Dangerous Creatures(51)

Just as Ridley had made Caitlyn Wheatley say it for Lena. And after Caitlyn Wheatley, so many others.

Ridley lay back in her bed.

She had been the one to do it. She had always been the one.

I had to be.

I was Dark so Lena could be Light.

It was who they were, but it was more than that. It was who their world had expected them to be. After a while, it was who they expected themselves to be.

Has it always been that way? Does it have to be?

Rid pushed the question from her mind. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t change the way these things worked. She should’ve remembered the basic rule of living among the Mortals: Lay low or stay away.

Otherwise they’d always burn you.





CHAPTER 23


Comfortably Numb


Sirensong was on their way to rock the house.

Ridley hadn’t wanted to go back to Sirene. Link avoided her now, like she was worse than Emily Asher, but Rid refused to send him into Lennox Gates’ club alone and unprotected.

So she was Sirensong’s first groupie.

First, and most hated.

This is not how I imagined my “regular” life, Ridley thought.

“I don’t feel so hot,” Necro said. She leaned her head back against the rough stone of the Underground. Her face was pale, and as she closed her eyes, she looked weaker than Ridley remembered.

Floyd looked at Necro sideways. “You want to go back?”

“I can take her,” said Rid quickly, fidgeting in her sixties silver shift dress. She and Necro hadn’t exactly been speaking lately, and it bothered Ridley more than she cared to admit. Besides, Sampson and Link were already at Sirene. Floyd could still make it.

Necro shook her head. “No way am I going to not show for my own gig.”

“What’s that?” Ridley reached for the collar of Necro’s leather jacket. Necro yanked her hand away before she could even touch it.

“Personal space, Siren.” Necro glared.

“Wait, you’re bleeding.” Rid moved Necro’s collar down. Blood was spotting the white tank beneath Necro’s black leather jacket, and Ridley wondered why they hadn’t seen it before.

Necro touched her neck, and her fingers came away a deep, dark red. At least, that was what color Ridley thought it was, though it was more deep and dark than red. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. You’re hurt. What happened?” Floyd looked worried.

“Nothing happened.” Necro stared straight ahead, as if she was willing her friends to disappear.

But they weren’t about to, Floyd in particular. “Nec.”

“I don’t know, okay? I went to sleep. I woke up. My neck was bleeding.” Necro pulled a dirty black scarf covered in white skulls out of her pocket. She tied it around her neck.

“Where?” Floyd was somber.

“In the neck, brainiac.” Necro was as grouchy as she was ill.

“Come on, Nec. Where did you wake up?” Floyd sounded anxious.

Rid interrupted. “Um, I’m guessing she woke up in her bed? What the hell kind of question is that?”

Floyd raised an eyebrow. “Necro’s a sleepwalker.”

“What?”

Necro shrugged. “I wake up in strange places sometimes. I think it has to do with being a—you know. Being me.”

No Necromancer ever wanted to say the word, as if death was catching. Not even Necro said the whole word, usually.

She went on. “I have horrible nightmares, I wake up, I feel like total garbage, and I find my way home. Sometimes I stink like smoke. But I’ve never been actually hurt before.”

Ridley shook her head. “That’s not good.”

“No kidding,” said Floyd. She wasn’t joking around anymore.

“It’s no big deal,” Necro said, stumbling down the length of the tunnel. “Really, guys.”

It was a lie. Ridley had told enough of them herself to recognize a lie when she heard one. She wondered what had actually happened. If Necro was anything like her, she’d never tell.

She held out her arm to help Necro walk, but Necro didn’t take it.

They were more alike than Ridley had thought.



It wasn’t even four o’clock. They still had hours until the gig began, but Link and Sampson were already messing around onstage. From the moment Ridley passed through the door—the bouncer offering no complaints this time around—the music crept toward her. The music and, carrying with it, what it meant.

Who she would have to deal with—or what she’d have to say. That she was sorry. That she was worried. That she cared about him. Them.

Not that she would say it.

Not that anyone would listen.

She stood there watching, from the back of the main room, which would stay closed off to the general public for three more hours, as it did every afternoon. The stage loomed on the far side of the cavernous space, lights up and sound system live, as if the show was about to start—which it wasn’t. They still had time to warm up.

Not that they needed it. Things had been pretty warm this past week. At least, that was how it looked to anyone but a Siren. The lines were long and the crowds were raving, and Ridley still had no idea why or how.

She had an idea but was minus the facts to back it up.