Dangerous Creatures (13 page)

Ridley sat up on the mattress, feeling like she’d just remembered something important. It was only when she heard Link playing “Burger Boy” from the practice room that she realized where she was—and why.

The crowd was gone, and so was Floyd. All Rid could hear was Link.

“Patty, oh, Patty, you’re not real Fatty / and you’re only kinda Bratty / my ham-burger Patty.”

Ridley lay back down on the mattress, staring at the cracks in the ceiling until the set ended and the sun was high. By either measure, it was one of the longest nights of her life.

She would get Link in this Caster band and then get him right out again.
Devil’s Hangnail. Whatever.
She wasn’t going to let him ruin his life for her or for anyone else. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to let her life be ruined by some stupid gambling debt.

Or by the crazy feeling she was being watched. Or by the even crazier thought that she was being threatened by a Necromancer with a
Vindicabo
Cast from the unseen world.

Or, craziest of all, by the idea that some rocker girl named Floyd thought she could steal her boyfriend.

Link Floyd? Never going to happen.

Because her name was Ridley Duchannes, and nobody told her what to do.

Nobody.

 
CHAPTER 11 

Read Between the Lies

I
n the morning, Ridley left apartment 2D and came downstairs to see Link sitting alone in a booth in Marilyn’s Diner, talking into his cell phone.

Interesting.

A cold cup of untouched coffee sat in front of him. He was wearing Mario and Luigi on his T-shirt, which meant only one thing: Link was feeling nostalgic and sentimental. That usually meant trouble for Ridley, who never admitted to feeling much of either.

She moved toward Link, wary. She was wearing her favorite fishnets, her peep-toe suede booties, her buckled mini-kilt, and her oldest black T-shirt. All of her most trusted comfort clothes—yet somehow, this morning they weren’t doing the trick.

Ridley didn’t know why she felt so off her game. Nothing around her looked that out of the ordinary. Spinning fans turned above a long counter in the center of the room. A faded New York City Department of Health certificate hung on the wall next to an out-of-date calendar featuring Marilyn Monroe, the namesake of the diner. Not a Siren, as far as Ridley knew, but she should’ve been. Rising behind the counter, dusty glass shelves offered sticky doughnuts with frosting stained by old colored sprinkles. Stale slices of cake in plastic wrap leaned against oversize chocolate muffins or mini boxes of sugar cereal or small pitchers dripping with maple syrup—in other words, Siren bait. She could smell it in the air.

But Rid was the only Siren in the diner, of that she was pretty certain. The counter and vinyl-covered stools were crowded with nose-ringed students, tattooed arty types, even stressed-looking office folks in jackets and running shoes—mostly Mortals, it seemed. When she walked past them, they avoided her eyes, as if they knew something she didn’t. As if there was something about her they didn’t want to know.

Or were afraid to know.

Strange.

She felt the same familiar coldness—the one from the curb, the one from the
Vindicabo
Cast. From her dreams. She tried to shake it off. New York City was complicated enough—second-guessing herself wasn’t a luxury she could afford.

Nothing here I can’t handle, is there?

She tried not to consider the answer to her own question.

Besides, there were a few familiar faces. Upon closer inspection, Ridley picked out a Blood Incubus chopping up raw meat in the kitchen, a Dark Caster hunched over the
Marilyn’s Sweetheart Specials
menu, and what appeared to be an aging Siren bartender nursing a coffee at the counter. A mixed crowd was relatively rare in the Caster world, and Ridley didn’t know what to make of it.

She didn’t know what to make of a lot of things since they’d arrived.

“What do you know? The joint is jumping,” Ridley said, sliding into the booth across the table from Link.

He kept talking into his phone, holding up one hand. “Hang on. My roommate just walked into the dining hall.”

Rid raised an eyebrow.

Link’s mom.

He looked at her, pleading. She got the message.

Don’t blow this for me.

“Gotta go, or I’ll be late for the Righteous Freshman breakfast.” He nodded. “I know.” He nodded again. “Sure thing.” And again. “Yes, ma’am.” Again. “Yep. Yep. Yep. Flossed, too.”

Ridley held up a canister of cutlery and shook it by Link’s face, making a loud clattering noise. He started to laugh in spite of himself.

“Whoops—I’m losin’ you. I think the band’s practicin’ or somethin’. Call you next week—I can’t hear—” He clicked off with a sigh.

She smiled. “How’s my favorite Mamma?”

He tossed the phone down to the tabletop. “Who cares, as long as she doesn’t get in her car and haul all the way to Georgia Redeemer to make sure I change my underwear?”

“Did you?”

“Why? You wanna see for yourself?” He smiled at her, Rid’s favorite smile. The one that said:
Third Degree Burns, Babe. That’s how hot you are.
After last night, she hoped that was what it still meant. Instead of:
I’m feeling guilty because I crushed on some rocker girl.

