“How are we going to get the money? Bing will be here in the morning. He said if we’re late again we have to get out.”

  “We’ll get it somehow.”

  “You going to ask Ryan?” Raven demanded.

  “Why not?” I shrugged, then winced at the old pain in my shoulder.

  “Why?” Her scowl couldn’t possibly get any more pronounced.

  “He said he would help,” I reminded her.

  “He’s lying,” her voice busted out in an almost screech.

  “We don’t have any choice but to trust him. We’ll … use him until we leave.” I shrugged again. “If he just believes that we buy into him …”

  “It’s not going to work.” I usually didn’t argue with Ray when it came to Ryan, she was bonded to him after all, but I didn’t see any other way this time.

  “We need our injections. It’s already been too long.” Nadia kept her wide eyes fixed on me. “We can’t fight him, Ray, we can’t run from him. It’s just a … temporary truce.” I rejoined my sisters at the table, willing them to see things like I did. “You know, he says we can beat Rueben, together.”

  “And you think he’s telling the truth?”

  “I do.” I nodded quickly. “He hates Rueben as much as we do.”

  “Why does he need us?”

  “My bond with Rueben,” I reminded her. “I know when he gets to the city and maybe I can even call him here.” I shrugged, the pain becoming stronger. “Ryan says he hears you calling to him sometimes.” I looked at Ray.

  “I do not,” she gasped.

  “Maybe not on purpose. But Ryan says your bond makes it so you want to be with him, even if you don’t want to admit it.”

  “And you want to be with Rueben?”

  I hesitated. “No.” I couldn’t lie, no matter how much I wanted them to agree with me.

  “I’m glad I wasn’t bonded with anyone.” Nadia shivered.

  “Yeah, lucky you.” I raised my eyebrows high on my head and turned to look at the clock. 5:17. The shed wasn’t far away, but I felt suffocated in the small apartment with Raven; maybe it was just guilt, but I needed to get out of there.

  I slapped my hand on the table and stood back up. Trying not to look directly at Raven, I made some lame excuse and retreated to the only bedroom. I hurried to slip into a pair of green army pants and a grey T-shirt. I didn’t bother looking in the mirror or fixing my hair; Ryan didn’t look at me like that. He only wanted me for one thing; to get close to Rueben. I didn’t see how I could help him with that, but as long as he thought I could it helped keep us alive.

  The truth of the matter was that Rueben wanted me dead worse than Ryan did. He had hunted me and my sisters since we were fourteen and escaped the lab. Sometimes I think he didn’t really want us as bad as he made it seem. I mean how many times had he almost had us and then conveniently slipped up so we could just barely get away. Not that I was complaining or anything.

  “You going to see Ryan?” Ray asked from the door. I hadn’t even heard her coming this way. How had that happened?

  “No.”

  “I thought we weren’t going to do that.”

  “I said I’m not going to see him.”

  “I meant lie to each other.” She looked really mad, as mad as I had ever seen her. She was still beautiful even with her face all scrunched up and her veins bulging in the side of her neck, but wow … I suddenly understood perfectly well why the boys in York had called her the White Ninja.

  “I don’t know what you expect me to do, Ray.” I sighed. “We can’t run from him now unless we leave the city and you know we can’t do that yet.”

  “You don’t know what you’re messing with, Anya.” But she relaxed her stance a little.

  “I know who he is. I have known since I was fourteen.”

  “I just,” she hesitated, “I just don’t think this is going to end well.”

  I would have laughed, we usually did at those crazy doomsday people, but Ray sounded so serious that I didn’t dare. “We’ll leave the city soon, then we can run and hide from him again.”

  She nodded, but didn’t look very happy. “Just promise me one thing.”

  “What?” I hoped she wouldn’t say what I already knew she was going to say.

  “No drugs.”

  It was like she wanted me to lie to her. “Okay.” I nodded. “I won’t, mom.” She rolled her eyes but managed a smile. “Happy now?”

  “Not entirely.”

  “No one ever is, Ray.”

  I kept my head down as I made my way back through the city. I couldn’t understand Ray. Why did she always try to make me promise impossible things? Why did it matter to her if I got a little high anyway? What did it hurt anyone?

  Garret was standing outside the old grey shed when I came up to it. The shed was a very small building where Ryan did his most dirty dealings; where he always insisted I meet him because he knew how much I hated the smell around the place. I crinkled my nose as I had to step around a crumpled heap that might have once been human.

  “Glad you could make it half-breed,” Garret sneered.

  “Good to see you, too.”

  “He’s waiting.” I took a deep breath of putrid air and followed him inside.

  Chapter 3

  “Hey!”

  My eyes popped open at the sound of Raven’s voice. “What?” I asked, instantly alarmed.

  “Why are you still sleeping?” She kicked my leg with the toe of her boot.

  “Ow. Stop it!”

  “Why are you still sleeping?” she repeated.

  “I’m tired?” What kind of a question was that? I thought angrily. Why couldn’t she just let me sleep? Who did she think she was?

  “It’s time to get up,” she announced sternly.

  “I’m tired,” I growled, flinging myself back on the pillow.

