gone to, we just leaned inside the stairwell of the second-floor landing and kept watch.

Footsteps sounded a few minutes later as Jeff came down from an upper floor. Surprise crossed his features briefly. “I thought you’d wait outside.”

“Got cold,” Maggie answered. “Your friends are in the lobby.”

He didn’t seem to find that unusual and nodded. “Got the stuff. We can go to my place.”

Of course, when we reached the lobby it was empty. “Where are they?” Jeff looked around.

“I don’t know,” Maggie said. “We should wait, though.”

Stepping into the darkness under the bottom stairwell, I motioned to him with my hand. “Come in here.”

He smiled slightly for the first time and walked over, ducking his head to move inside the shadows. He pushed me up against the back wall. I couldn’t see anything, but smelled spearmint gum on his breath. This was Maggie’s usual trip, not mine, so I let him lead for a few seconds. His mouth moving up my neck felt alien. I didn’t like it.

Too fast, I struck under his chin, catching the top layers of his throat but missing a solid hold. He actually screamed and rammed my backbone against the wall.

Careless on my part. Too fast.

Releasing my bite just long enough to get a better grip, I clung to him desperately, but he felt my teeth withdraw and pitched me off. He bolted back out into the lobby. I ducked after him in time to see Maggie grab his short blond hair.

She didn’t try for a grip, but just jerked him back, bit down once at the full extension of her mouth, and ripped. Dark blood sprayed her dress. His face was horrible, not some sleepy, half-conscious sweet dreamer like Gunner had been last week. Twisting panic and disbelief contorted Jeff’s mouth, and he lost consciousness while still kicking and gasping.

When he stopped moving, Maggie dragged him back under the stairs. We took turns feeding. I tried not to think or feel anything as I saw flickering images of his life pass through my mind while drinking his blood . . . comic books, beer bottles, an angry mother who hated herself.

I pulled away from his throat and closed my eyes.

Using a knife she always carried in her handbag, Maggie cut jagged slashes in the torn flesh of his throat, making it look like someone had done a poor job murdering him. I took his wallet, and we walked out the back, leaving him for the janitor to find—if this dive had a janitor.

“There’s a pint of blood on my dress,” she hissed.

“I’m sorry.”

Staying in the shadows, we made our way back down to the pier. Once we reached it, she climbed over the rail down to the rocky beach and knelt to try and rinse herself with salt water.

My knees buckled slowly down beside her. “I’m really sorry.”

“What exactly happened back there?” she snapped.

“He was touching me. I don’t know. His neck felt close enough . . . I just missed. That’s never happened before.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you weren’t alone. This is a safe city for me. I’m careful. One screwup, even one close call like that, could end everything. Do you understand?”

“Don’t give me a safety lecture. I hunted in Portland on my own for over ninety years, just different from you.”

“Like how?”

“Different. You play a lot more games. Take more time. I used to just stand outside an alley somewhere looking scared and someone always stopped to either help or hurt me.”

Turning away, she splashed more water on her dress. She wasn’t angry at me, just shaken. “You’re so strange, Leisha. Not like one of us at all.”

“Then why do you keep me? Why do you let me stay?”

“I don’t know.”

We sat on the rocks like that for an hour, neither one of us saying a word.

chapter 7

Five weeks later I sat by the fire in Maggie’s living room watching her play chess with William. He often forgot the rules, and she patiently but firmly reminded him that his bishop could move only diagonally on the same color.

“No, William,” she said. “That’s your rook. It moves ahead or backward or to the side.”

The stimulation of someone new had made William more interested in his surroundings. Maggie was good for him. She had changed a great deal since our arrival as well. Every time I brought up the subject of leaving, she’d say something like, “Don’t worry about it yet.”

I thought about the hate-filled look on her face the night after