Page 18 of A Memory in the Flame

“I don’t.” Without acknowledging me or saying goodbye to Noah, Sylvia walks away, going in the same direction of those figures in rubber suits and the rotting body they’d been carrying. Within seconds, she’s swallowed by darkness, too.

I decide to follow her example. Maybe I’m in shock, or exhausted, or both. All I know is the sun is about to crest that distant horizon—I feel the discomfort of its approach, nervous prickles beneath my skin—and I was ready to fall asleep hours ago.

Keeping my gaze fixedly on the line of cars crawling past, I step off the curb and into the yellowish glow of a streetlight. Feeling buzzed and strange, I raise my hand in the air and hail a cab. It sloshes through a water-filled pothole, but I don’t flinch when some of the spray reaches my legs. As I get in, I look back toward Rowan’s, toward that closed door.Goodbye, Andrew Hayes,I think.

“Alexander’s, please,” I murmur to the driver, who just turns on the blinker in response and merges into traffic. I don’t look in Noah’s direction, and then it doesn’t matter, because Rowan’s is out of view. All that lays ahead is daybreak and sleep.

The rest of the ride passes in a blur. The next thing I’m aware of is the ground beneath my feet, the sound of my heels against the concrete, then the soft lights of the lobby. The front desk slave is an old man with peppery hair. He calls out a cheerful greeting as I pass. I muster a cautious smile in return, but it’s never far from my mind that these people report to the Vampire King. The elevatordingsa moment later, and I quickly step on.

Less than a minute later, I’m swiping my key card over the reader. Lights flicker on as soon as I open the door, and I immediately aim for the bathroom, where my pajamas and toiletries are. But as I walk past the vanity, a stray, whispering instinct touches my mind. Listening to it, I perch on the velvet-covered stool again. My hand reaches for the mascara wand again. I unscrew the cap, lean forward, and reapply the dark ink. When I sit back and look at the girl in the mirror again, she’s different than she was at the beginning of the night.

Her eyeliner swoops outward like a raven’s wings, flying strong and certain through the sky. She is not anyone’s pawn. She is not a victim.

And she’s not afraid of waking up anymore.

Chapter Four

After how he treated Drew, and the feelings he brought out in me with his displays of violence and power, the very last thing I want is to spend time with Noah Forrest.

But this is not a story in which Charlotte Travesty gets what she wants.

As I wake, my phone chimes with a text.Meet me outside in five.

Seriously? I literally just opened my eyes,I type.

The response arrives six seconds later.Quit wasting time, halfling.I roll my eyes and yank the bedclothes aside.

With the moon high and full above our heads, Noah and I get on the train a few blocks from the hotel. Most of the creatures around us are heading to their work sectors, and the air is filled with the scents of shampoo and fresh coffee.

“How did you know about Leo?” I ask Noah as we find a spot near the back. It’s something I keep remembering when I’m alone, then forgetting as soon as I’m not. “You went to Rowan’s looking for Thessa, knowing she’d be able to tell you about Leo. How did they even get on your radar?”

Noah leans closer to the window, peering down at the road far below. “I had a friend hack their phones. Been keeping an eye on their texts. One night, our lovely Thessa sent her friend Leo an anxious message, asking him to stop leaving her halfway through their shifts. She just can’t keep covering for him, Charlotte. And I thought to myself, why would someone keep ditching their partner? To be alone, of course! Now, why would someone need to be alone in those tunnels?”

“He could've just been sneaking off to do venom,” I point out. I fall silent for a moment, worrying my lower lip. “You know, we should really get a move on that case, considering Alexander might lose patience and decide to tear my head off.”

Noah turns his face back toward the window. “One thing at a time, baby vampire.”

We’re on the outskirts now. The train is dangerously close to the wall, and my nerves begin to flare and fade like a struggling flame. “Where is this place?” I ask, my heel bouncing off the dirty floor of the train car. Noah glances at my fast-moving knee, then to my face, meeting my gaze. His skin shines in the moonlight.

“It’s in the farthest corner of the city,” he says, startling me with the directness of his answer. “The Barrens is, at its core, a landfill. All our trash has to go somewhere, right?”

“Why haven’t I heard of it before?”

“Because you didn’t want to,” Noah counters. I try not to feel stung by his words, whether he meant them as an insult or not, and the vampire heaves a dramatic sigh. “This partnership would be so much more fun if you would lighten up.”

“Yeah, well, maybe you should go back to Sylvia.”

Noah heaves a mournful sigh. “She tried to tell me that she’s enjoying her newfound independence, but I know deep down she misses the hell out of me.”

“Must be pretty damn deep,” I mutter under my breath.

After fifteen minutes on the train, Noah starts walking toward the doors, which I assume is his signal that we’re getting off. When the train stops, we step onto the platform, and I follow him down a flight of concrete steps. I take a moment to look around, try to figure out where we are. But this is a part of New Ve I’ve never seen, and I don’t recognize any of the derelict buildings or faded street signs.

There are no cars here, either, and as the two of us start walking, we go down the middle of the road. Within a block or two, the pavement turns into gravel. For the first time, it actuallyfeelslike I live in a post-apocalyptic city, and I resist the urge to start a conversation with Noah simply to break the unnerving silence. Under our shoes, the gravel turns into dirt. And then… the Barrens comes into view.

It’s unmistakable, both because of the fence and thestenchrolling toward us in overwhelming waves. The air changes, somehow. It becomes tighter and closer, like an embrace you don’t want. Wind rushes past, tangling my hair. We walk through a gap in the towering, chain-link fence, and enter a new world.

As Noah warned me, the Barrens is acres of trash, towers of broken electronics, and heaps of discarded belongings. My gaze moves over the turned-over dirt, and I wonder if this used to be a forest, here in the heart of this cruel city with its crude roads. Covering the ground is crumpled paper, crushed milk cartons, rotting food. Everything here speaks of lazy abandon, destruction, and ignorance.

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