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“No, don’t do that.”
“Bianca, are you nuts? That’s a vampire! This is probably a vampire lair! We need backup.”
“We don’t know what else is going on in there.” The reasoning was weak, but I didn’t know anything else to say. As she started punching in Dana’s number, I hurried a few steps in front of her to inspect the door. I could see bells with names next to them in the vestibule.
Then the glass door swung open, and another resident—a human woman, scary-thin and only a few years older than me, stepped out and gave me a slightly vacant smile as she held the door open for me. She must have assumed I lived there, and her welcome apparently put the doorman off guard, because he just kept reading a magazine. Quickly, I stepped inside and let the door shut behind me.
Raquel appeared on the other side of the glass door. “What are you doing?”
“I’m checking things out, okay? You stay out here to call for help if we need to.”
“Seriously, you need to wait.”
Ignoring Raquel, I hurried to the elevator. Golden circles outlined the elevator’s progression upward. Okay, I could work with that. Once I saw where it stopped, I could go to that floor and maybe use my sensitive vampire hearing to find where the vampire had gone.
But then I heard a whisper. “You, there.”
I stared. In a small cubby at the end of the lobby, near what looked like a side door, stood the vampire. His body was tense, almost in a crouch, and his brilliant blue eyes locked with mine.
“You’re one of us,” he said, in an accent that I thought might be Australian. “So what are you doing with Black Cross?”
“Long, long, long story.” At least he knew he was being tracked. “They’re on to you. You have to get out of here for now.”
“I just got this place. D’ya have any idea how hard it is to find a place on the East Side?”
“If you take off now, they won’t think about coming back here even after a couple of days. They don’t think we have…homes, or friends, or anything like that.” The bitterness in my voice surprised me; I thought I’d made my peace with our situation in Black Cross, at least for now, but the pent-up tension threatened to shake loose. “All you have to do is clear out for a couple of days. Stay with someone you know.”
“Summer in the Hamptons,” he said, almost like he was making fun of me. But why would he do that when I was trying to save him? I decided I’d heard him wrong when he smiled.
“You’re one of our babies, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.” I smiled back. It felt nice to be recognized for what I was, to have a couple of moments where being a vampire was no big deal. For a moment, I even missed Evernight Academy.
“Name’s Shepherd,” he said. “Have we got ten minutes, you think? I’d like to grab a couple things before running off.”
“Maybe. They won’t know where you are in the building, though they have ways of tracking—”
“We’ll be quick about it. Help a fellow out, would you?”
We rode the elevator to the ninth floor. The whole way up, I held my breath, sure that at any moment Raquel would call, or Black Cross hunters would be waiting for us. But we got there fine, and I hurried after Shepherd to his apartment. “You only have time to grab the basics,” I said. “Some clothes, some cash, whatever ID you’re using.”
“Believe me,” he said. “I understand the deadline.”
I walked into the apartment, ready to start helping him pack up anything—until I saw Charity.
She was sitting cross-legged on a white leather sofa, intently smoking a cigarette. Shepherd said, “Is she the right one? The one you thought you saw the other day?”
“Yes,” Charity said softly. “That’s her.
“Don’t run,” she said in the last half second before I was going to flee. “We have so much to talk about. And we can’t talk while we’re chasing you.”
As dangerous as it was to stay, I thought running might be worse. If I ran, Charity and her friend would come after me for sure; if I talked, there was every chance I’d be safe. Despite all the horrific things Charity had done, she’d never attempted to hurt me. So I stayed. “What are you doing in New York?” I demanded.
“My brother is missing. He went on one of Mrs. Bethany’s foolish errands. I suppose he’s trying to find you.”
I turned toward Shepherd, sick at my own foolishness. “I was trying to save you.”
“A word to the wise,” he said. “The enemy of your enemy isn’t necessarily your friend.”
