She hung up. Drew a deep breath, let it out, and darted from the room.
As she called for an Uber back to Fang Nightclub, a strange pang passed through her chest. If someone knew…if anyone knew…she could call a friend. She could talk through the rage of knowing what he’d planned to do to her from the moment he saw her. She could talk through the bone-deep satisfaction of justice, the worry that he’d escape consequences as so many predators did.
But how was she supposed to explain to her friends that she’d spent a small fortune over the last year on memory cards for a body cam she’d modified from a thrift-store pin? Claire Vanderlaan would never wear that cheesy pin, but Verena the Vigilant judged jewelry by utility, not aesthetic.
She gave her driver an address a block over from the hotel, just to be safe. Even if a cop spotted her, with her brown eyes and modified posture she wouldn’t stand out to them as a vampire. She removed her four-inch wedges and began to run barefoot down the sidewalk. She maintained a pace that humans wouldn’t see, all the way to her pickup spot. The motion helped. By the time she stopped moving, her anger and restlessness had shaken off in the wake of ultimate speed. So had her wig, which she stuffed into her purse halfway there.
When she got home, she would remove the contacts, scrub the makeup, wash the vestiges of wig glue from the skin at her hairline. She would shower a good long time. She would curl up on her couch wrapped in blankets, watch a few episodes of one crime drama or another. And she would be Claire again.
But as she slid into the back seat of her driver’s beige sedan and wrinkled her nose at the scent of cheap air freshener, her melancholy remained. If she could only call a friend.
She pushed the feelings away. She was a strong, independent woman, and Saturday nights were not for friends. Saturday nights were for justice.
Five
Only here on the sparring mat did Tai ever feel weightless. A lot of the time, he felt the opposite—when loneliness and shame teamed up, climbed onto his back and stayed there until they were good and ready to give him a break. He never felt that way with Ryker, though. Ryker knew the source of the weights that plagued him, and Ryker offered his friendship to relieve them both. Tai couldn’t be lonely with a best friend beside him. He couldn’t be ashamed when that best friend knew the worst of him and took offense at the very idea he might walk away from Tai because of it.
So on the mat, two things made Tai feel physically lighter: Ryker’s friendship and sparring itself.
Like right now.
Tai launched into the air from the center of the mat, and Ryker missed him entirely. He flipped in midair just because he could, and the freedom filled his lungs and burst out of him in a laugh.
With a hiss, Ryker came at him before his feet had touched the mat. Tai ducked, dodged, landed a hit between Ryker’s shoulders, and realized too late Ryker had allowed the hit tobring him in closer. The freight train of willpower and vampire power that was Ryker Maddox threw himself backward into Tai, and when Tai put one foot back to steady himself, Ryker spun and leaped and drove him all the way down to his back.
The familiar defiance rose up in Tai, and he writhed as hard as he could. His attempt to throw Ryker off him almost never worked, but it had a few times, and those times were enough for Tai to continue the routine. Today, with a mighty heave of his whole body, he dislodged his friend, and Ryker rolled to one side, onto his back. He lay a few feet from Tai, turned his head to stare, then grin.
“That was amazing, man,” Ryker said.
“Thanks. Good match,” Tai said.
“Good match.”
They got up and gathered their things—socks, shoes, phones, wallets, keys. They’d been at this for a while, their second round with a slaking break in between.
Tai was sliding his foot into his second shoe when Ryker said, “Something’s pushing you today.”
“Nah,” Tai said, but his heart gave an extra beat at the thought of being found out.
“How many times have we sparred by now, Tai? A hundred?”
At least.
“So don’t tell me I don’t know the difference between a regular match and an angsty match.”
“I’m not angsty.”
“Come on, man. Whatever it is, talking it out is probably your best bet. If we need to strategize, we can.”
“Strategize what?”
Ryker pushed one hand through his hair, and all the sandy blond spikes stood straight up. If anything in this room was angsty, it was the distracted version of Ryker’s hair. “I’ll knowwhatwe’re strategizing as soon as you tell mewhat’s got you angsty today. See how this works?”
He did, actually. Despite the anxiety that sometimes piled on with loneliness and shame—look at him, so self-aware and able to identify all his struggles by name—Tai knew he could do nothing so awful that Ryker wouldn’t stay at his side and try to help. If Ryker were ever going to end their friendship, he would’ve done it the day Tai confessed his secret.
“I’m a bloodfiend, Ryker.”
“Wow, man, that must really suck.”
