She laughed and threw her hands out wide. “That was awesome! I loved the look on that guy’s face when you cut him. Son of a bitch wasn’t even going to pay for it. He deserved that—and more.”

She spat onto the cracked asphalt before facing me again. “You know, you were pretty good with that bottle. You done that before?”

I glanced down and realized that I was still clutching the neck of the broken beer bottle—and that the man’s blood was all over my hand. I dropped the glass and kicked it away, sending it skittering down the alley. I grabbed the end of the red-and-black plaid flannel shirt I’d swiped off a Southtown clothesline a few days ago and used it to wipe the blood off my hand, wincing as I rubbed the raw, red skin of my palm.

The girl frowned. “What’s wrong with your hand? What’s that mark on it?”

My fingers curled into a fist, hiding the silverstone spider rune that had been branded into my palm. “Nothing. I just burned myself a while back.”

“Oh, okay. Well, I’m Coral,” she said. “What’s your name?”

I shrugged, instead of answering her. I knew better than to tell anyone that my name was Genevieve Snow. If the Fire elemental who’d murdered my family ever found out that I was still alive, she’d come and kill me too. I just knew she would.

Coral eyed me, taking in the long floppy shirt that covered the three mismatched T-shirts I had on underneath, the gray cargo pants I’d tied around my waist with string from a kid’s discarded kite, and the tattered too-big sneakers I’d swiped from a yard-sale table when no one was looking. The dirt and grime of living on the streets were smeared all over my face and hands, with even more matted in my dark brown hair. I hadn’t had a shower in more than a week, and I smelled even worse than I looked.

Still, Coral’s gaze took on an almost speculative look, as if she could see through the layers of grungy clothes and filth to the person I used to be. The nice, quiet girl with plenty of food and clothes and a family that loved her.

“You hungry?” she asked. “You want some food?”

She said the magic word, and a loud, demanding rumble erupted from my stomach, answering her question.

Coral laughed. “Come on, kid. Let’s get you a hot meal and get you cleaned up.”

She drew a key out of the pocket of her silver short-shorts, slid it into the crimson door, and opened it. Coral crooked her finger at me. I bit my lip, hesitating, knowing that it was dangerous going anywhere with a stranger, no matter how nice she seemed. But I didn’t have anywhere else to go, and I had absolutely nothing to eat, so I followed her inside, into the shadows, letting the door bang shut behind me . . .

I woke up with a gasp, the sound of that long-ago door slamming rousing me out of my dream. For once, I didn’t sit bolt upright or thrash around. Instead, I lay there on the couch, my head twisted at an awkward angle, staring at the rune drawings on the fireplace mantel. I sighed, and some of the tension left me, even if the memories didn’t.

They would never, ever do that.

I untwisted my neck and swung my feet over the side of the couch, sitting upright. I scrubbed my hands over my face, then stared down at the scars branded into my palms. A small circle surrounded by eight thin rays. My spider rune. The symbol for patience.

Something I had run out of a long time ago when it came to my memories. But ever since Fletcher had been murdered, they’d just kept coming and coming, reminding me of so many things in my past that I would rather forget. But the nightmares had been getting worse, the dreams more frequent, violent, and vivid, the closer it got to my birthday. They were so bad that I would sometimes have odd little daydreams about them, flashing back to whatever bad thing was buried in my subconscious at any given moment, even when I was wide awake. Like seeing Fletcher’s blood on the floor of the college yesterday.

Like I’d told Owen, this wasn’t my favorite time of year. Not by a long shot. But I’d get through it, the way I had everything else.

So I sighed again, turned off the TV, and went upstairs to bed, even if I knew that sleep would be a long, long time coming tonight.

10

The next morning, I got up, drove downtown, and opened up the Pork Pit right on schedule, as though it were just another day and nothing noteworthy at all had happened last night.

And Catalina did the same.

