Forget About Midnight (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #9)(31)

I accepted his hand, careful not to hold it too long, wary of unintentionally enthralling him. “And what exactly do you think it is that I can do for you, Mr. Kane?”

“Please, call me Brinley.” He stared at his hand for a second before trying to inconspicuously rub it on his pants. “I work with at-risk youth in the city. Kids that have no one and nothing. Most of them live on the streets. Naturally, they get desperate and do things nobody should have to do to survive. It makes them victims. I need your help making it stop.”

That was an awful lot to take in, and he’d barely scratched the surface. I stared into Brinley’s deep-brown eyes, finding a gentleness that contrasted greatly with his hardened appearance. He looked like your average guy, but there was a deep-rooted pain coming off him that told me he’d seen horrible things.

My first reaction was to tell him to leave, that I couldn’t help anyone seeing as I couldn’t even help myself. But Willow’s words rang in my ears, echoed by Veryl’s: Protector of Mankind.

“Tell me more.”

I listened attentively as he told me about the kids he so clearly adored: Girls as young as twelve were prostituting on the street in order to eat another day or merely just to get a fix of the junk some dirtbag pimp had hooked them on. Teen moms faced having their children taken away simply because the system had failed them. Kids with petty theft charges were treated like murderers without rights.

As he spoke I felt my heart break many times over. I’d thought my initiation into adulthood had been harsh, but it was a cakewalk compared to what I was hearing.

“Just this morning I picked a girl up from her pimp’s house. She was starving and bruised. Typical really. A lot of these kids are in the system, but it fails them time and time again. They’re nothing but a case number to those who don’t have to look into their battered faces.”

Brinley paused to take a sip of beer. It was evident that he needed a moment to gather himself, and I patiently waited. Kale approached with a raised brow. I gave a slight shake of my head, and he, understanding, drifted away into the crowd.

“Adult men pimping and buying twelve-year-old girls,” he finally said, his voice thick with emotion. “And nobody will do a goddamn thing about it. It makes me sick.”

It made me sick too. Something stirred deep in my heart. How could I turn him away, knowing it would be the same as turning a blind eye to the world’s hurts?

“What do you need me to do?” I asked, knowing as the words came out of my mouth that I’d do anything he asked.

The empathy he so clearly had for these kids touched me in a place where the light dwelled. I knew then that Willow was right. It wasn’t over for me. Being a vampire didn’t mean I was without choice. I still had a purpose. Maybe, just maybe, this was part of it.

I wasn’t fool enough to believe this was a shot at redemption. There was no taking back what I’d done just before coming here. There was no making it right. But perhaps I could still find a light in this darkness.

Relief brought the first hint of a wan smile to his face. “You’ll help? I knew I was taking a shot in the dark here. I wasn’t sure you would help. I mean, he said you would, the guy who gave me your name. But nobody ever really wants to.”

I froze. “What guy gave you my name?”

“This guy I met while waiting for one of the kids to meet me for coffee. It was a few weeks ago. He didn’t give me a name. Tall, sandy hair. Green eyes with bits of gold. I remember because I’d never seen anything quite like it. You know him?”

Willow. Brinley saw Willow before everything went down with Shya, before I turned and he fell forever into darkness.

Tears sprang up in my eyes, and I turned away so Brinley wouldn’t see the blood spill down my face. I grabbed a napkin from a nearby dispenser and did my best to stop their fall.

“Yeah, I know him. He’s a good friend of mine.” Willow had sent him to me. That meant I had to help him.

Willow’s beautiful gold-flecked green eyes surfaced in my memory, followed by the memory of seeing them turn demon red. The gold had remained though. My heart ached.

“Look,” Brinley said, his voice gentle, as if he often spoke to those in tears. “I know you’re not human. You don’t have to fake it for me. This place kind of gave it away, but I don’t care about that. I’m used to having to trust my instincts, and I feel like I can trust you.”

“You’re right. I’m not human.” I turned back to him, letting him see the blood tears gleaming in my eyes. “I want to help you, but please, don’t make the mistake of trusting me just yet. I’m still relearning how to trust myself.”

Brinley nodded, but he seemed unfazed by what he saw. There was something haunted in him. Humans were the worst kind of monster. I knew it on a surface level, but he seemed to know the true depths of what they were capable of.

“Whatever you are, there’s no way in hell it’s worse than the scum harming these kids,” he insisted. “They need help, and my hands are tied up in legalities. There’s nothing else I can do.”

I studied Brinley, finding something fascinating in his energy. It ran strong with determination despite being fragmented with the strain of emotional baggage. He loved the kids he spoke of. I could feel it emanating from him like the warm glow of a campfire. That spark could not be extinguished. It was inspiring.