Cascade (The Sanguine Agreement #1)

Prologue

Young and dumb.

That was Calypso and I. Young and dumb. I never snuck out at night. She did. Always Calypso. Which is why standing on a street corner while she pukes into a sewer grate makes me want to leave her ass here.

But I don’t. Because I’m the good twin. I’ve always been the good twin, and I hate that for me. I well and truly do.

“Come on.” I try to tug her up but she just falls over giggling. Giggling. “What did you drink?”

“Nothing.” She hiccups and looks up at me with my face, my eyes, my chin. Then she sticks her tongue out. The tongue piercing is not me. “Little zebras dance in lines of two.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” I let go of her hand ready to leave her right here. But I can’t because I need to make sure she’s safe. “The apartment is right there Soso.”

“Oh.” She pauses on the corner and looks off at the end of the street. Not our street, oh no we still have a few blocks to walk to get home. “What’s that?”

“That?” I look over my shoulder at the closed off street, the one our parents warned us never to enter. And I never did. “Is not for you.”

“I see someone.” Then she gags and hurls into the grate again. Only now it’s mostly dry heaves. Whatever she drank or took just needs to work its way out of her system.

But now I’m looking at the end of the street, where I know there is a loose slat. And I see something moving.

I know I shouldn’t, but before I know it, I’m there standing before the boarded-up wall. Made of plywood, broken things, and a random chair someone bolted to it.

I shouldn’t look. But I hear Calypso puking again and I know we aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. So I move the slat.

“Just to prove myself wrong,” I whisper as I look through.

Except. There is a man there, on the other side. And he’s holding another man up. Eyes that glow like a cat’s stare right at me, freezing me to the spot. I know I should run. Logically I understand. But I can’t look away because the streetlight just flickered back on and—

Oh gods.

Oh gods.

I stumble backward into Calypso.

“Run.” I grab her hand and take off.

“What?” She stumbles behind me. “What did you see?”

“A vampire.”