want to do to you?"
Quinn turned so that the advancing party couldn't see his face. He snarled, "They're not exactly
overjoyed with you either."
"I can take care of myself." Rashel was shaking with frustration. "Just leave. Go!"
Quinn looked as angry with her as he was with the hunters. He didn't want her help, she realized. He
wasn't used to taking anything from anyone, and to be forced to do it made him furious.
But there wasn't any other choice. And Quinn finally seemed to recognize that. With one last glare at her,
he broke and headed for the darkness at the other side of the cellar.
The flashlights swung in confusion. Rashel, glad to be able to move, sprang between the vampire hunters
and the stairway.
And then there was a lot of fumbling and crashing, with people running into each other and swearing and
yelling. Rashel enjoyed the chance to work off her frustration. She got in everyone's way long enough for
a very fast vampire to disappear.
After which it was just her and the vampire hunters. Five flashlights turned on her and seven amazed and
angry people staring.
Rashel got up and brushed herself off. Time to face the consequences. She stood, head high, looking at
all of them.
"What happened?" Steve said. "Did he hypnotize you?"
Good old Steve. Rashel felt a rush of warmth toward him. But she couldn't use the out he was offering
her. She said, "I don't know what happened."
And that was true. She couldn't even begin to explain to herself what had gone on between her and the
vampire. She'd never heard of anything like it.
"I think you let him get away on purpose," Vicky said. Rashel couldn't see Vicky's pale blue eyes, but
she sensed that they were as hard as marbles. "I think you planned it from the beginning-that's why you
told us to go up to the street."
"Is that true?" One of the flashlights swung down and suddenly Nyala was in front of Rashel, her body
tense, her voice almost pleading. Her eyes were fixed on Rashel's, begging Rashel to say it wasn't so.
"Did you do it on purpose?"
All at once Rashel felt very tired. Nyala was fragile and unstable, and in her own mind she'd made
Rashel into a hero. Now that image was being shattered.
For Nyala's sake, Rashel almost wished she could lie. But that would be worse in the end. She said
expressionlessly, "Yes. I did it on purpose."
Nyala recoiled as if Rashel had slapped her.
I don't blame you, Rashel thought. I think it's crazy, too.
The truth was that the farther away she got from Quinn's presence, the less she could understand what
she'd done. It was beginning to seem like a dream, and not a very clear dream at that.
"But why?" one of the Lancer boys at the back asked. The Lancers knew Rashel, knew her reputation.
They didn't want to think the worst of her. Like Nyala, they desperately wanted an excuse.
"I don't know why," Rashel said, looking away. "But he wasn't controlling my mind."
Nyala exploded.
"I hate you," she burst out. She was trembling with fury, spitting out sentences at Rashel like poison
darts. "That vampire could have been the one who killed my sister. Or he could have known who did it. I
was going to ask him that, but now I'll never get the chance. Because of you. You let him go. We had
him and you let him go!"
"It's more than that," Vicky put in, her voice cold and contemptuous. "We were going to ask him about
those teenage girls getting kidnapped. Now we can't. So it's going to keep happening, and it's all going to
be your fault."
And they were right. Even Nyala was right. How did Rashel know that Quinn hadn't killed Nyala's sister?
"You're a vampire lover," Vicky was saying. "I could tell from the beginning. I don't know, maybe you're
one of those damned Daybreakers who wants us all to get along, but you're not on our side."
A couple of the Lancers started to protest at this, but Nyala's voice cut through them. "She's on their
side?" She stared from Vicky to Rashel, her body rigid. "You just wait. Just wait until I tell people that
Rashel is the Cat and that she's really on the Night World side. You just wait."
She's hysterical, Rashel realized. Even Vicky was looking surprised at this, as if she were uneasy at what
she'd started. "Nyala, listen-" Rashel began.
But Nyala seemed to have reached some peak of fury at which nothing from outside could touch her.
"I'll tell everybody in Boston! You'll see!" She whirled around and plunged toward the stairway as if she
were going to start doing it right now.
Rashel stared after her. Then she said to Vicky, "You'd better send a couple of the guys to catch up to
her. She's not safe alone in this neighborhood."
Vicky gave her a look that was half angry and half shaken. "Yeah. Okay. Everybody but Steve go after
her. You guys take her home."
They left, not without a few backward glances at Rashel.
"We'll drive you back," Vicky said. Her voice wasn't warm, but it wasn't as hostile as it had been.
"I'll walk to my own car," Rashel said flatly.
"Fine." Vicky hesitated, then blurted, "She probably won't do what she said. She's just upset."
Rashel said nothing. Nyala had sounded-and looked-as if she meant to do exactly what she said. And if she did...
Well, it would be an interesting question as to who would kill Rashel first, the vampires or the vampire hunters.
Wednesday morning dawned with gray skies and icy rain. Rashel trudged from class to class at
Wassa-guscus High, lost in thought. At home, her latest foster family left her alone-they were used to her
going her own way. She sat in her small bedroom in the townhouse with the lights dimmed, thinking.
She still couldn't understand what had happened to her, but with every hour the memory of it was fading
steadily. It was too strange to fit into the reality of life, and it became more and more like a dream. One
of those dreams in which you do things you would never ordinarily do, and are ashamed of when you