Another null.
She felt it when I did, and the blonde bob tilted up to meet my eyes. “Corry?” I asked incredulously.
Chapter 14
“Scarlett!” The teenager’s face broke into a beautiful grin I’d never seen on her face before, and she jumped up and ran for me, throwing her arms around my shoulders. Her momentum rocked me back a step onto my bad leg, but I ignored it, shifting my weight to my left instead. I was smiling stupidly, and to my great annoyance, I realized I was blinking back tears. “It’s so good to see you!” Corry said into my hair.
“Yeah.” I released her and leaned back, swiping my eyes as quickly as I could. The pain from my knee, which had been at a low running-refrigerator hum before, now roared into focus, and I fought to keep it off my face. “You too. Come on, let’s get inside.” I had a dozen questions, but was anxious to get her out of sight first. I didn’t think any of Will’s pack had found Molly’s house, but I didn’t want to wait around to find out. If anyone saw Corry here . . .
Corrine “Corry” Tanger was a fifteen-year-old null whom I’d met the previous fall. A teacher at her school had sexually assaulted her, and then blackmailed her by threatening to tell her dad, a Pentecostal minister. Corry had felt like she didn’t have any other options, so when a psychotic guy with a yearning to kill vampires offered to get the teacher off her back in exchange for helping him cleanse LA of the supernatural . . . she had gotten all turned around.
I’d done what I could to help her, but then I had told Corry I couldn’t see her anymore. Nulls are ridiculously rare, and there are creatures in the Old World who would happily commit murder to get one for their own personal use, especially a young, impressionable teenager with a history of moral flexibility. I’m protected in Los Angeles because of my job, but if anyone else found out about Corry, she’d be fair game. The girl was “in the closet” to the Old World, and I had made it my personal mission to let her stay there.
And here she was, on my doorstep. I wanted to scold her, but I was just so frickin’ happy to see her I didn’t know what to do.
“Your leg!” Corry cried as we started for the door. “Oh my gosh, what happened? I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean to hurt it!”
I waved it off. “It’s no big deal; almost healed anyway,” I lied. I unlocked the door and led her inside, through the back hallway and into the living room. “Um, sit anywhere you want. I’ll take the couch, if you don’t mind. Do you want something to drink, or I could make a sandwich . . .” I wasn’t used to being a hostess, and I realized that I was babbling.
“Oh, no, here—” Corry ran to the two armchairs, grabbing throw pillows, which she propped under my knee. “I could get you some ice or something,” she added hurriedly. There was a pause, and then we both broke into nervous laughter.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Corry said, crossing the living room to perch on the edge of an armchair. “In some ways, I feel like we’re family, like I’ve known you forever. And then I remember that I don’t know your favorite color, or band, or if you have brothers or sisters, or . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she gave an embarrassed shrug. “You know. Anything.”
“It is weird,” I agreed. “And we can talk about all that stuff, but first I need to know how you found me, and why you’re here. Are you in trouble?”
Corry frowned, her slightly over-plucked eyebrows furrowing. “Not that I know of. No, I was just, like, worried about you. You sounded so freaked out when I talked to you before Christmas. I called you a bunch of times, but your phone was dead or something.” Her eyes lifted to meet mine. “You didn’t get my messages?”
I winced. My former cell phone had been lost after I went into the coma—I didn’t really know what had happened, but it had something to do with getting everyone’s car where it was supposed to be and moving my unconscious body back to Molly’s without the police noticing. Nobody had thought to look for or replace the phone until a day or two after I woke up, and if there was a way to get old messages onto the new phone, I had no idea how. I’m not exactly what you’d call “tech savvy.” “I’m sorry,” I said simply. “I didn’t.”
She bit her lip, nodding, and I realized how worried she’d been. Corry had been through so much, and she’d been that concerned about me. I changed the subject so I wouldn’t start misting up. Reputation to maintain and all that. “How did you find out where I live?” I asked
Corry gave a little shrug. “I didn’t know how else to find you, so this morning I called Will. He told me where you live.” Tentative smile. Will had neglected to mention Corry’s call, but I couldn’t really blame him for forgetting. “I took, like, three buses. I tried to call first, but my phone’s been crappy lately.”
