Nightstruck - Jenna Black Page 0,107

after it bounced off?”

Her words reminded me that it wasn’t Billy I was here to shoot. If it were, I wouldn’t be such an emotional wreck.

I shifted my aim and willed myself to pull the trigger the moment I had Piper squarely in my sights. I knew that the more I thought about it, the less likely I was to go through with it.

Piper’s eyebrows arched in surprise when I pointed the gun at her, but she didn’t look overly concerned. “It’ll be kind of hard for me to initiate you into the night if you shoot me. And it would be bad manners.”

My hands shook and my aim wavered. All I had to do was pull that damn trigger and Luke and his family would be out of danger. I had brought that danger upon them, and it was my responsibility to save them from it.

So why wasn’t I doing what I had to do?

“Come on now, Becks,” Piper said. “We both know you’re not going to shoot me. You may have an inner bad girl just dying to come out, but she’s not that bad. My inner bad girl was much closer to the surface, and even I had to become one with the night before I could actually kill someone. So let’s cut the bullshit, okay? If you’re still pissed at me when you’re one of us, then you can go ahead and kill me. You won’t even feel bad about it.” She shrugged as if it hardly mattered to her.

I knew better than to listen to her, and I especially knew better than to talk to her, but that didn’t stop me. “I thought it was going to be all unicorns and fairies after I changed, so why would I still be pissed at you?”

Piper laughed. “Unicorns and fairies? That’s not what I said, Becks. I said you would feel a whole lot better and that you’d stop hurting. Big difference. Believe me, you can still feel angry. I know, because I’m feeling just a bit irritated that you’re standing there holding a gun on me.” She grinned hugely. “But anger can be a real rush sometimes. The only thing that sucks about anger is having to keep it in because no one lets you express it. That’s what changes when you join the night. No one’s going to tell you you shouldn’t be angry or that you shouldn’t act on what you feel.”

“And how would I do that, exactly? Join up, I mean.” Yes, I was stalling, still fighting to make myself do the right thing. But if I was going to stand there in a welter of indecision, I might as well see if I could get any information out of Piper. Maybe she would say something that could help others in Philadelphia avoid becoming like her.

Piper crossed her arms over her chest. “Put down the gun, and I’ll show you. It doesn’t hurt or anything. I promise.”

My arms were getting tired from holding the gun out in front of me, and my hands were going numb from the cold. If I aimed for Piper’s torso, I could probably hit her without having to try too hard, but I wasn’t any closer to pulling the trigger now than I had been when she’d first appeared.

I had already failed, though I didn’t yet want to admit it to myself. My only chance had been to fire the moment Piper first came into view. Before I had a chance to think. Before I had a chance to see her, hear her, remember what she had once been. No matter how bitchy she was being now, no matter what my recent memories, I couldn’t forget the girl who was my best friend, and that meant I couldn’t shoot.

Shuddering, I lowered the gun, though I wasn’t about to drop it as Piper had commanded. Maybe I didn’t have the guts to shoot her, but that didn’t mean I was going to join up, and I had a feeling she might object when she realized that.

“Good job, Piper,” said a voice behind me.

I shrieked and pulled the trigger reflexively as I whirled around. I was lucky I didn’t shoot my foot off.

Aleric stood in the plaza behind me. Unlike Piper, he didn’t look like he’d been sleeping in the streets or Dumpster diving. His jeans were torn at the knee, but the tears looked like they were factory made, and his black leather bomber jacket looked so shiny and