A moment of anger lit his face. “For a Siren, you’re really not all that enthralling.”
“And you’re nobody’s sweet meatball,” she said, patting his cheek. “Poor thing.”
He covered her hand with his, leaning toward her to press his lips briefly against hers. She was breathless, and he took full advantage, biting her bottom lip. A surge of raw energy hit both of them. Ridley pulled away, gasping.
Then she kissed him back, pressing toward him like she was falling. She couldn’t help it. His kiss was like a Cast, and she was the only person Bound by it. Her lips were burning.
I want to slap him, but I want to kiss him. And I want him to kiss me.
As soon as she thought it, Nox pulled away from her, studying her eyes.
“Mmm-mmm,” he said. “Just like I thought. You’re sweet enough for both of us.” Then he stepped through the crowd and was gone.
No.
Ridley backed away, speechless, and fled to the front of the stage, her hand pressed against her lips as if she wished she could rip the kiss right off them.
Too bad she couldn’t.
Too bad she had lost control and kissed him back.
Too bad it was at that precise moment that Sirensong’s lead Linkubus happened to look up from his drum kit, center stage.
Watching your girlfriend—whether or not you’d broken up—kiss another guy always made something in a guy’s head snap, free and clear. Whether you were a Mortal or an Incubus.
Ridley could almost hear it snap, and she could tell from the look on Link’s face that there were no questions left. Not for him.
Link was out.
Ridley’s eyes blurred as she fought back tears. She could see it in Link’s face, even though he wouldn’t look at her.
Even though they hadn’t said a word to each other.
They didn’t need to say anything.
Link’s hand was glowing, as red as blood. The ring. Just like Lena had warned her. Ridley had never seen it that color before.
He wasn’t singing, but he was pounding on the drums as if he wanted to smash them.
Then he did.
“What the—” Floyd backed away as drum skins and metal and drumsticks and cymbal brass went flying.
Sampson dropped the mic stand.
Link picked up the bass drum and hurled it off the stage. The music stopped. He kicked over the keyboard, smashing it to the floor. It was like watching the Hulk on fast-forward.
He was done.
The stage had become a dark place.
But it was Necro who seemed to be feeling it most. When the bass hit the floor, she hit the floor with it, passing out into a crumpled pile of arms and legs and black leather.
Link looked down at his blue-haired bandmate, panting for breath, his voice raspy. “You okay?”
By the time Ridley pulled herself up onto the stage, Necro was out cold. Rid bent down and caught a glimpse of the girl’s neck. The cut was festering, a dark liquid oozing from the wound.
Black blood.
CHAPTER 24
Wish You Were Here
It only took a few seconds for Link to pull off his sweat-soaked T-shirt and wrap it around Necro’s neck. Floyd held it there, but the blood kept seeping through.
“That’s not a regular cut,” Ridley said, hovering. “It wouldn’t be bleeding so much.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Link snapped.
“Somebody,” Floyd said, her face pale. “Somebody help us.”
“Link—” Ridley began.
He looked up at Ridley, his hands streaked black with blood. “No. Not now.”
“What can I do?” she asked.
Floyd stood up. “Leave.”
“I want to help.” Ridley was shaking.
Floyd looked like she wanted to slap her. “Nobody cares what you want.”
“I didn’t mean—”
Floyd’s voice rose. “For once will you shut up? This isn’t about you.”
“Just go,” Link said again. “Please, Rid.”
Then he scooped Necro up, as carefully as he would one of the Sisters’ baby squirrels, and carried her off the stage.
I really am the worst person in the world. Worse, even, than a Mortal. Worse than Lennox Gates himself.
It didn’t even take the whole cab ride for Ridley to come to that conclusion.
Link had told her to go, and so she’d gone, with nothing except the clothes on her back and a pocketful of lollipops. She’d Charmed the first taxi she saw and asked the driver to take her to the nicest hotel in New York City.
For once in her life, Ridley wanted to help. And she didn’t feel like abandoning all the inhabitants of apartment 2D, which was a new thing for her. And it was ripping her up inside that something was wrong with Necro; even she hadn’t seen anything like that before.
And Necro was the only person who had actually been nice to her since she’d gotten to New York.
Ridley felt terrible. She felt responsible. She felt worried. She felt anxious.
These were all unusual feelings for Ridley.
But Link didn’t want her around, and Floyd and Sampson cared more about getting Necro back to the apartment than anything else. The best thing she could do for all of them was leave and let them try and help Necro.
She had made this mess that night at Suffer, and she’d only made it worse since then.
It was time for her to go, and it was what Link wanted.
So she left behind Sirene and Marilyn’s Diner and apartment 2D and the Brooklyn Blowout. She left behind a sick Necromancer, an Illusionist with eyes for her ex-boyfriend, a highly questionable Darkborn, and a betrayed, brokenhearted quarter Incubus.
Ridley didn’t know where she was going, only what she was leaving behind. Which was everything.
When she looked out the window, there was nothing familiar. The city was changing in front of her eyes—the buildings getting taller, the window boxes getting watered, the streetlights getting brighter. This wasn’t Brooklyn. New York was the toughest place in the world if you couldn’t afford your rent. On the other hand, if you could afford not only your own rent but the rent of a thousand other people, New York was the greatest city in the universe. That was the part of town where Ridley was headed. She couldn’t afford it before, but if Link was the only reason she wasn’t using her powers, and he didn’t want her,
there was nothing holding her back.
Seeing as Ridley herself had no interest in being a regular person.
Then again, nobody in this neighborhood was a regular person.
That was all she could think about as she walked into the lobby of Les Avenues Hotel. Seventy-Seventh and Madison, in the heart of Manhattan’s Upper East Side, was as far away from Bushwick as Gatlin.
Maybe farther, she thought as she stood looking at the lobby floor of black and white inlaid marble tile, dotted with love seats so modern that you would have to be a gymnast not to roll right off them.
A man in a fedora sat reading a paper on one of them. As he turned the pages, she noticed a glinting signet ring on his finger.
He looked up.
She looked away, her breath catching in her throat.
What is it?
There was something about him that looked familiar, but he was gone before she could think why. Only the paper remained behind, folded on his chair.
Strange.
As Ridley leaned against the front desk, she realized she was exhausted. Exhausted and overwhelmed. All I want to do is collapse into a bed. Luckily, a desk clerk appeared as soon as she had the thought.
“Good afternoon. Can I help you?” Even the desk clerk looked more sophisticated than Ridley felt at the moment. Ridley couldn’t help but notice the high quality of her blowout. Glossy ends. Good conditioner. None of the cheap stuff we use.
“Yes. I have a reservation. Ridley Duchannes.” She smiled her best How little you understand can’t you tell by the way I say my name how much it means smile. It was a new one, one she’d perfected since coming to New York. It worked better if she did the eyebrows with it, but Ridley was too tired to move any other part of her face right now.
The clerk had a smile of her own, and it was nasty stuff. “Did you make it recently? You’re not showing up in our computer.” She raised a tiny Do you think I care who you are eyebrow right back at Ridley.
“That’s strange,” Ridley said. Not that strange, since I don’t have a reservation at all.
She waved her hand at the computer. “Can’t you do a little something with that thing and fix it?” Nick the Nerd Warrior would have come in handy right about now. She eyed her phone wistfully.