I groaned inwardly. “Corry, honey, you’re fifteen. You can’t take the Metro by yourself at night; it isn’t safe.”
“I’m fine,” she said defensively.
I leaned forward so I could look her in the eye. “Where does your mother think you are right now?” I asked gently.
Corry blushed red, her fingers twisting together in her lap. “She thinks I’m at my dad’s place.”
That surprised me. “Your mom and dad . . . they split up?”
Corry nodded, suddenly seeming to shrink in on herself. “My mom found out about . . . about my teacher. She told my dad. He kinda freaked out.” I winced again. And as if she hadn’t been through enough already, now she had to go through all the emotional turmoil of her parents’ divorce.
“How did your mom find out?” I asked.
“I told her.” Corry swallowed. “My therapist thought I should. My mom took it really well, considering.” Tiny smile. “And when my dad flipped, she had my back.” I saw her eyes fill, and I wished I could rush over and hug her, but my stupid leg was such a dead weight, it might as well have been part of the couch. “I’m at a different school now, and my dad moved out . . .” Another shrug. “It’s a lot of change, but it’s better than lying all the time, hiding.”
“I’m very proud of you,” I said softly. She nodded and looked away with a little smile. I took a deep breath. “But you’re right, Corry: no more lies.” I leaned to one side, so I could pull my cell phone out of my pocket. I tossed it to her, and she caught it automatically, a questioning look on her face. “Call your mother,” I ordered. “Tell her where you are, and that I’ll drive you home.”
Corry seemed like she was about to protest, but after a long look at my face, she sighed and nodded. I stayed where I was on the couch while Corry stepped into the hallway. I heard snatches of her side of the conversation—her mom was doing most of the talking—and finally she slumped back into the room, holding the phone out. “She wants to talk to you,” Corry said unhappily.
Yeeps. I really didn’t want to actually talk to an authority figure. I wasn’t, like, one of the adults or anything. But in for a penny . . . I took the phone. “Mrs. Tanger?”
“Ellen, please,” said a cultured, tired voice on the other end of the phone. I’d met Corry’s mom very briefly, but I hadn’t even known her first name until that moment. “Anyone who houses my runaway daughter gets to call me Ellen.”
“I’m sorry,” I said to Ellen Tanger. “I’m glad to see her, but I wish the circumstances were different.”
Corry’s mother gave a very ladylike little snort. “As do I. Did she tell you that she was grounded?”
I glanced at Corry, who had returned to her seat and folded her arms across her chest defensively. “No, she didn’t,” I said carefully.
“I didn’t think so.” There was a long, staticky noise as Ellen Tanger sighed into the phone. “This isn’t the first time she’s snuck out, Miss Bernard.”
“Scarlett,” I said automatically. “Anyone who trusts me with their runaway daughter gets to call me Scarlett.”
“Scarlett, then,” she said, ignoring the lame joke. “I kept thinking that with a new school, a new . . . family arrangement, this behavior would stop.” There was a little catch in h
er voice, and when she spoke again, it was with desperation. “I’m sorry that Corry invited you into our problems, but . . . what am I supposed to do? What did your mother do?”
There was no reason for that to sting, but it did. “My mother is dead,” I said quietly.
Corry’s mother sucked in a breath. “Was it . . . one of them?” she asked fearfully.
Oh . . . crapnuggets. I met Corry’s eyes. As if she’d heard her mother, she looked away guiltily. Corry had told her mom about the Old World. That was understandable, but very, very bad.
Corry was technically part of the Old World, so she was allowed to know anything I wanted to tell her about how things work. Her mother, however, was purely human, and if Dashiell found out a human knew . . . he’d most likely kill her. We had to make sure Dashiell didn’t find out. I added that to my mental list of impossible things to do.
