Kitty Steals the Show

Chapter 6

THE CAR turned a corner and maneuvered between buildings that must have been a couple of hundred years old—tall, looming, neoclassical. A cobbled space had been reclaimed into a small, exclusive parking lot, lit by muted orange streetlights. Expensive luxury cars, big sedans, a few elegant limos, all polished to a shine, were lined up. Uniformed drivers lingered nearby, vigilant. A couple of them were werewolves, who straightened when they saw Ben and me. I kept my chin up, my gaze steady, prepared for posturing. But they only watched.

There were a couple of makes of sports cars I didn’t even recognize. I had the sudden feeling I was on the set for the latest James Bond movie. This obviously had to be a meeting of mobsters, trust fund babies, or vampires.

“Holy shit, is that a Bugatti?” Ben said.

“What’s a Bugatti?” I said, thinking it was some kind of local wildlife.

“Two million dollar sports car,” he said.

“Yeah?” I looked to where he was staring, like a kid with his face pressed to the window of a candy shop.

Colored a shade of blue that verged on black, the thing was shaped like a teardrop and didn’t seem to have any hard edges. Even knowing nothing about cars I could tell it was impressive.

“Maybe you could ask Antony to let you drive it around the block,” Emma said.

“Antony?” he said.

“Yeah. He’s pretty laid back, for a vampire.”

Ned’s driver, Andy, guided us to the front door. The building standing before us was a neoclassical marvel, with wide columns of pale granite holding up a peaked roof that showed friezes of toga-draped figures reclining and dancing in various states of merriment. Many wore or carried masks, smiling and frowning. This was a theater, I realized. I shouldn’t have been surprised.

Arms spread wide, Ned was waiting for us at the top of the wide steps that led to the theater’s ornate, brass-decked front doors. “Welcome! Thank you for joining us!”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” I said wryly, bracing for more vampire bullshit than I’d ever encountered in my entire life. Somehow, I had to make it through the rest of the evening without saying anything snarky. Too snarky, at least.

“It’s too late to back out, isn’t it?” Ben said.

“Never too late,” I said. “Just as long as we know where the exits are.”

He offered me the crook of his elbow, and I put my hand in it. Together, we climbed the stairs and met Ned. Emma followed.

“Any trouble?” Ned asked her.

“No,” she answered.

“Expecting any?” I said.

“Oh no, nothing apart from the usual.”

“What’s the usual?” I said, and he just smiled.

We passed through the doors into a gorgeous carpeted lobby, where crystal chandeliers hung from ceilings painted with lush baroque murals, chubby rosy cupids pulling goddesses of love in golden chariots, that sort of thing. The box office windows had gilt bars over them, and the walls had mahogany wainscoting and elegant antique chairs with embroidered seats.

Ned admired me admiring the scene. “The Restoration of the English theater took place in palaces like this.”

“It’s amazing,” I agreed.

“You seem less impressed, Mr. O’Farrell.”

“It’s a little busy for my tastes,” he said.

“Ah, you’re minimalist, then. A Beckett man.”

“I don’t know that I’m an anything man.”

“That just means you haven’t had a chance to develop a taste for anything yet,” he said.

We crossed the lobby and Ned put his hand on the painted door that presumably led to the main part of the theater. Ben’s hand moved to mine, pressing it where it rested on his arm, just as my nose flared, taking in a thick, coppery smell that reached through the cracks around the door.

“I smell blood,” I said, hesitating. It was lots of blood, for me to scent it through the door like this.

Ned nodded. “Before we enter, you need to understand that there hasn’t been a meeting like this, a gathering of the Masters of Europe, in over a century. We’ve never had one that included so many from abroad. What you’re about to see … it’s a rare thing, and I must remind you that you are guests here.”

“Great. Warning taken,” I said, and Ned looked at me sidelong.

The Master of London opened the doors and led us down the central aisle of the theater.

The rows of seats, red plush and marked with brass number plates, were empty, and the house was dark. All the action was happening on the brightly lit stage, and I might have thought we were here to watch a play. There was a dinner party in progress, a dozen or so people sitting at long tables covered with brocade cloth, set in a horseshoe that faced the audience. The diners were looking out, and at each other. Gold candelabras held burgundy candles, dripping wax. The only silverware or place settings on the ornate tables were knives—slim, wickedly sharp steak knives, most of which were bloody.

A dozen bodies lay piled in the middle of the stage. Male and female, many of them were naked, arms and legs splayed, long hair tangled, heads thrown back, mouths hanging open. All had wounds clotting at their necks and wrists. The scene displayed baroque decadence taken to the ninth level of hell.

