Sacrifice Me: The Complete Season One (27 page)

All six shots were poured and delivered in less
than thirty seconds.

The customers nodded in appreciation.

“Thanks,” the guy with three Red
Dragons said when I pushed the shots toward him. He looked to be
about my age, maybe a few years older. He had long brown hair that
dusted the top of his shoulders and light green eyes that were locked
on my face.

He flashed a smile and tucked his hair behind one
ear on the left side. “I don’t think I’ve seen you
here before,” he said. “Are you new?”

“Yes,” I said, smiling back and
leaning against the bar. “This is my first night behind the bar
slinging drinks.”

“Well, you’d never know it,” he
said. “You’re a natural. I’m Ashton, by the way.”

He extended his hand to me, and I wiped mine on my
jeans and placed it in his. He held onto it a beat too long, but I
easily kept my cool.

“Nice to meet you,” I said. “I’m
Franki.”

“Very nice to meet you, too.” He
finally released my hand. “So did you live in New York or—“

“Oh, no,” I said, confused by his
question. “I’ve actually lived in Chicago my whole life.
What about you?”

His eyes narrowed slightly. His head twitched and
his smile changed. “I was brought through when I was pretty
young,” he said. “I’ve been on this side for the
past twenty years, but of course, only free for the past few months
or so.”

“Brought through?” I asked. I had no
idea what he was talking about.

He gave a shake of his head and twisted one of the
shot glasses around in a circle. “You know, by the Order.
They—”

Rend’s hand landed on the guy’s
shoulder. “Ashton, it’s really nice to see you here
again,” he said. The sound came out nice enough, but there was
an edge of annoyance there. “I see you’ve met my Franki.”

My Frankie? Was he jealous?

“Yeah, she’s doing a great job for it
being her first night,” Ashton said. “We were just
talking about how she grew up in Chicago.”

Rend waved his index finger over the three full
shot glasses. “Did you have some friends waiting for these?”

“Oh.” Ashton glanced over toward one
of the booths closest to the bar where a few other guys sat. “Yeah,
I guess I should probably get these out to them. It was nice to meet
you, Franki. I hope we’ll be seeing more of you in here from
now on.”

“You too,” I said, flashing a smile
that was perhaps a bit brighter than it would have been had Rend not
been watching me, the tension in his shoulders growing with every
second that went by.

“What was that about?” he asked when
Ashton had rejoined his friends.

“We were just talking.” I grabbed a
towel from the rack behind me and started wiping the counter with it,
forcing Rend to lift his elbow so I could clean under it.

“Just talking about your personal life and
where you live?” He raised his voice. “Franki, you don’t
know most of these people. Until you get a feel for what kind of
temperament they may have, I think you should be careful not to share
anything about your personal and home life with any of these people.”

“It wasn’t like I gave him my home
address,” I said. “Besides, he seemed sweet.”

Rend shook his head and tightened his jaw. “I
don’t want you talking to anyone in here about your personal
life, sweet or not,” he said. “There are things about the
people who come in here that you don’t understand and you never
know who might be working for the Devil.”

“The Devil already knows where I live,
remember? He sent me flowers before I even knew he existed.” I
poured a few more drinks for waiting customers. “Besides, I
understand a lot more than you think I do. I may not know all the
dangers of this world, but I am still the one in control of my own
life. Just because I agreed to work here doesn’t mean you own
me.”

His eyes darkened and his shoulders tensed. “I
want you to be careful.”

You want to protect your investment.

“I am being careful,” I said. “And
one thing you need to learn about me is that if you ever hope to earn
my trust, you had better start trusting me too.”

He swallowed and pushed off from the edge of the
bar. He looked around at the rest of the people in the bar, taking
his time to respond.

“We’ve only got about an hour left
before last call,” he said finally. “You’ve done a
great job tonight, but let’s try to get through the rest of
this evening without anyone making threats or learning more about you
than they need to know.”

“Yes sir,” I said, saluting him.