She showed up a few minutes before eleven to work her shift, just as she’d told me she would. She gave me a grim smile when she stepped inside the restaurant, before quickly lowering her eyes, pushing through the double doors, and heading into the back. Several minutes later, she reappeared, wearing a blue work apron over her jeans and long-sleeved white T-shirt. She stopped at the opposite end of the counter from me and started rolling silverware and straws into napkins.

It was the same thing she always did when she first started her shift, but her movements were slow and clumsy today, her fingers fumbling with the napkins like they were made out of butter, instead of paper. Her shoulders slumped forward, and her soft, subtle makeup couldn’t hide the tired slant of her mouth and the faint pallor that dulled her bronze skin. Looked like I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t gotten much sleep last night.

A fork slipped out of her hand and clattered to the floor, breaking the quiet. Catalina let out a soft curse, stooped to pick it up, and tossed it into one of the plastic gray tubs we used for dirty dishes. Normally, she would glance in my direction, smile, and make some joke, but instead, she concentrated on the silverware and napkins again, hunching over the counter so that her black hair hung over her face like a curtain, hiding her tense, exhausted features from my sight.

In between us, Sophia stood at the counter, mixing up some macaroni salad. The silverstone hearts dangling off the purple collar around the Goth dwarf’s neck tinkled together like wind chimes as she stirred the pasta, carrots, and other veggies together.

Sophia looked at Catalina, then at me, raising her black eyebrows in a silent question. I’d filled Sophia in on everything that had happened, so she knew why the waitress was strangely silent. I shrugged back. I wasn’t going to push Catalina to talk about what had happened to Troy. I knew better than anyone else that there were some things you simply couldn’t talk about, no matter how much they haunted your soul.

Instead, I hopped off my stool, strolled over to the front door, and flipped the sign hanging on it over to Open. A few minutes later, the first customer walked inside, and Sophia, Catalina, and I started cooking and serving, with a few more of the waitstaff coming in to help out.

The lunch rush came and went with no problems. Still, in between cooking, wiping down tables, and cashing out customers, I kept one eye on the front door, waiting for Benson to send some of his men to try to eliminate Catalina.

Troy’s murder was all over the news, with Bria being quoted as saying that the po-po were pursuing all available leads. She didn’t mention having a witness, but sooner or later, she would have to tell one of the higher-ups in the police department about Catalina. Then it would be open season on the waitress, as far as Benson was concerned. I was glad Catalina had shown up for her shift, even if she didn’t want to talk to me. At least while she was at the restaurant, I could protect her.

But the minutes slipped by and turned into hours, and nothing happened.

No vamps, no threats, no action of any kind. No one even tried to murder me when I took the trash out back after the lunch rush. That only made me more suspicious that something sinister was brewing. Whether it was related to me or Catalina, well, only time would tell.

But the most troubling thing was the fact that I didn’t hear from Bria. Not so much as a text. No doubt, she was completely wrapped up in Troy’s murder and tightening a noose around Benson’s neck. At least, that’s what I kept telling myself, instead of dwelling on the fact that Bria’s need for revenge was consuming her, the way it had consumed me in the past. Either way, her radio silence shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did.

Especially since she called Catalina instead.

I went into the back to get a jug of ketchup to refill the bottles on the tables and found Catalina standing beside one of the industrial-size refrigerators, clutching her phone to her ear. Startled, she sucked in a breath and froze, the proverbial deer-in-the-headlights look on her face. When she realized it was me, she relaxed—but only a little.

A low murmur echoed out of her phone, as though someone were asking her a question.

“I’m okay,” Catalina replied. “Someone just surprised me.”

She listened for a few seconds. “Yeah, she’s here right now. Do you want to talk to her?”

That’s when I knew that Bria was on the other end. So I stopped and waited.

Silence. Then another low murmur sounded.

“Oh, okay.” Catalina gave me an apologetic look and tiptoed a little closer to the back door, turning away from me. “So what’s the next step, then?”

Disgusted, I grabbed the ketchup off a metal rack, shoved one of the doors open, and stormed back out into the storefront.

