“Here’s all the supporting documentation. I honestly can’t find anything I did wrong,” I said, handing her the files. “I have no idea what your auditor guy is looking at on his end, but I’ll be happy to come in tomorrow and talk to him face to face about it.”
Daisy sighed and nodded. “Okay. Listen, I’m sorry I snapped at you. It’s just, we can’t afford to have the Department of Revenue crawling all over us. That’s the kind of thing that destroys not-for-profits.”
I smiled, reassuring her that I wasn’t upset at all. “I know. It’s okay. Really. I’m confident the mistake is on their end. It’s probably something super simple.”
“I hope so. Thanks for your help today,” Daisy said, sounding tired. “See you tomorrow?”
I nodded, dreading the idea of another early morning—one where I would have to put on a cheerful face in front of powerful strangers. “Yep. Bright and early.”
I left her office and grabbed my things, walking the few blocks to AJ’s. The rain had stopped, though the wind was wicked crazy today. It would probably storm later in the afternoon. St. Louis at this time of year was thunderstorm and tornado territory, and there was a certain heavy humidity today that seemed undaunted by the wind. That kind of feeling in the atmosphere usually meant trouble.
A block away from AJ’s, my vamp radar was up and running at full force. Unlikely though it was, I was hoping to run into Rans skulking around the restaurant. Of course, he wasn’t there. That would have been way too easy, and my luck didn’t seem to be running that way these days.
After changing into my uniform, I walked out of the women’s restroom—only to be cornered near the bar by Jake, a new bartender who’d started working at the restaurant a couple of weeks ago. My jaw tightened. Christ, the front doors weren’t even open yet, and we were going to do this? This day was shaping up to be a real bitch.
“So, Zorah.” Jake stood way too close, physically cornering me next to the drinks station. “When are you gonna let me take you out?”
From a purely aesthetic standpoint, Jake was a good-looking guy. Sandy brown hair, blue eyes. Every girl’s dream of the wholesome boy next door, if the wholesome boy next door happened to be a pushy, entitled asshole. He’d been pretty relentless about his intentions toward me from the day he got out of training.
“I’m not interested, Jake.” I pushed myself back into the corner, trying to gain space to duck around him, but he only pressed forward to follow. He was so close, it half-looked like he was going to try and kiss me, right there in the open.
“Aw, don’t be that way, beautiful. What about this weekend?” He waggled his eyebrows.
Seriously… who did that?
“Working, sorry.” My voice was flat. It didn’t faze him.
He shook his head. “Nah… you’re not on the schedule for Saturday,” he said. “I checked.”
“This isn’t the only place I work, Jake.” I narrowed my eyes.
“You can’t work every day.” He tilted his head, trying to call my bluff.
“Pretty much, every day,” I said. “A girl’s gotta eat.”
Taking half a step back, Jake shook his head. He was still smiling, and I was caught between relief that things weren’t about to turn ugly—this time, at least—and a sort of dull rage at myself for feeling relieved when I wasn’t the one in the wrong.
Even now, he wouldn’t let up. “Okay, well maybe one night after work? I could take you out for drinks, then drop you off at home. Since you don’t have a car.”
My jaw was starting to ache with the effort of holding a neutral expression on my face. “I have a car. It’s just in the shop right now.” Waiting for twenty-five hundred dollars to miraculously materialize.
I might as well have been talking to a wall. “Cool, well you know you want to, so… soon. ’Kay?”
“I’m not interested, Jake. I have to get to work now. Can you… I don’t know, maybe let me out of this corner?” I widened my eyes, waiting for him to get the message.
“Oh yeah, sure.” He grinned wide, showing off his straight, white teeth. “Sorry, babe.”
He shifted a couple of inches to the left, leaving just enough space that if I tried to squeeze past, I’d be brushing up against him.
“Dude.” I stared him in the eyes. “You are seriously toeing the line with me right now, and I’m not in the mood for it.”
