Page 112 of Almost Midnight

Nick nodded. “Yeah. I think she would.”

Zoe smiled. Nick heard it in her voice through the line.

“If you’re feeling generous,” she added in her husky vampire voice. “You could also tell her you think I made the right choice, Nick.”

Nick frowned.

Didhe think that?

She was making a choice he understood, on some level at least, but did he think it was therightone? It definitely wasn’t the choice Miri herself would have made, not the Miri Nick used to know, at least.ThatMiri would never choose power over family.

It never would have made sense to Miri to want control over an organization as vast and corrupt and rich andviolentas the White Death.

But Zoe wasn’t Miriam.

They’d never been very much alike, as far as Nick could tell.

For Zoe, maybe thiswasthe right choice.

Maybe it was her only choice, given who she was.

Before Nick could think how to put any of that into words, or even if he should, or what he really believed, Zoe let out a low laugh. It was a surprisingly warm laugh, but it held a touch of cynicism, too.

“You need us to stick around?” Nick asked, clearing his throat. “The kid could help, you know. She could at least clear the way, and––”

But Zoe cut him off.

“No,” she said, decisive. “The H.R.A. aren’t the only ones who called in reinforcements, Nick. We’ll be fine. And this was the plan all along.”

Nick heard the added meaning behind her words, and swallowed.

He’d known Brick likely had his own agenda in coming here, but he hadn’t realized the full extent of it. It wasn’t just the H.R.A. and Archangel and the other human powers-that-be who wanted this fight. The White Death and the vampires wanted it, too.

They were done living in the shadows.

They were done letting humans torture their brethren and fuck up this world.

At the thought, Nick glanced around the front of the building, and saw rows and rows of armored vehicles parked there with dark-tinted windows. The windows faced away from the building, and towards the line of human military trucks now approaching the entrance to the massive car-park. None of those military-style SUVs had been there when they arrived.

Nick counted over fifty of them before he stopped.

Zoe hadn’t been kidding about reinforcements.

It looked more like she’d called in her own fucking army.

“I guess we’ll be going out the back,” he muttered in the comm.

Zoe laughed again, and that time the sound was higher, more melodious.

“See you around, Nick,” she said, that cynical smile still in her voice.

“No,” he said, a little sadly. “You won’t, Z.”

“No,” she agreed after a beat. “I guess I won’t.”

Before Nick could decide if there was anything left to say, Zoe Fox, newly-crowned Vampire Queen of the White Death, Nick’s best friend’s little sister, his sometimes-lover while he’d been a soldier in the White Death, and now Brick’s most beloved and personally chosen successor, hung up the line.

Nick knew, somehow, he’d never see her again.

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