He narrowed his eyes at me, then shook his head.
“I’ll see you after your shift,” he said. His eyes
softened. “I have something important I want to show you.”

He walked away, and I let my head fall back
slightly. Why did I always have to open my smart mouth and talk back
to him? Why couldn’t I make him smile like he had earlier?

The only thing that made me feel better was that
it was obvious from the way he was acting that I was getting under
his skin just as much as he was getting under mine.

Business at the bar slowed to a crawl. I was dying
for this last hour to go by faster, so of course, it was the slowest
hour of the entire night.

I busied myself by cleaning up the glassware and
wiping down the bar, sweeping the floors and straightening up in
general.

Lyla leaned across the top of the bar and yanked
on my hair. “Hey, girl, how was your night?”

I had never been so happy to see someone. “Great
until about half an hour ago when everything slowed down,” I
said. “I’m turning into a zombie back here.”

“Want to sneak out and grab a cigarette with
me?” she asked.

I looked around, mainly checking to see what Azure
was up to and whether Rend was paying attention. “Won’t
we get in trouble for ducking out early?”

She shrugged. “Nah. It’s Sunday night
and it’s slow,” she said. “Come on, we’ll
just pop out for a few minutes and be back before anyone even
notices.”

“Okay,” I said. I tossed the towel
into the sink and came around the bar to meet Lyla near the door.

Azure didn’t even flinch when I walked by.

Selena nodded as we walked out into the humid
night air. “Hi,” she said. “Fun night?”

Lyly made a face. “Slow,” she said.
“But I guess you already know that.”

Selena laughed.

The two of us walked down the alley to get away
from the main entrance, moving up onto the main street a little more.
Lyla leaned against the brick exterior of a nearby restaurant and lit
her cigarette. She offered one to me, but I declined.

The city was alive for me in a way it had never
been before. I could hear every sound with complete clarity.
Footsteps on the pavement. Laughter from the outdoor patio of the
restaurant across the street.

I could see and register so much of what was going
on around me. It was a very cool feeling without being too
overwhelming.

Lyla laughed and I turned to question her.

“Blue Frost for the first time?” she
asked.

“How did you know?”

“I’ve seen that look a dozen times
before,” she said. “It’s like you’re seeing
the world for the first time, right? Noticing every crack in the
pavement and hearing every blade of grass as it blows in the wind.”

I laughed. “Maybe not quite that many
details, but yeah. It’s amazing. Rend’s amazing. Do you
know where he learned to make all those?”

“He taught himself, mostly,” she said.
“Back in the Shadow World, he had a teacher, but I can’t
remember his name. Still, I think he learned most of his alchemy
through experimenting in his own lab and shit.”

“The Shadow World?”

“I keep forgetting there's so much you don't
know,” she said. “Ask Rend about it next time you see
him.”

I thought about the way he'd told me he had
something important he wanted to show me. What could it be? With him,
there was no use guessing. It could be anything.

“What's going on there?” Lyla asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Come on,” she said, laughing. “You
and Rend. What’s up?”

I blushed. What was I supposed to say to that? I
guess I knew this was coming. There was no way I was going to be able
to hide my feelings from everyone, but at the same time, I knew he
wouldn’t want me telling anyone what had really happened
between us. Not that I really understood it, anyway.

This sucked.

She took another drag from her cigarette. “Damn,
you’ve got it bad.”

“No I don’t,” I said, turning my
face away from her and watching a group of girls make their way into
the club. I wondered if they realized they had less than half an hour
left to drink and dance before closing?

“Oh yes you do,” Lyla said. “You
are one hundred percent fucked.”

I snapped my head toward her. “What do you
mean? No, I’m not.”

She shook her head. “Rend is complicated, to
say the least,” she said. “But I know there’s no
talking you out of it now. You’re already in love with him.”

I pressed my lips together and raised my chin. My
insides twisted. “No, I’m not in love with him,” I
said. “I just like him. A lot.”

