I forced myself to face forward, blocking out the sight of their faces at the window, wishing I could will myself invisible, or somehow merge into the leather upholstery and avoid the discomfort of listening to humans scream about how much they hated me. It hurt, more than I would have thought possible, to be surrounded by people who didn't know me but who would have been more than happy to hear I was gone and no longer polluting their neighborhood.
"It gets easier," Ethan said.
"I don't want it to get easier. I want to be accepted for who I am."
"Unfortunately, not everyone appreciates your finer qualities. But there are those of us who do."
We passed a family—father, mother, and two young sons—holding a hand-painted sign that read HYDE PARK HATES VAMPS.
"Now, that," Ethan grumbled, "I have little patience for. Until the children are old enough to reach their own conclusions about vampires, they should be immune from the discussion. They certainly should not have to bear the weight of their parents' prejudices."
I nodded and crossed my arms over my chest, tucking into myself.
After a hundred feet, the protesters thinned out, the urge to berate us apparently diminishing as we moved farther from the House. My spirit deflated, we headed northeast toward Creeley Creek, which sat in Chicago's historic Prairie Avenue neighborhood.
I glanced over at Ethan. "Have we thought about a campaign or something to address the hatred? Public service announcements or get-toknow-you forums? Anything to help them realize we aren't the enemy?"
He smirked. "Our social chair at work again?"
As punishment for challenging Ethan to a fight—although I'd been suffering from a bit of a split vampire personality at the time—Ethan had named me House social chair. He thought it a fitting punishment for a girl who spent more time in her room than getting to know her fellow vampires. I'll admit I was a bookworm—I'd been an English-lit grad student before I was changed—but I'd been making inroads. Of course, the shifter attack had put a damper on my plans for a barbecue social mixer.
"I'm just a Novitiate vampire trying to make it through the night with a little less hatred.
Seriously—it might be something to consider."
"Julia's on it."
"Julia?"
"House director of marketing and public relations."
Huh. I hadn't even known we had one of those.
"Maybe we could hold a lottery for one of the Initiate spots next year," I suggested. "Get humans interested in being a Cadogan vampire?"
"I've got a golden ticket," Ethan began to sing, then chuckled.
"Something like that. Of course, if you open a spot up to the public, you probably increase the odds of adding a saboteur to the House."
"And I think we're rather full in the saboteur department lately."
Thinking of the two traitorous vamps the House had lost since I joined, I nodded.
"Wholeheartedly agreed."
I should have knocked on wood, offered up a little protection against the jinx I'd caused by talking about sabotage . . . because it suddenly looked like the protesters had called ahead.
Our headlights bounced off two SUVs that were parked diagonally in the middle of the street, six hefty men in front of them, all wearing black T-shirts and cargo pants.
"Hold on," Ethan yelled out, pulling the steering wheel with a screech of burning rubber.
The roadster banked to the right, spinning clockwise until we sat perpendicular to the SUVs.
I looked up. Three of the men jogged around us, guns at their waists, surrounding the car before Ethan could pull away from the roadblock.
"I am not crazy about this situation," I muttered.
"Me, either," Ethan said, pulling out his cell phone and tapping keys. I assumed he was requesting backup, which was fine by me.