Shadow Thief - Eva Chase Page 0,37
sleep already. She’d been the first real friend I’d had, the first person I’d talked openly about my life with other than Luna.
“What was it we were going to call ourselves?” I asked. “The Shadow Avengers?” We’d been too old to see the name as more than a joke, but the kernel of the idea, going out and literally fighting for justice—that eager rebelliousness from our teens resonated through me from the past.
I’d been seeing it through as well as I could, without her.
Vivi laughed. “Yeah. Like some kind of superheroes.” Then her mood dampened. “We were going to track down the people who came for Luna too. You know, I’m really sorry the Fund never caught them. You’d think we’d be able to pull off at least that much.”
The regret in her eyes made my throat tighten. Vivi might not totally understand what Luna had meant to me, but she knew how badly her loss had shaken me, and she’d truly wanted to make it right however she could. I hesitated against the urge to spill the beans after all—to at least tell her that I was probably on the track of those villains right now. It would be nice to share my hopes and worries with her.
While I grappled with the idea, a guy wearing a purple top hat bumped into Vivi as he passed her. She flinched toward the counter. “Hey, watch it with that drink!” she said, peering over her shoulder to make sure his beer hadn’t stained her ivory jumpsuit, and my mouth stayed firmly shut.
If I told Vivi much of anything, she’d want to know everything—and could she handle getting into a real mess? These might be the same people who’d not only ambushed Omen and Luna but slaughtered my parents as well. If anything, it’d be selfish of me to involve her. This once, I could protect the person who meant the most to me.
I raised my glass, opting for distraction instead of a confession. “Enough about the past—drink up! It’s time to hit the dance floor.”
A few of the patrons were already swaying to the music in the open area next to the pool. When Vivi and I had downed our cocktails, I slid a twenty across the counter to Jade, told her to keep the change, and headed over to join them.
Vivi grasped my hand and swung me around with her, laughing. The broad legs of her jumpsuit swished around her calves. I focused half my attention on keeping up with her and the other half on scanning the bar-goers around us.
Jade wasn’t the only being here who might have information they could share—and another shadowkind who wasn’t as tied to this spot could be willing to say more. The tricky part was identifying the actual monsters amid the mortals who made themselves up like one.
I considered and then dismissed a guy with yellow cat’s eyes—contacts, I was pretty sure—and a woman with a wolf’s tail pinned to the back of her skirt that was obviously fake when I got a closer look. My gaze settled on an older woman with a dappling of shimmering scales across the back of her neck, only visible when her hair shifted with the motion of her head. She could have passed those off as a tattoo, but if they’d actually been one, I’d have expected her to show it off more.
Before I could think up an excuse to leave Vivi and sidle over to her table, four new figures marched through the bar’s front door together. And by “marched,” I mean they had the air of a military squadron.
An apprehensive prickle ran down my back as I watched the quartet in their business casual button-ups and slacks spread out through the bar. Each of them stopped by one of the nearby patrons, but from the other people’s expressions, they didn’t know these dudes. I got the impression the four were asking as many questions as I’d have liked to.
There was no reason to assume their arrival had anything to do with me. The clientele here could have been mixed up in all sorts of unusual dealings. But Thorn’s warning that we’d been followed at the market came back to me with a nervous jitter. Any second now, one of those guys would come over this way and spot me. What would they do then?
It seemed wisest not to stick around and find out. At the very least, I could slip around to the front