.

maybe you would.”

      “Then you’re deluding yourself, Reaper.”

      “Am I?”

      Crisa’s movements—and Briar’s own throbbing pain—stopped all at once, and her moaning stopped, too. Briar snapped her attention back to the girl, fearing, for one heart-jolting moment, that she’d died. But she hadn’t. She was lying there with her eyes wide open, staring at some invisible spot halfway between her and the ceiling.

      Not giving a shit what sort of noble motives her bleeding-heart peers would attach to the act, Briar leaned closer but didn’t touch. “It’s better now, isn’t it?”

      “I feel him. He’s calling to me now,” Crisa said.

      Briar frowned at her, and Crisa’s eyes suddenly locked on to hers. Just as quickly, her small hand closed around Briar’s wrist and drew her down until she was sitting on the edge of the bed.

      “He needs me.”

      “Who does?”

      “The boy. The little boy.” She frowned at Briar. “Don’t you see him?”

      “I don’t—”

      And then she stopped, because she did see him. Just slightly, and maybe it was her imagination, or maybe it was something else. Frowning, she tried to attune her senses to Crisa’s, and she shifted until her hand met the girl’s and clasped it, fingers interlacing, to help her solidify the mental link.

      The vision didn’t solidify, though. It was just a hazy shape. Could have been a boy. Could have been a bulldog. She was damned if she knew.

      Crisa sat up. “I have to go to him.”

      “You’re in no condition to go anywhere right now,” Reaper told her.

      She shot him a defiant look, then turned it into a pleading one and aimed it at Briar. “I have to.”

      “Not alone, though, right?” Briar said. “You’re gonna want us to go, too. If this boy of yours needs you so bad, he must be in some kind of trouble, right?”

      “I don’t know.”

      Topaz patted the girl’s shoulder. “I think she’s right, Crisa. If this boy is in trouble, then we need to help him. But we need to make sure you’re okay first. You won’t be able to help him if you’re in debilitating pain.”

      “It hurts,” she whispered. “But I have to go.” She brushed Roxy’s hands away from her head as if they were bits of cobweb stuck in her hair and swung her legs to the side.

      “Crisa, you’re not going anywhere,” Briar said, and if she sounded impatient, she thought, all the better. Maybe the odd squad would stop thinking she’d turned soft. “Lie the fuck down. Now.”

      Crisa didn’t even look at her, which shocked Briar to hell and gone. Instead, the cracker-factory dropped her feet to the floor, sliding her backside to the very edge of the mattress; then, bracing her hands on either side of her, she started to get up, edging between Reaper and Briar.

      Briar turned to face her, clapped her hands onto Crisa’s shoulders and pushed until the girl’s ass hit the mattress again. “I said lie down,” Briar repeated. “You’re not well.”

      “The headache’s gone.”

      So what was the vague, unfocused look in her eyes? Briar wondered. And why wasn’t she feeling Crisa’s urge to run to the imaginary blur in her head, when she was feeling everything else the girl did?

      “The headache will come back, and when it hits you, it hits me, too. I’d like to get it fixed, if you don’t mind, before you go taking off on me, okay?”

      “You can’t tell me what to do!” Crisa shouted, clenching her fists and shaking them in frustration as she did.

      That stunned Briar so much that she took a step backward in reaction and just stared, gaping, dumbfounded.

      Reaper pressed his hand to her back as if in a show of support, right between her shoulder blades. And she resented it.

      “Crisa,” Roxy interrupted, probably in an effort to defuse the situation. “Did you get these headaches before?”

      “Before when?”

      “Before you came to us. Before Reynold died.”

      Crisa lowered her head, closed her eyes, but not before they welled with glistening tears. “No. Never. Rey-Rey would’ve known what to do. He would have made it better.”

      “Did he ever have to make anything else better for you, Crisa?” Roxy pressed on. “Were you ever sick or in pain or—”

      “Rey-Rey says vampires don’t get sick.”

      “I see.”

      “I cut myself once. I had a glass, and I was running. I fell and it cut my hand and it bled really bad. But Rey-Rey fixed it.”

      “Yeah. But no headaches?”

      Crisa shook her head. “No.”

      “It’s too late to go anywhere tonight,” Topaz reasoned. “You know we can’t be out in the daylight.”

      “I know.”

      “So you should rest until dawn, and then the day sleep will restore you, and we can talk more about this boy at sundown.”

      Crisa looked up sharply. “No talking.” Then she swung her head to the other side, staring intently at Briar. “I’ll go to him. I have to.”

      “You don’t even know where he is,” Briar said. “Hell, you don’t even know who he is.”

      “I’m going to him. I have to,” Crisa repeated.

      Reaper’s hand slid from Briar’s back to her shoulder, and squeezed. Try not to agitate her.

      Agitate her? Hell, I’m getting ready to smack her.

      “You can’t stop me, Briar,” Crisa insisted.

      “Why the fuck would I want to?” Briar asked. “Listen, you do whatever the hell you want, okay? Just don’t get yourself into trouble in the middle of nowhere and expect me to come running to the rescue, Crisa. I’m nobody’s hero.”

      Crisa turned her face into the pillows and buried it there as Briar shook her head in frustration and stomped out of the room.

      Topaz and Reaper followed. Roxy remained, her hands moving gently to Crisa again, one on the uppermost shoulder, the other cupping the nape of her neck.

      Topaz pulled the bedroom door closed gently. “Your room is the one on the right. I didn’t think she should have the one with the balcony. Each one has its own bath. There’s a minifridge over there.” She pointed to what looked like a hardwood stand. Clearly it was a refrigerator, cleverly disguised to match the rest of the décor. “You can help yourself to sustenance.”

      “Fine.”

      “Briar, she’s sick. Something’s wrong. She’s not turning on you, not really.”

      “As if I give a damn.”

      “Well, just in case.” Topaz sighed. “Good night.”

      “Whatever.”

      Topaz left them. But Reaper remained.

      It hadn’t taken quite as much torture as Gregor had expected. The beatings didn’t do the trick, but once he started skinning Derrick Dwyer alive, he talked plenty. In fact, it only took one small strip from his forearm to get him going. Shame, that.

      According to Dwyer, the girl, Crisa, was a mentally tweaked vampiress with a chip in her brain. Some experimental thing that let Dwyer see through her eyes, hear through her ears, and to some extent control her by speaking