Chapter 3
How the hell do you break into a building in a normal way?
Yasmine groaned. Being a vampire was like walking around the Museum of Glass with hammers for fingers.
Vampiric powers made it easy to get things done—things like breaking someone’s neck, or persuading the president of a university into giving you millions of dollars in funding on a moonshot research project—but doing small things, quietly and without force, was much harder.
So she didn’t bother.
If anything, a broken door would help the Nightingale maintain its reputation.
The door came politely off its hinges with a quick yank. Yasmine was no Aster, but she could get the job done.
She didn’t let it fall to the ground—she didn’t want to startle Bella—so she just let it gently rest on the doorframe as she pushed into the shop.
She took several steps inside before pausing to contemplate just how insane this was. What was her game plan, exactly?
Wake the girl and say hey, I have no idea why you’re sleeping on a floor that is quite literally inventing new diseases as we speak, but I just wanted to let you know I could give you some money for a hotel if you wanted?
Or if not a hotel, how about one of the fifteen places I own?
You could even stay at Sylvia’s apartment, I’ll throw them out without a second thought…
“Yasmine?”
Yasmine jumped. While she’d been stuck flailing in the currents of her own indecision, Bella’s eyes had snapped open, and she was suddenly sitting up, shoulders back, totally composed.
How did she do that so fast?
Bella narrowed her eyes into the dark as she nervously combed her hand through her blonde hair. It was considerably more disheveled now, and Yasmine thought she preferred it that way. Why do you care what state her hair is in? There were more pressing issues.
“Hi. Yes. Hello.” She sucked in a breath to balance herself.
“I’m sorry to have startled you. It’s just that I was walking home …
Well, walking with the intention to go home, but my feet have a life of their own …
and I came across you sleeping on the floor and I thought to myself, well, that looks uncomfortable. ”
Bella stared at her for a moment with a disquieting intensity.
Seeing her now at night, without any makeup or customer service artifice, Yasmine noticed for the first time that Bella had a strange quality about her pupils.
They were slightly elongated vertically, almost like cat eyes, but not as skinny.
She’d never seen irises like that on a human before. Or a vampire, for that matter. Maybe it was a medical condition?
“I see,” Bella said, clearing her throat. “So you decided to break into the store and what, find me a blanket?”
“I—” Yasmine stuttered. “I was simply concerned for your health.”
She must have looked completely embarrassed with herself, because the blonde laughed and shook her head.
“It’s sweet of you to worry. I’m just teasing you.”
“You’re… teasing me.”
“Has no one ever done that before?”
“Certainly not from the mold-infested floor of my local coffee place,” Yasmine said, trying to find her conversational footing again. She was ancient, for God’s sake. This woman was barely in existence.
Bella sighed wistfully. “It’s not actually mold-infested, unfortunately.” She rose from the ground with an elegance that did not befit someone who was just asleep. She must be a former dancer. She certainly fit the profile.
“Unfortunately?” Yasmine questioned as Bella walked herself to the counter. A small, black, heart-shaped purse was sitting there. “That would be fortunate to you?”
Bella rifled through the purse for a moment before withdrawing a lipstick, uncapping it, and smudging it across her lips. The color was a dark, almost muddy red. Like dried blood.
Why is she putting on lipstick at nine PM?
Ignoring Yasmine’s question, Bella said instead, “I’m surprised you were able to spot me from the sidewalk. I double-checked earlier if you can see the interior from the outside, and you can’t. Are you sure you don’t have superpowers?”
She swiped a last stroke across her upper lip then set it aside. Yasmine swallowed.
To avoid getting into a discussion about the peculiarities of her vision, she pivoted, “Bella, I don’t mean to pry, but do you not have somewhere to live?”
Bella gave her a cat-like smile. “Do you think I’m sleeping here for fun?”
“This is New York City,” Yasmine huffed. “People do stranger things.”
“Fair enough.” Bella shrugged, then leaned against the counter, all-too-casual for a woman who’d just been curled up on the floor.
“Technically I have a place, but my roommate is awful. She’s one of those obsessively cleanly types, so the dormitory always smells like bleach and vinegar.
I think it was burning holes inside of my nose. ”
A dormitory? “Wait,” Yasmine said, dread stirring inside of her. “You’re a student?”
Bella plucked something else out of her purse. It was rectangular. A card? No. Yasmine instantly recognized the emblem. It was a student badge. A Columbia University student badge.
She wordlessly handed it over to Yasmine, and Yasmine stared at it in the dark.
Bella Dragomir. Department of Biological Sciences.
Dragomir, was the first thing she noticed. Sounds Romanian.
The second thing she noticed was:
“Oh god,” Yasmine felt nauseous. It was mortifying enough to be (accidentally) half-stalking a random woman, but the random woman was a student at her university? Worse than that, in her department? It was truly a misfortune that Yasmine couldn’t die. “Please don’t tell me you’re an undergraduate.”
Bella laughed, looking positively delighted by the accusation. “No, but thank you for thinking so,” she said, biting down on her lip. “Post-doc. Studying mycology.”
She’s not a student at all. Relief washed over Yasmine, and she wasn’t particularly sure why. She told herself it was because she couldn’t stand undergraduates. They were somehow even more ignorant than high schoolers.
Feeling in her element, Yasmine nodded. “Mycology. So that’s why you’re weirdly into mold,” she said, then added, “And against bleach.”
“Well done, detective,” Bella joked.
