The Night House (22 page)

He’s gripping me so tightly, like he wants to hold me together. It’s so hard to tell him no. How can I disappoint him? How could I live with myself if Micah felt like he failed me? But if I leave him, I
would
be killing him.

“Please say you’ll do it,” he whispers into my hair. “Get out of here while you can. Go west, where they don’t know his name. Don’t worry about me. I can find a way.”

I take a shaking breath. I think of James. Would he be mad at me? Or proud? What would Alex say? She’d probably wish me all the luck in the world. And I know how Finn feels.

Maybe this is the only way.

“How can I say no to you?” I answer.

Micah kisses me on the forehead. “Thank you.” Then he rummages through his shelves and pulls out a roll of bills. He closes my hands around it. “This should get you at least out of the state. I know you have some money from work too. You might be able to get all the way to the West Coast.”

“You need this more than I do.” I try to give it back to him, but he’s shaking his head.

“No, no, you’re not changing my mind. And now I
am
going to kick you out, so you can’t change yours.”

“Why can’t you come with me?” I ask.

“That kind of defeats the purpose of saving you from me, Bee.” He smiles. “We need to stop trying to save each other. Or we’ll never help ourselves.”

I let out a sigh. “You always have to make so much sense.” My voice is thick with tears.

Micah hugs me again. “You should go and steal as much food from the Night House as you can, and then go sleep on a train.”

I nod against his chest. He holds me at arm’s length from him. “Go. Now. Do something for yourself.”

“Wait.” I desperately try to think of something to leave with him. All I have are my earrings. The same stupid silver studs I wear every day. I pull one out and hand it to him. “I need you to have something of mine.”

He smiles and nods. “Get going.”

James

I’m an idiot, I know. But I can’t help myself.

I took the subway to the Night House. Now I’m standing across the street from it. I can tell Bianca isn’t there. I’ve also been actively trying to get her out of my head again. I’m investigating the Night House, pushing myself to try to feel what’s inside. It’s the middle of the day, so there’s not much going on. A lot of sleeping people. Girls.

It’s weird that when my mind brushes theirs, there isn’t some awful storm of guilt and pain and anger. None of these girls are like Bianca. This is just their job, and there’s nothing else to it. They have the same kind of brains as my parents or Shiloh, except of course, the addictions, which press against my mind like tumors.

Someone knocks into me, and my concentration is shattered. I get a rush of annoyance. When I turn around, I am met with the cold dead eyes of Bianca’s boss, Finn.

“Come to spy?” Finn asks.

“I’m not spying. Bianca’s not even in there.”

“That’s what makes it spying, kid.”

“You’re the one who sent a vampire to intimidate me.”

He tilts his head. “I’m just getting to know my competition.”

I keep my back straight. This guy is a blank slate on the outside. Even talking to him isn’t giving me much of his emotions. It’s like he’s got them locked up in a box in his head.

“Do you think caring about her is going to help her?”

I swallow past the fear in my throat. “I can do more for her than you ever did. You just turned her into a junkie.”

“I’ve never made her do anything. This is her job; she chose to work for me. She can leave whenever she wants.” His eyes are coal black. They are like fabric, no shine nor water. “I brought her into my Night House to save her life. She was the one who
asked
me for work as a donor.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Believe what you want.”

A guy comes jogging up the stairs to the platform.

Finn puts his hand on my shoulder. Not roughly. In fact, he’s barely touching me. But the man keeps on walking, and now Finn has his hand on me.

He recoils slightly, his face scrunched up in revulsion. “Your smell is even worse up close,” he says through clenched teeth.

“What?” My voice is hoarse.

“It’s like your blood is poisoned.” Something changes in his gaze. He pulls a knife out of his jacket and slices my upper arm, way too fast for me to react. Then he smudges his thumb across the cut, bringing the blood to his mouth to taste it.

It happens in an instant—and now he’s three feet away, glaring at me like I’m the fairy tale monster.

“
Spawn
. Stay away from Bianca.” He turns toward the Night House. “And stop spying on me.”

Then he is gone. I stand, frozen, letting three whole seconds go by. Then all my breath rushes out of my chest, and my legs go weak. I stumble into the lobby of the subway, desperately searching until I find a bench to collapse on.