My stomach flipped and my throat closed on bile. Ned watched calmly, studying my reactions as he had since I’d met him, so I turned to Emma, my friend, reaching for her in despair and disbelief. “Emma?”

She stood back, just out of reach, and her expression seemed indifferent. The stink of blood stuck in the back of my throat, and it didn’t taste like food, like the feast and frenzy with which Wolf would normally react. It tasted like danger—we were in terrible danger. All those bodies, at the center of a vampire orgy. I looked at Ben, my eyes wide.

“Wait a minute,” Ben said close to my ear, keeping a tight grip on my arm. “They’re not dead.”

Letting my nose work, I searched past the bloody reek for other signs. Settling, tamping down the panic and rage, I could sense beyond the initial shock: all the blood in the air was still warm—still alive. The bodies were flush and breathing, just unconscious. This was an orgy, but not at the ninth level. Maybe the seventh.

This was like something out of an overwrought opera or a story of Caligula. I needed a long, disbelieving minute to take it all in, and even then my mind shied away from the scene, and Wolf rattled the bars of her cage, fighting to break loose and flee. And still, there was more to see.

I breathed the room’s air until I could start to differentiate scents, between the antique furnishings, chill vampires, warm bodies, and spilled blood. The wild fur-and-skin scent was subtle under the onslaught of the rest of it. Those at the tables were all vampires. Two dozen or so more figures—vampires, lycanthropes, and mortal humans—stood in the positions of bodyguards and retainers behind the tables where the gathered Masters and Mistresses of Europe and beyond sat. They wore all manner of clothing—costumes—from loincloths and lingerie to ornate historical gowns and frock coats. Some were obviously bodyguards, fit men and women in suits who gazed watchfully, suspiciously. I smelled wolf, tiger, and another beast I couldn’t identify. A couple of them were ornaments, sleek women in skintight gowns and gold jewelry. There was a dark-haired, cinnamon-skinned woman whom I thought must have been a fox. Literally. But then … something else entirely.

One of the vampires seated at the end of a table held a pair of chains that led to collars, thick bands of steel secured around the necks of a man and a woman kneeling at his side. They were both naked, physically fit, muscular, well-tanned. They crouched like pets, and they were werewolves, chained and submissive.

“I’m not okay with this,” I said, feeling ill, panicked, furious. This wasn’t my world, and I didn’t want to be here.

“Ned says it’s so much better than it used to be,” Emma said softly. “Imagine what this must have been like in a culture where bearbaiting was like prime-time TV.”

“I’d rather not, thanks. You can’t defend this, Emma.”

“I’m not … it’s just—it’s the way things are.”

This was her world now, I reminded myself.

“I thought this was a meeting, not a horror show,” I snapped at Ned.

One of the vampires on stage, at the middle table, the place of power, stood and leaned forward. She had brick-red hair, curled and flowing down her back and over her shoulders. Her skin was fine china, her smile practiced, her gaze fierce. She wore a gown of midnight blue silk that molded to her figure, and my hackles rose at the sight of her: Mercedes Cook.

“I think we’ve damaged the girl’s modern sensibilities,” she said to her colleagues in her honeyed, purring voice. She actually winked at me, and I buried a growl.

Some of them chuckled in appreciation; others stayed quiet. All those gazes looked down on me, trapping me. I might have been the one on stage.

A few seats down, another of the vampires played with his knife, running the handle between his hands, spinning it. Wearing a suit with a brocade waistcoat and jacket with tails, he was polished and gorgeous, sharp features framed by slick black hair and a trimmed goatee, like a nineteenth-century villain, but he made the look work. He probably invented it. “Modern sensibilities? We are ancient creatures. What do human mores have to do with us?” His accent wasn’t British but rounder, lilting.

“It’s not like we kill anyone—civilized vampires don’t,” said a third, a man with long brown hair, Mediterranean features, a floofy poet’s shirt, loose tan pants, and knee-high boots. “Why kill mortals for their blood when they so obligingly make more?”

“Humans—a renewable resource.”

“We recycle! We’re green!”

Much laughter. Ha.

One of them didn’t laugh. He sat at the far end of the table from Mercedes and her cohort. He wore a simple suit jacket with a band collar shirt. On the stout side, he seemed careworn, his gaze tired, as if he’d seen it all.

“A werewolf with morals,” he said. “I never thought to see such a thing.” His voice was kind, his accent flat American. Him—I wanted to talk to him. I wondered if that was a trick he’d developed.