I took a deep breath and processed the question. Had vampires killed my mother? “No, it wasn’t one of them,” I answered, hoping I sounded at least a little reassuring. It was one of us, I added silently. Olivia had been a null when she’d killed my mom and dad. But Ellen Tanger didn’t need to know that.
I promised her that I would bring Corry home after we’d talked for a bit, and hung up my phone. When I looked back at Corry, her arms were still crossed over her chest. “You see what I’m dealing with?” she said petulantly.
I put the phone back in my pocket. “You told her about vampires,” I said carefully.
Her arms uncrossed as she balled her hands into fists. “I had to!” she said defensively. “She had all these questions, and—”
I held up a hand, “It’s done, Corry. I’m not going to yell at you. But do you understand that you may have put her in danger?”
Her eyes widened. “No . . . I mean, I knew I wasn’t supposed to say anything, but . . .” she swallowed hard. “Is she . . . what’s gonna happen?”
I thought that over for a moment. It was too late to press Ellen’s mind—erasing memory only works shortly after the event in question, and she’d obviously known for a while. “I gotta think about it,” I said at last. “For now just tell your mom she can’t ever talk about knowing, even in front of me. Even in front of you. You never know who’s listening.”
Subdued, Corry nodded. “And you’ve got to give her a break, kid,” I added. “She just found out that a whole world of magic exists, and everyone in it wants a piece of her little girl. She is balls-out terrified.” Corry shrugged noncommittally. Her face was creased down in something resembling a pout. I repressed a sigh. This wasn’t exactly what I needed right now.
“She said you’ve been sneaking out at night,” I ventured. The girl reached one hand up to play with a little bead necklace, not meeting my eyes again. “Any particular reason?”
A beat passed, and then Corry looked right at me, pain in her eyes. “I’m not a child,” she burst out. “Not anymore. If I want to go out, I should be able to.”
“Where do you go?” I asked mildly.
She looked surprised for a moment, her hand going still at her throat. “I just walk,” she said hesitantly. “To the movies, or a bookstore. There’s a coffee shop that’s open late; sometimes I go there. I just . . . don’t want to be alone,” she confessed. “But I don’t want to be with anyone who . . . knows.”
Well, shit. Once again, I felt woefully inadequate. I wanted to help her, but I was not a frickin’ family therapist. There were layers of anguish here, and I had no idea how to peel them back for Corry. I considered telling her to talk to her actual therapist, but that seemed dismissive. “Have you told your mom that?” I said carefully.
The girl’s face clouded over again. “She doesn’t get it,” Corry muttered. “Not like you.”
Ah. I saw where this was going. Corry had cast me as the rebellious mother-alternative folk hero. Jesse and I had rescued her once, and now she thought I could save her again. I wished it were true.
She was right about one thing, though—she and I were connected. I knew, in a simple, calm kind of way, that I would die before I let her get hurt again, and that she needed to stay far away from me. “Corry, I wish I could say that things have calmed down for me now, but that’s not how it is. My life is dangerous. And after everything you’ve been through, the last thing in the world I want is for you to get hurt.”
Corry took a deep breath, meeting my eyes, and when she spoke again her voice shook, like she was delivering a speech she’d practiced. “About that,” she began. “I know what you said, and I get it. But a lot has been going on for me, and I feel like there’s this whole other . . . there’s this part of my life . . .” She waved one wrist in a frantic circle, searching for the right words. “It’s like having your back turned to the ocean, you know? It’s just big and vast and I don’t understand any of it, and I’m way overwhelmed.” Her hands, which had been fidgeting in her lap again, suddenly stilled. “I need you, Scarlett,” she said quietly. “I know you’ve been trying to protect me by keeping me out of it, but I need to know how to protect myself. I can’t get blindsided again. I want in.”
I stared at her. Well. Goddammit.