Vampires. I need to know more about them if I’m going to be chatting with them on the subway.

He called me “spawn.” Does that mean something to vampires? Does he know what I am? Where I came from? I swallow, but it burns my throat. This is nuts. He’s just trying to scare me.

But what if he does know? What if he knows who—or what—my parents were?

Bianca

I get a cab to Thirtieth Street from the Night House. Finn doesn’t accost me when I enter, which is weird. I can’t remember the last time he wasn’t there to greet me. It is the middle of the day, though, so he could be sleeping. None of the girls are awake, either, so I get in and out pretty quickly.

Now I’m shaking in the backseat of a taxi, crying on and off. I didn’t even leave a note for Alex or Finn. I can’t tell James. I just have to hope that they know I’m trying to finally help myself.

This is completely insane. I can’t just leave. But I can’t keep doing this to Micah. This is what he wants for me. If there’s one person in the world I can trust, it’s him. He knows what’s best for me.

I wish I could see James one more time, but if Jeremiah tries to sniff me out, he could follow my trail to James’ place and that would be bad. I couldn’t bear hurting him too.

I remember the link we share. Does he feel my fear right now? I close my eyes and try to telegraph to him that this is what I should be doing. What I should have done years ago.

It’s okay, James.
It’s okay
. This is how I’ll get better. When I’m on my feet, I’ll come back. I’ll show you how you helped me. Then I can help you too.

“Alright,” the cabbie says. She is female, which surprises me for some reason. “Thirtieth Street Station.”

The columns in front of the building are huge. I stare out at the other people dragging their suitcases behind them. Families hug and split apart. Loved ones are dropped off. I put my bag around my shoulder and take a peek inside—there’s not much, just what I could stuff in: a few dresses, some fruit, my sketchbooks and pencils, my copy of
Emma
. Micah’s pin. I reach in to run my finger across the pin’s surface before I get out of the cab.

It’s not too crowded inside the station, but there’s a line for tickets. I scan over the prices, trying to figure out exactly how far I can get. There are trains going to New York, Washington, D.C., Boston. I could get to Canada if I really wanted to, but I don’t have a passport.

Micah said to go west. Los Angeles is about as west as I can go without crossing the ocean. My heart is pounding in my chest while my stomach is twisting into knots. I know there are Night Houses in New York City, practically one on every block. Finn knows a few owners out there. It would be so easy just to find a new Night House, a new routine, a new set of clients.

More nauth.

My knuckles are white around the wad of money in my hand. I can’t just find a new set of teeth to fall into. Besides, no one would be as kind to me as Finn. We have our issues, but he never wanted me to get hurt. He cares about me, and we have a relationship. I had Alex, too, and…I take a deep breath. The line opens up, and it is my turn at the ticket booth.

“L.A.,” I blurt out.

The man raises an eyebrow.

“I’m trying to get to L.A.,” I manage. “Is this enough?” I put the sweaty money on the counter, feeling awful at the thought of going so far away. Feeling awful in general about this whole plan.

The ticket salesman doesn’t say anything, just takes Micah’s money. Then he hands me a bunch of pieces of paper. “Track Five. You got an hour. There’ll be transfers, so just ask the conductor.”

I shove the tickets into my bag. My stomach is doing somersaults. I find a place on the bench by Track Five and pull my knees into my chest. Sixty minutes, and I’ll be on a train to another state. Another coast. No clue what it will be like. Or where I’ll go when I step off the train.

Micah said I was strong. So did James. Maybe I can do this.

Maybe I want to throw up.

I run to the bathroom, clutching my stomach. Nauth is draining out of my system and I can feel my veins tightening. When I throw the door of the bathroom open, I am staring at myself in a huge mirror on the wall. I am a ghost. I’m pale and covered in sweat. My neck is one big bruise. I stumble into the stall farthest from the doors and vomit until there’s nothing left.

“You okay?” a woman asks outside the stall.

I wipe my mouth and flush. “Fine…thank you.”

Stupid stupid stupid
. I’m not ready for this. I don’t want to leave, I don’t want to be alone, and I don’t want to start over. It’s too much to ask of me. How could he ask me to do this? How does he expect me to live without him?

