Page 16 of A Memory in the Flame

“Well, the world has billions of people, so I’m not sure how much of a compliment that would be.”

“Shall we?” Noah asks, inclining his head toward the mouth of the alley. I nod, then follow him back into the open and past the bouncers. There are letters painted along the cinder block wall, following the downward slant of the stair railing.Come in for a bloody good time!

“So how are you, baby vampire?” Noah asks as we step over the threshold. “Gone on any more benders?”

My tone is flippant. “Oh, fine. I’m just at the point in my life where I’m sipping vodka out of a mug and pretending it’s coffee. How are you?”

Noah doesn’t answer. He stops at a small table that stands in the shadows, and without warning, he moves in a blur to take off my coat. His fingertips brush down my arms—so deliberately that it’s obvious there’s nothing accidental in the touch—and hangs my coat on the back of a chair. “Wait here,” he says. “Be on the lookout for a human named Thessa.”

“What? Why?” I ask, but of course he’s already gone. Sighing, I glance around the space, now fully repaired, it seems, after the weeper attack. But my gaze doesn’t go to the walls or the furniture—I’m searching the faces. Not for the human Noah wants to find, I know, and I’m not sure whether I’m disappointed or relieved when it becomes clear Drew isn’t here.

Noah returns a few seconds later and places a blood cocktail in front of me. In a graceful, thoughtless movement, he sits down and takes a drink from his own glass. It smells like whiskey, which suits him somehow. His bright green eyes scan the bar. For once, he’s completely unaware of how much I’m staring at him. His hair looks extra touchable today, I notice with annoyance.

While Noah searches for this lead of his, I don’t say anything, because it’s occurring to me how this will look to everyone else—that Noah and I came here together. What if word gets back to the Hayes siblings? At this point, should I even care?

“It gets better,” Noah says abruptly, interrupting my downward spiral.

I refocus on him and frown. “What gets better?”

“That hopelessness you’re feeling. Everything might seem like shit right now, but it’ll change. Eventually.” He fixes his gaze on something over my shoulder and takes another drink. Despite the vampire’s distant expression, sincerity clings to the words like morning dew. It’s one of the very few times I’ve caught a glimpse of kindness within Noah Forrest.

“Fuck,” a familiar voice says from behind.

When I turn around, I find Nina standing near the table, holding a beer in each hand. When I see that, my heart stumbles. Who is the other beer for? Her mysterious boyfriend or—

Drew moves into my line of vision. He follows Nina’s glare, and our eyes meet for an instant before his skitters away as he pretends not to see me.

Before I have the chance to feel any hurt, a ripple goes through the room—I see faces turn and conversations falter. I spot the reason a moment later, as she approaches the bar in confident, long-legged strides. Tonight, Sylvia is wearing a shirt with cartoon garlic printed on it that says,A clove a day keeps the vampires away.There’s also a whip draped over one of her shoulders. “She certainly knows how to make an entrance,” I murmur to Noah. The admiration in my voice is obvious, even to me.

He spares Sylvia a glance, then returns to his search of the room. “It’s her specialty.”

Another silence falls between us, but I’m too distracted to care. Somehow, I can feel Drew’s eyes on me, and I know that if I turn my head I’ll catch him staring. I move my glass in a circle, watching the streak of condensation it leaves behind on the wood. “What’syourspecialty?” I ask, wondering why I’m here, why Noah even bothered to tell me about the lead. Compared to Sylvia, his actual partner, I’m no better than a human.

“Hunting,” Noah answers flatly. He tosses back the rest of his drink and stands. With that, he moves toward a table of sewer sector workers. I recognize a few of the humans sitting there, but I’ve never interacted with any of them, and I follow Noah with a flutter in my stomach.

With every step, I remember how I came to be in this position and how much I hate that my choices were taken away. Weeper attacks? Oh, no problem, just force the expendable Lavender to look into it. Royals dealing vampire venom and shaming the family name? Just order Charlotte to handle the unpleasantness. If she’s killed, no one will notice. No one will care.

By the time I reach the table, my trepidation has been replaced by anger.

“...works with us in the east tunnels,” a human is telling Noah. She darts a glance at me and a line deepens between her brows—she’s probably wondering why I’m taking such an interest in their conversation, or what I’m doing with Noah Forrest.

“Great. Where does Leo live?” he asks, ignoring the tension hovering over all of us. There are three other humans at the table. Every single one of them is silent and staring, but all I can think is,Leo? What does he have to do with this?

The girl—Thessa, no doubt—shrugs, her lips beginning to thin with impatience. “I don’t know, man.”

“Hear that, Sherlock Junior?” Noah says. The shift in his tone makes me turn, and a shock goes through my system when I find those green eyes looking back at me. Noah’s expression is patient, expectant, and I realize that he actually wants me to answer. Curious in spite of myself, I obediently focus my hearing on Thessa. Noah asks her a second time where Leo lives, and she repeats her answer.There. Her heart reacts when she says she has no idea—she’s lying.

Just as I come to this realization, Noah moves, and in the space of a sigh or a blink, he has Thessa against the wall. It’s so swift, so vicious, that the rest of us don’t have a chance to react.

“The Barrens,” Thessa gasps, clawing at my partner’s hand. He grips her throat so tight that I can hear her lungs struggling. Noah’s expression is cold, his eyes hard as jewels, and it’s a stark reminder of what he is. Thessa makes a gagging sound and her voice becomes a squeak. “He lives in the Barrens!”

“There, now, was that so hard?” Noah croons, opening his fingers. Thessa’s shoes hit the ground again as she gasps.

The monster within quivers at this show of ferocity, and this reaction disturbs me. I turn away, thinking to use the pretense of getting another drink. As I hurry to put distance between me and Noah, I can still hear him, the sound of Thessa’s name on his lips like a dark promise.

Halfway to the bar, Drew steps in front of me.

I skid to a halt, my eyes widening, but the human speaks before I can. “You were poison, but oh, you were a delicious poison,” he whispers, leaning close, his breath tickling my ear. I jerk back at these words, glaring at him through a sheen of tears.Poison? After everything, is that how he truly thinks of me?

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