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.”
She went.
CHAPTER 10
When life is woe,
and hope is dumb,
The World says, “Go!”
The Grave says, “Come!”
—arthur guiterman