“It’s not too bad,” I mumbled.
She began jumping up and down, tiny little soundless hops as vampires have no discernible weight. “So, so, is it true? Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“That you’re going back to high school! You get to relive all your high school fantasies! The football games, being crowned prom queen . . .”
“It’s refreshing to know that in the eight years we’ve lived and worked together, you haven’t retained a single memory about my high school torment. Or, as I like to call them, The Dark Years. No football games, no prom queen. No twirling memories.”
Nina rolled her eyes. “I know, I know—it was all bullies, headgear, and a grannie that played mahjongg with a pixie. Boohoo. Some of us didn’t even have that.”
I took Nina in and felt no sympathy for her. She was tall and ballerina slim with glossy black hair that hung down her back in gorgeous waves that nipped at her tiny waist. Her eyes were wide and deep set; her nose was a cute little ski jump, and her lips—ruby red and pursed right now—were perfect and heart shaped with a pronounced cupid’s bow that led men to stare and follow. Where my legs were stumpy and shoved in tights like sausage casings, hers were long and toned, her marble skin exposed and completely flawless.
And, as a vampire, she would forever remain that way.
In addition to being that frustratingly flawless, Nina is my office mate, my roommate, and my very best friend. She also happens to have the fashion prowess of every dead couture designer in the world, and fangs that could shred a grown man to ribbons should she have the inkling to do so (or wasn’t bound by UDA-V bylaw not to). But right now, she was really pissing me off.
“I kind of hate you right now.”
Her black eyes skipped over my full sink, up to my pink cheeks, to the damp paper towel I was pressing against my forehead.
“You couldn’t make the rent without me. So, spill. I need all the details.” She hopped up on the counter and positioned herself with her back against the mirror, legs stretched out on the granite. She glanced over her shoulder at her non-reflection, bared her fangs and smoothed her hair.
“Can you actually see anything in there?”
“No.” She produced a lip-gloss from some secret spy pocket sewn into her vintage couture—this one, I knew, was a Gaultier—and pursed her lips, doing a perfect gloss job. “But old habits die hard.”
Seeing as the last time Nina was able to see her reflection petticoats and powdered wigs were in fashion, the “old habits” quip struck me. My “old habit”—a perfectly pointy love triangle that included a delicious fallen angel and a just-as-enticing Guardian—was something I hoped to put to rest as soon as possible.
God, I hoped I never came back to life.
“Sampson is making me relive this hell.”
“Relive? Hell? You have an amazing opportunity, Soph.”
I groaned. “I know, I know, prom queen.”
“Don’t be silly; you’re not prom queen material.”
Um, thanks?
“What I mean is, you have this amazing opportunity to mold young minds. To really make an impression on these girls.” She stuck out her lower lip. “I need some sort of legacy like that. Something to leave behind.”
“You’re immortal. You are the legacy.”
Nina shrugged, appeased, and went on. “You’ll be immortal, too—through these girls. Think about it: they’ll carry the memory of Ms. Lawson with them for the rest of their lives.”
My stomach lurched and bile rose at the back of my throat. “For the rest of their lives?”
They could remember my phenomenal failure for the rest of their lives.
“I don’t think I can do this.”
“Can we get back to me, please?” Vlad wailed from the toilet seat he was sitting on.
Nina cocked a brow at me. “What’s he doing in here?” Then, to Vlad, “What are you doing in here?” She waved her hand at him when he tried to answer. “Never mind. Kale’s looking for you.” She turned her eyes back to me—intense, fixed. “And you have to do this. A girl’s life depends on it. Your life depends on it. And besides, you get to do a little ‘Hot for Teacher’ with Alex in the teacher’s lounge.”
My spine straightened and something zoomed through me, landing solidly in my nether regions. Alex—fallen angel, delicious, earth-bound detective and me in the teacher’s lounge? Maybe there was an up side to this thing.
“You didn’t tell her where I was, did you?” Vlad wanted to know.
I chewed the inside of my cheek. “Yeah, well Alex and I seem to be a little less ‘Hot for Teacher,’ a little more ‘Me, Myself and I.’”
Nina frowned. Do over, she silently mouthed.
“Did you tell Kale where I was?” Vlad shouted, stomping across the restroom’s pink tiles.
Nina glared at him, her eyes narrowed and nearly flaming. “No. But I’m thinking I should, you dirty little undead Hugh Hefner. How dare you cheat on Kale!”