“We already have holy silver scattered across the city—across the globe,” Natalie protested. “How is putting this out as an alternative worse?”
Rahil could bring himself to do nothing but listen in growing horror.
“I agree there’s too much holy silver, yes,” Mercer said. “But you can’t eliminate that by replacing it with unholy gold.”
Natalie looked beseeching. “If humans felt safer, though—”
“What do we give the vampires to helpthemfeel safer?” Rahil snapped. He let his anger live in the words, alongside his pain. “What wouldyouget, to makeyoufeel safe, if you’re begging for blood and everyone who walks past has unholy gold around their throats?”
“I’m just saying…” But she didn’t seem to know enough of what she was saying to finish, wrapping her arms across her chest instead, her gaze drifting to the floor.
Shecouldn’tknow what to think about this, Rahil reminded himself. She wasn’t the average person in San Salud, not even the average vampire. She probably hadn’t felt safe herself in a long time, first because of the exaggerations and lies Matt was feeding her, and then because those lies had become her reality, her perceived protection snatched away forever by the vampire who turned her. If she was going to come to terms with that, she’d need more than one conversation with a disgruntled older vamp, especially one with Rahil’s abysmal track record for helping people. She could get there, still. Probably. Maybe.
A pair of masculine voices carried from around the side yard, one soft and dark and the other lighter, more delicate. The second laughed.
“They’re early,” Mercer grumbled, glancing at the clock on the wall.
“Those are your customers?” Rahil asked. They had to be, with their happy chatter growing closer by the moment.
Natalie looked like she thought they were something else entirely, though—villains or ghosts. Her face paled and her eyes widened. She stepped backward, aimless and panicked, before covering her face in her hands and sprinting out of the shed.
Rahil stared after her in bewilderment for a full three seconds before realizing it was probably his responsibility to follow.
As he jogged after, he nearly ran headfirst into the approaching couple. At least their confused gawking revealed exactly which direction Natalie had fled. Rahil lifted a hand in apology. “Sorry, she’s just a bit skittish.”
The darker-haired of the two looked vaguely familiar, and Rahil feared for a moment that they’d slept together until he spotted the fangs peeking out from beneath the vampire’s lips. Probably not, then. Maybe they were a frequenter of the Fishnettery—one of the vamps who routinely shopped around there for their prey. This one seemed to have done well for himself.
The vampire’s human companion smiled, tucking back a lock of his sandy hair. “We understand.”
Rahil took that as his cue to continue running. Only after he’d left them both behind for the cover of the trees did he wonder if perhaps Natalie had recognized their voices because the vampire had been a part of her turning. That thought made him want to wheel right around and charge back to Mercer, on the slightest chance he might need the same protection.
But Mercer had been running this business for years, and he’d keep doing it once Rahil was no longer in his life. He could take care of himself. He had to.
Rahil found Natalie curled up behind a tree at the edge of the lot’s tiny forest, her knees to her chest. Part of her braid had come loose, creating a veil around her face. Her shoulders shook, but she didn’t seem to be crying, just sucking in air in tiny, shallow gasps.
Rahil knelt in front of her, pressing a gentle hand to her ankle. “Breathe with me. You’re safe. Just breathe.”
For what felt like an eternity, his words had no visible effect, but he kept repeating them, slowly inhaling and exhaling with her as he rubbed her leg soothingly. Finally, her breathing steadied. She looked at him, and he could make out the thinnest line of liquid along her lower lids.
“You’re safe,” he repeated. “And you’re not alone.”
Regardless of what she’d done, and whatever beliefs she was still fighting, so long as she kept fighting them, she deserved not to be the lonely whale. The label ofdecent vampireshould have always been the default, not a title in need of earning.
“Thank you,” Natalie whispered. She wiped her eyes and pulled her hand back. It made her look all the more dejected, somehow, red and puffy and tired.
Rahil hesitated, before asking, “Were they the ones who hurt you?”
Natalie’s expression contorted into panic, then agony. “No! No, they’re good people.”
Yet, she was crying again. It clicked for Rahil with a pang like a knife to the chest, his phone heavy with unread messages from his family chat. Perhapsthesewere the people she couldn’t bear to tell—the people who would accept her vampirism? It would make sense: one of them was a vampire himself, even. A vampire who could have helped her.
But Rahil also knew what she’d done to vampires in the past, and he thought he understood the desire not to involve herself again, when she’d once caused so much pain, perhaps against the very people who would be compassion-bound to accept her regardless. It was the same reason he wasn’t sure he should be the one kneeling in front of her at that moment. No, he wassurehe shouldn’t have been, not after all his past failures. But he was her only option.
Unless he could convince her otherwise.
Rahil lowered himself the rest of the way to the ground, casually settling in front of Natalie. “I know this isn’t my place, but why do you think it would be so terrible if they found out about you?”
Natalie scowled at her hands. Curled up and grubby like that, she looked more akin to a small child who’d lost their way in the woods than an adult who’d made a series of very harmful choices. She bounced her shoulders dismissively. “I don’t know.”
