“He loved her too much to fight for his life,” Sinclair said at the exact same time I said, “Because love, duh.”
We glanced at each other and I continued. “He fought, sure—I can figure that out without seeing his body—”
You do not want to see his body.
I’m so sorry, sweetie.
“—but he wouldn’t kill her to save himself.”
“Fortunately the same could not be said of you, my friends.” He turned to me. “Nor you, my queen.”
“Didja know, the head cheerleader beat me out for first runner-up in the Miss Burnsville pageant?”
“Er,” was all my husband came up with as he eyed the corpse.
“Not that I internalize these things for years and then lash out or anything.” That was my crown and sash, dammit!
CHAPTER
TWENTY
“Because I am a petty, petty woman,” I finished.
“Um, what?” Cindy, who’d been sobbing on my shoulder, looked up.
Oh, nothing. Just reminiscing about your beheading. “Nothing,” I assured her. “C’mere, sit down.” I’d walked her to my office, which in the real MoA was the security office/dispatch center, and had her sit down in front of the bank of blank screens. “Thank you for asking to see me, and for apologizing.”
She’d started to tense up as soon as her butt hit the seat, but relaxed a bit when I didn’t instantly start berating her or jabbing her with a pitchfork. She slumped back and sighed. “Well, since you were right about everything and I ruined my life by not listening, then killed the love of my life and broke into your house and tried to kill your friend, it was the least I could do.”
“Oh.” I coughed. “That takes care of my ‘do you remember what happened?’ question.”
There was a beat and then we both laughed, followed by Cindy clapping a hand over her mouth. Her eyes were so big I half expected them to pop out of her skull and dangle from the ends of her optic nerves. “Srry,” she mumbled against her palm, “’M srry nt fnny.”
“Sometimes you have to laugh. It’s either that or go screaming foaming crazy. I’ve done both, and believe me, inappropriate laughter is better. So I take it getting chomped by a vamp was part of your plan? Remind me to talk to you about the shoes you wore, by the way.”
“Yes.” She blinked at the shoes remark, then continued. “I remember most of that night, but some of it’s hazy. I remember the high points, though.” She shivered. “Low points, I mean. Anyway. Lawrence told us so many stories, I could spot a vampire by the time I was twelve. And he—you know. He wouldn’t do it. Turn me.”
“Had you talked to him about this before?”
“No. He asked what I wanted for my sweet sixteen and I told him: to be like you. So I wouldn’t die of cancer but also because . . . Well. You know.”
“Suddenly girls asking for nose jobs for their sixteenth seems much less terrible. Although it is still terrible. So he wouldn’t turn you, and you got him to go over his head by taking a meeting with us . . .”
“And when you wouldn’t—which I totally get now, by the way—I just . . . You know.”
I shouldn’t keep prying, but Cindy had proven herself to have a formidable will. I could probably use someone like that for . . . I dunno. Something. “You rose—”
“Yeah, the woman who killed me got me to go with her—”
I snorted. “Like that was a challenge. You were a fish looking for a net.”
She nodded. “She did it in one of those empty warehouses on First.”
I nodded encouragement and made a mental note. Get a thorough description of the vampire and her lair—argh, who has lairs?—so Sinclair and I can find her and burn her alive. Burn her alive sooo much. “Totally deserted so nobody found me. And when I came back, I was—so thirsty. So—everything. All I could think about was feeding. I didn’t— It was the only thing that mattered. It was the world. Like Lawrence used to be my world and I—” She shook her head and didn’t finish the sentence.
“Okay, so you went to his place—”
“He just . . . let me. He didn’t fight hard enough to—I mean, he tried to keep me off him but he couldn’t make himself hurt me.” She shivered like a gale had blown through the office. Poor, poor idiot. Both of them.
“And then you came to the mansion? For what, belated revenge?”
“No!” The cheerleader I’d beheaded seemed genuinely shocked by the idea. “I just figured since you’d invited me in, I could go there.”