“Nope.” I held up a hand. “Nope. Nope. I do not want to hear about revolutionary spiders.”
“You truly don’t,” she said. Having secured her goodies, she slammed the trunk closed.
I turned to head back to the House . . . and that was when I saw him.
A lean man about forty yards down the sidewalk, looking up at the fence and stone behind it. Pale skin, thick hair. He wore jeans, dark shoes, a dark jacket, and a black skullcap.
It wasn’t the first time I’d seen someone staring up at Cadogan. Gawkers and tourists visited all the time, as did paparazzi, hoping for a million-dollar shot. There were even tourist buses that carted humans down the street for a look.
The man shifted, situating his face in the light of the corner streetlamp and revealing the thick beard that made him all too recognizable.
He wasn’t just an onlooker.
He was a vampire—the vampire who’d killed Caleb Franklin. The one who’d gotten away from me in Wrigleyville and was now standing in front of Cadogan House.
My heart began to race, my blood to pound with need, with fight. “Get in the House, Mallory.”
“What?” Her smile faded, and she looked around, sensing my sudden caution.
“Get in the House, right now. Tell Ethan to close the gate and lock it down.”
“Merit, I’m not—”
I looked at her, and whatever she’d seen in my eyes must have convinced her.
We might have started this journey together, unsure of our steps, unfamiliar with the kinds of darkness we’d come to see. But we knew it now—how to react, how to protect. Her gaze steeled, and she slid her glance slowly, casually, to the vampire who I didn’t think had yet realized we were watching.
“He works for Reed,” I said. “I’m going to approach him. He’s going to run, and I’m going after him. I’m not going to stop until I get him.”
Ethan would be pissed that I was doing exactly what I lectured him not to do—taking Reed’s bait—but it couldn’t be helped. I couldn’t just let the vampire go. Not when we’d made a promise to Gabriel. And not when Caleb Franklin deserved better.
Fear crossed her eyes, but she put it away. “I’ll tell Ethan,” she said. “Go.”
I turned toward him.
He turned, I think, because he’d noticed my movement. And it took only an instant for him to recognize me, to see. We looked at each other, just long enough for me to confirm that he was the vampire I’d wanted . . . and for him to confirm that it was time to go.
He smiled at me, and took off in a sprint, heading north.
I’d be damned if I lost him again.
• • •
With the House’s gate clanking closed behind me, I followed him down Fifty-third toward the lake. He barreled past bars and twenty-four-hour restaurants where patrons still lingered, me in his wake.
All the while, I checked my pace, kept my gaze trained on his back, and wished to God I’d had my katana. But it was in the House, parked in our apartments, because I hadn’t thought I’d need it in a meeting of friends.
I’d been half right.He ran toward the Metra Station, then inside the lobby. A train had just arrived; people streamed through the station, trying to get outside. I lost him in the crowd, scanned heads and shoulders frantically to catch sight of him.
I just saw his skullcap as he jumped the turnstile, then headed up the long, jagged staircase that led to the platform. I hustled through the crowd and over the turnstile as people yelled behind me, promising to send Metra the fare. Humanity pressed back against me like a tsunami.
He slipped into the train heading north. I did the same, managing to get inside just before the doors closed, and found him standing alone inside the empty car.
There, in the cold light of the train, I got my first real look at the vampire who had killed Caleb Franklin.
He’d lost his skullcap in the bustle, and stood with his legs apart, braced like a captain on a ship. His hair was thick, straight, and brown, and it was pulled into a knot atop his head. His face was handsome. But there was a coldness in his expression, a deadness in his brown eyes.
And there was something familiar.
Memories flooded back, slicked over sudden and battling bursts of fear and fury.
Freshly cut grass, still wet with dew. His fingers, rough against tender skin. The sharp shock of pain as his fangs tore into skin, spilled blood. And the speed with which he’d abandoned me, his quarry, when Ethan and Malik found me, saved me, and made me immortal.
This was the vampire who’d killed Caleb Franklin . . . and the vampire who’d attacked me on the Quad one year ago.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MAKER’S MARK
Many times I’d wondered if this moment would ever come—if I’d ever look into the eyes of the man who’d tried to kill me, the vampire who’d changed my life forever.
We’d believed he’d been a Rogue, a vampire not affiliated with Cadogan, Grey, or Navarre. He didn’t look vampirically familiar, for what that was worth.
Enough time had passed that I figured he was dead or gone, had left Chicago in order to avoid a run-in with me or Ethan. I hadn’t expected that run-in would come on a northbound train a year after the attack.
But a year was a long time, and I wasn’t the girl he’d found that first night. I was vampire. I was Cadogan Novitiate. I was Sentinel, and I knew how to push down fear. I braced my legs just as he’d done to keep myself upright against the swaying of the train, and I faced him, this man who’d tried to take my life, who seemed to value life so little.
“Hello, Merit,” he said.
Stick to the facts, I told myself. We’d have only a few minutes before we reached the next stop. He might disappear, or humans might jump on, which wouldn’t help matters. “Who are you?”
“You know who I am.”
I swallowed hard against the bile that threatened to rise. “No, I know what you did to me and to Caleb Franklin. I’m pretty sure I know the why and for whom. But I don’t know who you are.”
In answer, he pulled a matte black dagger from a sheath beneath his T-shirt. His smile was slick and confident, and it made my skin crawl, sent a line of cold sweat down my back.
For the first time since I’d seen his face, I stopped thinking about that night, and started thinking about this one—the fact that I’d chased him onto an empty train. That he’d managed to lead me away from my House, my partners, my allies.