Page 29 of Flock This

“You can’t help me. I know.” I gave her a smile, trying to reassure her. “But it’s fine. We’re talking about me here.”

“Exactly. If we were talking about anyone else, I wouldn’t have to worry so much. With you?” She shook her head. “Nothing you do could really surprise me anymore.”

“Hey. You only had to bail me out of jail once.”

“Twice.”

I frowned, trying to recall. “No, just once. I would have remembered another time. It was just when I got picked up for shoplifting.” The memory of her posting bail—money she knew she wouldn’t get back since I’d been booked under a fake name—hit me. All for what? A stupid pair of gloves that I’d pocketed only because I’d been trying to be so good before that, had resisted any sense of mischief until I’d felt like my skin had grown so tight it might split open.

“You don’t remember the other time, but it happened. You were so drunk that you got picked up from a motorcycle club because you kept challenging bikers to fistfights.”

“Even if I was drunk when it happened, why don’t I remember you from when I woke up?”

She stared down at her feet, her avoiding my gaze strange. When she answered, her voice was soft. “I got you home and into your bed. You were so drunk you couldn’t even walk. I tucked you in and left before you woke.” The way she spoke told me there might have been more to it than she said.

Wasn’t there always, though?

I thought about all the things I’d done when drunk—often the ones that others told me about since I didn’t remember them—and that alone kept me from asking. If Bray didn’t bring it up, I probably didn’t want to know.

A touch to my chin made me lift my gaze to find her just before me, her expression oddly serious. “Be careful, Grey,” she said, a gentleness in her tone that made me drag my tongue along my bottom lip, my mouth dry. Even still, she didn’t look away, those dark eyes of her compelling. “I know you take most things as a joke, but don’t underestimate this place. I don’t want to have to talk to you as a ghost from now on.”

Even the desire to respond with snark—as was my usual method—died in my throat at her look and the touch of her fingers to my chin.

“Well, now I wish I knew exactly what happened when I was drunk,” I whispered, the words weaker than I’d have liked.

She let out a soft laugh, one so quiet I almost missed it, before she let go. “Live through this and I’ll tell you.”

“So that gives me a good reason to survive.”

She nodded, then pulled her hand back just as the door opened to the tenth floor.

I said nothing else—pretty sure we’d gotten to the end of the conversation—and walked off the elevator. I allowed myself another glance over my shoulder, just as the doors slid closed.

It gave me one last look at Bray, her expression burning into my mind, one I wasn’t sure how to deal with. Once the door closed, when she disappeared, I turned around to find myself in a hallway surrounded by people in matching black outfits—thralls.

Right. Head in the game, Grey. You’re in enemy territory now.

It was hardly the time or place to play grab ass.

First—clear my name.

Later—some serious grab ass.

Chapter Nine

I made my way in the direction Bray had told me, toward intake. I passed by lots of thralls, all dressed in similar outfits, always in the same drab color. They looked at me but quickly averted their gazes.

It was strange, this sense of fear from them all.

“You new?” a man wearing jeans and a T-shirt asked. He had one blond eyebrow lifted as though I should know what I needed to do.

“Yeah,” I answered. “I was told to go to intake but I’m not sure where it is.”

He let out a long-suffering sigh, as though I were a child, and he was tasked with keeping the kids in line. “What idiot vampire dropped you off without taking you all the way here?”

“I don’t know,” I said, using the story Bray had given me. “I was bitten, and the man left. The next day, I started to feel sick, and I kept feeling drawn here.”

The vampire snorted, then gestured for me to follow by crooking two fingers. He didn’t wait to see if I would, instead turning and heading down the hallway. We went through a door that took us to a small office. The vampire sat behind a desk piled high with stacks of papers and files. “If I find the vampire that bit you and didn’t bother to close the wound, I swear I’ll kill him. He should know better.” He pushed one of the piles over and pulled a folder from the stack, opening it and grabbing a paper from inside. “Name?”

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