The werewolves have to be able to find something!”
Lish looked up, saw me over Raquel’s shoulder, and promptly burst into tears. At least, I think that’s what she was doing. I’d never seen her cry, and there weren’t tears since she was already in water, but the facial contortions and shoulder movements were enough to clue me in.
Raquel turned around and yelped, then threw her arms around me. “They didn’t eat you!”
“No, they didn’t eat me.” I had to laugh at the odd symmetry, pushing back my own tears of relief. I was so glad to be back here, with Raquel and Lish. For a while there I’d honestly thought I might not ever see them again.
Regaining her composure, Raquel pushed me out to arm’s length, holding onto my shoulders. “What on earth happened? Where have you been? And why did you kill all those vampires?”
“I—Wait, what? Kill the vamps?”
She nodded, looking severe. Killing paranormals is not okay for employees of IPCA. All paranormals are classified as endangered; that’s why even the icky ones just get neutered instead of, well, dead.
“I didn’t kill them! They were one bite away from killing me! I tased a few and slashed around with my silver knife, but I’m sure I didn’t pierce any hearts.”
“How did you get away?”
I looked down at the ground. “I called for Reth.”
She let out a this is going to be an even bigger mess than I thought sigh. “Then who left twenty-five vampires dead?”
DUMBBELLS, BOYS, AND OTHER DENSE THINGS
Raquel’s vampire explanation came first. “When the panic team got there, they found all the vampires dead.”
“Were they staked?” I asked.
“We have no idea what killed them. There were no marks of any kind, no indication that any of the ways to kill vampires were used. What were they all doing there in the first place?”
“Not a clue. I followed my vamp and burst into the room to find them all waiting. A few more followed me and locked me in.” Frowning, I thought back. “They did seem to think I was there to kill them, though.”
“Are you sure you didn’t do anything?” Raquel asked, the line between her eyebrows deepening.
“Besides almost get sucked dry? Yeah, I’m sure.”
She sighed. Pretty much the same why me sigh as before. “Well, where have you been?”
I rubbed a weary hand across my eyes. “I messed up. Big time. No one was coming and I was gonna die, so I called for Reth.”
“That’s fine, that’s why you were assigned names.”
I shook my head. “It wasn’t calling for him that was the problem. Everything was happening so fast, and I could feel the vamp’s teeth on my neck and I—When I called for Reth I yelled out, ‘I need you.’”
Raquel’s face went from understanding to seriously pissed. When IPCA gives you faerie names, they also make you take a yearly two-week—two-week—course on appropriate named commands and how to use them. “I need you” was about as open-ended and stupid as they get.
“‘I need you’? That’s what you said? That was your named command?”
“Don’t get mad.” I was on the verge of tears. “I already paid for it, trust me. I told him to take me home and he took me to his home, tried to take my heart again.”
“Evie, honey, I know you have a history with Reth, but he can’t just take your heart. It doesn’t work like that.”
This was too much. On top of everything else, she was going to tell me—again—that what happened was all in my head and wasn’t some sort of faerie freakiness. She had never felt the warmth, felt it sneak in and surround her heart, felt it consume her. She didn’t know. She couldn’t. And I was sick of her acting like I was some sort of stupid little girl, still mad over an ex. “Whatever,” I snapped. “I’m going to bed.”
I turned and stalked out of the room without saying good-bye to Lish. She would sympathize, I knew, but she still just didn’t understand.
No one understood. Well, that wasn’t true—Reth understood. Everything. And he was right, too. I was completely alone and it sucked. When I got to my unit, I went straight to my bedroom and dug around under my bed until I found the three-pound dumbbells I had stolen from one of Bud’s training sessions. They were iron, the best protection against faeries. Or at least, I was pretty sure they were iron. Okay, I really, really hoped they were iron, because my only other option was to sleep with my knife on my chest. Images of impaling myself during a nightmare flew through my head. Dumbbells it was.
Putting the weights on either side of me, I closed my eyes and was instantly asleep.
I woke up late the next morning; half-formed memories of a woman’s voice calling to me tickled the edge of my thoughts. Both dumbbells were still in place, tangled up in the covers, and my heart was still mine. The night appeared to be a successful one.
I took my time getting ready for the day, pretty sure it was Saturday. Sometimes it was hard to tell the days apart in the Center, but since none of my daily tutors had shown up wondering why my homework wasn’t done yet again, Saturday seemed a good guess.
After eating breakfast I went to talk to Lish. I felt bad about running out yesterday. When I walked in her eyes lit up. “Evie,” the monotone voice said, but I could tell that she was saying it with an exclamation point. “I am so glad you are okay. I was so worried about you.”
I gave her the best smile I could manage. “It was a bad day.”
“I am sorry.”
I wasn’t sure what else to say. “Any leads on the vamps?”
“None.”
Weird. Also, not my problem. I wasn’t especially heartbroken about it, either, so I shrugged. “How about Lend? Do they have any more ideas on who or what he is, or why he broke in?”
She shook her head. Then her eyes crinkled in a smile and she leaned toward the glass conspiratorially. “I did hear that he requested paper and pencils. Raquel thought he was going to write down information, but all he did was draw.”
I smiled. Whatever else he was, Lend was a professional at annoying Raquel. Usually that was my job, but I kinda liked sharing the duty. “Speaking of Raquel, do you know where she is? I want to talk to her.” Whether or not she believed me about Reth, she had to help me figure out how to negate my named command.
“She is in meetings all day today.” If anyone at the Center worked harder than Lish, it was Raquel. She lived here, too, and pretty much worked every waking hour of every day. I’d never known her to take a vacation. In a way it was nice. It would feel lonelier without her here.
I
