Chapter 8
Eight
Maybe her gut knew something she didn’t.
Claire had never been the impulsive type, but you wouldn’t know it to look at her morning text messages.
Unblocking him was one thing, but then…explaining herself?
Thanking him for his presumed honesty? Allowing herself to be sidetracked from behind the bar every time a text buzzed into her phone from the break room, darting off to read his latest message, and then…
the cherry on the out-of-character sundae.
She’d agreed to go out with him.
He’d said it wasn’t a date, but how could it not be? He’d be wearing a tuxedo. He’d come to her place to pick her up. They’d eat expensive food, and she’d wear expensive shoes, and then he would drive her home, and then…
But it wasn’t a date, because Claire would never have agreed to a date. It wasn’t a date unless both parties considered it as such, and Tai had already said he didn’t. Platonic. Potential friends. That was all.
Unless he’d only said that to put her at ease.
For the rest of the day, Claire barely kept her mind on her job.
Then she nearly forgot she’d planned weeks ago to get dinner with Nova tonight.
On the way to the restaurant, she called her best friend, the only person she wanted to tell about the upcoming not-a-date.
Of course, Ember would be shocked. She knew the old story and sent a row of heart emojis when Claire texted that she’d gotten Tai’s signature on the paperwork that ended their business connection.
The phone rang three times, and even as it picked up, Claire knew she was about to hear Ember’s voicemail message.
“Hi, you’ve reached Ember Reed. I’m not available right now, but I’ll get back with you if you leave a message.”
Claire hung up. A few years ago, Ember wouldn’t have missed her call; or if she had, she’d call back within minutes.
But Ember’s life had changed so much more in those years than Claire’s had.
Yes, she was still Ember. When they managed to catch up, Ember always sounded exactly like herself, and she sounded happy.
But she was growing, developing new facets.
She was Aaron’s mate, Quinn’s guardian now as well as his aunt, and—most recent of all—Kolson’s mom.
Claire was nobody’s spouse, nobody’s guardian, and nobody’s mother. But she was other things. A protector, for one, though not even Ember knew Claire had been turning in human men to the police for the last nine months.
She parked at the tapas restaurant downtown, such a favorite of vampires that they often outnumbered the human patrons. Nova’s dark-green Jeep sat a few spaces over, still occupied and still running. She must have pulled in mere seconds ahead of Claire.
When Claire got out of her car and headed toward the restaurant, Nova spoke from inside her Jeep. “Claire.”
Claire took a step toward her, and Nova beckoned her to get in on the passenger side.
“Hey, aren’t we getting food?” Claire said.
“Not yet.”
Nova began driving a loop on the industrial drive that circled the plaza. It was a classic vampire move while in public, better privacy from others with super-hearing. She handed her phone to Claire without looking at her.
“A source sent me this,” Nova said, lowering her voice despite the moving vehicle. “Look like anybody we know?”
The picture was a high-angle snap from a security camera. Somehow Claire’s brain took in the familiar gray-and-blue diamond-patterned carpet before she let herself focus on the person striding over said carpet. Blonde wig, brown eyes, pink fringe dress.
Claire forced her grip to loosen a moment before she would have broken the phone. This wasn’t happening. But of course it was. She’d missed the camera. How had she missed the camera?
“You’ve got them stymied,” Nova said. “The police, I mean. They’re split on whether you deserve a citation or a medal, but it doesn’t matter at this point, because you’ve been doing this for—what, a year?—and this is the first image you’ve left behind.”
“Nine months,” Claire said.
Nova darted a glance from the road to her, teal eyes glittering in the dim interior. “And how many men?”
“He was number eight.”
“What are you going to do if one of these guys is carrying and shoots you?”
Claire shrugged as her thoughts raced and her instincts screamed for denial though she’d just confessed.
She almost laughed at the loneliness that had eaten her up every other Saturday night for months.
She’d take the loneliness back if she could compel Nova to forget about this picture the way some movies portrayed vampire “powers.”
“Claire, I’m serious.” Nova’s voice was tightening like a bowstring with every sentence. “This could get dangerous.”
“Oh, stop. I’m not stupid. Obviously I’d smell a weapon and I’d disarm him before he could use it.”
“What if you couldn’t for some reason?”
“Give me a single scenario where I couldn’t disarm a human faster than they could take a shot at me.”
“I—there’s—well, that’s the point though. I can’t come up with every possible scenario, and neither can you.”
Claire stared out the window for a minute as Nova began a third plaza loop.
She let her mind calm, her gut settle, and her instincts take the lead.
Okay, someone knew now. Turned out she’d been wrong to wish she could tell a friend, but on the plus side, Nova was the best person to find out.
Nova’s view of the world was crystalline, calm, dependable. Not to mention…
“It’s your fault anyway,” Claire said.
“Excuse me?”
“What were you writing a year ago, Nova?”
Slowly her friend’s head turned toward her. Without looking away from Claire, Nova jerked the steering wheel in a sharp right and hit the brakes. The car skidded to a stop on the shoulder.
“You started prowling for human predators because I reported on the violence against human women?”
Claire shoved her fingers through her hair and looked out the window. “I hadn’t known before I read your piece. I mean, I knew it’s different for human women. I didn’t know how different it is. How common it is.”
Nova didn’t speak for a full minute. Her way with words was special, but for big topics, she often needed time to collect them. Sometimes Claire had to bite her lip not to hurry her friend on in the conversation. Tonight Nova’s silence was reassuringly familiar.
“You got mad,” Nova said.
