Holly Black - The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Tana gripped the cold flesh of the vampire’s shoulder. “No, wait.” She turned to the boy. “Please—please come with us. You’ve got to know this is a prison. You must know he’s never going to—”

“Shut up,” the boy said, folding his arms.

“Let them be,” Marisol told her, smug. “They made their choice.”

But a few, shamefaced, shuffled out. Others stayed put with the boy, resolute.

Only the muzzled girls and boys didn’t move. They slumbered away, barely stirring. Valentina shook one, but his lashes only fluttered. His eyes didn’t even open.

Marisol raised both her brows. “Satisfied?”

“There’s nothing else we can do, Tana,” Valentina said.

“Yeah,” said the dark-haired girl. “Time to cut and run. Jesus, I didn’t think we’d even get this far.”

Tana knew they were right. She couldn’t worry about the people they were leaving behind, not now. Not with Pearl out there somewhere. Not with Gavriel about to be betrayed.

“What’s wrong with your mouth?” the boy with the suspenders asked her. “Are you okay?”

Tana touched her lip and realized that her newly sharp teeth must have broken the skin. She hadn’t even noticed.

Valentina leaned heavily on Tana’s arm as she left the cage, clearly stiff and sore. The heat of her skin made Tana flinch with pleasure.

Marisol led them up the stairs and through a series of elaborately furnished rooms. There were a few vampires there, talking together. None looked armed for a fight with an ancient vampire’s minions. As Marisol and the others moved cautiously through the glass-domed banquet hall, Tana heard a vampire’s voice echo off the walls. “You, there! Stop! Stop where you are!”

At that, the prisoners ran for the door, wrenching it open and running across the dew-covered lawn under the moonlight. They scattered, with Tana, Valentina, and Marisol racing after. The moon was high in the sky, bright and full, like an overripe piece of fruit grown too heavy for its branch.

Only a single guard was stationed by the gate. He came running to intercept the boy in suspenders, calling for him to stop. Marisol shot him with the crossbow, dropping him onto the lawn with a single bolt. Tana stopped running, stunned.

You killed two of them! she yelled at herself. You’re not allowed to be shocked by death.

Behind her, another vampire exited the house, running after them. Marisol swung the crossbow around.

“Come on!” Valentina shouted, frantic, pushing her toward a hole cut in the iron fence, the bars snapped out.

Jameson was on the other side, holding a weathered-looking flamethrower pointed toward the house and waving the other prisoners through.

Tana went after, Valentina right behind her.

Jameson grabbed Valentina by the shoulder as soon as she was away from the fence, gripping her tightly and looking at her with a devouring gaze. “I would have gone for you,” he said, not quite making sense. “You should have told me and I would have done it instead, whatever it was.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Valentina said, clearly not sure what he thought had happened.

For a moment, Tana thought that Jameson would kiss Valentina, but he dropped his hand, turning toward his mother as she ducked between the bars and swinging the flamethrower off his shoulder.

“Thanks,” he said. “So, let me guess, you’re going straight back to Lucien?”

“Not tonight,” said his mother, glancing back at the house. It glowed with dark light. “Tonight I’m sticking with you, kid.”

Over their heads, the white crow was circling.

Tana thought of Pearl, on the lawn one late summer day, her pale hair tangled because she’d cry if anyone tried to brush it, spinning around and around until she got so dizzy she fell in a pile of bare feet and dandelions and sundress.

Pearl, who was probably coming straight to the place Tana was running from. If Tana went out, scouring the streets, calling Pearl’s name while Pearl went straight to Lucien, if something bad happened, Tana would hate herself forever.

She remembered a late-night episode of one of those shows on the History channel with a bunch of professors talking about monsters. It was one of those memories that came with the feeling of the scratchy afghan over Tana’s legs as she sat on the couch; the smell of microwave popcorn; and Pearl stretched out on the old rug, stacking up LEGOs. The monster is bigger than human, it represents abundance—overabundance , the white-haired man had said, pushing his glasses up higher on his nose. It has lots of eyes, extra arms, too many teeth. Everything about it is too many and too much.

That was how she felt, right then. As if there was too much of her, as if her skin was tight with muchness. She felt ripe to bursting.

And she remembered what Gavriel had said when she’d woken up handcuffed to a bed. Being infected, being a vampire, it’s always you. Maybe it’s more you than ever before. It’s you as you always were, deep down inside.

Maybe this was who she always was. Always shoving all that muchness down deep inside her where no one had to see.

And once she’d found Pearl, how long before she became the monster her mother was? How long before the infection sank so deep down into her blood that all she could think of was how to get warm again? How long before Pearl was just soft skin and a beating heart? She might be herself still, but she’d be herself hungry, a self she didn’t know yet. Herself with the brake lines cut. A self she didn’t trust to do anything but kill.

“Give me the crossbow,” Tana said as calmly as she could. “I’m going back inside.”

“What?” Valentina spun toward her. “No!”

“I have to.” Tana pulled out her phone, opening her photographs and flipping to one of her little sister a year before, hair in pigtails. “Pearl’s on her way here; this is what she looks like. I need you guys to do me one last favor. Please, find her.”

Marisol started to object, but Jameson just nodded. “Yeah, of course. Your friend Pauline says that Pearl couldn’t have made it inside before today. She might not even be through the gate yet. We’ve got this. Finding strays is my specialty.”

Tana handed him the phone. “Please, please keep her safe.”

He nodded, looking sidelong at his mother. Then he took his own cell from his back pocket, handing it to Tana. “Here, I’ll call as soon as we know something.”

She tucked it into her bra, overwhelmed with gratitude.

Valentina looked back at the house. “Just don’t take any chances in there,” she said. “The ancient, insane vampire doesn’t need your help.”

But what if he did?

Never again , Tana had promised herself. No matter what, she was never going to let anyone get the better of her ever again. No more mistakes.

“I’m through believing things will work out on their own. I’m going to kill Lucien Moreau myself,” Tana said, taking the crossbow with the wooden bolts from Marisol’s hands and setting it down on the ground, so that she could unclasp Gavriel’s garnet necklace from around her throat, the token for leaving Coldtown safely inside. “When you find my sister, give her this for me.”

Valentina took the necklace and promised that she would.

Tana hefted the crossbow, tracing her thumb over the smooth wood and cold metal as she watched them leave, Marisol gliding into the shadows as though made of shadow herself.

I’m going to kill Lucien Moreau myself , Tana repeated and this time she allowed herself to finish the thought. I’m going to kill Lucien Moreau myself or die trying .

CHAPTER 36