I nearly growled, and nearly jumped forward to get to her (although God only knows what I would have done), but Catcher’s fingers, still around my arm, tightened.
“Merit,” Catcher softly said, “let it go.”
“Take the advice, little toy,” Celina told me.
I wanted to snark back, but that would give her what she wanted. I decided I wasn’t going to throw back anger or snarky words. No—this was my chance to play the better vampire. To play the cool, calm, collected girl. To play the Initiate who still remembered what it was to be human.
I kept my gaze on Celina, and copied a move I’d seen Ethan make: I slid my hands into the pockets of my jeans, kept my posture businesslike, and let my voice go a little deeper, a little smokier. “Not a toy, Celina. But rest assured—I know exactly what I am.” That the words fairly mimicked Ethan’s didn’t occur to me until much later.
“Good girl,” Catcher whispered, and tugged my arm, leading me away. I followed with what little pride I had left, and managed not to throw back a glare at the brown-haired boy who’d sold me out to his Master.
I kept quiet until we were a block from the club, and Catcher, apparently having deemed us a safe enough distance away, offered, “Okay. Let her loose.”
And I did. “I cannot believe people would act that way! It’s the twenty-first century, for God’s sake. How is it okay to discriminate? And what the hell was with Celina testing me?” I turned to Catcher, my eyes probably wild, and grabbed his arm. “Did you feel that? What she did?”
“You’d have to be completely oblivious not to feel it,” Mallory put in. “The woman’s a piece of work.”
“I thought you said vampires didn’t have magic?” I asked him. “What the hell was that?”
Catcher shook his head. “Vamps can’t do magic. They can’t perform it. They can’t bend and shape it. But you’re still born of that magic, that power, whether you call vampirism genetic or not. You can sense it. Test it. And vamps can always do what vamps do best—manipulate.” He pulled the Red flyer from his pocket again.
“They baited us,” I realized. “They identified our cars, planted the fliers.”
Catcher nodded and replaced the paper again. “She wanted a look.”
“At me?”
“I don’t know,” he said, eyes on Mallory. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“And then there’s Bedroom Eyes,” I said. “I can’t believe I fell for that pickup, actually danced with him. Do you think it was all a ploy?”
Catcher sighed, linked hands above his head, and gazed back at Red. “I don’t know, Merit. Do you think he was plotting?”
He’d seemed sincere. Genuine. But who could tell? “I don’t know,” I decided. “But you know what the moral of this story is?”
We’d reached the Volvo, and I paused in the process of unlocking the doors, waiting to ensure I had their attention. When they both looked at me, I offered, “Never trust a vampire. Ever.”
I was about to squeeze into the front seat when I noticed that the Hummer parked in front of my car bore a vanity plate that read “NVRRE.” Grinning impishly, I darted toward it and kicked one oversized tire. When the car’s alarm began chirping wildly, I scrambled into my car, started it, and hit the gas.
It didn’t do much to the Hummer, but the catharsis was nice.
When we were on our way and blocks from the club, I met Catcher’s gaze in the rearview mirror.
“All that drama because we drink?”
“In part,” Catcher said. “The flyer got you into the club for a look; drinking got you kicked out. It’s a convenient way for Celina to survey the city, have folks come unwittingly to her door.”
“Unwittingly to her web,” Mallory muttered, and I nodded. It was pointless, I suppose, to rue the House I’d been born into, but what a way to enter the world of vampires. Four days out of the change and a chunk of Chicago’s population decided they didn’t like me because of my affiliation. Because of what others did. It stank of human prejudice.
Catcher stretched out in the backseat. “If it makes you feel any better, both of them will get what’s coming to them.”
I tapped fingers against the steering wheel as I drove, then met his gaze again. “Meaning what, exactly?”
He shrugged and averted his gaze, looking out the side window. Apparently he was psychic, too, our former fourth-grade sorcerer.
“Catch, did you know this was going to happen? Did you know it was a Navarre bar?”
Catch? I looked over at Mallory, surprised that they’d already progressed to nicknames. Apparently I’d missed some serious bonding on the dance floor. But her expression showed nothing.
“Yes, Catch,” I parroted, “did you set this up?”
“I wanted to check out the club,” he said. “I knew it was a Navarre club, but it hadn’t occurred to me that we’d been baited. I certainly didn’t intend for us to get thrown out, to become actors in Celina’s morality play, although I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me. Vampires,” he said with a tired sigh, “are fucking exhausting.”
Mallory and I exchanged a glance as she twirled a lock of hair around her finger. “Yes, dahling,” she said, doing a lovely Zsa-Zsa Gabor imitation, “vam-piahs ah exhausting.”
I faked a smile, and drove us home.
I was brushing my teeth in ratty pajamas—an ex-boyfriend’s pale green T-shirt that read I’M A ZOMBIE and a pair of frayed boxers—when Mallory, still in her club clothes, rushed into the upstairs bathroom and slammed the door shut. I paused midbrush, and looked at her expectantly.
“So, I have to break up with Mark.”
I grinned. “That may not be a bad idea,” I agreed and resumed brushing. Mallory stepped next to me in front of the counter and met my gaze in the mirror.
“I’m serious.”
“I know. But you were talking about breaking up with Mark before you met Catcher.” I finished brushing, splashed a little water in my mouth, and spit. Thank God for friends who were close enough to watch you brush without getting grossed out.
“I know. He’s not right for me. But it’s really late, and I need sleep, and I feel really weird about this I-got-my-job-because-I-wished-for-it thing. And then there’s Catcher.”
She quieted, obviously thinking, and her silence left a space for strains of noise from the downstairs television, which floated through the house. A narrator was describing the plight of a battered woman who’d overcome adversity, cancer, and desperate poverty to start a new life with her children.
I wiped my mouth on a towel and looked at her. “And the fact that he’s downstairs watching the Lifetime channel again.”
She scratched her head. “He finds it inspiring?”
I leaned a hip against the bathroom counter. “You should go for it.”
“I’m just not sure. All of a sudden, about this, I’m not sure. Work, I’m sure about. Your fangs, I’m fine with. But this boy. He’s got baggage, and magic, and I don’t know. . . .”
I hugged her, understanding that this wasn’t just about Catcher, but her acknowledgment of the new shape of her life. Of the fact that her interest in the occult, in magic, had become something much, much more personal.
“Whatever you do,” I told her, “I’ll be here.”
Mallory sniffed, pulling back to dab carefully at the tears that lay beneath her blue eyes. “Yeah, but you’re immortal. You’ve got the time.”
“You’re such a cow.” I walked out of the bathroom and flipped off the light, leaving her in the dark.