“Did he say why?”
Her almond eyes crinkle with concern. “The message said he’d found Wyatt.”
My stomach bottoms out. I’m sprinting for the car, beating back fear with a mental stick. We’re nearly a mile away on the wrong side of the river, and the drive over is interminable. Ash is quiet, stoic, so composed next to my constant fidgeting. The Korean American yin to my Barbie-girl yang. I’m grateful for her centeredness; it means I don’t have to drive.
It occurs to me to call Jesse and demand to know exactly what he’s found, only I don’t really want to know. Triads survive the death of a Hunter; few survive intact and effective after the loss of a Handler. Wyatt is our glue. He has to be fine.
The train bridge is a black smudge against the navy night sky, a wrought-iron overpass that towers above two intersecting alleys and half a dozen abandoned construction sites. Corcoran Place is a known Dreg neighborhood—a trashy section of downtown with no actual stops along the train route. No one goes there on purpose. Except us.
Jesse is leaning against one of the iron pylons as we approach. He stands straight and jogs over to meet our car. Ash parks in the quiet alley, and I am tumbling out before the engine is off.
“Where is he?” I demand, circling to the front of the car.
“Where’s who?” Jesse asks, thick eyebrows knotting quizzically. He looks over my head as Ash’s car door slams shut. “What’s going on? You paged me half an hour ago to meet here. Did you stop for kimchi on the way?”
Ash snorts. “Bite me, taco boy.”
I reach up and ball my fist around the front of his shirt. “Where the fuck’s Wyatt?”
“Hell if I know,” he says. “He wasn’t home.”
Ash appears by my side and gently unhooks my hand from Jesse’s shirt. “Then why’d you text that you’d found him?” she asks.
Jesse blinks. “I didn’t text you.”
The knot in my stomach pulls tighter. “You didn’t ask us to come here?” I dread his reply.
“I thought you paged me.”
“Shit.”
As if my angry curse is their cue, a swarm of Halfies descend from the shadows—from beneath abandoned cars, between pylons, seemingly out of thin air. One leaps onto the hood of the car. I count thirteen, all moving with trained ease, as a fighting unit. Not something I associate with wild packs of half-Bloods.
Three against thirteen—bad odds.
We create a triangle, backs to one another as the Halfies close in their circle. My gun is holstered around my ankle, along with my two favorite hunting knives. A dog whistle is on a cord around my neck, hidden beneath my T-shirt.
My knot of fear loosens. Adrenaline surges. Good or bad odds aside, this is what we live for. They won’t get us without one hell of a fight.
Only they aren’t attacking.
This just won’t do. “Hey, Jesse,” I say loudly, “know what’s uglier than a dead half-Blood?”
He grunts. “What’s that?”
I look right at the spike-haired Halfie on the car hood. “A live one.”
It launches at me. Without the superior speed and agility of a full-Blood, the attack is awkwardly managed, but it signals the others to converge. I drop to one knee, pull my gun, and blast an anticoag round right into Spike’s throat. Blood sprays my arms and face, heavy, and stinking of old coins. I surge to my feet, replacing gun with knives, and seek another victim.
Ash spins between a clot of Halfies, taking down two with precision kicks to the temple. The self-proclaimed love child of an international jujitsu champion, she makes martial arts look easy. I envy that. My own moves are powerful, but always feel forced, unbalanced.
Jesse, on the other hand, swings his double-blade ax through the onslaught like a lumberjack.
My feet are swept out from under me, and I hit the pavement hard on my back. A Halfie is on top of me, hands clawing at my neck. It rips the corded dog whistle away. I swing a blade at its throat, but it leaps away, whistle in hand, before I can connect. I’m back on my feet and in the fray before one of the others can take advantage of my prone position.
The Halfies’ numbers are quickly cut in two, but they are infuriating me with their collective attacks on my partners. Again and again, I pull them off or kick them away.
What? I’m not worth the effort of trying to kill?
A Halfie with dyed blue hair knocks Ash to the ground and straddles her stomach. I drop a knife, grab my gun, and blow the blue head out sideways. Someone stumbles into me. I lose my balance and roll, coming back up on my knees to the sound of Jesse’s surprised shout.
Barely tall enough to hold him, a Halfie has Jesse’s right arm twisted up behind his back and the other across Jesse’s chest. My heart nearly stops when fangs sink deeply into Jesse’s neck. I meet my friend’s shocked gaze, coffee brown eyes wide with shock, narrow mouth puckered into an O, blood draining from his face. And his neck, as the Halfie feeds.
Like a mosquito bite, the bite of a Blood requires an exchange of numbing saliva. Those not lucky enough to be drained to death become infected and eventually turn into the rogue half-Bloods that wreak havoc on the fragile peace between the races.
“No!”
I’m uncertain if it’s me or Ash screaming, only that we are both moving. She reaches him as the feeding Halfie lets go, her blade immediately burying between its eyes. Jesse hits his knees, eyes glazing over. A Halfie sporting a letterman’s jacket reaches for Ash; I tackle the beast, snapping its neck on our third tumble across the pavement.
I turn back. Ash is on her knees in front of Jesse, trying to look at the wound. Babbling that we can help, tears in her voice. I try to stand, and the world slows down.
A flash of silver in Jesse’s hand matches a new gleam in his eyes. Ash looks for me over her shoulder. I shriek at her, incomprehensible. Jesse buries a switchblade in Ash’s throat. Blood gurgles from her mouth and dribbles down her chin. Eyes that can simultaneously laugh and hate stare at me in shock, and then the life in them dies.
As Ash dies.
I’m cold. I can’t scream. It’s all wrong. This hasn’t just happened. It’s impossible.
The four remaining Halfies seem to melt back into the shadows, leaving me with my partners. One dead, one infected, both of them lost to me.
Jesse stands, his eyes glinting in the orange light cast by street lamps. Soon his hair will turn mottled white and his fangs will grow in. He’s one of them now, one of the things I hunt and destroy. He looks at me, then at the body by his feet. Back up to me, and I see something I do not expect: confusion.
“I think I did a bad thing,” he says. “But her blood smelled so sweet, Evy. It still does.”
A high-pitched whimper rips from my throat. Trembling from head to toe, I take two steps forward, closer to him and the place where I dropped my gun.
He narrows his eyes at me. “You smell sweet. So sweet and pure.”
If he smells purity in me, he needs to get his nose checked. This monster in front of me isn’t my Jesse. It isn’t the man I’d once confessed my worst sins to over a bottle of tequila, a bowl of lemons, and a shaker of salt. It only looks like him. In my head, I scream for Wyatt to guide me. I know what must be done; I just don’t know if I can do it.
Jesse advances, licking his lips. I retreat. I have one knife, clutched so tight in my left hand that my knuckles scream.
“You know what I’m going to enjoy?” he asks, no longer advancing.
I eye the gun, on the ground just behind him. Five feet from me. “What’s that?”
“The look on Truman’s face when we knock on his door.”
“What makes you think I’m going to go anywhere with you?”
He grins and it’s terrible. He runs the tip of his tongue over the small points on his developing canines. “Because all it takes is one little bite.”
“Try it,” I growl.
He charges. I drop, tuck, and roll. On my knees and gun in hand, I spin, aim, and fire. He hasn’t managed to turn. My shot hits him squarely in the back, through his heart. He falls, head cracking off the pavement, and is still.