The girl was making this a real fight and it was pissing me off. “You need to learn, Audra.” I hooked a foot around hers, propelled my hips upward, and flipped her back under me. “All this posturing just smells desperate. Vampires hate desperate.”
“Is that what you told Emma?” She wrapped her legs around my waist, hooking her feet at my back, but she was unable to get leverage.
“Screw you.” We were grappling hard now, but our strength and size were well matched. She bucked and squirmed, but I held on, keeping her pinned. “Don’t you dare mention Emma.”
“You think you’re the teacher’s pet.” She shifted her weight, and I just barely escaped a choke hold.
“There’s always Master Dagursson,” I said sweetly, referring to the remarkably unattractive ancient Viking vampire. “He loves you.”
“You think you’re better than everyone else.”
“Maybe I am.”
“You think you’re the vampires’ little darling.” She wrenched her legs up and cinched them around my neck. “But I know better.”
I smacked her repeatedly, the universal sparring language for Stop killing me, but there was no stopping her.
“You killed Emma,” she said.
I rolled to my side, forcing her legs to unclench, and sucked in a breath. “A vampire killed Emma. I didn’t kill Emma.”
But deep down I worried I did. Deep down, I tormented myself with thoughts that I could’ve done more. How I might’ve sacrificed myself to somehow save her.
The memory of her body, limp in Alcántara’s arms, brought fresh rage and anguish. Power shot through me, and I broke Frost’s hold, flinging her away as though she weighed nothing. “Get the hell off me, freak.”
“Your roommates are cursed.” She crouched on her hands and knees, and I could see her mind working furiously, looking for her chance to pounce. “I refuse to be run off to the castle like Emma was just because you’re some vampire’s pet.”
I froze. “What did you just say?”
But she’d frozen, too. “Nothing.”
“Was she still alive when they took her?” The words came out slowly, a chill creeping over my body.
“You saw her,” she replied, giving me a nonanswer, but her eyes betrayed the secret she’d spilled.
I pressed. “They took Emma to the castle?”
“How should I know?”
I could tell she was lying. Frost didn’t want to be run off to the castle.
Like Emma.
What happened to my friend after Alcántara slashed her down the middle? As they did with all the fallen girls, Tracers had come into the ring and taken her away.
I thought of the vampire’s castle, a hulking granite keep looming silently beyond the standing stones. Was that where they took her body? If so, for what purpose?
Was it possible Emma still lived, enduring Alcántara’s torture?
I needed to go, to find a way into the castle to see for myself. I wouldn’t rest until I uncovered the truth. I would find out what happened to Emma, and then I would have my revenge. I’d expose Alcántara’s hideous secrets.
And then I would take him down.
Like her heroine, Veronica Wolff braved an all-girls school, traveled to faraway places, and studied lots of languages. She was not, however, ever trained as an assassin (or so she claims). In real life, she’s most often found on a beach or in the mountains of northern California, but you can always find her online at veronicawolff.com.
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