Kitty's Mix-Tape (Kitty Norville 16)

“I’m here because it’s my last chance,” Jesse said. “My last chance to hang out with people my own age and look like I belong. Twenty years, they tell me. Twenty years after being turned is when it hits that you won’t get older and you stop fitting in. I . . . I wanted to feel like I fit in, one more time.”

He didn’t seem so much sad as resigned. This was his life now. His unlife. He was saying goodbye to the old.

This was getting too maudlin even for me. I sighed and glared at him. “Jesse, you never fit in. I mean, did any of us? We certainly don’t now.”

“Kitty, this is exactly like one of your shows but in real life!” Sadie said.

“I don’t listen to your show,” Trevor said. “Sorry.”

“Neither do I.” Jesse winced.

“Well, maybe you should, you might learn something! Thank you, Sadie, for listening to my show, I don’t think I said that yet but thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Christ, Kitty, couldn’t you have at least changed your name if you were going to become a werewolf?” Trevor said, exasperated.

“Seriously,” Jesse agreed, and they glanced at each other. “I mean, if we’d voted for who was least likely to become a werewolf it would have been you. What happened?”

“I don’t like to talk about it. I was attacked, it was bad, let’s leave it there. It changed every single thing about my life, I wasn’t going to let it take my name, too.”

That killed the conversation.

“I wanted the power,” Jesse said finally. “I know that’s a cliché. But I didn’t have the money or the social connections or anything else to get anywhere. But this?” He shrugged. “You don’t like the game, you break the rules.”

“You just traded out for a different set of rules,” I said.

“But I get to live forever.”

“Unless some ex-military bounty hunter yahoo sets his sights on you!” I glared at Trevor. His turn now. “Would you really have done it? Come back here and killed your old friend for a few bucks?”

“A few? Try a quarter mil.”

Even I whistled low at that. Jesse had the gall to look pleased. “Wow, I didn’t know I was that dangerous.”

“You just really know how to piss people off,” Trevor countered.

“I can’t believe you people,” Sadie muttered.

Ben rejoined us, slipping his phone back in his pocket. He pointed at Trevor. “This guy works for the Master of Boston.” Then he pointed at Jesse. “And I’m guessing you were part of a recent attempt to overthrow that Master.”

“You called Cormac,” I said, smiling. Cormac, Ben’s cousin, and a supernatural bounty hunter himself. He had contacts. He knew the gossip.

“Cormac Bennett?” Trevor said. “How do you know Cormac Bennett?”

“He’s family. Oh, I also put a call in to Rick. Master of Denver. He wants to know if he needs to come over and help sort things out.”

Jesse stared. “You can just call the Master of Denver and have him come over?”

I made a play of casually studying my fingernails. “We’re pretty tight.”

“I won’t go back to Boston,” Jesse stated. “I’ll keep out of sight. Just drop the contract.”

“A quarter million dollars, Jesse,” Trevor pleaded, as if Jesse was just supposed to sacrifice himself.

Sadie’s eyes were bugging out of her head. “It would make me really happy if my friends didn’t kill each other!”

Trevor looked at her. “You’re not, like, a secret witch or magician or something supernatural that we should know about?”