Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
From the time she pulled out of the guest lot at Tai’s penthouse until the sun came up a few hours later, Claire didn’t breathe.
She tried to be angry with him, the way she used to be.
Gather enough ire around herself, and it could be her armor, protection against the threat of her heart cracking down the middle.
But she knew Tai too well, loved him too much.
He wasn’t detached, arrogant, deceptive.
He was the opposite of all those things, and for him to say he couldn’t ever be bloodbound to her…
He believed it. He was denying both of them, not only Claire.
And he was hurt by it too. The pain in his eyes while they fought had been the worst thing she’d ever seen, because she was causing it.
She knew in the midst of her panic that she was wounding him as well as herself.
But she couldn’t do anything about it. Couldn’t change that he was saying no. That his no was final this time. She curled up in the middle of her bed, on top of the covers.
“He won’t do this one thing,” she whispered. “What if we’re together ten years and he leaves me? What if he leaves me? I just need him not to leave me, I just need this one thing.”
Her phone was buzzing. She ignored it for a while, then slowly pushed up on her bed and scooped up her phone from her purse, which she’d dropped on the floor hours ago. Her club dress was rumpled now. She tapped her phone screen to get to the text.
Philippa: Meet Lavender.
The accompanying picture showed a black kitten with a splash of white across its chest, three white feet, and a white spot on one ear. Its yellow eyes stared inquisitively. It stood as if posing in the middle of Philippa’s blue kitchen rug.
Claire tried to type a reply, something happy, but she had always sucked at faking.
Hey, I’m actually not okay right now, could I talk to you?
Her phone rang immediately.
“Claire, what’s wrong?”
“I…” Out of nowhere, tears threatened.
“Claire?”
Philippa couldn’t sense her distress over the phone, but she was still intuitive, and she knew Claire cried about once a year. She gulped them all down. No point being on the phone if she couldn’t talk.
“Tai and I broke up.”
“Oh, Claire, no. When?”
“A few hours ago.”
“What happened, honey? No, stop. This isn’t a phone conversation. I’m coming over, and I’m bringing Nova, and if Leslie’s not in Tennessee, I’m bringing her too.”
Her friends would arrive in less than half an hour, so Claire sprang into necessary action.
She cleansed all vestiges of Verena from her face and changed into purple yoga pants and a pink graphic tee with a rearing horse on the chest. Again she nearly cried, remembering their perfect date at Warbler Ranch.
Then she put on the shirt anyway. There was nothing to be done about the wound below her neck.
Any makeup that might cover it would be just as noticeable to vampire eyes as the injury itself.
Tonight she’d have to tell them everything.
She’d barely finished changing when the women arrived. Leslie was in town after all. Philippa brought a cat carrier in with her, which she set down in the middle of Claire’s living room.
Meanwhile Nova wrapped Claire in a fierce hug. “Claire, I’m telling you right now, if that man hurt you again, I’m going to commit some vandalism or something.”
“He didn’t mean to,” Claire said.
“Not good enough. He’s out of chances.”
But then Claire stepped back from her hug, and Nova’s eyes grew wide. She all but shrieked her next words as she pointed at Claire’s injury. “Did he do that?!”
As one, her three friends began hissing. Claire held up her hands. “No, no, he didn’t. I promise.”
“Then you’d better tell us who did, so we can take them out instead,” Leslie said.
“Y’all calm down. I’ll tell you, but you’ve got to calm down and listen.”
None of them took a chair or a seat on the couch. Instead they sat on the floor in a square around the cat carrier.
“Would you mind if I open the door for her?” Philippa said. “She might stay inside, but this way she can choose.”
“Fine by me,” Claire said, and Philippa opened the carrier door.
Then they were all staring at Claire, waiting for the story. She drew a long breath in and let it out. It hadn’t felt so hard when she’d stared at herself in the mirror and acknowledged this conversation was long overdue.
“Okay,” she said. “So.”
They all waited. Nova cocked one eyebrow at her, probably beginning to suspect what she was about to reveal.
Leslie laced her fingers in her lap. Philippa simply watched Claire, no doubt reading all sorts of things she might not want revealed yet.
But Philippa had never been anything other than trustworthy when it came to Claire’s deepest feelings.
She hadn’t known Leslie long, yet she trusted her just as much.
“Every other Saturday night, I disguise myself as human and go to a human club and wait for a guy to show interest in me. I feign intoxication, just to see if he’ll try anything forceful. If he does, I subdue him, call the police, and leave.”
