Now his eyes were shut.
“This is for you,” she whispered, her voice as low and husky as his had been moments before. “So you never forget. My name is Ridley Duchannes, and nobody tells me what to do. If I want you to kiss me, believe me, you’ll want to kiss me.”
The boy was speechless.
“Is that what you want?”
He nodded.
“More than anything?”
He nodded again.
“Good.”
Then she slapped his face as hard as she could and turned and ran all the way back up the path.
Ridley sat up on the mattress, feeling like she’d just remembered something important. It was only when she heard Link playing “Burger Boy” from the practice room that she realized where she was—and why.
The crowd was gone, and so was Floyd. All Rid could hear was Link.
“Patty, oh, Patty, you’re not real Fatty / and you’re only kinda Bratty / my ham-burger Patty.”
Ridley lay back down on the mattress, staring at the cracks in the ceiling until the set ended and the sun was high. By either measure, it was one of the longest nights of her life.
She would get Link in this Caster band and then get him right out again. Devil’s Hangnail. Whatever. She wasn’t going to let him ruin his life for her or for anyone else. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to let her life be ruined by some stupid gambling debt.
Or by the crazy feeling she was being watched. Or by the even crazier thought that she was being threatened by a Necromancer with a Vindicabo Cast from the unseen world.
Or, craziest of all, by the idea that some rocker girl named Floyd thought she could steal her boyfriend.
Link Floyd? Never going to happen.
Because her name was Ridley Duchannes, and nobody told her what to do.
Nobody.
CHAPTER 11 
Read Between the Lies
In the morning, Ridley left apartment 2D and came downstairs to see Link sitting alone in a booth in Marilyn’s Diner, talking into his cell phone.
Interesting.
A cold cup of untouched coffee sat in front of him. He was wearing Mario and Luigi on his T-shirt, which meant only one thing: Link was feeling nostalgic and sentimental. That usually meant trouble for Ridley, who never admitted to feeling much of either.
She moved toward Link, wary. She was wearing her favorite fishnets, her peep-toe suede booties, her buckled mini-kilt, and her oldest black T-shirt. All of her most trusted comfort clothes—yet somehow, this morning they weren’t doing the trick.
Ridley didn’t know why she felt so off her game. Nothing around her looked that out of the ordinary. Spinning fans turned above a long counter in the center of the room. A faded New York City Department of Health certificate hung on the wall next to an out-of-date calendar featuring Marilyn Monroe, the namesake of the diner. Not a Siren, as far as Ridley knew, but she should’ve been. Rising behind the counter, dusty glass shelves offered sticky doughnuts with frosting stained by old colored sprinkles. Stale slices of cake in plastic wrap leaned against oversize chocolate muffins or mini boxes of sugar cereal or small pitchers dripping with maple syrup—in other words, Siren bait. She could smell it in the air.
But Rid was the only Siren in the diner, of that she was pretty certain. The counter and vinyl-covered stools were crowded with nose-ringed students, tattooed arty types, even stressed-looking office folks in jackets and running shoes—mostly Mortals, it seemed. When she walked past them, they avoided her eyes, as if they knew something she didn’t. As if there was something about her they didn’t want to know.
Or were afraid to know.
Strange.
She felt the same familiar coldness—the one from the curb, the one from the Vindicabo Cast. From her dreams. She tried to shake it off. New York City was complicated enough—second-guessing herself wasn’t a luxury she could afford.
Nothing here I can’t handle, is there?
She tried not to consider the answer to her own question.
Besides, there were a few familiar faces. Upon closer inspection, Ridley picked out a Blood Incubus chopping up raw meat in the kitchen, a Dark Caster hunched over the Marilyn’s Sweetheart Specials menu, and what appeared to be an aging Siren bartender nursing a coffee at the counter. A mixed crowd was relatively rare in the Caster world, and Ridley didn’t know what to make of it.
She didn’t know what to make of a lot of things since they’d arrived.
“What do you know? The joint is jumping,” Ridley said, sliding into the booth across the table from Link.
He kept talking into his phone, holding up one hand. “Hang on. My roommate just walked into the dining hall.”
Rid raised an eyebrow.
Link’s mom.
He looked at her, pleading. She got the message.
Don’t blow this for me.
“Gotta go, or I’ll be late for the Righteous Freshman breakfast.” He nodded. “I know.” He nodded again. “Sure thing.” And again. “Yes, ma’am.” Again. “Yep. Yep. Yep. Flossed, too.”
Ridley held up a canister of cutlery and shook it by Link’s face, making a loud clattering noise. He started to laugh in spite of himself.
“Whoops—I’m losin’ you. I think the band’s practicin’ or somethin’. Call you next week—I can’t hear—” He clicked off with a sigh.
She smiled. “How’s my favorite Mamma?”
He tossed the phone down to the tabletop. “Who cares, as long as she doesn’t get in her car and haul all the way to Georgia Redeemer to make sure I change my underwear?”
“Did you?”
“Why? You wanna see for yourself?” He smiled at her, Rid’s favorite smile. The one that said: Third Degree Burns, Babe. That’s how hot you are. After last night, she hoped that was what it still meant. Instead of: I’m feeling guilty because I crushed on some rocker girl.
Either way, she smiled back, Link’s favorite smile. The one that said: I know, Hot Rod. I’m the one holding the match.
Come play with fire.
My fire.
The moment she reached for his hand, Link pushed his coffee cup away from him. “I’ve been thinkin’.”
Uh-oh.
She pulled back her hand. He kept going. “The thing is, Rid, you’re right. You were right all along. I thought about it last night while I was working on some new lyrics in the practice room.”
“So I heard. Seems you’re getting along with the girls in the band. At least half of them.” Ridley forced a smile.
“Whatever,” Link said. He wasn’t falling for that one.
Ridley made a mental note to change the stripe in her hair from pink to some other color. Any other color, so long as it doesn’t remind me of Pink Floyd.
Link jiggled his leg beneath the table. “Why was I so mad at you yesterday? I came to New York to play my music, and you gave me that opportunity, right here and now.”
“I did? I did.” She tried not to sound surprised. Right? You did. See? You’re not such a terrible person.
“You just did it in your own messed-up way.”
“Messed up?” She tried to look confused.
Link ignored her. “Which used to be all right. But now we need to set a few ground rules,” he said.