My Soul to Take. Rachel Vincent

       www.miraink.co.uk

      For Number 1,

       who knows that fajitas will fix any plot hole

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      First of all, thanks to Rayna and Alex, for letting me

       pick your teenage brains, and again to Alex, for being

       the first reader in my target audience.

      Thanks to Rinda Elliott, for showing me what I

       couldn’t see. Thanks to my agent, Miriam Kriss,

       for believing I could do this, before there was any

       evidence to support that claim. Thanks to Elizabeth

       Mazer and everyone else behind the scenes at

       MIRA for making it happen.

      Thanks to my editor, Mary-Theresa Hussey, for all

       the questions—for answering mine along the way

       and knowing just which ones to ask in the margins.

       And finally, thanks to Melissa, for being there.

      1

      “COME ON!” EMMA whispered from my right, her words floating from her mouth in a thin white cloud. She glared at the battered steel panel in front of us, as if her own impatience would make the door open. “She forgot, Kaylee. I should have known she would.” More white puffs drifted from Emma’s perfectly painted mouth as she bounced to stay warm, her curves barely contained in the low-cut shimmery red blouse she’d “borrowed” from one of her sisters.

      Yes, I was a little envious; I had few curves and no sister from whom to borrow hot clothes. But I did have the time, and one glance at my cell phone told me it was still four minutes to nine. “She’ll be here.” I smoothed the front of my own shirt and slid my phone into my pocket as Emma knocked for the third time. “We’re early. Just give her a minute.”

      My own puff of breath had yet to fade when metal creaked and the door swung slowly toward us, leaking rhythmic flashes of smoky light and a low thumping beat into the cold, dark alley. Traci Marshall—Emma’s youngest older sister—stood with one palm flat against the door, holding it open. She wore a snug, low-cut black tee, readily displaying the family resemblance, as if the long blond hair wasn’t enough.

      “’Bout time!” Emma snapped, stepping forward to brush past her sister. But Traci slapped her free hand against the door frame, blocking our entrance.

      She returned my smile briefly, then frowned at her sister. “Nice to see you too. Tell me the rules.”

      Emma rolled wide-set brown eyes and rubbed her bare, goose-pimpled arms—we’d left our jackets in my car. “No alcohol, no chemicals. No fun of any sort.” She mumbled that last part, and I stifled a smile.

      “What else?” Traci demanded, obviously struggling to maintain a rare scowl.

      “Come together, stay together, leave together,” I supplied, reciting the same lines we’d repeated each time she snuck us in—only twice before. The rules were lame, but I knew from experience that we wouldn’t get in without them.

      “And …”

      Emma stamped her feet for warmth, chunky heels clacking on the concrete. “If we get caught, we don’t know you.”

      As if anyone would believe that. The Marshall girls were all cast from the same mold: a tall, voluptuous mold that put my own modest curves to shame.

      Traci nodded, apparently satisfied, and let her hand fall from the door frame. Emma stepped forward and her sister frowned, pulling her into the light from the hall fixture overhead. “Is that Cara’s new shirt?”

      Emma scowled and tugged her arm free. “She’ll never know it’s gone.”

      Traci laughed and motioned with one arm toward the front of the club, from which light and sound flooded the back rooms and offices. Now that we were all inside, she had to shout to be heard over the music. “Enjoy the rest of your life while it lasts, ‘cause she’s gonna bury you in that shirt.”

      Unperturbed, Emma danced her way down the hall and into the main room, hands in the air, hips swaying with the pulse of the song. I followed her, keyed up by the energy of the Saturday-night crowd from the moment I saw the first cluster of bodies in motion.

      We worked our way into the throng and were swallowed by it, assimilated by the beat, the heat and the casual partners pulling us close. We danced through several songs, together, alone and in random pairs, until I was breathing hard and damp with sweat. I signaled Emma that I was going for a drink, and she nodded, already moving again as I worked my way toward the edge of the crowd.

      Behind the bar, Traci worked alongside another bartender, a large, dark man in a snug black tee, both oddly lit by a strip of blue neon overhead. I claimed the first abandoned

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