Nova didn’t feign surprise, instead sat quietly and let the other two recover from the frozen shock that fell over them. Philippa would notice that any second now.
Leslie’s voice came on a hush, as if Claire’s secret had cast a spell in the room. “Every other Saturday…for how long?”
“Just over a year.”
”A year?“ Leslie shook her head. “How many men have you left for the police?”
“Nine so far.”
“And Nova already knew about this,” Philippa said quietly.
While Leslie stared, Nova nodded. “I found out a few months ago, from a vampire contact I have in the police department who’s been looking into the mysterious vigilante. He showed me a picture of Claire.”
Leslie nodded, still open and warm, her default settings. “I get needing a minute to tell me something this huge. We haven’t known each other long enough yet. But…why not tell Nova and Philippa?”
“That’s got nothing to do with us,” Philippa said. She met Claire’s gaze and held it with the empathic power of her own. “Did it even cross your mind to tell us, Claire? Or is it still too automatic, thinking you can’t count on anybody?”
So this was how full honesty felt. Claire pulled in a deep breath as her chest tightened against the words she had to say. “I wanted to tell you.”
“But?”
“But I told myself to be strong and independent.”
Nova’s look held a hint of frustration. “I guess that’s why you didn’t text me tonight.”
“I…I forgot to.” Forgot entirely, even in her loneliness, that a friend was waiting to hear from her. A friend who cared, who might worry.
Nova nodded her acceptance, but disappointment flickered over her face, as if Claire’s determined self-sufficiency truly bothered her.
After a long look from Claire to Nova, Philippa refocused on Claire. “Do you endanger yourself?”
“No, Pippa, really I don’t.” She gestured to her collarbone.
“I only let myself get Tased tonight for the video evidence. These men are convinced they’re at the top of everything—strength, entitlement, you name it—and I let them prove what they are.
But as I told Nova months ago, if one of them has a gun, I’ll know the minute he walks in the door and I’ll do something about it. Okay?”
Philippa gave another nod, and her shoulders lowered as she let out a breath. “Okay.”
“Wait, what?” Nova said. “You’re okay with this?”
“I think I have to be. Claire’s smart enough to pull this off, and…and she’s kind of a hero.”
“Fact,” Leslie piped up now that the longer friendships had weighed in. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “Claire, you’re amazing. You should be all over the news.”
“Absolutely not,” Claire said. “I wear a wig, contacts, extreme makeup. If the police ever do talk to the press about me, I’ll have to quit. These guys will know I’m coming for them, and it’ll change the whole situation.”
“But in the meantime, don’t you think someone should be your sidekick, lookout person, something?” Leslie said.
“No. That’s not what I need. I’m not in danger from humans, any more than y’all are.”
“What do you need, Claire?“ Philippa said.
The gentle question squeezed her heart, which already felt wrung out.
As she tried to find an answer to the question, a tiny white paw stepped out of the cat carrier, onto the carpet.
Then another paw. Then a pink nose and whiskers emerged, followed by an entire black-and-white kitten, sneaking low to the ground, looking around at each of the women, twitching her tail.
“Hello, Lavender,” Nova said.
“It’s so nice to meet you.” Leslie was grinning, clearly wanting to scoop the kitten up.
Lavender found Philippa, gave a small mew in her direction, and then padded over to Claire’s knee. She bumped it with her head, and Claire gave a quavering laugh.
“This,” she said. “I need this.”
She held her hand out to the kitten, and Lavender touched her nose to Claire’s fingers, then climbed into the space between her thighs and her calves as she sat with her legs crossed. Lavender poked her head up from behind Claire’s ankles and gave another small mew.
“I guess she knows which one of us needs the hugs tonight,” Philippa said with a smile.
“Well, she is yours,” Nova said.
“An empathic kitten,” Leslie said. “Epic.”
“Is that all?” Philippa said to Claire, as if there’d been no interruption.
Sitting closest to her, Nova bumped her shoulder into Claire’s. “Yeah, what do you need from us? Obviously an end-of-the-night check-in isn’t it.”
Claire gestured to their clustered closeness. “Definitely need this. You all wanting to listen, to know what’s going on, and…and not telling me to quit my, um, night job.”
Leslie looked affronted. “Are you kidding? Nine predators behind bars because of you—who knows how many human women you’ve kept safe from them?”