“So your mom was okay that you’re spending the night?”
Miranda looked over the laptop and nodded before breaking into a gale of teenage giggles. “Your hands are freezing!” she murmured to Vlad.
If she only knew the half of it.
“So, what are we going to do about this?” Will jutted his head toward Vlad and Miranda.
“He won’t make any moves on her. Vlad knows the rules.”
“No, I don’t care about that. Unless he starts to floss his teeth with her. I mean about the bippity boppity in the classroom. We going to go check that out?”
“Pssst!” Nina stuck her head through her bedroom door and hissed at me. “A word with you, dear roommate?”
“Speaking of someone about to floss their teeth with—what do they call us? Breathers?” Will’s eyes glittered.
“And you, too, Union Jack.”
He didn’t bother to contain his fear.
We shut ourselves into Nina’s room. Will pressed himself up against the door while I faced Nina down.
“So?” I asked.
Nina narrowed her eyes. “So? So? That’s what you say to me? Sophie Annemarie Lawson. I have tried to be good. I have tried to be malleable.”
“Malleable?” Will asked, brows raised.
“But this!” She threw her arm out dramatically. “This is something else completely. You just can’t bring your work home with you, Sophie.”
“My work? Miranda is a person, Nina. And I didn’t bring her home with me. She came here because she needed help. She needed help and she knew that I would be able to help.”
Nina swung her head. “Fine. She needed help. She’s helped. Send her home.”
“I’m not going to just—”
“Sophie, she’s a breather. With fresh cuts.”
“They weren’t bothering you a half hour ago.”
“A half hour ago they were caked with stale blood.”
Will wrinkled his nose. “Stale?”
“Dried,” I clarified.
“And the smell of Windex or something was pretty much overpowering. Now she smells like you and fresh blood. And you’ve got two vampires in close proximity.”
I felt my nostrils flare. “Aren’t you the one always telling me that vampires can handle themselves with decorum? That you guys have the ability to see breathers as people, not just tasty snacks?”
“Whoa.” I heard Will step back until his shoulders were pressed against the door.
Nina pinched the bridge of her nose. “Look, Sophie. I need to get things done. How am I supposed to get anything done with her out there?”
My gut roiled with white-hot anger. “Are you kidding me? You’re concerned about your stupid project? This is a human being. A young girl! Who was attacked. She needs us, Neens. I’m sorry if you’ve been without a soul too long to feel anything for anyone. But I have a soul and I have feelings and so does that girl out there. This is my apartment too and she’s staying.”
Nina didn’t bother responding to me. She didn’t bother to look at me, either. I heard Will suck in a sharp breath; I heard the muffled voices of Vlad and Miranda in the other room. I didn’t hear Nina when she slipped out the window and down the fire escape.
“Hey, love, you know Nina kind of has a point. There are two vampires—”
I whirled and pinned Will with a glare. “Stay out of it, Will.”
When I walked into the dining room Vlad looked up at me, his coal-black eyes hooded, accusatory. He had heard every word we said. Miranda kept tapping away, blissfully unaware, her avatar cheering when she made the next kill.
Vlad and Nina slipped out to spend their remaining nighttime hours at Poe’s while I pulled a blanket up over Miranda’s shoulders as she snored on the couch. I straightened and cocked my head, then pulled open the front door.
“What do you need, Will?”
“Whoa, love, how’d you know I was out here?” He sunk into his sly, sexy grin. “Been keeping an eye on me, have you? Can’t say I’m surprised.”
“Miranda’s asleep on the couch,” I whispered before stepping into the hall and softly clicking the door shut behind me. “And I heard you being English out here. What is it?”
He shifted his weight, pulling his bottom lip into his mouth. “I haven’t been able to sleep since our little visitor popped in.”
I ran my hands over my arms, a cold shudder going over me. “I know. I feel so responsible.”
“Well, don’t.” Will plopped down onto his chaise longue, the plastic patio slats groaning under his weight. He gestured for me to sit. I tossed aside his needlepoint Home Sweet Home pillow and two pairs of cleats, and sat across from him.
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you think it’s odd that Miranda shows up here, at your place, after what happened to her?”
I shrugged. “Her mother works nights. She didn’t want to be alone. I get that.”