  “What did you do last night?”

  I flushed with guilt, but luckily my face was buried in the pillow. Even though I knew by the tone of her voice that she likely already knew exactly what I had done last night, I didn’t answer her. I wasn’t going to either. She didn’t need to know everything about me.

  “I found this.” I was afraid to see what “this” was, but I peeked my head toward her anyway. She held up the small bag of white powder that Ryan had given me last night.

  “It’s not mine.”

  “So you don’t care if I flush it down the toilet?”

  I shrugged, suddenly not tired anymore. “I don’t care.”

  “Fine.”

  I tackled her to the ground when she was only half way to the bathroom. “Wait.”

  “Wait for what? It’s not yours, right?” Her face was close to mine and I could see the tiny lines above her lip from how tight she held her mouth.

  “No,” I said quickly. “But Ray, we could sell this. Do you have any idea how much money we could get?”

  “I don’t want this in the apartment.”

  “What, you think the cops are going to come?” I tried to laugh, but it sounded hysterical. “Even if they do, it’s not like they care.” I reached for the bag but her hand was clenched into a tight fist around it.

  “You aren’t using again are you?” Her eyes narrowed and then widened when my heart sped up at her accusation.

  “No.”

  “Then let me flush it.”

  “It’s like throwing away money.”

  “Ryan’s gifts come with strings Anya.”

  “I didn’t get that from Ryan.” It wasn’t really a lie, Garret had been the one to hand it to me.

  “Since when did we start lying to each other?”

  I eased myself off of her and scooted over to the wall. Raven sat up but stayed where she was. “I didn’t want to tell you that I had used.”

  “Anya …”

  “I didn’t want you to worry.”

  “I always worry.”

  “Or to think you can’t trust me.”

  “I remember,” she began quietly, but I didn’t want to be reminded of that time.

  “Ray, it isn’t like that. I can quit any time I want,” I realized as soon as I said it how it sounded. “I just want Ryan to trust me.”

  “You don’t need Ryan to trust you, you shouldn’t be his friend.” I rolled my eyes and looked away from her. “Anya …”

  “Keep your enemies close, right?”

  “This is a bad idea.” She flung the bag at me, missing by more than a foot. It lay there on the floor, more accusing than anything she had said.

  With a sigh that turned into a groan I scooped up the small bag and shoved it into my shoe that I had kicked off when I got home last night. “So what if I like to get high?” I asked loudly, following Ray to the table.

  “We both already know what it does to you, to us.”

  “Oh,” I flung my arms out wide, “so you get all clean and good and I have to do exactly the same thing?” I already knew how I sounded but she was good enough not to call me crazy.

  “You know how this is going to end. I don’t know why you even want to go down that road again.”

  “Because I hate the city.”

  “What?”

  “I just,” I let myself slouch into the seat across from her, “I like to escape it, that’s all.”

  “Getting high is not escaping.”

  “I’m not as strong as you,” my voice rose in desperation. “When we leave the city, I’ll quit. I promise.”

  “You should have never started back up,” she yelled back.

  “Excuse the hell out of me for not being perfect like you Raven.”

  “I may not be perfect but at least I’m smart enough not to start using again.”

  “I don’t see how it's that bad.”

  “Which is why you should have stayed out of the city like we planned.”

  “What, like I’m the chubby kid who can’t be trusted in a candy shop?”

  “Kind of exactly like that.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me, I can take care of myself.”

  “What you do affects us all.”

  “Only because you won’t mind your own business.”

  “You are my business. We made each other our business when we joined up forty years ago.”

  “Thirty-seven,” I mumbled.

  “Thirty-seven since we escaped, forty since I first met you.”

  “Well so sorry that I make your life so miserable Ray.” I stood up awkwardly, still a little hung over from the night before, and stomped my way to the small refrigerator. It was empty. I slammed the door closed again.

  “Maybe if you didn’t blow our money on your “escapes” we would have food.”

  My cheeks flushed with heat. It was probably guilt, but I went with anger. “You don’t earn any money either, Nadia is the only one with a job.”

  “I got fired,” she reminded me. I didn’t want her to remind me why. “You remember Anya?”

  “No one asked you to come get me.”

  “Yeah? Maybe I should just stop coming to get you.”

  “You should.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

  “Maybe when I leave this rotten city, I’ll leave you behind too!” She stormed to the bathroom and slammed the door, leaving me to sputter all by myself.

  I made my clumsy way back to the bedroom and flopped down on the bed. I would have liked the satisfaction of slamming the door, but there was no door on the bedroom, just a blanket nailed up. I had seen Ray mad plenty of times before, usually at me, but she had never threatened to part ways.

  Were things really that bad that she wouldn’t want to live with me anymore?

  I closed my eyes and all I could see was a thick mess of black hair. I had known since I was eleven that Raven would be my forever friend. We were the same age but she knew more than me, about everything. I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling but the scene still played out in my head. The day I’d first met Ray.

  “Eleven year old girls are in G hall,” the lady with the all white hair screeched. My heart hammered in my chest so hard I was scared it might break out. Where were we? Where was Mrs. Jenkins? The last thing I could remember was riding in Mrs. Jenkins fancy yellow car and then I woke up here.