“Damn it, Micah,” I whisper the words and then clench my teeth. I sink my nails into my knees, and the pain grounds me.

After the sweat cools on my forehead, I open the stall door, and the woman is right there. She wears a sleek black pencil dress with a big red belt around the middle. With one thin arm, she slams me into the wall, knocking the wind out of me.

“Where you headed?” she asks with mouth full of fangs.

“Nowhere,” I wheeze. Will she really stop me from going? Would she hurt me? I slide my hand into my bag, gripping Micah’s pin. “Tell Jeremiah this is a new low.”

“You can tell him yourself.”

I take a deep breath, but it stings my chest. “I don’t take orders from thugs.”

“Don’t you want to see your friend one last time?” She opens her hand, and my silver earring sits there on her palm.

My mouth goes dry. “What did you do to him?”

“I didn’t do anything.” The vamp has her hand on her chest in mock offense.

I’m clenching my teeth so hard it hurts. “Where is he?”

“He’s with my people,” she says. “We’re treating him very nicely, I promise. And we’ll keep doing that as long as you keep your promise and have a nice evening out with the Monarch of Pennsylvania at his event tomorrow at midnight. Is that so hard?”

Her voice grates on my nerves. “I want to see my friend!”

She releases me from her grasp. “You’ll see him tomorrow at the event.” Then she stalks out of the bathroom, her heels clacking on the tiles.

I can hear Micah’s voice in the back of my mind, telling me to get on the train and never turn back. But now Micah is in danger. I can’t leave him with Jeremiah. I can’t sign his death warrant.

My own doubt whispers to me that she could be lying. Maybe she doesn’t have Micah. I have to see for myself.

It takes fifteen minutes to get back to Micah’s. Every step is a knife in my gut. But there’s a part of me that still believes I’ll get there and everything will be okay. It could have been an idle threat, just to make me miss the train.

When I get to his apartment door, I stop dead.

Open. The door is open.

I feel sick.

It could be so many things. I half expect the door to slam shut, as if Micah had just let someone inside. But no, it stays open.

Oh God, it’s true.

When I push the door in, I don’t know what I’m expecting. Blood everywhere? Broken furniture? Bullet holes in the wall? But there’s nothing. I approach the only closed door in the apartment: his bedroom. With sweaty hands, I turn the cold, metal doorknob.

I’ve been here so many times before. I know this room, every detail. The chipped white walls. The dirty window that lets in about half the light of a clean one. The bed, which is really just a mattress and sheets pressed against the wall. The broken nightstand that has newspapers stacked underneath one of its shorter legs. The one crooked shelf up on the wall.

Everything is the same. No blood in here. Nothing is more broken than it should be. The only thing that is different is the sheets on the bed: they’ve been shoved aside. There is a space where Micah’s body would fit perfectly.

He went without a fight. They came for him, and he walked out with them. He’s really gone.

It’s my fault.

It’s all my fault.

James

The Internet is not much help.

The first thing I do is search for the word “spawn.” It’s just a bunch of movies and comics. “Vampires” is no better.

I hate that Finn might know something about me. It’s not fair. This has tortured me for eighteen years, yet he tosses words around so carelessly.

As I’m searching through the information, I get this sense of impending doom. Vampires are stronger and faster than me. How can I hope to save Bianca? If Finn came after me, I’d be hopeless. There’s a pit in my stomach. I feel sick. Nauseous. I might throw up.

No, that’s not me. There’s nothing physically wrong with me. I take a deep breath and close my eyes. Who is it?

I reach out to Ally downstairs. She’s making herself a late lunch. Nothing happening there. My parents aren’t home; it can’t be them.

The feeling gets worse. Sadness crawls up my throat until my throat burns. What did I do wrong? Maybe it
is
me. It’s so intense. I stare wide-eyed at the keyboard of my computer. Tears are dripping onto the desk.

Bianca. What happened?

As I dwell on her feelings, pain ripples through me. Her neck is stinging with pain, and her thighs are still sore. She’s sick from the inside out. Something bad just happened. God, I wish I could call her.