“Because,” Kanin said without looking back, “word spreads on the streets. Because we left those men alive, other gangs will be on the lookout for a young girl and a lone male who happen to be vampires. They will be wary, but more important, the Prince’s guards will be watching gang territory closely now. There are always consequences for your actions. Also—” he paused and turned to me, eyes narrowing “—how did you know where we are?” A moment of silence, and he nodded. “You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”
Damn. The vampire was way too perceptive. “This was my sector,” I confessed, and Kanin frowned. “I lived not very far from here, at the old school.” With my friends, I added in my head. Lucas and Rat and Stick, all gone now, all dead. A lump caught in my throat. I hadn’t thought of them much before this, willing myself to bury the pain, the guilt that still clawed at me. What would’ve happened if I had never found that basement of food, if I’d never insisted we go after it? Would they still be alive? Would I still be alive?
“Stop it,” Kanin said, and I blinked at him. His face and expression were cold. “That part of your life is gone,” he continued. “Put it behind you. Do not make me regret giving you this new life, when all you can do is cling to the old one.”
I glared at him. “I wasn’t clinging,” I snapped, meeting his steely gaze. “I was remembering. It’s this thing people do when they’re reminded of the past.”
“You were clinging,” Kanin insisted, and his voice dropped several degrees. “You were thinking of your old life, your old friends, and wondering what you could’ve done to save them. That sort of remembering is useless. There was nothing you could have done.”
“There was,” I whispered, and my throat unexpectedly closed up. I swallowed hard, using anger to mask the other emotion, the one that made me want to cry. “I led them there. I told them about that basement. They’re dead because of me.”
My eyes stung, which was a complete shock. I didn’t think vampires could cry. Angrily, I swiped at my eyes, and my fingers came away smeared with red. I cried blood. Fabulous. “Go on, then,” I growled at Kanin, feeling my fangs come out. “Tell me I’m being stupid. Tell me I’m still ‘clinging to the past,’ because every time I close my eyes, I can see their faces. Tell me why I’m still alive, and they’re all dead.”
More tears threatened at the corners of my eyes, bloody and hot. I whispered a curse and turned away, digging my nails into my palms, willing them back. I hadn’t cried in years, not since the day my mom died. My vision tinted red, and I blinked, hard. When I opened my eyes again, my sight was clear, though my chest still felt as if it had been squeezed in a vise.
Kanin was silent, watching me as I composed myself, a motionless statue with empty, blank eyes. Only when I looked up at him again did he move.
“Are you finished?” His voice was flat, his eyes a depthless black.
I nodded stonily.
“Good. Because the next time you throw a tantrum like that, I will leave. It is no one’s fault that your friends are dead. And if you keep holding on to that guilt, it will destroy you, and my work here will be for nothing. Do you understand?”
“Perfectly,” I replied, matching my tone to his. He ignored my coldness and nodded to the building, gesturing through a shattered window.
“A group of Unregistereds live here, though I suspect you already know that,” he continued. “As to your previous question, I chose this spot because Unregistereds are off the system and no one will notice if one or two go missing.”
True, I thought, trailing him through the weeds. No one ever misses us, because we don’t exist. No one cares if we disappear, or cries for us when we’re gone.
We slipped through one of the many broken windows, vanishing into the darkness of the room. Rubble had piled everywhere in large drifts, creating a small valley of open space in the center of the building.
A fire flickered in an open pit, and wisps of greasy smoke rose from burning wood and plastic, settling hazily over the room. There were more of them than I had expected. Cardboard boxes, cloth tents and lean-tos had been hastily constructed and were scattered around the fire like a miniature village. I could see dark shapes huddled within, ignorant of the predators watching them sleep from just a few yards away. I could smell their breath and the hot blood pumping beneath their skin.
I growled and eased forward, but Kanin put a warning hand on my arm. “Quietly,” he said, a whisper in the dark. “Not all feedings have to be violent and bloody. If you are careful, you can feed from a sleeping victim without rousing them. The old Masters used this technique a lot, which was why strings of garlic around the bed and on the windowsills were so popular in certain regions, futile as they were. But you must be careful, and very patient—if your victim wakes up before you bite them, things can get ugly.”
“Before I bite them? Won’t they wake up when they feel…I don’t know…a couple long teeth in their neck?”
“No. The bite of a vampire has a tranquilizing effect on humans when they’re asleep. At best, they’ll remember it as a vivid dream.”
“How does that work?”
“It just does.” Kanin sounded exasperated again. “Now, are you going to do this or should we go somewhere else?”