  It was a dark building with no windows and dim lamps hanging from the high ceiling. There was a bunch of kids with me in a large open room with tables pressed against the walls. Their presence should have made me feel better, but they looked as scared as I was.

  The lady with the white hair separated us into groups and then another lady with thick glasses led me and seven other girls down a dark hallway. Doors lined the hall on both sides of us but we didn’t stop at any of them. I shivered but whether it was from the chill, damp air or if it was fear; I wasn’t sure.

  “Room G,” glasses lady announced outside of a white door on the right side of the hall. There was a black G painted on it. She pushed it open and ushered us all inside. The room was pretty basic and reminded me of any other orphanage I had ever been to.

  Four bunk beds, each with small, two-drawer dressers, filled the room with only a small strip of bright blue carpet showing in the middle. The lady with the glasses addressed from the door. “Dinner is at five sharp. Someone will be in for you.” Then she left, shutting the door firmly behind her.

  “What is this place?” a small girl with big eyes whispered.

  “Another home,” another girl with thick black hair answered with a heavy sigh. “This bunk’s mine.” She claimed one of the bottom bunks farthest from the door.

  The rest of us followed her lead. The girl with big eyes took the bunk above her and I ended up in the bottom bunk across from her. “I’m Nadia,” the girl in the top bunk offered.

  “Anya,” I answered in a small voice.

  “I’m Raven,” the girl with the black hair said with a resigned sort of smile.

  The sound of the bathroom door opening and closing again brought me back to our crappy apartment. “Hey,” Ray called from the doorway.

  “Yeah?” I called back.

  “I was just mad,” she still hadn’t pulled back the blanket, “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “Anya.” She pulled the blanket back and came to sit on the bed. “You don’t have to worry. You know that right?”

  “Yeah,” I swallowed hard over the lump that had formed in my throat.

  “I’m not ever going to leave you … even if I want to.”

  “Do you? You know … want to?”

  “I hate seeing you hurt yourself and I hate that you put us all in danger by befriending that creep Ryan; but no, I don’t want to.”

  “I wouldn’t blame you.”

  “We wouldn’t last long apart.”

  “And we promised.”

  “And we promised,” she agreed. She laid down beside me. “I hope we get out of the city soon.”

  “Do you think they’ll ever stop hunting us though?”

  “How boring would life be then?”

  I chuckled lightly, making the bed shake. “So very true. We’d have to live normal lives.”

  “Like we were married or something.”

  “And Nadia could be our adopted daughter.”

  She laughed at our long running joke. “But we could get a dog.”

  “A husky?”

  “Oh no,” I wasn’t looking her way but I could still see the way she crinkled her nose up, “a toy poodle.”

  “We could even dye her pink,” I laughed.

  “And name her Nancy.”

  “How incredibly boring.” We both fell silent and stared up at the ceiling.

  The front door opened. “Nadia,” Raven said quietly.

  “Why is she home so early?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I rolled over the side of the bed and pushed myself up. Raven was already pulling back the blanket by the time I rounded the bed. She stopped right outside the door, causing me to collide into her.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. She didn’t answer but it was pretty obvious when I looked around her shoulder to see Nadia. Ryan was standing beside her - inside of our apartment.

  Chapter 4

  Ray seemed to shrink back into the wall; her beautiful anger replaced by a defiant fear. She raised her chin and managed to glare at Ryan although even I could hear her heart hammering away inside her chest. “What are you doing here?” she demanded harshly.

  He tilted his head. “I was invited in.” He gestured to indicate Nadia but his gaze remained locked on me.

  “Really?” she fired, unimpressed. She crossed her arms across her chest, possibly trying to muffle the sound, but more likely because she didn’t know what to do with her hands.

  I should have stepped in then, knowing what I do about Ray’s extreme dislike of the powerful vampire standing inside our dingy apartment that had suddenly shrunk to be the size of a closet, but I was still in shock. I could barely gather enough wits to close my mouth when I looked at him.

  “Yes really,” Ryan replied, equally unimpressed with Ray.

  “Well consider yourself uninvited.”

  He just grinned wider.

  “My sister may be sucked in by your irresistible charm, but I know what you are.” I was proud that her voice wasn’t shaking at all. She actually sounded brave. If I had been faced with Rueben, I was sure I wouldn’t be the same.

  “And what am I?” he purred dangerously.

  “A liar.”

  He nodded, not trying to deny her accusation or defend himself in any way.

  “A murderer.” Another nod was his only response. “You can’t be trusted.” This time when she spoke, I heard the quiver in her voice.

  “So what you’re accusing me of,” and he actually looked amused now, “is being a vampire.” He smiled wide, his white, perfect teeth flashing in the dull light hanging low on the kitchen ceiling.

  “You make me want to throw up,” she snarled.

  “Oh come now my dear,” he held his arms out to her as if waiting for a hug from an insolent child, “you’re starting to hurt my feelings.”

  “Then leave,” she challenged.

  “Not yet.” His smile slipped off his face, leaving a cold straight line in its place.

 

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