The boy next door’s face hardened, and I braced for whatever might come next. The dull rage from earlier was still churning in my gut, growing hot, wanting an outlet even though any outlet I could give it right now would probably end up being a clusterfuck. The kind of clusterfuck that ended up with me either unemployed, or sexually assaulted, or both.
Len—one of the line cooks—walked past on his way to the kitchen and halted abruptly, his eyes taking in the scene.
“Don’t be a douche, Jake. What the hell are you doing? Back the fuck off of the poor woman.”
When Jake didn’t move immediately, Len narrowed his eyes and strode closer. He was taller than Jake, though not as broad through the chest and shoulders. That said, he also had an air of the bad boy about him that was reinforced by a purple fauxhawk, two full sleeves of tattoos, and an over-abundance of facial piercings—nose, eyebrow, and lip. He usually hid out in the kitchen, but he obviously wasn’t one to let a woman be bullied on his watch.
He also made the best steaks.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t handle guys like Jake, but right now, I wasn’t going to lie—I was relieved Len was there. Especially when a flash of real anger passed over Jake’s expression, bouncing between Len and me.
“Yeah, okay.” Jake pursed his lips and raked his gaze down my body. He backed up a couple of steps then gestured to the side, ushering me to move. “Your loss, girl.”
Averting my eyes from his irritated glare, I stepped past him and mouthed a thank you to Len as I walked over to my station and waited for customers entering the lobby to be seated.
Len shot me a tight smile and disappeared into the kitchen, while Jake went to stand behind the bar. I cursed the way my heart was pounding with adrenaline and tried to put on my game face for the customers. I didn’t know what it said about me that I was more freaked out over the past five minutes than I had been by the revelation that vampires existed.
The hostesses were seating patrons out front, so I went out and did my job. By the time the lunch rush came and went, I’d made a good amount in tips, but my whole body was in pain. For whatever reason, there were a ton of lunch meetings today, and holding trays with lots of heavy plates on them had begun to take its toll. Stupid joints and muscles. Why couldn’t they just work the way they were supposed to?
Some days, I really did feel like the oldest twenty-six-year-old alive.
After taking my first break, I got back on the floor. One of my new customers was a man sitting alone, dressed in a brown business suit that didn’t complement his natural coloring at all.
I pulled out my order pad and walked up to his table.
“Good afternoon,” I said. “I’ll be your server today. What can I get started for you?”
There was something… strange about him. Off. He looked almost… unearthly? Was that the right word? Like he didn’t belong here. Sort of shiny and golden, and too perfect to be real. He had long, blond hair that was tied back in a ponytail but his eyes… they were a strange shade of green. They caught me off guard, and I realized I was staring. The shade couldn’t possibly be natural. They had to be contacts or something.
“I’ll take an order of escargot with some garlic butter, to start.”
Blinking back to myself, I tore my gaze away and wrote down the order: slimy snails and smelly butter. Not too many orders of escargot came out of our kitchen. In fact, I’d always wondered why the owners bothered to keep it on the menu when no one ordered it. “Will that be it for starters?” I asked. “A drink, maybe?”
“Hmm…I’ll have a cognac. And a glass of water, with lemon.”
Again, odd order.
While his facial features were overtly magnificent, for some reason he still repelled me on an instinctual level I couldn’t explain. I felt like something was heaving inside me, screaming to run away. But that was stupid. I was just freaked out after the ugly scene with Jake earlier. That had to be it.
It was weird. Yesterday, a vampire was in here, and I could barely keep a lid on my fascination. Today, this guy— just as handsome and unusual, though in a different way—was making my skin crawl so badly I wanted to scratch furrows in my arms to make the sensation stop.
I was staring at him again. The guy cleared his throat and gave me the strangest look. Like I was being judged and indicted without a trial, ready for the sentence to be handed down.
Run, little girl, that look said. Run as far and as fast as you can. The hunt is coming for you, and we will not be denied.
