A Blood Seduction (Vamp City #1)(7)

Lily glanced over her shoulder. "Hi, Quinn." A sweet smile lit pretty features framed by long, sleek, black hair.

"Hi, Lily."

Without glancing away from the computer screen, Zack grabbed a slice of pizza out of the top box. Overlong curly red hair framed an engaging face as he wolfed down half of it in one bite and appeared to swallow it just as quickly.

"Hey, sis," he greeted absently. Though only half siblings, they resembled one another rather markedly, except for the hair. They'd both inherited their dad's lanky height, green eyes, wide mouth, and straight nose. But while Zack had that mass of curly red hair, her own was as blond and straight as her late mother's. Their personalities, too, were nothing alike, which was probably why they got along so well. Zack personified laid-back serenity, while Quinn couldn't stay still to save her life. Something had to be in motion - her mind, her body - preferably, both.

Only two things truly mattered to her. Zack and her work. In that order. She liked her job, and she was damned good at it. But if Zack gave her the slightest hint that he'd like her to follow him to California after he graduated, she'd move. Just like that.

But he wouldn't. Zack had Lily, now, if he didn't blow it with her. He didn't need his sister. He'd never really needed her. Not the way she needed him.

"Whoa!" he exclaimed around a bite of pizza as some kind of bomb went off in the middle of the game. "Did you see that, Lily? Awesome."

Quinn grabbed a slice of pizza, then turned up the volume on the television and switched the channel to the local news.

"Another person has been reported missing in downtown D.C. in a string of disappearances that has police baffled. This brings the total number reported missing in the past six weeks to twelve. This last incident is believed to have occurred near George Washington University."

"G.W.?" Lily asked.

But when Quinn glanced at her, the girl had already returned to her game, her lack of concern mired in the youthful belief that bad things only ever happen to other people. A view Quinn had never shared. Unlike most young adults, she'd never believed her world to be a safe, secure place. Never.

Quinn finished her pizza, then carried her laptop back to her bedroom and got online. Sometime later, she heard the front door close and glanced at the time. She'd been on the computer nearly two hours. Was Zack going out or coming back? Closing her laptop, she went to find out.

She found her brother in the kitchen, his head in the fridge.

"Did you walk Lily home, Zack?"

"Uhm-hm."

She grabbed a glass and filled it with water from the sink. "Want me to fix you something?"

"No, thanks."

Zack and Lily, both computer science majors at George Washington, had met their freshman year and become instant friends. They'd interned together this summer at a small Silicon Valley gaming company - a company who'd offered them both jobs upon graduation. Zack had mentioned that they might be doing some testing for the company over the school year.

"Were you guys playing or testing tonight?"

"Both."

Zack wasn't the world's greatest conversationalist. Nine times out of ten, she had trouble getting more than one or two words out of him, though every now and then she asked the right question, usually about gaming, and he talked her ear off.

He straightened, holding a small bottle of Gatorade. "Want one?" Her brother's eyes crinkled at the corners, the unspoken love they felt for one another sparkling in his eyes.

She smiled. "No thanks."

With that, he left the kitchen, his mind wholly engaged by whatever thoughts forever zinged around his head. He'd always been that way, seemingly unaware of anything around him. And yet he'd always been there for her. Always. Zack's love was the one constant, the one absolute, in her life. And always had been.

Quinn downed her water, then poured herself a glass of wine and followed him into the living room, curling up on the sofa, utterly content to listen to Zack's tapping at the computer keyboard as she read. She tried to give Zack some privacy when Lily was here, though she was pretty sure he'd never taken advantage of it in any way. As far as she could tell, Zack considered Lily a friend and nothing more. One of these days, he was going to wake up to the fact that his best friend was a beautiful young woman who happened to be in love with him. And when that day . . .

Quinn froze as a familiar chill skated over her skin. Her breath caught, the hair lifting on her arms. Oh, hell. She'd felt this same chill more than half a dozen times over the past few weeks. Only recently had she connected it to the visions.

She set her wineglass down so fast, it splashed onto the lamp table, then she lunged off the chair and crossed to the window with long, quick strides. But as she approached, she slowed, hesitating, her pulse kicking hard and fast. She knew what she should see, looking out the window - the dorms across the street, two dozen windows glowing with light and life, cars lining the street below. Her heart thrummed with anticipation and dread at what she would see instead.

Dammit, why does this stuff always have to happen to me?

With a quick breath, she stepped forward and lifted shaking hands to the windowpane, curving her hands around her eyes to close out the light from the room. And, just as she'd feared, she stared at an impossible sight. A line of two-story row houses, decrepit and crumbling, lit only by the moonlight falling from above, stood where the dorms should be. This street, unlike the real one, was unlit, unpaved. Uninhabited?