From there, they just studied each other for a moment. Yasmine felt something stir in her stomach. It was probably the stench of the place. They had clearly left today’s trash to rot somewhere in the kitchen. Yasmine couldn’t imagine sleeping in these kinds of conditions.
Yasmine swallowed. What she wanted to say was If you need a place to live, I can give you one but that felt strangely forward so she settled on, “Why did you just put lipstick on?”
Bella blinked. For the first time since Yasmine snuck up on her in the dead of night, she looked actually caught off guard.
She touched her finger to her lip and made an o shape with her mouth when it came away red, as if she’d surprised herself.
“Second nature, I suppose,” she replied. “It’s the first thing I do after I wake up in the morning. Have to put my face on.”
“But it’s nine pm. Where’s your face going?”
Bella let out another sharp laugh. “Well, I guess my clock’s off,” Bella drawled, stepping forward into Yasmine’s personal space and grinning. “Given that some random customer decided to break into the shop and wake me up. Hm?”
“That’s… fair. My apologies.”
“It’s fine. I’m a terrible sleeper anyways. Now that I’m up, I’m up,” Bella laughed, withdrawing from Yasmine’s bubble. Yasmine felt a strange sensation in her fingertips at the sudden loss of proximity. “So, since you’re here, you want me to make you a coffee?”
“A coffee?” Yasmine’s mouth opened, then closed. “It’s nine pm.”
Of course, she really would have loved a coffee. On non-teaching days like today, she slept vampire hours, 4pm-10am. So a nine pm coffee was by no means outrageous. But she couldn’t raise suspicions over something so silly.
“I can make it decaf,” Bella offered.
Yasmine couldn’t stop herself from letting out an aghast scoff. “Decaf is an insult to coffee.”
“Thought you’d say that,” Bella huffed. Despite Yasmine’s protests, Bella squatted down and checked that the espresso machine was still plugged in. Yasmine frowned at the mystery liquid sitting dangerously close to the electrical socket. “So, are you going to tell my boss that I’m camping out?”
Yasmine’s pulse quickened at the abrupt question. Bella didn’t even look at her when she asked it: her pale hands were busy plucking a mug from the sink and scrubbing it clean. Yasmine was surprised the streetlights outside gave her enough illumination to see what she was doing.
“Of course not,” Yasmine said. “I would have nothing to gain by doing that.”
“Good,” Bella replied. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to threaten you.”
Yasmine let out a noise of disbelief. The other woman was smiling to herself, as if she had anticipated Yasmine’s reaction already. “I’m sorry. Threaten me?”
Bella set down the cup, grabbed a napkin, and began to dry it off. She was meticulous with her motions. Precise and surgical, with steady hands. Clearly she made a good lab tech.
After it was dry, she wordlessly filled it up with an Americano, then leaned over the counter and innocently offered her the steaming hot beverage.
“Of course,” Bella said, letting out a slow breath. Yasmine stared at the drink, then flicked her eyes upward to meet Bella’s. “It wouldn’t be hard to blackmail you.”
Completely enraptured by the turn of this conversation, Yasmine saw no other option other than to take the drink. Sue her. It smelled tantalizing.
“And how would you go about doing that?” Yasmine said, taking a molten hot sip.
“Don’t burn yourself.”
“I’ve already melted off all the nerve endings,” Yasmine said, not missing a beat. “Get on with it. How would you blackmail me?”
Bella propped her elbows on the counter and tapped her chin thoughtfully.
“I’d probably start with sending a message to your dean.”
Yasmine blinked, taken aback. “I thought you knew my name because of my coffee order.”
“I do know your name because of your coffee order,” Bella said with a shrug.
“I also know it because you’re the winner of three early-career research awards, former principal investigator on two NIH-funded projects, and the most qualified faculty hire in your department’s history.
I also know that you engineered a fake scandal for your predecessor that allowed you to get this job. ”
At that last comment, Yasmine’s fingertips trembled. She let out a trapped, stilted breath. She could not remember a time in modern history that a human had made her sweat—and yet here it was, the goddamn barista.
How could she possibly…
“There is no evidence of that,” she whispered.
There really wasn’t. She’d had Sylvia trance the former occupant of her position into stripping naked in the Columbia quad, completely of his own volition.
Well, of Sylvia’s volition, but still. No one could tell the difference. “Why on Earth would you think that?”
Bella smiled grandly. Her teeth were eerily perfect. White as ivory.
“I’m just teasing,” she said. “That’s just the rumor around the department. The way the professors talk about you, you’d think you’re a witch who eats babies.”
“Oh.” Yasmine bit down on her lip, panic deflating. That was absolutely believable: the other professors did hate her.
She wasn’t sure when their faces had gotten so close together. She was grateful for the mug sitting between her nose and Bella’s, as it provided the singular barricade preventing them from—from what? It’s not like Yasmine was going to— “How’s the coffee taste?”
Yasmine almost choked on it.
“Unfortunately,” she muttered. “Spectacular.”
“Good. Want another? On the house.”
“No. Of course not. And I insist on paying.”
“You’re no fun.”
“And you’re insane. I might just have to get you fired.”
Bella laughed, tilting her head back so her long blonde hair was nearly at her waist.
“I think you’d regret that,” she said.
“Probably not,” Yasmine replied, then licked her lips. Don’t say it. Don’t say it. “Seeing as you’re homeless … would you like to live with me?”