6 - Syrsee
Tell her goodbye.
Tristin is still grippingmy arm very tightly even after the door closes behind me. I wriggle free—try to, anyway—and spit up at him, “Let go of me.”
“Calm down, Syrsee.” Tristin says this in his low, monotone, unaffected voice. And even if I wasn’t already pissed off, this tone of his would be enough to set me off.
“Calm down?” My eyes are wide, my voice too shrill. “Calm.Down? You fuckers set me up. ‘You need to take a ten-day trip, Syrsee. So you’ll be safe, Syrsee. You need to be very careful. We’re trying to keep you safe, Syrsee!’ Any of that ringing a fucking bell, Tristin?”
He puts his hands up and backs off. “I know, we lied to you. I get it. But we didn’t know we were lying. We take orders too, Syrsee.”
I narrow my eyes, so angry I start to tremble. And this is when I realize that the feelings inside me are so much more than anger. I seethe my words out. “You.Betrayedme.”
“We didn’t.”
“We?” I look around. “Where is the rest of this ‘we?’ Where is Zusi?”
“She couldn’t come?—”
“How convenient for her. She betrayed her best friend—and you know what?” I pause my rant to laugh here. “I get it. She was never my friend. They were paying her. She was on scholarship. I was just her job?—”
“That’s not true, and you know it.”
“Iknowit?” I scoff. “How would I know any different, Tristin? What I just said is a fact. Afact.” I point my finger in his face. “She was assigned to me.”
He lets out a long breath. “I understand that.” And now he’s getting angry too. His eyes are narrowing and he’s clenching his jaw as he talks. “She was assigned to you. Just like I was assigned to you. But it doesn’t mean I’m not your friend.”
“My—” I can’t even finish. The nerve. The fucking nerve of him. “I’m food, Tristin. I’m the scion’sfood. He drank me thirty minutes ago.”
Tristin recoils from this statement. Like it’s a real, physical thing that just tried to attack him.
“And he’s not a scion anymore, by the way.” Everything in that sentence is snark. “He’s a vampire now. That was the plan all along. And the Guild was the one who made it happen because they—you!” I point at his face again. “You and Zusi are the ones who made that happen. I’m going to be turned into my grandmother. I’m going to spend the next few weeks trying to come to terms with it, but I’m going to fail. And then I’m gonna run, or something, and he’s going to hunt me down, chain me up, and keep me in a bedroom that’s nothing more than arefrigerator to hold his food. And that’s where I’m gonna die, Tristin. Dirty, and old, and wasted away in a bedroom that stinks like death.”
He’s shaking his head the whole time I’m talking. “It’s not gonna happen that way.”
“Really?” I sneer this word out. “How the hell do you figure?”
“Because he’s not a vampire. Not yet.”
“Well, there are wings growing out of his back, Tristin. He feeds on me every couple of hours. And it’s getting worse.”
Tristin crosses his arms and shoots me a smug look. “If he’s so fucking dangerous, then how did you get away alone? Hmm? If he’s so fucking dangerous, and he’s so fucking worried about you escaping, or whatever, where is he? Why isn’t he here?”
“Are you trying to insinuate that youknowhim? That you understand him? That I have no idea what I’m talking about even though I’m the one who spent the past month with the man?”
“No. I’m saying you don’t have the full story.”
“The full story?” The arrogance of him stuns me. “Do you know why I don’t have the full story, Tristin? Because they never let me read the fucking books, that’s why.”
“It was for your own good.”
Now I actually laugh. It’s a big one too. One that echoes off the ceiling. I turn, ready to walk out, but he puts a hand on my shoulder.
It’s not a grip. It’s a very light touch. And when he speaks, his words are softer too. “Zusi was forbidden from coming here to the lounge to meet you. But… since when does Zusi follow the rules?”
I stop. Inhale. Then turn to him again. “She’s here?”
“Not here. But close by.” He pulls out his phone, taps the screen, and then takes a deep breath. I can hear it ring just once. Then Zusi’s voice. “Is she there?”