Claire faced her and spread her hands. “Of course I got mad. Everyone should be mad about it.”
“But you weren’t mad only at the predators or the systems that enable them; you were mad at yourself.”
“Well. Yeah.” She tried to laugh it off, but Nova’s steady teal gaze wouldn’t let her. “Ember’s been my best friend since grade school. Tough, protective, forceful, human Ember. And I still didn’t know what it’s like to be her. I mean, I’d never even asked her. After I read your piece, I did.”
Claire’s eyes burned. As if stupid tears would help her explain, or help her protect, or make up for the years of failing to ask. She blinked them away.
“And?” Nova said quietly, ever the collector of other people’s perspectives.
“And Ember confirmed all your stats, but more than that, she told me a few stories. She’s not a survivor, but she knows women who are. Multiple women. She told me there’s a survivor living in her own pack, a mate of one of the wolves. It’s so sick, Nova. I can’t stand it.”
“And you’re you, so you decided to take action.”
“I had to. These scummy guys can’t touch me.
I’m not risking anything. I’m not even giving up anything but a few Saturday nights—or, you know, the tips from the bar if I worked those nights, but whatever.
And Teresa’s such a good manager, I don’t even have to worry about the business when I’m not there.
And look, I’m not naive anymore, I know only some of these guys get charged, because again—crappy systems. But I’m trying.
I’m doing what I can as a woman, for other women.
For women who don’t have my speed, my strength, my physical resilience.
Being a vampire is a gift, Nova. I want to be responsible with the gift. I want to use it for good.”
Claire couldn’t be literally breathless, but she felt what must be similar after the avalanche of words. They’d been building in her, month after month, as she did this work with no one to tell.
Again Nova sat quietly. Then she reached across the console and took Claire’s hand in a vampire grip that would bruise a human or a wolf. Claire held onto her hand as a wave of emotion tried to flood her eyes again.
“You are absolutely unique in the world, friend,” Nova said. “And I love you.”
Claire’s laugh broke a little. “I love you too.”
“Nobody else knows about this, I assume.”
“There’s no reason for anybody to know.”
“Again, because you’re you.” Nova stared straight at her, still gripping her hand. “I want to help.”
“What do you think you’re doing with your investigations and your writing? That’s your greatest gift, your best way to help.”
“But I’m resilient too.”
“Nova.” Claire took her friend’s other hand and matched the potency of her stare. “I go into a human club looking like that”—she nodded to Nova’s phone in the console between them—“wearing the strongest earplugs I could afford, which still aren’t enough to save me from hours of pulsing club beats.”
Nova winced.
“I feign being just impaired enough. I let them come on to me. I pretend their stupid and/or vulgar pickup lines aren’t offensive. I pretend they don’t smell.”
A full-body shudder seized Nova.
Claire gave Nova’s hands a gentle squeeze, then let go. “See why the best way for you to help is to keep reporting with all your passion for information and words?”
“Yeah, I…I think so.” Nova shuddered again. “Oh gosh, Claire. That description sounds like a nightmare.”
“I’m not an introvert with extra-heightened vampire senses, so for me, it’s just unpleasant. Whereas sitting in front of a blank screen and trying to create sentences into articles into exposes into passionate calls to action would be one of my nightmares.”
Nova laughed. “You’d get so antsy.”
They sat a moment in the quiet again, but now the stillness was soft, comfortable.
“I guess you want this to stay between us,” Nova said.
“Philippa would just freak out.”
“Gosh, yeah, she’d be so worried about you.”
“And she would insist on helping no matter what I said.”
Nova shook her head. “She’d want to go with you, identify the dangerous ones, but…”
The image of gentle Philippa in any proximity to Verena the Vigilant’s work brought an icy flood of protective rage coursing down Claire’s arms. She fisted her hands and shook her head. “I can identify these guys just fine on my own. There’s no reason for Pippa to give herself empath migraines.”
“What about Leslie?”
Claire shrugged. “I trust Leslie, but she’s still pretty new.”
“So am I the only person who gets to know? Ever?”
“I don’t know, Nova. In my head until tonight, I was on my own with this, and it had to stay that way.”
“Yeah. Okay, I’ll give you a minute to process.”
“Thanks.”
“But, Claire… I’m just going to say this. You never have to be on your own. If you give our friends a chance to show up for you, they will.”
“I know that,” Claire said, but her spine stiffened against Nova’s words. They felt risky, threatening though she didn’t know to what. She did trust her friends, but she didn’t lean on them. That would threaten…everything. Independence, strength, the core of who she was.
Nova wasn’t an empath, but she could read a person as well as the next vampire. She was quiet for the rest of their fourth loop, always willing to give a friend her space. This time, as they reached the tapas restaurant, she pulled in and parked.
“Ready for food?”
“Definitely,” Claire said, but as they headed inside, she put a hand on Nova’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
“Anytime, friend.”
“While I’m opening up and all, maybe I should also mention I’m going with Tai to one of his work events Thursday night.”
Nova stopped statue-still in the entrance, then stepped aside to let a human couple go ahead of them. “Tai. As in Kristiansen.”
“Unless we know another Tai.”
“You despise him.”
“We called a tentative truce.”
“And he immediately asked you out? And you said yes? Who are you and what have you done with Claire Vanderlaan?”
“It’s not a date,” Claire said as a human woman stepped past them to the hostess stand. “We set platonic terms, and I shouldn’t have mentioned it—”
“Oh, you definitely should have—”
“And I’m not going to say another word about it. Now come on, let’s get in line for a table.”