HIGH STAKES
HANNAH JAYNE
Some people were meant for big cities.
And fabulousness.
I’m one of those people.
I’m Nina LaShay and one day, my brand will be everywhere.
I stand in front of the mirror every day and say that to my reflection. Well, not so much to my reflection as to the mirrored image of my brand-new, temporary Manhattan digs as I don’t have much of a reflection—or any reflection at all.
Being undead will do that to you.
Call me what you want—vampire. Bloodless one. Nightwalker; lost one; soulless, Godless aboveground hell dweller. Personally, I’m partial to Life-Backward, Fashion-Forward Temple of Awesome. How else do you explain a twenty-one-year-old (give or take 141 years) woman being one of the last three standing in the greatest fashion competition the couture world has ever seen?
I was steaming my latest Drop Dead creation—that’s the name of my fashion line—Drop Dead Clothing (I know, totes adorbs, right?), when the faint scent of two-day-old patchouli oil and sweat snaked into my apartment. The whole super-vamp sense of smell? Makes pastries smell a thousand times more amazing. It also makes the modern street hippie “at one with the Earth” smell like a three-day bus ride through Calcutta in June. I wrinkled my nose and did my best to breathe through my mouth before I snatched open the multi-bolted door and grimaced—then snarled—when I saw where the pungent scent was coming from.
It was her.
Emerson Hawk.
With her beady brown eyes, gaunt cheeks, and head of Supercuts-styled straw-colored locks, she looked far more drowned pigeon than hawk, but what can you do?
She gasped when she saw me, her anemic lips dropping open.
“You’re my competition?”
I wanted to say something scathing and smart but decided to err on the side of breather-approved sportsmanlike conduct. “And I suppose that means that you’re mine.”
Emerson cocked her head and swooshed her ugly hair over one shoulder. “I was being facetious, sweetie. You and your welcome-to-the-dark-side designs are no kind of competition at all.”
I felt myself bristle and although Emerson is shamefully, one-hundred-percent flesh-and-blood human being (“breathers” as they’re known on the undead end), I desperately wanted to stake her through her patchouli-scented heart.
“Please,” I said, crossing my arms in front of my chest. “Drop Dead has spanked—what is it? Tweet by Emerson Hawk?”
“Soar,” she corrected with a snarl. “Soar by Emerson Hawk.”
“Oh, right. Either way, Drop Dead has spanked your line often and repeatedly.” I smiled sweetly, my lips pressed together—not so much in an effort to hide my always-there pointed petite incisors, but more in an effort to keep my fangs from digging into her obnoxious sallow flesh.
But I bet she’d taste like stale bread.
Emerson waved at the air like I was some gnat at her ear. “Small-town shit.”
“San Francisco Fashion Week is not small-town shit.”
“Emerson?” A head popped out from the door behind Emerson, and Emerson bristled.
“What do you need, Nicolette?” she asked from between gritted teeth.
Nicolette blushed a fierce red and glanced quickly at me and then directly to the stained carpet at her feet. But in that fleeting glance, I noticed that Nicolette shared Emerson’s unfortunately beady eyes and sharp, defined cheekbones, though she had clearly gotten the luxe end of the stick when it came to hair. Hers was cut in a cheeky bob and glistened a pretty blond. “I have all the garments steamed if you want to take a look.”
“Hi,” I said casually, “who are you?”
“She’s my sister,” Emerson snapped. “And Nicolette, even you can’t mess up steam. There are a few more things in the bathroom, though.”
“Sisters?” I said. “How very Little House on the Prairie.”
Even with her face turned toward the floor, I could see Nicolette’s cheeks push up into a smile. “I’m Nina, by the way.” I pushed out a hand and Nicolette shook; the female equivalent of crossing enemy lines. I could practically see the steam shooting from Emerson’s ears and it gave me a happy.
“Your sister was telling me all about her cute little fashion line.”
“Cute? Apparently you forgot who spanked who in Seattle?”
“It’s whom. Who spanked whom. And of course I didn’t forget. I generally find it hard to forget when someone steals my designs,” I said.
“Steals? I prefer to call it ‘borrowed inspiration.’”
“I prefer to call it a death wish.”
“Um,” Nicolette said, her voice soft as she addressed the floor. “Isn’t there a third person in the competition?”
Emerson rested her fists on her love handles and threw back her head, looking like a stupid statue of some sort of conqueror. “There is a third person, but he’s hardly part of the competition.”
“He?” I hated being caught unawares, but I hadn’t read my welcome packet (hello? I’m in New York. Is someone seriously expecting me to read?) and didn’t know who was behind door number three.
Emerson jerked a thumb in the vague direction of the hallway. “Reg.”
“Reginald Fairfield?” I gaped.
Reginald Fairfield was the Queen Elizabeth of the up-and-coming fashion world: regal, benign, and basically a figurehead who kept plaid walking shorts and seersucker fabrics alive and kicking. Every one of his lines was crisp and came in shades of Martha’s-Vineyard-slash-old money, and the rumor around town was the man himself had never actually wielded a pair of scissors—he left the dirty work to his “traveling companion,” an exceptionally well-tanned young gentleman with a heavy accent and a resumé that I am completely sure contained the words “cabana boy.”
“They moved in about a week early.”
I nodded. “I suppose it would take some time for Reginald to unpack his marble busts and Felipe’s Speedos.”
Nicolette sniggered behind her hand and Emerson went from remotely tolerable back to grade-A horrible. “Didn’t you have some fabric to steam?”
Nicolette scampered away like a sad little pup and Emerson turned her eyes—and her stench—back to me.
“Look LaShay, you and I both know that this competition boils down to only two people: you and me.”
I pursed my lips. “So you admit I’m competition.”
Emerson just rolled her eyes and continued. “Your designs may have impressed a few lesser judges and”—she made air quotes—“spanked mine, but this time, make no mistake. I. Will. Bury. You.”
I cocked an eyebrow, not the least bit bothered by Emerson’s attempt at threatening me. “Don’t you mean your designs will bury mine?”
She smiled this time, poking the edge of her tongue out to moisten her bottom lip as she shrugged. “Semantics.”
I stood in the hallway, staring, as she slammed the door.