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  “There’s been some unrest out there, nothing serious, but I just want to walk around and remind them of their place.”

  “I used to be just like them.” I couldn’t help but feel defensive at her words despite knowing this was the attitude Vires was built on.

  Scarlett shook her head but didn’t say any more on the matter. When we reached the front of the tower, rather than taking me up, she summoned one of the customary black cars that seemed to be the Pearces’ signature transportation. She opened the back door and waited for me to slip inside.

  Through the heavy tint on the windows I looked out into the darkness, hardly able to see anything even under the streetlights.

  She slid down beside me, telling our location to the driver before the screen between him and us was raised, and we were alone.

  “You were never anything like them. You don’t belong here.”

  She surprised me by continuing our earlier conversation.

  I didn’t reply, watching the streetlights blur by and become more and more infrequent as we moved from the inner city toward the dilapidated outskirts.

  I knew she wanted me to understand; I also remembered a time when she had believed what she did and how she lived was too large an obstacle for our relationship to overcome. I hadn’t agreed with her then and I still didn’t—she was complicated on so many levels and so was what we had.

  I felt the sharp prickle of awareness that I needed to stop torturing her over this. Sometime after we’d discovered I had become a hybrid, I’d finally stopped torturing myself over falling in love with a killer. I just wasn’t sure I would ever sleep well knowing what she was doing each night.

  Scarlett had the biggest capacity to love and the biggest capacity for darkness of anyone I had ever known.

  “Why did you want to come?”

  Every word was perfect, steady, and though our connection was silent, I could still feel the pain in them. Like every other creature I knew on some deep level she wanted acceptance of all she was, and I was troubled, uncertain I could ever give it to her completely.

  “I wanted to visit the Fringe and see what it’s like. I’d like to see where they grow all that food…”

  It was only part of the reason, but it was good enough. A line of communication flickered into existence between us, and I felt only slight guilt at my omission.

  “We probably won’t see the agricultural areas tonight, just the residential. They’re mostly out the opposite side.” She paused. “I’ll take you back during the day to see them if you’d like.”

  I clung to the olive branch and scooted along the leather seat closer to her. I reached up to touch her cool cheek. Though she let me, she didn’t turn to my touch.

  “I’m trying.”

  It was the best apology I had to offer, and it wasn’t enough.

  Scarlett stared out of the window, her oddly-colored eyes unfocused.

  “I love you, Scarlett. I understand, give me a little more time to accept?”

  She licked her lips and barely nodded.

  “We have bigger problems for now. The city is uneasy, everyone knows about you, which I’d already guessed, but they know nothing of hybrids and it makes them nervous.”

  I wrapped my arms around her neck and finally, she thawed, reaching for my waist and pulling me closer.

  “We’ll figure something out.”

  I tried to reassure her, unsure as I was myself. Even as she nodded, I could tell she was far away, struggling with the burden of finding a solution to my impending death. I shuddered at the thought.

  The car rolled to a stop and I followed Scarlett as she got out. Dim lights, spread too far apart, lit the area. Rows of what looked to be garages or outbuildings lined the side of the dirt street.

  “What exactly did you want to see?”

  Scarlett walked, and I followed, wondering how she stayed upright in her ridiculous heels on the uneven terrain. I was too busy taking in our surroundings to answer her.

  I noticed bodies lingering in the shadows, most of them too far away to make out faces or genders. They varied in size, from the smallest children to large silhouettes I assumed to be men.

  The eerie quiet of the streets left me uneasy. Lights illuminated the people just enough for me to know they were watching, shining from the dirty windows and holes in the buildings.

  “It’s after curfew so no one should be outside.” Scarlett didn’t seem fazed by any of this.

  “Why are they then?”

  Discomfort followed me as we continued our journey, heading deeper into the center of what looked to me to be little more than a shanty village.

  “They’re protesting. They want something or are trying to make some sort of statement. Many didn’t turn up to the city center to work today. Too many for a mass punishment, or so the government thinks…”

  Her tone suggested she disagreed.

  “I suppose they think having me walk around might make them reconsider this little coup, a last chance before they take more drastic action.”

  The bodies lingering in the shadows, pressed against the sides of the run-down buildings, quiet but strong in their presence, took on a new light.

  “Hasn’t anyone thought to just ask them what they want, wouldn’t that be easier than…this?”

  Scarlett laughed, the street lamps casting a golden glow that turned her dark hair to shimmering mahogany.

  “They don’t get to want, sweetheart. If you become a vampire, society will take great pride in teaching you that. And I suspect I’ll suffer many pains trying to save you from it.”

  We stepped into a slightly better-lit area, a large square. I squinted, seeing makeshift benches built from wooden pallets dotting the space, interspersed with what looked like old patio furniture and some miscellaneous objects fashioned into seating.

  Scarlett paused on the edge of the space. I tasted the shift in her mood, the skitter of excitement across her psyche, the death of the Scarlett I knew at home in the tower replaced by the predator she had been taught to become.

  “Wait here.”

