her big head in a glove box. Besides, I learned about this sort of thing in my psych class. It’s called …” Her mouth worked but no sounds came forth and she finally heaved a disgusted sigh. “It doesn’t matter what it’s called but just think about it. Hands in a glove box—it’s so sick.”
Kirk chuckled and turned a page of the book he was pretending to read. The princess table moved their conversation to the upcoming formal dance, and he in turn shifted his focus to another table.
“… heard she was involved with drugs or something,” a mousy-haired girl said, pushing her glasses higher on her upturned nose.
“Yeah, she was gonna snitch on somebody on campus,” said a boy dressed in the baggy clothing favored by skaters. “But it wasn’t drugs she was into. It was blood.”
Kirk glanced at the group over his sunglasses and shifted his position so as to better hear their conversation.
“Blood?” a girl with purple-streaked hair asked. “You’re full of shit. She wasn’t no vamp!”
“No, but she was selling it,” the skater boy replied. “I heard there’s someone on campus running some kind of black market blood ring. Vamps are having a hard time finding legal blood since Crimson Swan got torched. I heard you can make a helluva lot of cash.”
“Like how much?” the mousy girl asked.
The skater boy shrugged. “A lot if you’re willing to let the vamp actually bite you, more if you let ’em do it during sex. I heard Mindy had a couple thousand bucks in her car.”
The girls exclaimed their disbelief, and Kirk closed the book, grabbed his backpack beside the bench, and stalked away. Since Crimson Swan, the only legal blood bar in Jefferson, was destroyed he’d seen a marked increase in his business but that wouldn’t account for the sudden glut of information available among the student population. Someone was talking too much, and he had a suspicion that someone was Piper.
The little whore never could keep her mouth shut.
It probably wasn’t wise to recruit on campus, but college kids had the two requirements he most valued: a need for cash and a desire to do whatever it took to obtain it.
He wouldn’t take on just anyone though. His clientele were selective and so was he. Unlike some of his more equal-opportunity-minded competition, Kirk specialized in “blood bunnies”—young women who were willing to share both their blood and their bodies. Nothing got the blood pumping like a good fuck, and blood always tasted better when combined with the sweet endorphin rush that was sex.
Clients called him to arrange for a bunny suiting their tastes. Payment was handled electronically and then he sent the girls on their way. Once the meeting was complete and the client was satisfied, he gave the girls five to ten percent of the payment, depending on how well she performed. Any cash tips they received from the client were theirs to keep.
The best part was that he didn’t have to answer to the Central Donor Registry bureaucrats. No licenses meant no overhead, such as rent or insurance, and no overhead meant more profit.
But his profit margin would vanish if he didn’t plug the information leak, and soon.
Kirk entered one of the classroom buildings and dashed up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time, to the second floor. Piper’s class would be ending in a few minutes. He wanted to be certain she understood the risks they both faced if word of his operation should reach the Enforcers.
As he strode down the hall, a door at the end opened and bleary-eyed students shambled from the room. He placed himself along the wall opposite the door and waited.
Piper was one of the last students out of the room, and she stopped in her tracks when she saw him. A male student talking with the instructor ran into her from behind. Amid a flurry of halfhearted apologies to the instructor and other student, she timidly crossed the hall to join Kirk.
He waited for the hall to clear and then seized her arm.
“What did I do?” she whined as he shoved her into the now-empty classroom.
Kirk closed the door and turned off the lights so the only illumination came from the miniblind-encased windows at the rear of the room. “People know.”
“About what?”
“My business. Now, how do you suppose they know about it?”
Piper shrugged.
The back of his hand smacked her cheek. “I asked you a question.”
Struggling to hold back tears, she shrugged again. “I don’t know.”