“Is this how Harker has you spending your time?” she goaded.
“Let’s play a game,” he said amiably. “You can tell me to get out of your way. You can call me a monster and I can call you a sheltered little brat and we can have a quarrel. It will be entertaining. Maybe when it’s over you’ll even storm off to your room and slam the door like an ordinary teenager.”
Kate gave him a cold smile. “I’m not an ordinary teenager.”
Sloan sighed. “Would that you were.”
“Tell me where he—”
Sloan shot forward, caging her in against the counter. The sudden force of it was like a blow to the ribs, knocking the air from her lungs.
“Down, dog,” she snarled, trying to keep the fear out of her voice.
The Malchai didn’t move. His crimson eyes dragged over her. “Can’t you see,” he whispered. “Harker doesn’t want you here.”
“You don’t know that—”
“Of course I do.” A single cold finger came to rest against her cheek. The nail was filed to a point.
She swallowed, held her ground. “I am not a child anymore.”
“You will always be our little Katherine,” he murmured. “Crying herself to sleep. Begging her mother to take her away.”
“Mom wanted to leave, not me.”
“You can lie to yourself, but I can’t.”
A drop of blood welled above Sloan’s nail, but she didn’t pull away. “I am a Harker,” she said slowly. “I belong here. Now tell me where he is.”
The Malchai sighed and turned his gaze away, considered the thickening dark beyond the windows. “In the basement.” Kate swallowed, and started toward the elevator. “But you really shouldn’t go there.”
The doors opened. Kate stepped in, and turned back toward the Malchai. “Why not?”
He flashed a savage smile. “Because that,” he said, “is where the real monsters are.”
Harris and Phillip joined August on the way down.
The elevator paused at the fifteenth floor and the two brawny guys in black fatigues climbed in. Harris was eighteen, dark hair spilling out beneath his cap, and Phillip was twenty, buzz-cut, and like most of the young men in South City, they’d apparently jumped at the chance to join the FTF. They were both cheerful guys, the kind to get a bounce in their step at the first sign of trouble, to run toward it instead of away. The kind to high-five after taking out a Corsai with an HUV beam to the head or driving a metal spike through a Malchai’s heart.
“So we’re on level three, you know that corridor, the one where the cameras don’t quite reach, and—oh, hey, August!”
“Saved by the elevator,” said Phillip. He flashed August a warm grin. “You holding up?”
August nodded tightly. The anger was bleeding out of him, which wasn’t a good sign. What came after was worse.
“You look like you could use a boost,” said Harris, pulling off his FTF cap and settling it over August’s black curls. Only a few handpicked members of the FTF knew who—and, more important, what—August really was. “I was just telling Phil about this prime—”
“She’s out of your league, bro.”
“Harsh.”
“No,” said Phillip as they hit the lobby. “I mean she is literally out of your league. Second-class team captain, and you’re a what—didn’t you just get bumped back to mindless drone?”
Harris rolled his eyes. “What about you, August? Good-looking mons—” Phillip shot him a look. “—kid like you. Anyone special?”
“Believe it or not,” said August as they stepped out into the night. “My options are limited.”
“Nah, you just gotta expand your parameters. Look beyond your—”
Phillip cleared his throat. “Who’re we visiting tonight?” he asked, scanning the street. August shifted the strap on his shoulder—he’d moved the violin into a different case, one that looked like it was made for a weapon instead of a musical instrument—and unfolded the paper Leo had given him. It was a profile. A victim. August tried not to use that word—victims were innocent, and this man was not—but the term kept getting stuck in his head.
“Albert Osinger,” he read aloud. “259 Ferring Pass, 3B.”
“That’s not too far,” said Phillip. “We can walk.”
August considered the paper as he fell into step behind them. A grainy photo was printed below the words, a capture from a video feed.