Nightshifted (Edie Spence 1)

Madigan left us in the parking lot. Ti walked me to my car. I opened up the door the old-fashioned way, with the key, and tossed Yuri’s shirt onto the passenger seat. Then I gave him my address, watched him walk over to his red car—who the hell drove an El Camino anymore?—and made my way home, with my cell phone on speaker.

I dialed Sike’s number into my phone while I was driving, like you’re not supposed to do, and called it. She picked up right away.

“Hello?”

“Hi—um—” What was I supposed to say? Sorry for being a jerk earlier, have you made any progress on saving my life?

Sike snorted. “We haven’t found anything out yet,” she said, then hung up on me.

Great.

I tried Jake as I parked my car, and waited to leave a message. “Jake—it’s me. Call me back,” I said, then hung up. I’d initiated all of our conversations for weeks, but that was just how we were. I called him again, and it went straight to voice mail. “Seriously, call me back. It’s really important. ”

What if I did die? I didn’t want to spend time thinking about it—but if I did, I owed him an explanation. I called him back again. “Also—I love you. ”

He called back as I was crawling into bed for what I realized with sadness would only be a short nap.

“Sissy?” He sounded as tired as I felt.

“Bro! Hey—are you busy tomorrow? Or the day after?”

“Depends on when. ” I heard him yawn.

“Whenever is good for you. Just let me know and I’ll be there. I need to talk to you. ”

“Obviously. ” I could almost hear him waking up. “I’ll call you—the day after tomorrow. ”

“You won’t forget?”

“I’m putting it in my dayplanner. Right now. Love you,” he said, and hung up. I wondered briefly what the chances of him actually remembering were, then I went to sleep.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

I woke up when Ti rang my doorbell. I could see him standing on my stoop when I peeked through the blinds. I clearly remembered setting my alarm—and apparently I’d slept right through it. That wasn’t like me.

“Coming!” I yelled out, while still lying in bed. I played with my vision some more, one hand on, one hand off. The glow didn’t stick around when I was looking through both eyes, but as soon as I covered one and just looked through the other—either one now—it returned.

I felt bad about leaving him outside while I brushed my teeth and otherwise made myself presentable—but then again, since he was undead, I doubted he’d mind. I pulled on some fresh-from-the-dryer tight jeans, a loose-fitting long-sleeved shirt, tugged on boots, and ran down my hallway to meet him.

“Hi. ” I opened the door, grinning. He grinned back. I realized it’d been a long time since I’d had a guy here whose name I out-and-out knew.

“Well, hello there. ” He stepped graciously away from my door, and allowed me space outside. I yanked on my coat as we walked to his El Camino. I was happy to see that he’d seen fit to run the heater in his own car.

It felt odd to be in a car with him—it felt odd to be out with him, period. It wasn’t his fault really, just the general awkwardness that I, with my tomcatlike mating habits, usually got to avoid.

“So Madigan’s a werewolf, right?” I blurted out.

“Yep,” Ti said, as if I hadn’t had to ask. “He called me this afternoon to ask that you don’t tell his wife where we were this morning. ”

“Okay. ” I didn’t like lying, but I could live with it for the next two and a half days of my life. “Some weather, huh?” I said, purposely making light of the silence between us.

“I’ve seen worse. ” He angled his rearview mirror to look at me in it. “Want to tell me about things yet?”

“Heh. ” I sank back into the bucket seat. “I guess. ”

I told him the story from when I’d met Anna, through the tribunal coming up.

“Wait—what?” We were already on residential streets, and he pulled over to look at me. “You’re going to a trial where you might die in two days and you’re going out to dinner with me?”

“A girl’s gotta eat,” I said with a fake laugh.

“That’s not funny, Edie. ”

“I know. ” I stared out the passenger window. “The truth is, I don’t know what else to do. ”

“We can start by going to find out what happened to those girls, tonight, after dinner. Once all the vamps are out. ”

I sighed and turned back toward him. “I can’t. I’ve got to go back to work. ”

“You’re kidding me. ”

“No, I’m not. ” We were in a nice neighborhood here, with nice trees and houses, where people never had to worry what went bump in the night—or their kids tying off and shooting up. “I’ve got to go in. ”

“Edie—if we don’t find that vampire—”