Frankly, the kids didn’t look like they cared either way about vampires. They just looked scared, and eager to get the hell out of Wicker Park.
“We just, you know, think people should get a fair shake,” said the more heavyset kid, nervously scratching his arm as he did it.
I couldn’t imagine the moxie it had taken to get out those words in the face of two bullies, and I wanted to reach out and hug him for the bravery. But that was not what I was here for.
“Fuck you,” said Haircut.
“Yeah,” Dragon agreed.
But the kid had spoken his peace; he had found his courage. He wasn’t about to back down, either.
“You’re an asshole, you know that?” He tugged at the front of his jacket. “You think beating the shit out of me makes you brave? It doesn’t. It makes you an idiot. So beat me up if you want to, if that’s gonna make you feel better. But at the end of the day, I know who I am. And you don’t know shit.”
Haircut might not have known shit, but he knew when he was pissed off. He reached out to grab the kid by the collar . . . but he wasn’t fast enough for me.
In the split second before his fingers grasped fabric, I reached out and snagged his hand. He froze in shock—that someone had thought to defy him, and that I’d done it so easily.
“Here’s the ironic thing,” I said. “I’m a vampire. And these guys”—I gestured to the kids—“are on my side. You, as it turns out, are not.”
I gave his wrist a gentle squeeze. Not enough to break bones, but enough to let him know I was really and truly different, and I was very serious.
“Bitch,” he muttered, but he didn’t move his gaze from his wrist. Beads of sweat had begun to dot his brow. “Do something, Joe!”
Joe, otherwise known as Dragon, lifted up his shirt, showing off bony hip bones and a matte black handgun stuffed into the waistband of his pants.
“Oh shit,” said the second kid, the quieter one. “We don’t want any trouble. We’re just walking home.”
My blood ran cold. How had I missed his weapon, the telltale vibration of the gun? Not that the reason mattered now. The only thing that mattered was getting the kids out of here safe and sound.
Bluff, I told myself, even as my heart beat so loud I could hear it pounding in my ears.
“Here’s how we’re going to play this,” I said, gathering up as much bravado as I could muster. “I’m going to let this guy go, and you’re going to lower your shirt over that gun again. And you guys are going to walk away.”
Joe laughed. “You think I’m afraid of you?”
Alpha predator, I reminded myself. Top of the food chain.
I let my eyes silver and my fangs descend, and I looked back at Joe with hunger in my eyes. Since dinner had been interrupted, I didn’t need to fake it.
His eyes grew wide with fear, but only for an instant. He was a guy in his twenties with a gun at the ready, and he was better at bravado than I was. His eyes grew cold, hinting at hatred.
“You okay over there?” Mallory asked. But being a good girl—tonight anyway—she didn’t move from her designated spot.
Maybe, I thought, I could use her in this little game of ours. She’d started it, after all.
“Your little friend is calling you,” Haircut said. But since he was still on the ground, his wrist bent in my hand, I didn’t pay him much mind. It was Joe and the gun that worried me.
“You think I’m scary,” I said. “Granted, I’m pretty strong. But I have nothing on her.”
“She don’t look that strong,” Joe said.
I grimaced. “I guess you don’t know what she is.”
All four of them looked back at her, obviously not intimidated by the petite chick with blue hair. If only they knew the truth . . . Of course, I couldn’t actually let them know the truth, so I fudged a little more.
“She’s a death reaper.”
“Bullshit,” Joe said.
“Nah,” said the guy who’d stood up to the bully, watching me closely. “She’s—she’s right. That girl is a death . . .”
“Reaper,” I filled in, since he was obviously following my lead. I really did like this kid. “Death reaper. Talks to the dead, reanimates them if necessary, points out the evil men and women who don’t deserve to live.”
“And then what?” the quiet kid asked.
I answered with a gesture, a finger drawn across my neck like a blade.
“That is some serious bullshit,” Joe said again, but he didn’t sound nearly so convinced this time. “Girls can’t really do that.”
“That girl can,” I said. I leaned forward and lowered my voice just a bit. “Have you ever been walking down the street at night, and you think you hear footsteps behind you? Maybe you walk a little bit longer while your heart beats like a timpani drum in your chest. You think you’re imagining it, so you keep walking. But the footsteps start up again. Step by step by step. And you stop, and you turn around, and there’s nothing there. No sign of anything in the street. Just lights and shadows. But you know, sure as you know anything, that you weren’t out there alone.”