SEVEN
“TELL ME YOUR NAME,” the man commanded, his green eyes hard.
Never in my life could I recall feeling as disgusted by the proximity of another human being as I did at that moment. My stomach was curdling and my flesh felt like it was being burned off my bones under the intensity of his gaze.
“Your name,” he repeated, his voice like iron.
Lifting my finger, I pointed mutely at my nametag.
Because, duh.
I watched him warily, trying to get a handle on my reaction. There was something… inherently repugnant about the man. It was the strangest feeling, like something in my body chemistry or my DNA was rejecting being in his presence.
The man lifted an eyebrow at my less than respectful response. “Has anybody ever told you that in Spanish, zorra means both a female fox and a promiscuous woman?”
It was not the first time I’d ever heard that line before—a line which, ironically, was not funny whatsoever given my abject failure in the ‘being a sex kitten’ department. Having gone through a high school Spanish class, as well as having dated a Latino boyfriend for all of two weeks, that particular pun had been played out years ago. And this dude obviously never considered that maybe—just maybe—I’d heard that one a time or two in my life?
“I’ll go put in your appetizer order,” I said tightly, walking away as fast as my feet would take me.
I felt like a magnet being repelled by another magnet. It was bad enough that I even tried getting another server to take over the table. Ponytail Guy stared at me shamelessly the whole time, never taking his gaze from me while I was visible from the seating area. No matter where I was on the floor, I felt my skin heating up, crawling, climbing over my bones, trying to get away.
It was almost physically painful.
I’d managed to get one of the other servers to bring out his drink, but when his food was ready, she was on break, so I reluctantly put the plates on a tray and brought them to his table. Placing the order in front of him, I did my damnedest to avoid eye contact at all costs.
“Thank you,” he said, trying to sound pleasant although his voice raked over me like shards of glass. “So, tell me, Zorah. Do you live around here?”
I didn’t want to give him any real answers, but, c’mon. Seriously. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure that one out. “Well, I work here so… yeah?”
“Tell me about yourself.” He laid his hands in his lap. Smiled. He was clearly trying to be conversational. Trying, and not caring that he was failing miserably.
My creeper radar was on full alert. Dear god, this day could not be over soon enough.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I managed through gritted teeth. “I have other tables to attend to.”
I started to walk away, but a hand like a steel band closed around my arm. I gasped and jerked free with a twisting move learned in some long-ago self-defense class. Heart pounding, I whirled, standing a step out of reach.
His flat green eyes were still peeling back the layers of my skin. “I’d like to know you better.”
Visions of making a scene and getting fired warred with scenes of being kidnapped and chained up in Ponytail Guy’s basement.
“I’m flattered,” I choked out, “but I need to work.”
I forced a smile that felt more like a rictus, and fled. For a while, I was able to get other servers to occasionally check on him, but he eventually pulled over the manager and told him I was neglecting him, so I got reamed and eventually slunk back over.
“Can I get those out of your way?” I asked cautiously, pointing at his empty plates.
He slid them across the table toward me. “How old are you, Zorah?”
“Twenties,” I muttered, hoping giving him something unimportant would get him to lay off. It didn’t.
“What about your parents. Are they alive?”
I froze at his question. Why would he ask that? The way he looked at me, it was as though he already knew the answers to every question he asked. Like he could see right into my head, and sense my dislike of him. Like he already knew things about me that I didn’t even know about myself.
Who the hell was this guy? Why was I suddenly ground zero for weirdness?
I tried to defuse the situation while shutting him down at the same time. “Listen, I’m not comfortable giving personal information to a man I don’t know. I’m sure you can understand that.”
“Bring me an order of tiramisu, Zorah. And another drink.” He set his glass at the edge of the table.
I nodded, grabbing the dirty dishes and his glass. “Fine, I’ll bring it right out.”
As I walked back to the kitchen, I could feel him staring.
Watching.
Hours passed, and Creepy Ponytail Guy stayed.