Chapter 15
After Jesse had helped destroy Kathryn Wong’s body, he’d steered his car away from Will’s house only to pull over on Temescal Canyon Road, unsure of where he even wanted to go. He was reluctant to head home when he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep any time soon. His apartment was a tiny bunker that functioned as half sleeping place, half storage compartment; it had zero appeal for him when he was this keyed up.
He turned the engine off, staring out the windshield. The nova may have killed Kathryn Wong, but it was Jesse and Scarlett who’d erased her. She had been a full person, with her own thoughts and parents and probably a hold list at the public library. And they’d just . . . wiped her off the board. And no one would ever know.
Jesse rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hands. “You gotta get your shit together,” he said aloud. On top of his agreement with Dashiell and Kathryn Wong’s body, he was worried about the fact that he would soon be questioning Old World suspects without Scarlett around as a safe zone. Only a day earlier he wouldn’t have found that to be quite so daunting, but after Dashiell had pressed Jesse’s mind, he was reluctant to be vulnerable around any Old World creatures.
The problem, he thought, is that I don’t have any weapons I can use against werewolves.
Unfortunately, the only person he knew who sold silver weapons was a dead serial killer—Jared Hess, who’d made silver handcuffs, silver chains, and presumably other silver weapons as well. But all of Hess’s stuff had been seized by the police, and Jesse wasn’t about to break into a police evidence locker to steal it.
Then an idea struck him—Noah is in town. He checked his phone’s calendar to make sure he had the dates right. Yes. A plan began to clink together in Jesse’s mind, as he started his sedan and headed for Los Feliz.
Jesse’s older brother, Noah, was a stuntman, currently working full-time on a network action-adventure show about an FBI agent who could speak telepathically to his guardian angel. He usually shot on a soundstage in Vancouver, but he’d left Jesse a voicemail a few days earlier saying that he was doing exteriors in LA for the next two weeks. Jesse dialed with his phone’s Bluetooth. Noah often filmed his show at night, so he was likely to still be awake, and maybe even up for a minor adventure.
His brother picked up on the second ring. “Hey, Ugly,” Noah said cheerfully, by way of hello. Jesse grinned as he drove.
“Hey, Meathead. Whatcha doing?”
“Throwing a tennis ball. Max and I are having an endurance contest.” Max was their parents’ energetic pit bull mix. Noah had an apartment in Vancouver, but stayed with their parents when he was in LA.
“Getting your ass kicked?” Jesse asked.
“Yes, I am,” Noah said airily. “What’s up with you?”
“Well, it’s after eleven on a weeknight, so I was just wondering if you wanted t
o go out and do something stupid.”
“Come pick me up,” Noah said immediately.
Jesse arrived at his parents’ home in Los Feliz fifteen minutes later. The cheerfully over-decorated house had been tiny when Rob Astin and Carmen Cruz had bought it, long before Noah was born. Since then, they had added a new addition every few years until the house had mutated into a stubby maze, with his father’s three-room mixing studio fixed to the back of the building, and his mother’s kitchen nearly twice its original size. Amidst the clutter, mementos, and family warmth, it was starting to look like a place where hobbits might live, but Jesse was fond of it.
When he pulled up, Noah was sitting outside on the front steps with their parents’ dog, Max, who was a strange combination of pit bull and greyhound. Noah let go of Max’s collar when Jesse stepped out of his car, and the big dog bolted toward Jesse’s knees, jumping up to lick his face. “Whoa, buddy,” Jesse said, darting to one side to keep the dog’s paws off his chest.
“Max, off,” Noah called from the stoop. “Come.” The dog immediately abandoned his greeting ritual and trotted back to Noah’s side. He sat patiently next to Noah while he and Jesse embraced.
Jesse shook his head in amazement. “He only listens like that to you,” he marveled to his brother. “Everybody else has to yell four times just to get his attention.”
“That’s because he knows I’m the alpha here,” Noah said casually. The word set off alarms in Jesse’s brain, and it took a moment for him to remember that his brother meant nothing by it.
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