Either way, she smiled back, Link’s favorite smile. The one that said:
I know, Hot Rod. I’m the one holding the match.

Come play with fire.

My fire.

The moment she reached for his hand, Link pushed his coffee cup away from him. “I’ve been thinkin’.”

Uh-oh.

She pulled back her hand. He kept going. “The thing is, Rid, you’re right. You were right all along. I thought about it last night while I was working on some new lyrics in the practice room.”

“So I heard. Seems you’re getting along with the girls in the band. At least half of them.” Ridley forced a smile.

“Whatever,” Link said. He wasn’t falling for that one.

Ridley made a mental note to change the stripe in her hair from pink to some other color.
Any other color, so long as it doesn’t remind me of Pink Floyd.

Link jiggled his leg beneath the table. “Why was I so mad at you yesterday? I came to New York to play my music, and you gave me that opportunity, right here and now.”

“I did? I did.” She tried not to sound surprised.
Right? You did. See? You’re not such a terrible person.

“You just did it in your own messed-up way.”

“Messed up?” She tried to look confused.

Link ignored her. “Which used to be all right. But now we need to set a few ground rules,” he said.

Um. O-kay.
“You know I don’t do well with rules.”

“I do. That’s why we’re goin’ to get it all out in the open.” Link looked unusually serious. “This is the way it’s going to work with us. This is the only way I can handle it. If we can’t do it the right way, I don’t want to do it. Not anymore.”

Not anymore? He’d better do it. Just like I promised he would.

In all their many breakups, Ridley couldn’t remember Link ever being so reasonable. It was almost horrifying.

This wasn’t how they talked. They threw things at each other. Insults, jokes, sometimes even remotes. They made war and made peace and made up and made out. They didn’t do things like set ground rules. They didn’t do feelings talk. They didn’t get it
out in the open
.

Ridley looked down at the red, bowling-ball-speckled diner table. “It all sounds so grown-up when you say it like that.”

A sad expression crossed Link’s face. “So maybe we gotta grow up, Rid.”

“But
ground rules
?”

“Yep.” Link tapped on the tabletop. “First, no magic. No Siren stuff.”

She looked liked he’d slapped her. “What are you talking about?” No one had ever dared say anything like that to her before.
No Siren stuff? Why didn’t he just say no Ridley stuff?

They were one and the same.

Ridley drew a deep breath.

“Wait,” Link said, grabbing her hand before she could launch her attack. “It’s just that I don’t want you charmin’ anyone or gettin’ out your little Blow Pops to make sure everyone loves me. That’s not everyone lovin’ me, or my music. That’s everyone lovin’ you.”

“I don’t see the difference,” Ridley lied, her voice still cold. It was one of those chicken-and-egg, tree-falling-in-the-forest problems. Siren School 101:
If a Siren charmed a Mortal to shoot someone, who was the real shooter?
Just because Ridley didn’t want to debate the Power of Persuasion in a coffee shop with a Caster wearing gauges and a soul patch didn’t mean she didn’t get it.

Link wasn’t finished. “Second, no more lies. Just tell me the truth. You want me to meet up with a band, just say it. You want to come with me to New York, same thing. There’s nothin’ you can’t tell me, Rid. Nothin’.”

Ridley raised an eyebrow.

She had been working as a Siren long enough to know that those words were the single biggest fantasy in any relationship. It wasn’t even up for debate.

There was always, always something you couldn’t tell the other person.

Look at Link, who could have kept three little words to himself and saved them both a breakup. Hadn’t he learned anything?

When it came to relationships, the truth never set anyone free. The truth only set things on fire.

If you thought otherwise, you were deluding yourself, or you were seriously stupid. Ridley was neither, and as much as she wanted to believe those words, it was all she could do to nod, because she knew Link believed them.

Even the nod was a lie.

“Truce?” He held out his hand with a smile. “No Siren stuff? No more secrets and no more lies? Just you and me, and maybe or maybe not Lucille Ball? Trying to make it in the big city like a couple a regular people.”

Regular people? Us? Did he really just say that?

She looked at him with a smile of her own. “Right. A couple of regular people. That’s us.”

What does he think? I’ll just join the DAR and learn to make biscuits? He’ll get a job pumping gas at the BP?

He has no idea.

“Rid? You shootin’ straight with me? Tell me the truth.” Link didn’t seem convinced.

She squirmed on her vinyl seat cushion. “Honest.”

For the thousandth time, Ridley wondered how the two of them had ever gotten together. But she couldn’t ignore what he was saying. Link wanted something more out of their relationship—and somehow
more
translated to real and regular.

Like he was looking for a Lena, not a Ridley. Someone honest and kind, not deceptive and selfish. A girl who wrote poetry on her bedroom walls. Not a Siren sitting alone on the curb.