•

Catalina eased into the front of the restaurant a few minutes later, tucking her phone back into her jeans pocket. She looked at me, then bit her lip, grabbed a pitcher of sweet iced tea, and started refilling glasses.

I stood at a cooking station along the back wall, chopping up carrots and celery for another batch of macaroni salad and being far more vicious and violent than I needed to be with the defenseless veggies. A few feet away, Sophia hefted a vat of Fletcher’s barbecue sauce off the hot burner and onto several oven mitts so it could cool down, the thick muscles in her arms rolling with the motion. She glanced at Catalina, then at me.

“Not her fault,” Sophia rasped, picking up on my anger and frustration. “Innocent.”

“I know,” I muttered, slicing my knife into another carrot. “And that is what makes this whole thing all the more tragic and ironic. But whose fault is it going to be when Benson kills her for trying to do the right thing?”

Sophia didn’t have an answer for that, and neither did I.

Thirty more minutes passed, and a few more customers came and went. I had just finished slicing the last of the celery when my own phone rang. I wiped my hands off, then pulled the device out of my pocket and stared at the number on the screen, hoping that it was Bria, finally checking in with me, finally letting me in, finally asking me to help her with this.

But it wasn’t.

Disappointment surged through me, but I recognized the number, so I took the call.

“Gin?” Roslyn Phillips’s low, sultry voice filled my ear.

“Hey, Roslyn. What’s going on? Kind of early for you to be calling.”

It was three in the afternoon, and Roslyn was something of a night owl, since she operated Northern Aggression, Ashland’s most decadent after-hours club. Most nights, the drinking and debauchery at the club didn’t kick into high gear until well past midnight.

“Oh, I came in early to do some inventory. It never ends.” She let out a laugh that sounded more brittle than genuine. “Anyway, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

I frowned. Roslyn had never once talked to me about inventory in all the years I’d known her. “What’s up?”

“I finally have that special bottle of gin you asked me to order for you.”

My hand tightened around the phone, and my danger radar pinged up into red-alert territory. I’d never asked Roslyn to order any booze for me. Something was wrong. Someone was there with her. Someone was using her to get to me.

“How many bottles are there?” I asked in a casual voice, in case anyone was listening on her end of the line. “I hope you got me more than just one. You know how much I love that stuff.”

“Oh, yeah,” Roslyn said, not missing a beat. “You’re right. I forgot that you had ordered three bottles.”

She knew what I was really asking: how many people were there with her. Three was more than manageable, and the idiots who’d strong-armed her into doing this were going to realize what a fatal mistake they’d made as soon as I got over there.

“Anyway, I thought that you might want to come and pick up the bottles this afternoon,” Roslyn chirped, her voice going a bit higher, as though someone was telling her to hurry up. “Before the club opens up for the night.”

My mind raced, trying to come up with a way to buy myself—and Roslyn—some more time. My gaze landed on the plastic tub full of dirty dishes that Catalina had set on the counter. I reached over, grabbed a fork out of the tub, and started scraping it against a plate that was sitting inside.

“Well, we’re a little slammed, as you can probably hear. I’ve got about ten customers waiting for food right now. But I can probably be there in an hour, ninety minutes tops. Okay? Or will that be too late for you?”

Roslyn let out a relieved breath. “Sure, an hour or so will be fine. See you then.”

“Oh, you can count on it.”

11

I ended the call, slid my phone back into my pocket, and dropped the fork into the tub. My gaze cut left and right, scanning over the customers, but they’d all been here for at least fifteen minutes now, and I didn’t see anyone obviously studying me to see how I reacted to Roslyn’s call.

When I was sure that no one was watching me, I grabbed a newspaper from beside the cash register, then strolled toward the double doors at the far end of the counter, untying my blue work apron and hanging it on a hook on the wall as I went. I kept my movements easy and casual, as though I were just taking a break, but Sophia noticed the cold fury in my eyes and the hard set of my mouth as I stopped next to her.

“Gin?” Sophia asked. “What’s wrong?”