“Uh huh,” she said, obviously not
buying it. “Just be careful, okay? Rend can be amazing. He can
be the first person to pull a girl off the streets and he’d do
anything to keep us all safe from the Order or the Others. But at the
same time, I’ve seen him do things that have haunted my dreams
for months.”

Her face went pale and the expression was like a
dagger in my gut.

“What kinds of things?” I asked, my
mouth dry.

“Do you know what it means? His name?”
she asked.

“Rend?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. Rend. To tear
something into two or more pieces. It’s not his real name, you
know. Just a nickname he got a very long time ago for doing exactly
that to vampires and witches who crossed him in any way.”

My heart stopped beating for a moment and my mouth
opened, but I couldn’t even think of what to say. I felt
suddenly very cold. “He tore them apart?”

“Literally. He’s not going to do that
to you,” she said. “You’re one of his girls. He
wouldn’t hurt you. I just think you should be careful. He’s
worked hard to get himself under control, but with guys like him, you
just never know when something’s gonna set them off? You know?”

She patted my shoulder and threw her cigarette to
the ground. She lit a second one, and I glanced back toward the club,
thinking of the bite marks on my neck. I'd forgotten to recast the
glamour throughout the night and prayed they were still hidden.

Just when I considered excusing myself to go
inside and go to the bathroom, a strange man caught my eye. I
couldn’t tear my gaze away from him. He was tall and thin,
dressed in a perfectly tailored pinstripe suit with a red tie. There
was something about him that unnerved me and made me instantly
afraid. It was as if there was a darkness that surrounded him.

He strolled out of the shadows and opened the door
to Venom, a thin-lipped smile teasing the corners of his mouth.

Lyla continued to talk about relationships, which
turned into a rant about men in general, but I was barely paying
attention to her.

I couldn’t get the strange man out of my
head.

Panic gathered in my core, eating away at me.
Something was wrong. I could feel it in every fiber of my being, but
I had no idea what to do about it.

“What’s wrong?” Lyla asked,
tossing her last cigarette to the ground and stomping it out with her
high heeled boots. “Franki? You okay?”

I tried to swallow, but my throat was thick with
worry.

The group of girls who'd walked in a few moments
ago came running back out through the club’s front door, their
screams echoing off the building across from us.

“Shit, something’s up.” Lyla
grabbed my arm and started to run toward the club, but I held my
ground.

I pulled her back into the shadows with me,
crouching low.

“What?” she asked.

I put my finger over her mouth and shook my head.
I couldn’t find my voice, and I certainly didn’t know how
to explain what I was feeling, but I followed my instincts. Stay
hidden. Wait for Rend.

Lyla nodded back and leaned against the bricks
here in the half-shadows at the mouth of the alley. Her eyes were
wide and filled with panic.

Another scream rang out into the night. Slowly, a
shadow of a man walked out from the entrance to the club. It was the
same man I’d seen walk through just a few seconds ago, but he
was only half-formed. Part shadow, part man. His eyes burned red.

In his hand, he held a silver dagger coated in red
blood. He took his time, pulling a pristine white cloth from his
pocket and wiping each side of the blade on it. He tucked the dagger
back into his coat and threw the discarded white cloth onto the
ground.

I stared at the streaks of bright red blood that
stained the cloth.

My hand rose to my mouth. Whose blood was that?

But I didn’t have to wonder for long. The
door to the club opened one last time and a woman stumbled through,
falling to her knees as blood ran from a large wound in her side. She
reached for him, barely grabbing the back of his pants before
collapsing completely onto the graveled pavement in the alley.

Selena.

Hot tears filled my eyes. Lyla tried to stand, but
I held onto her for dear life, suddenly sure of who the shadowed man
must be. And who he had come here to find.

I stared at Selena, torn between staying hidden
and going to try to help her. But the light was already dimming in
her beautifully clear eyes. There was nothing anyone could do to help
her now.

She groaned and let her head fall to the pavement.

I couldn’t believe we were going to just
hide here, watching her die. Where was Rend?