettes. I didn’t know vampires could smoke.

He
is
a vampire. I can feel it. Or I can feel the lack of humanity. There is something different about him. His physicality. And something else. Like a dark undercurrent that surrounds him. I’ve never felt it in anyone else. Almost like a kind of…thirst.

Not to mention the only people I could have possibly pissed off lately are the people Bianca works for. I have a vampire stalker.

He pulls out a cigarette, eyes still fixed on me, lights it and takes a drag. I feel an explosion of heat in my chest. Then he blows the smoke into my face. I fight back a cough. His gaze wanders past me, and I feel Ally’s heart beat speed up.

“Smells nice,” he says.

“Don’t talk to her,” I say before realizing how stupid that is.

He has a crooked smile, the kind that makes my skin crawl. Two seconds go by, one for each of his fangs sliding into place. My gums ache as I watch it happen. The vampire tilts his head back, to stare down his nose at me, and his lips curl into a sneer.

“You can go now.”

I take one step back, one arm still guarding Ally. Then another, until I am sure he isn’t going to lash out and kill us both. Then I lead Ally by the arm, and we run the entire way to Shiloh’s. I don’t feel safe until I’ve locked Shiloh’s front door and closed the blinds on every window.

No going back now.

Bianca

I take a shower before rush hour begins, when the girls clamber over each other for a turn. When I get back, I change into a standard outfit. Plain blue dress, strapless. Plenty of skin showing without trying too hard. With some time left, I find my sketchbook. I don’t even try to lie to myself. I draw James because I’ve been dying to draw him again, to see if I could possibly capture those eyes. They go so deep, filled with everyone else’s pain.

James.

I hope Priscilla has plenty of nauth to block out the pain.

“You have half an hour,” Finn says as he opens the door. He doesn’t leave. “Let me fix your neck.

I touch the gnarled skin. It’s still healing, but poorly.

He sits beside me and bites his own wrists before I can say anything. Then he presses one wrist into my neck. Blood drips down my skin and stains the blue dress an ugly purple.

“I'm going to have to change again.”

“You should have showed this to me as soon as it happened.”

“The clients should expect a little wear and tear. Especially friends of Jeremiah. He’s the one who did this to me.”

Finn’s mouth becomes a straight line. I can almost hear him asking,
What did you do?

“He got excited, okay? You should be talking to him about this. He’s getting kind of attached. Keeps asking me to leave with him.” Blackmailing me, in fact.

“In case you haven’t noticed,” Finn says. “I am in the business of attachment. The more he likes you, the more money I make. I couldn’t care less about how he feels about you. However, he should know better than to rip up my girls’ necks.”

“His bite is the least of my problems.”

Finn eyes me. “He does seem to be a little more intense about you.”

My face heats up. “Is it really possible…for vampires to care about humans?”

Finn examines the wound. “I have been trying to teach you since the day you came here. Humans and vampires are not as different as you would like. We are capable of emotion.” There is just a small bite to his words.

“You had me fooled.”

“It’s not my fault you make it so difficult.” Did we just share a joke?

“Don’t say anything to Jeremiah,” I say quickly.

If Finn talks to Jeremiah about the damage, Jeremiah might just spill that I’ve been seeing Micah on the side.

“Don’t worry, I won’t be giving orders to the new Monarch of Pennsylvania anytime soon. I’m already on thin ice with him.”

That is not what I want to hear. That means Jeremiah is the most powerful vamp in Pennsylvania. The vampire government is a lot like the mob, operating completely out of the eye of human law.

A thought occurs to me while Finn tries to fix up my neck. A very scary thought.

“Can he buy me off you?” I ask quietly.

“You’re not for sale,” Finn answers immediately. “Unless I fire you, you’re here until you choose to leave.”

“He can’t just order you to hand me over?”

“I don’t take orders from politicians,” Finn says with more than a little pride. “Night Houses are like city-states. They exist independently from their larger territory. We have our own rules and our own leaders.”

“So…are you a Monarch like Jeremiah?”

“Not quite. I don’t affect anyone outside of this building. But when you’re here, my word is law. And all of my girls are protected.”

“From what?”

He makes a noise halfway between laughter and sighing, then says. “Vampires.”

James

“What’s going on?” Shiloh watches me lock every window in his house like a madman. “You seem very panicky.”

