We decide to go to Westfield Southcenter, and I let Sienna drive because the last thing I need right now is to wreck my beautiful SUV. The card Thane had given me after we signed the contract has more than enough money on it, but it still feels wrong spending it. Especially because it doesn’t feel like mine. Sienna, on the other hand, has absolutely no problem spending money, so I let her take the lead.
We’re over an hour into our shopping spree when Kole texts me saying that he’s done with his meeting and is going to come meet up with us. I’m honestly surprised we were able to be on our own for as long as we have after the way he was acting last night. Must’ve been an important meeting.
“What do you think about this one?” I ask Sienna, holding up a burgundy off-the-shoulder sweater.
“Sì, è perfetta! That color is so you!”
“Okay, I’ll get it!” I toss it to her to add to the growing pile we’ve already got going.
“Yes, you will!” she agrees with a celebratory shimmy.
I shake my head at her. “I might be a bad influence on you most of the time, but you’re definitely the bad influence when it comes to shopping.”
“Oh, this is nothing! Just wait until it’s warmer out. That’s when I really thrive.”
There she goes again, making plans for the future.
“I’m already scared,” I tease with my hands raised.
“You should be,” she warns, giving me a wink as she strides off toward the shoes.
“Hey, I’m going to go find a bathroom. I’ll be right back,” I tell her with a wave.
“Are you sure you’re okay to go alone?” Sienna asks, struggling to shove her foot into one of the boots.
“Yes,” I sigh.
“I just had to ask,” she says, offering me an apologetic look. “Just hurry back before Kole gets here and realizes I let you out of my sight.”
“Will do!” I agree, giving her a salute before turning on my heel.
Even though Sienna doesn’t feel like a babysitter, it’s still nice to wander off on my own. Since it’s the weekend, there are plenty of people out and about, but most of them haven’t paid me much attention other than the obvious double-takes and occasional sneers. It probably helps that I was in Seattle for Halloween, so they’ve had plenty of time to get used to the idea that there’s a human girl living among them. No doubt Thane has made several threats about my safety since then. I can’t imagine he would allow me to come here without him if he had even the slightest worry that someone would try to hurt me.
I find a bathroom a little way down from the store I left Sienna in, but when I come out, one of the middle kioskscatches my eye. A bunch of phone cases hang all around it, and since I’ve been needing one, I head on over.
“Hey, doll!” the woman manning the kiosk greets. “Needing a new phone case?”
A little voice in the back of my head is laughing at how utterly human this interaction is. After spending the last three years thinking the entire world was under apocalyptic ruin, I’m still having a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that there are cities where the vampires and werewolves have chosen to keep up the societal structures the humans had placed on the world.
I pull out my iPhone, not knowing which version it is. “Do you have one that fits this?”
She offers me a warm smile that is contradictory to her cold vampire exterior and motions for me to follow her to the front of the kiosk.
“Any of these will work!”
“Thanks. I—”
“REAPERS!” someone calls out from behind me.
I whirl around to see a crowd rushing toward us. All of a sudden, several werewolves shift into their beast forms, bounding over benches and kiosks as they head our way. I look to the vampire standing next to me, and her face has somehow paled as pure terror fills her white irises.
“Run—”
A guttural scream rips from my throat as the woman is slammed into the kiosk by another vampire. It happens so fast that all I can do is watch as her attacker sinks his teeth into her neck. He pulls his fangs out a second later, not bothering to even drink her blood or kill her. Her eyes dart to me as she slumps to the ground, but my attention snaps back to thevampire who bit her. His eyes are a sea of black, and as he runs his tongue over the tips of his fangs, I realize that it’s also black.
There’s something rabid about him. Like he’s a feral animal, crazed with starvation despite not draining his victim’s blood. His head darts around frantically, and I finally notice the black veins peeking out beneath his collar, bringing back a memory from the day Thane took me. The vampire I had killed in the pharmacy also had black veins. I didn’t think too much of it back then, but maybe I should’ve. I even remember thinking that it was odd for a vampire to be rummaging through the pharmacy, but I had been so caught up in trying to make it out alive that I just brushed it off.
The vampire takes off, never even acknowledging my presence, almost as if I was invisible. Thoughts and questions race through my mind, but my body continues to stay frozen in place.
