Tana nodded, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand. She hadn’t even realized her eyes were wet.
Midnight looked over at Aidan and Gavriel, then back at Tana, as though trying to read something in their faces. “We can tie him up,” Midnight said, finally. “If you want. You don’t have to do it.”
“No,” Tana said, dragging the chain toward Gavriel. “I’m fine.”
“Fine, fine, everyone’s fine,” said the vampire, a mad gleam in his red eyes, crossing his arms over his chest as Bela Lugosi did in black-and-white films. “Fine as scattered pieces of sand.”
She wondered how much effort it had taken him to talk to her the way he had—to, what was it he’d said? Keep my thoughts clearly ordered—and how crazy he was going to be now, as a result of that strain. She thought about him talking to the border guards and shuddered.
She couldn’t imagine herself changed into a being such as he was. He seemed as alien and remote as a distant star in the sky.
Gavriel let Aidan and Tana drape him in chains and let Midnight lock them tightly around him with Winter’s old bicycle lock. Then, he shuffled back to the passenger door and dropped himself heavily into the seat, cocooned in silvery links.
They all got back in, Midnight maneuvering so that she was in the middle of the backseat, meaning Aidan was next to her. Winter gave her an exasperated look, which Tana caught in her rearview mirror.
She felt strange as she pulled back onto the highway, her hands unsteady on the wheel. Somehow knowing that the scab was bluish convinced her that she could feel the swelling of the skin of her thigh around the wound, that she could feel the Cold in her, icy sludge moving through her veins.
It was kind of a relief to know that the inevitable had come, though. She didn’t have to be afraid anymore. What was happening inside her didn’t care whether she was scared or not.
The car rounded a curve, and the checkpoint came into view. It was just a few cones and a single police car with lights flashing.
“Tell them I’m like you,” Gavriel said as they began to slow down.
Aidan laughed. “I think they can see you’re not like us anymore.”
“No,” he said. “Tell them you know me. That I’m like you, one of you. From the party. Tell them.”
“Wait,” said Winter. “Wait. Is he saying he wasn’t at the party? Did you meet him by the side of the road? Did you pick up a hitchhiker who coincidentally turned out to be a vampire?”
Gavriel fixed his gaze on Winter. “You know me,” he said, and a chill went up Tana’s spine. “You’ve known me since outside the rest stop, when I turned and the light hit my face.”
“What does he mean?” Midnight asked.
“I don’t know,” Winter said in an odd voice. “Nothing.”
“We’ll call him Maynard McSmollet and he can be from two towns over,” said Aidan, snickering. “No one really knew him that well, kept to himself, but he was crashing the party because he could never resist a kegger—or how about Roderick Spoon? Roddy. The Rodster. He was in band and played electric keyboards but got kicked out of several schools for setting small fires. Yeah, that’s better. What do you think, Gavriel?”
And then there was no more time for suggestions, because the car was pulling up to the officer. A gloved fist tapped a heavy black Maglite against the window. Tana lowered the glass, heart thudding dully.
The guard was middle-aged, his short military-cut hair peppered with gray and his uniform not the kind that local cops usually wore. He had craggy skin and looked down at her with a lip curl of disgust.
“You kids can’t be out this way. No sightseeing. Go on, turn around and—” The guard shone the light in the car, stopping when it reflected Gavriel’s garnet eyes.
Gavriel grinned, teeth bared.
“See? We’re not tourists,” Winter said from the back.
The guard stepped back. “You kids are crazy. Did you catch that thing?”
“He was—he’s our friend,” Tana said, hoping she sounded convincing. “Just turned. We’re taking him to the gate.”
“You better get on out of the car,” said the guard, reaching for his belt and detaching something from it—a weapon, Tana was pretty sure, until he brought a radio to his mouth. “I’ll take things from here. Jesus, you didn’t even muzzle him.”
“That’s okay. We’ll drive him ourselves.” Tana looked ahead of them at the dark stretch of road. Bad things happened in places like this. She glanced at Gavriel, his gaze fixed on the guard’s throat.
“Come and muzzle me,” the vampire said, his voice like honey.
“Step out of the car,” the guard ordered. “All of you. Move! Now!”
She jumped, startled.