Chapter Five
The Girl They Lost
Briana
They want me back.
The words should terrify me.They do.
I’m not stupid.Whatever else the vampires took from me, they didn’t take that.Fear has teeth, and mine sinks deep as I stare at the black envelope on the bar.The wax seal gleams beneath the low lights, dark and slick like dried blood.
My stomach twists.
For one awful second, I smell smoke.Sweet and cloying.I hear music pulsing through the walls.I feel hands under my arms, dragging me down a hallway while someone laughs and says something about unmarked skin.
My fingers tighten around the towel in my hand.
Then Knox says my name.“Briana.”
Low.Rough.Careful.The sound pulls me back into the bar.
The Gin Room is closed, though it doesn’t feel empty.It never really does.There are too many secrets pressed into the walls.Too much violence beneath the floor.Too many monsters pretending they aren’t waiting for the next thing to bleed.
Cruz stands near the door beside Krishka, his usual easy smile nowhere to be found.The witch looks calm, but there’s a sharpness to her eyes that makes me think calm is just another weapon in her collection.
Knox stands in front of me.Between me and the envelope.Between me and everything else.Of course he does.
He is still dressed in black because, apparently, that’s the official color of emotionally repressed Minotaurs.His sleeves are pushed up, showing thick forearms.That shouldn’t make my chest feel strange, and yet it does.
I force my gaze away from him and back to the envelope.“What happened?”
No one speaks quickly enough.
I laugh, and the sound is ugly.“Don’t do that.”
Cruz shifts.“Do what?”
“The thing where everyone decides who gets to tell the fragile human the scary news.”
Knox’s jaw flexes, but Krishka steps forward first.“The Crimson Door is operating out of an old theater in Gowanus called The Marrow House.There’s an event tomorrow night.”
