Baz snickers and puts her hand over his mouth. “Hush, you.”
“Fuck, I need to getdrunkafter all this,” says Dorian through her fingers.
“Not while you’re driving.” She withdraws her hand and settles back in her seat.
“Fine. When we get home?”
“I’ll pour you a drink myself.”
“And then you’ll tell me you’ve decided to become a vampire.”
Baz looks over at him sharply. “After what happened with Daisy? Dorian, you saw how she got.”
“Not every vampire is like that.”
“Exactly. Some are gluttons, and some are ferals, like her.”
“She’s not totally feral. Only when she gets low,” Dorian counters. “And most of the vampires are perfectly normal. Ask Gatsby. He can tell you the percentage—”
“I’m not interested in percentages. I was into the idea at first, but I’ve had time to think since then, Dorian, and I’m just not sure. I need you to quit asking. If and when I decide I want to do it, I’ll tell you. Until then, don’t mention it again.”
He inhales slowly through his nose and blows out the breath. “All right. I won’t.”
I exchange glances with Heathcliff. It feels good, somehow, watching another couple fight. Feels weirdly normal, even though the topic of their conversation is anything but normal.
My fingers crawl across the seat between us, and his fingers curlbetween mine, thick and warm. A silentI love you.
We stop by the Grange, where Heathcliff has lived since he was a child. I barely catch a glimpse of the house because Heathcliff directs us to the back of the property. Dorian grumbles about the rough lane we have to take, but at its end, a truck sits half-hidden under some low-hanging trees.
“Yours?” I exclaim.
“Mine,” Heathcliff says proudly. “Earned by dragging souls out of the Vague. Come on.” He hops out, then leans back in to speak to Dorian. “We’ll grab my money, then follow you.”
“Grab your money?” Dorian lifts an eyebrow in the rearview mirror.
“Yeah. Got it buried right over there.” Heathcliff jogs off and starts moving aside some undergrowth.
“He’s got moneyburied,” Dorian says in a dramatic undertone to Baz. “I think I’ll call him ‘pirate’ instead of ‘choirboy.’”
“He would make a really hot pirate,” Baz replies.
I expect Dorian to have some jealous retort, but he only says “Right?” with unmistakable enthusiasm.
I like these two. I liked them at first because they came to help us, and I like them more now that I’ve seen a glimpse of their chaotic, affectionate relationship.
As I move to get out of the car, Baz says, “Hey, Cathy, you got a phone?”
“I had one. It was taken. Heathcliff has one.”
“Well, here.” She twists around, grabs my hand, and produces a pen from her bag. She writes ten digits across my scarred skin. “That’s my number. You can put it in Heathcliff’s phone. That way if we get separated, we can meet up again, and you won’t get lost.”
“If you do get lost, just head to Asheville and ask around for JayGatsby,” Dorian advises. “That’s what we did.”
“We were traumatized, too,” Baz adds. “We left behind a mess sort of like this one.”
“It’s a victory as long as you walk away alive.” Dorian turns his head and gives me a smile—a warm, genuine, beautiful smile. “Travel safe, little banshee. See you on the other side.”
30