  I stood rooted to the spot as she took off at a leisurely pace down one side of the square. She slowed past every person, studying them, committing them to memory.

  Movement caught my eye. People began to scatter, some walking, some running, some dragging their loved ones with them, all disappearing back into the streets.

  One man called an apology as he left, and I followed the sound of his voice, the line of his vision back to a figure that was familiar to me, though I couldn’t place her.

  I glanced back to Scarlett, who was thoroughly occupied sauntering along the other side of the square saying things I couldn’t make out and didn’t care to. I moved toward the girl. Recognition prickled at my senses when I saw long brunette hair and a slim but feminine figure. I knew beyond a doubt I had seen her before, but the question was, where?

  I stepped around a group of teenagers on my path to her, excusing myself out of habit, sending them skittering away with cries of, “Sorry, Miss,” as they disappeared into the darkness between the buildings.

  The commotion made the girl turn, and happiness broke through the grim despair that had been seeping into me the longer we spent here.

  “Zoe?”

  Though there was recognition in the eyes of the girl I had met on my arrival into Vires, they were surprisingly hard. I stopped short on my way over to greet her, suddenly self-conscious as I noticed her tattered clothing, unable to avoid comparing it to the brand-new outfit I wore myself beneath my warm jacket.

  “Hello, Miss.”

  The words were toneless, and I was unsure how to respond. I caught my breath after a second and decided to plow forward.

  “How are you? It’s been so long.”

  I ached for any of the camaraderie I had once shared with the girl who had been my first guide in the vampire city, my first friend.

  “I’ve been better.”

  Her eyes flicked to Scarlet
t and back to me, wary.

  “I…um, why are you all out here? Scarlett said you’re protesting?”

  She scoffed, the sound so harsh, so juxtaposed to my memory of her that I flinched.

  “Yes, we need medicine. It’s been a cold winter and too many of our children and elderly haven’t made it thanks to pneumonia. See, unlike your nice cozy tower, we don’t have heat, we don’t have enough coats and blankets, and the vampires keep breaking the windows and doors we cobble together for our houses.”

  Her voice was full of disdain and it hurt to learn that I had become the enemy. After having listened to her describing the situation, I was embarrassed to say I lived with, and loved, the vampires who perpetuated it.

  “Antibiotics?”

  She eyed me curiously, glancing at the other humans who stood beside her before she nodded.

  “I don’t even know where you would get those from here. I’ll try to find out, or at least let Scarlett know that’s all you want.”

  Zoe seemed to thaw, slightly.

  “Think that will help? We had a nurse down here, she was good with herbal remedies and rationed out the drugs to get us by. Do you know what happened to her?”

  I tried not to think about the woman Scarlett had all but murdered to get me back after I was assigned to another vampire family. My silence was my guilt.

  “My little sister is dying and she’s just one of many. Now you’re one of them, if you could do anything…” The first shreds of humility leaked into Zoe’s voice, and finally she was something like the girl I remembered. “I would really appreciate it.”

  I thought about correcting her and telling her I wasn’t a vampire but, faced with the awful reality of life in the Fringe, trying to reject the privilege I so obviously had, it just seemed like an insult. So I nodded.

  “I really can’t promise anything, I don’t even know how much Scarlett could do.”

  Someone scoffed from behind Zoe. Apparently, they were growing braver.

  “Your precious Scarlett can do whatever she wants, hybrid, she’s the worst of the sick fuckers running this city. Are you really so blonde you haven’t even figured that out?”

  “Caleb…”

  Zoe silenced him.

  “We’re not going to stoop to their level, and Rayne is at least listening. She’s talked about helping which is more than anyone else has. She’s not the worst thing inside these walls, even if she is sleeping with it.”

  Silence stretched out, and I hung my head, my cheeks burning hot in the cool night air.

  I didn’t hear Scarlett coming, the dirt beneath our feet muffling the usual click of her heels, but the shifting of the little group of people before me alerted me to her impending presence. When I looked up, she was stalking toward us, her dark eyes alight with a sick smile, so out of place in the ruins, the poverty, the depravity, in which we stood.

  She studied each of the humans, humming softly under her breath.

  “More people out of bed, I’ve counted over a hundred now. I’d say tomorrow’s schedule is shaping up to be quite the marathon.”

  Nobody spoke. The tension was thick, suffocating, and Zoe visibly warred with herself, her big brown eyes glassy with either fear or determination, I wasn’t sure which.

  “We just need some medicine, Miss Pearce, that’s all we want.”

  Scarlett surveyed her coolly.

  “You have supplies brought out here four times a year by the grace of the government. If you’ve been irresponsible with them, you have no one to blame but yourselves.”

  Zoe’s hands were shaking at her sides, and her gaze was fixed on Scarlett’s expensive shoes.

  “My sister is dying. We did try to make the medicine last, but it’s been a cold winter and we’ve worked harder than ever. If the government could find it in their graces to…”

  Scarlett waved her words away.