He freaking stayed. Ordering drinks to placate management and keep from getting thrown out. The entire damn time, his stare followed me everywhere. Table to table. Floor to kitchen. It didn’t matter what I was doing—he was always watching.
Three o’clock finally came and my shift ended. I was so freaked out that I was physically shaking, too afraid to even walk to the bus stop alone. Times like this, I really wished my car wasn’t in the shop. Though to be fair, I probably wasn’t in any shape to drive safely.
I hid in the kitchen, chewing on my thumbnail, frazzled by the creeper sitting in my section. Still. Any pride I might have had was long gone as I waited for Len to finish what he was doing.
“Hey Len,” I began, a bit hesitant. “You’re off now, right?”
Len pulled the hairnet off his head, his purple fauxhawk springing to life as if it hadn’t been squashed beneath a net for hours. Len was a sweetheart under all the bad boy trappings, from what I knew of him. He’d always been nice to me, and after the scene with Jake this morning, I felt a lot more comfortable with him.
“Yeah, I’m finished here. What’s up, Zorah?” He washed his hands at the sink along the back wall, then untied the apron he was wearing and tossed it into the laundry bin a few feet away.
I was suddenly very glad he was here.
Taking a steadying breath, I said, “Would you mind driving me home? There’s this creepy guy who’s been in my section for hours now, asking me personal questions. Like, hours. Seriously. He’s still here, and frankly I’m afraid to leave alone.”
Len frowned, the ring in his eyebrow glinting. “I’d be happy to, only I didn’t drive. I live, like, four blocks down.”
“Oh.” I deflated as I peered out toward the floor.
“How’d you get here?” Len asked.
“I took the bus.” God, I was really starting to hate that damned bus.
“What happened to your car? Didn’t you have a little red Civic?”
“Transmission went out. They said it’s gonna be at least a couple thousand to fix it.” I shrugged. “I’m still figuring that out.”
He nodded in sympathy. “Yeah, I hear you. I don’t even have a car. Fortunately, everything I need is within walking distance.” He looked at me for a minute, clearly taking note of my fear. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ll
get you home safe. Bus stop’s just a few blocks away. What about the Metro?”
I shook my head. “I have a pass, but there’s not a stop near my house, so I’ve been stuck taking the bus instead.”
“Listen, I’ll walk you to the bus stop and sit with you till it comes,” Len said. “What table’s this creep at?”
“Twenty-one.”
Len held up a finger, silently warning me to stay put as he walked to the edge of the seating area and scoped out the situation. “The blonde with the ponytail?” he asked.
I nodded. “He’s still there, then? Jesus, I’ve been off the floor for, like, twenty minutes now. I’m seriously freaking out here.” I ran my fingers through my hair, agitated. “What the fuck does he want from me?”
“I dunno, girl, but he’s on my radar now. I’ve got your back.”
“Thanks, Len.”
“It’s nothing,” he said. “Grab your shit, and let’s get you home.”
I wasted no time grabbing my backpack from my locker. Len walked me out the employee door, through the alley and down the street to the nearest bus stop, which was barely half a block away. After the short walk to the stop, we sat on the bench under the grimy shelter for about fifteen minutes waiting for the next bus.
I couldn’t keep my nerves at bay, constantly watching, expecting the creeper guy to make an appearance. Len was a solid presence at my side.
“Thanks, Len.” I stood as the bus pulled up and dug into my bag to get my bus pass, telling myself that once I was on board, I was safe. For some reason, I didn’t believe it. “I’ll… see you tomorrow?”
Len shook his head. “No, I’m coming with you. You’re about to jump out of your own skin.”
A hint of warmth blossomed in my chest. “You really don’t have to do that.”
He shook his head. “Yes, I do. I want to make sure you get home okay. I promised, remember?”
Some of the tension flowed out of me. “Thank you, Len. That means a lot to me.” I smiled. It really did.
The Last Vampire Box Set Page 5