“I do know that all people will get things wrong sometimes. That’s how life works. If, knowing we will make mistakes, we design a system that could let one of those mistakes irreversibly ruin someone’s life, or take it away entirely, then perhaps that system itself is wrong.” He hadn’t known how to say that to Matt—how to let himself get close enoughtosay it—but for this poor stranger, standing in his kitchen, the words were easy.
The vampire wiped her eyes, managing to look at him finally, her brow tight and her mouth askew. “What can I do about that?”
And that was the end of Rahil’s wisdom. He shrugged, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “I guess in this case, you chose not to participate?”
She gave a little snort. “I’m certainly not catching vampires for Vitalis-Barron anymore.”
“Well, that’s a good start!” Rahil smiled. “Whatareyou doing, kiddo? Do you have a place to stay? A blood supplier?”
“Not really,” she admitted. “I…” She wrung one of her wrists, her shoulders raised defensively around her neck. “I’ve been sleeping in mausoleums and drinking what I can.” The sheen of liquid returned to her eyes, her cheeks darkened with the flush of vampiric blood. “I don’t want to be one ofthem. I want to be decent—”
“But it’s hard,” Rahil cut in, “when your only options are to be selfish or starve.”
Her tears spilled once more, but this time she made no effort to clean them, only nodded and stared morosely across the kitchen.
Rahil took pity on her once more. “There’s a blood charity in Ala Santa now. I can get you a cab—”
She stiffened. “No. They know me—knew me, before. If I appear now, they might…”
“Ah.” Rahil sighed. It was her own damn fault, yet that didn’t have to mean she deserved what was happening to her. That was the thing about fighting to make the system better, after all: it got better foreveryone. It had to. “You’re right, they might not give you blood. They might try to come after you. Or they might see the very person they’ve set up this charity to assist and help you regardless. I don’t know; I don’t know them.”
She said nothing to that, but her tongue drew across the currently blunt teeth where her fangs were retracted, and she looked like a person on the verge of an existential crisis.
It made something catch in Rahil’s chest, new and familiar all at once. He gave her a soft smile. “You can stay here for a few weeks, if you’d like. We don’t have much, but we’ll see about getting you blood.” If they had to, they’d make it work. It wouldn’t be the first time, though he was pretty sure only Jim had been here on the last occasion they’d harbored another vampire. It would be better if she had somewhere more stable. Somewhere that didn’t rely on Rahil. “What about family? Partners? Old friends?”
“If Matthew was here, it would have been easier. He’d have helped me—he knew me, and he’d know I would never use my new fangs to hurt humans.” She looked embarrassed as she said it, like having that depth of a connection to someone was worthy of shame, not admiration. “That’s why I came to you. If he trusted you, then I hope I can too.”
Rahil wanted to argue with her—he was no better or worse than any of the vampires Matt hated, and neither was she. But this—this wasn’t Rahil’s kid. There had to be someone better equipped. “No one else?”
She looked away, chewing on her lower lip.
That wasn’t the whole truth, then. “Are you worriedtheywon’t accept you? That they wouldn’t understand you’re still you, despite the fangs?”
She shook her head. “They know I’m me—that’s the problem. They know I’m—” With an inhale, she corrected, “They wouldn’t think of me the way Matt would. They’d accept me for my vampirism, but the things I did while I was human… I don’t know. I think they’d take me in anyway, but it would be out of pity;despitewhat they think of me, not because of it.”
Something with spikes twisted deep in Rahil’s chest, welling up a pain he didn’t want to look at.Hehad already told everyone.Hehad been accepted by his family long ago and was able to step back when their attempts to harbor him became too much.Hedidn’t have anything to be sad about.
“I’ll be fine,” she assured him. “If I can just get on my feet, you know. I’ll be fine.”
Rahil didn’t think that was the whole truth either. Though he supposed thereweremany types of fine in this world. He could hear one of them echoing down the stairs in the short, snorted laughter of Lydia and another in Avery’s large, long cackles. Neither of them were what most people perceived as fine, either in health or situation or class, yet here they were, making the world more beautiful with every moment.
If this strange woman—this vampire—had decided she’d make things work, he hoped she was right.
“Well, then, welcome.” He paused, trying to scrounge back through the first moment when he’d opened the door to find her there. All he could recall was his flicker of hope that it would be Mercer, the horror that they might be connected in more—and more terrible—ways than Rahil had even considered, and the emotional dive of this strange vampire’s first words. “Did I miss your name?”
“No, sorry, I don’t think I said.” She played with the end of her braid and smiled weakly. “I’m Natalie Deleon. You can call me Nat.”
22
MERCER
Rahil was just… gone.
Of course he was. What else had Mercer expected to happen, when he’d shied back from a simple term of endearment and then flaunted a photo of his dead wife a moment later? Though, flaunted was perhaps the wrong word. He wasn’t entirely surewhathe’d done. All the emotions that came with the jumbled memory were shame and fear now, layered in the returning pain of his migraine and the added nausea of anxiety, but he didn’t think that was what he’d portrayed to Rahil at the time. Maybe he’d brushed Rahil off; maybe he’d yelled at him.
Mercer couldn’t tell what of his recollections of that moment had even been real, now that he was alone again, hours later, his ice pack back on and his stomach so twisted that he clung to the room’s tiny trash can in case anything spontaneously decided to come up. His migraine was mostly over at this point, so whatever nausea remained was emotional in nature, but that didn’t reassure him. At least he knew how to deal with his typical physical maladies. With this, he had no idea where to start.
Lydia had gotten back forty-five minutes ago, stepping out of a cab like she was the divine emperor of Earth. Then she’d tripped on the even ground twice before reaching the front door. Pulling her beanie over her eyes, she’d charged past Mercer with a sullen, “Hey Dad,” and gone straight to her room, shouting at him that she was “trying to nap, geez,” when he knocked.