  “I’ll pass on the reasoning for all this though I should warn you, it likely won’t change the outcome. If I was you, or you, or you, Zoe Richardson, I would run along to bed now, and perhaps I’ll forget your name when making up tomorrow’s whipping roster.”

  The others had already been backing away, and at her words, some broke into a run. Zoe stood there longer, and I urged her silently to go. Scarlett’s curiosity lapped at me, then I felt her excitement stirring in the face of what could be a challenge.

  “Mistress…”

  I tugged on her hand, and she turned to me, her dark eyes blazing brilliant and terrifying.

  “Goodnight, Zoe.”

  I tried to cue her into action.

  “Yes, goodnight, Zoe.” Scarlett echoed my words though her tone twisted them into something I worried I would hear in my nightmares.

  Finally seeming to come back to her senses, Zoe fled, leaving us alone.

  “They just want medicine to save their family, Scar, why is that so much to ask?”

  The words poured out, hastened by my frustration and lack of understanding at this whole stupid thing.

  “It’s not my call, sweetheart.” She licked her lips, whatever had woken inside her still dying as she studied me.

  “And if it was, would you give it to them?”

  I squared my shoulders and held her eyes, pulling our connection tight and tasting her surprise at the question. I tried to be patient as she searched herself for the answer, my breath billowing out in thin puffs of steam, warm air in the cold.

  “If you wanted me to, then yes.”

  It was a half answer at best. I pressed.

  “And if I wasn’t in the equation?”

  “No.”

  Anger flared hot in my chest. She scoffed.

  “You can’t be mad over something that isn’t reality. You asked, and I was honest.”

  I took a deep breath, ignoring the way the cold air was starting to burn the insides of my nose.

  “But if it was me or Jade or Cami, would you get the medicine?”

  She didn’t seem to follow the jump. Her brow furrowed as she reassured me.

  “Of course, always. You know that.”

  “So why not them?”

  An unsure smile tugged at her lips, as if she didn’t quite believe I was being serious.

  “That’s not how the world works here. Helping them does nothing to benefit my family or me. In fact, it only puts us at risk. It’s a huge display of weakness. When you lived beyond the wall did you dedicate yourself to saving every laying hen living in horrible conditions, every dairy cow in poor health?”

  I turned around and stomped back in the direction we had come from, needing time. Scarlett gently took hold of my arm.

  “I am not your damn dairy cow, Mistress.”

  I spat the last word, and I couldn’t remember a time I had ever been so harsh with her.

  I felt apology, her need to explain herself, but one thing Scarlett understood well was the need for space. She gave it to me, walking beside me in silence as we made our way back to the car.

  “I’m sorry I keep disappointing you, Princess.”

  The words were sincere. She kept her eyes away from me as she opened the car door for me. I paused before I slid inside, trying to find something to say. The truth was, she did disappoint me. I understood why she was the way she was, how she had become like that, but I still wished she could be more compassionate toward humans. The logical voice in my head told me if she did, it would be at the expense of her safety and the safety of everyone in the tower.

  It was an impossible equation with no easy answer, and Scarlett was still waiting politely for me to get into the car, her chin tipped so I couldn’t see her face.

  “I understand why you’re like this, but I wish things were different. I wish Vires could be different.”

  She looked up and there was remorse in her eyes, something she rarely displayed, despite her far worse crimes.

  “I offered to take you back.”

  She was dejected and pitiful, and I launched forward and wrapped her in a hug,
because damn her and her huge stupid heart and sadistic vampire tendencies.

  When I pulled back, there was the slightest wetness in her eyes.

  “I don’t want to leave you, Scar. I just wish we lived in a world where you didn’t feel like this was necessary.”

  She shrugged, and I felt her uncertainty. I knew she doubted her own ability to live in a world without this, which was sad given that inside the tower, she did it every day with our little family effortlessly. She was happy.

  “Will you come home tonight?”

  I hated to unleash her on the city like this, for her sake and its.

  She nodded, and I tugged her down into the car.

  We were silent for the ride home, her head on my shoulder and my fingers in her hair.

  I wondered if I would ever find a way to stop hurting her, to find a balance, a way to make peace with this. For the first time, I wondered if there was another option, if we could somehow survive here without Scarlett having to be a punisher. A little voice inside me asked the question that scared me most of all.

  Even if she could stop, would she want to?

  Chapter Three

  IT WAS A few hours before sunrise when the guards came. I tried not to remember Scarlett’s threats, clever at first, careful and calculated. As it became clear they were going to take me anyway, she devolved into a desperate snarling mess, ready to take on all comers in her gray plaid pajama pants and bare feet.

  Camilla had barely held her back, all but ushering me onto the elevator with the guards, Scarlett raising hell behind us. I didn’t recognize any of the men who had come for me, and all we were told was I was to report to the bunker for testing to further knowledge of my nature as a hybrid.

  I had tried to use our connection to restrain her, to stop her from getting herself into even more trouble for the sake of saving one of us. I was unsure if it had worked, or if she had been logical beneath the emotion and let me go; I knew for sure Cami hadn’t been strong enough to hold her back entirely.