As I move, I hear Ally start to laugh. At first, it’s the quiet laugh of shock. Then it builds into hysterics. I turn back to her, and there are tears running down her face. My own pounding heart has not steadied, but I realize it’s not because of my fear.

Ally is having a panic attack.

“Ally…” Shiloh approaches her slowly.

She gasps like a drowned person, and my own chest burns as she tries to get in a full breath. Then her legs buckle and she is on the ground, arms limp at her sides. Seeing her so helpless is the most painful thing, worse than a vampire bite on my neck. I’m frozen in place for a second, until I see Shiloh awkwardly try to help her with no response.

I sit on the ground in front of her and push her hair back from her face.

She finally quiets down. There’s an eerie deadness to her eyes. “It had fangs.”

“What the hell happened to you two?” Shiloh asks, mostly directing his anger at me.

“You’re safe now, Ally.” I rub her arm, but she snatches my hand, gripping it so tightly that I wince.

“Vampires.”

She says the word without hesitation, not like I did. Almost like she’s been expecting it.

“Ally, are you okay?” Shiloh asks, kneeling on her other side.

“I haven’t seen one since…since Mom.”

“Is she delirious?” Shiloh whispers to me.

I squeeze her hand. “I think she’s in shock.”

“We just got shaken down by a vampire.” Ally says with more clarity. “I saw his fangs. He talked like a vampire. He
felt
like a vampire.”

She turns to me now, with that hollow, steady edge in her eyes. “When were you going to tell us that Bianca worked in a Night House?”

Shiloh clearly doesn’t know who to tend to. “Can somebody tell me what’s going on?”

I glance over at Shiloh, whose hands are buried in his hair. We must look insane to him. But I’m a little preoccupied with what Ally just said.

“How do you know about that?” I say.

She covers her face with her hands, pushing her fingers up into her hair. “I need water…”

I help her up. Shiloh takes her from me, still upset, but more concerned with Ally’s well-being. We get her seated at the kitchen table with a glass of water. She drinks almost all of it before finally meeting my gaze, then Shiloh’s.

“You guys know my mom struggled with drugs…”

I brace myself. Ally rarely talks about her mother. She didn’t come from a great situation. We know her mother passed away because of an overdose, and her father walked out on her because he didn’t want to take care of her. But now I’m not so sure it’s that cut and dry.

“Well, she didn’t actually pass away. She had to give me up because she worked for a Night House. She couldn’t pay the rent for her apartment, but she didn’t want to take me with her to live there. She didn’t want me near the vampires.”

“I’m sorry, I’m going to need you to slow down there for a second.” Shiloh grips the back of a chair. He still hasn’t sat down. “The thing is, you guys keep saying the word
vampire
, and you seem to think that they exist in the real world. But they don’t. Because this is reality, the last time I checked.”

Ally shoots him a look so sharp he actually inches back from her. “I spent my childhood watching my mother get sucked dry. Do you think I’m making this up? We’re talking about my mom. She loved me, and all she ever wanted was for me to be taken care of. But she was…she was addicted to that poison in their bite. It was never her choice, but I’ve had to pretend like she was some heroin junkie my entire life! You have no idea how that feels!”

The tears are back. I don’t think she realizes how loud she is. Shiloh certainly has shut up.

“Shiloh, I know it’s hard to believe, trust me. When Bianca told me, I didn’t want to believe her. But it’s true. I saw one today. Fangs and all.” The reality of that hits me again and my legs go a little numb. I’m glad I’m already seated. “I mean, I’m not exactly normal, and you believe in me.”

Shiloh takes a deep breath, and another. Then he puts his hand on Ally’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Ally, I didn’t mean to upset you. You know I would never do that on purpose.”

She just barely nods. “I’ve never been able to talk about this with anyone.”

“You can talk to me. Promise.”

She leans her head back, and her long hair swishes down behind her. Absently, she makes the motion of putting her hair up, but never actually secures it with a tie.

“You know what we need?” Shiloh says loudly. “Pizza. I think we could all use some pizza.”

He pulls his phone out of his pocket, but it jumps out of his hand and clatters onto the table. I flinch at the sound. Ally just takes the phone and stands up.

“I’ll do it.”

She shuffles into the living room, her boots dragging on the carpet. Shiloh sinks into the chair beside me, hands splayed over the table.

“James…” He stares firmly at the wood. “This is nuts.”

“I know.” I want to say more to him, but it’s the only two words I can come up with.

“I mean…where were we a week ago?”