“It’s about to be.” He’s rubbing his jaw. He sighs. “If I leave to hunt, will you be here when I get back?”
I’m still smiling. “I’ll do you one better: I’ll come along.”
Baz frowns at his lap, picking at the knee of his jeans. His hair has dried fluffier than usual, and it’s falling over his eyes. “Simon . . .” he says, like I’ve said something unkind and tiresome.
I take his hand. “Baz, if you really don’t want me to be ashamed of what a complete and utter shambles I am, you can’t be ashamed of your thing either. You already know I don’t care—I’ve known you were a vampire since we were fifteen!”
He lifts his chin. “Yeah, and you tried to fucking Van Helsing me, Snow!”
“I neverproperlytried . . .”
He frowns. “Have youevermade an effort with me?”
I tug on his hand. “The takeaway here is—I truly don’t care that you’re a vampire.”
“Well, I care. It’s humiliating.”
“Baz, I hate to say this, but . . .” I’m grinning at him, and I can hardly believe it. Like, I really expected to be miserablefor daysafter breaking down so completely. But somehow I’m still here, and he’s still here, and even though I still feel like a hopeless case, this thing between us doesn’t feel hopeless at all.
Plus, as soon as Baz is unhappy, that’s all I can think about. I’m crazy about all his little fretful faces, and I also want to be the thing that chases them away. I think I might be willing to make him miserable just for the thrill of making it better. That’s fucked up, isn’t it?
I dip my head to find his eyes.
“I just want to be with you,” I say. “And this is where we are now. I’m a broken-down mess, and you’re a rat-drinking monster.”
We walk down an alleyway near Baz’s flat. We won’t have to go far, he says; London has rats everywhere, some of them the size of cats.
“Does it have to be rats?” I ask. “They’re so gross.”
Baz is pulling on a pair of tan leather gloves. “What else does the city provide for me? House pets? Pigeons?”
“You could breed mice. Clean ones, like in a laboratory.”
“Oh, that’s good, Snow. I’ll have a flat full of pink-eyed mice in glass enclosures. That won’t be creepy.” He leans over and snatches a rat by its tail, then brains it against a brick wall.
“Christ,” I say. “It’s already well creepy.”
Baz sneers at me. “You’re the one who wanted to come. I told you it was disgusting.”
I grin at him. “I’m happy you let me come. We could do this together. On the regular. I could help you hunt.”
“I don’t need your help.” He starts walking again.
“Aren’t you gonna drink that one?”
“I wait and drink them all at once. It’s neater.” He frowns at me. “You don’t get to watch me drink.”
“You already said that.” Back at the flat, when he agreed to this.
“I can hear you getting ideas.” Baz crouches, darting his hand into the gutter to grab another rat.
“Merlin, you’re good at this.” He catches another one while I’m saying it.
“Practice,” he says.
“Must have been nice in the country. Proper hunting. Deer.”
He kills the rats and moves on. “It did feel more wholesome.”