“Maybe it’s because I come from a country that fought a war to put an end to this sort of thing.” I pointed at the werewolves in chains and fumed. “God, what is this, the Dark Ages?”

Some of them laughed. Some of them looked at me as if I had asked a very silly question. The well, duh look. The last vampire who’d spoken, the careworn one, didn’t react at all.

“Mistress Norville, please settle. You’re under my protection here,” Ned Alleyn said.

“I didn’t ask for your protection,” I said.

How the hell were Ben and I going to hold our own against this? This whole setup—them on the stage, looking down on us, with no way for us to move to a dominant position—was contrived.

“We can always leave,” Ben said calmly. He stood straight and tall, chin up, not cringing a millimeter. It made me stretch a little taller, and I imagined my tail and ears standing up, superior.

We could leave. But as Ned said, this was supposed to be neutral ground, an opportunity to meet with each other without fear. When was I going to get another chance to size up the gathered vampire might of Europe?

“No,” I said, taking a breath, forcing myself to at least pretend that they hadn’t gotten my hackles up. “I haven’t asked any of them how old they are.”

He chuckled. “They never answer that.”

“Ned did. Can’t stop trying now.”

“Good luck with that.”

“Thanks. So, how about it? Any of you up to telling me how old you are? How about if I promise not to tell anyone else?” I raised my voice and scanned the table, looking at every one of them—not meeting their gazes, but making it clear I had noted them, and remembered. Seated at the table were three women and eleven men, plus retainers, servants, and pets. Plus the victims of the dinner. I pointed at the guy in the poet shirt. “You—I bet you’re going to try to tell me you knew Lord Byron, right?”

He laughed, a point in his favor. Guy with a sense of humor couldn’t be all bad. The rest of them regarded me with expressions ranging from amusement to disbelief. Even Ned stood aside, hand to his chin, intrigued. I had a sudden feeling they were feeding me rope, waiting for me to hang myself with it.

“Nobody? Aw, come on, I thought you were all supposed to be badass. What’re you afraid of?” Ben, bless him, smirked at them all right along with me, though I imagined he was mentally slapping his forehead. Did I have to poke quite so much? Yeah, I did.

It kept my gaze from falling to the stack of bodies in the middle of the stage.

The impeccable anachronistic guy with the goatee made an obvious sniff, nostrils flaring, and wrinkled his nose. “The bitch is in heat.”

Ben stepped forward, putting himself in front of me, and bared his teeth in challenge. I put a calming hand on his arm and moved back into view. “Well, that’s a little personal. Ned, if we’re going to be sharing like this do you want to at least introduce everyone to me? I thought you guys were into all that formality and crap.”

Ned started to speak, but the goateed vampire sneered and said, “Too much barking. It’s obscene.” He turned away from us as if disgusted.

“You hear that, honey? I’m obscene,” I said to Ben. “I think that means we win.”

“High five,” he said, holding up his hand. I slapped it and held it.

“High paw.”

Yeah, they were definitely looking at us like we were the ones on stage, now. The figures on the fringes, the bodyguards and such, had pressed forward to watch, even. I didn’t know how much longer we could keep up the banter and hold their attention.

“I don’t think you understand your position here, young lady,” said another of them, a man with dark skin and an Arabic-looking robe of white linen tied with an embroidered sash. “You are here at our pleasure. Our sufferance.”

“See, what does that even mean?” I said, my arms out. “You think I’m going to go along with that, just because you expect it?”

“Has no one taught you manners?” he said in a disappointed tone, as if he was lamenting the fallen state of the world, where a lowly werewolf could talk smack to a vampire.

“Yeah, you should ask the vampires back home about that. I’m real popular.”

“She is,” Ben said. “That eye rolling thing you’re doing? She gets that all the time.”

I looked at him. “Really?”

“Just trying to help.”

Man, the two of us should go on the road. Some of the retainers standing in the wings had begun to fidget. I hoped I was making them nervous.

Ned stepped forward. “If I could make those introductions now—”

The goateed vampire slapped the table, causing knives to rattle and candle flames to flicker. “Edward, you are a terrible host for allowing one of the wolves to speak so out of turn.”

Ned smiled. “She’s not mine to command, Jan. You know that.”

“It’s the principle—”

Ned countered, “If you’re offended—”

“Oh, I’m not offended,” one of the other women said. She had black hair and wore a rhinestone-studded ball gown that glittered like shattered glass. “I thought this was the evening’s entertainment.” That got a few more laughs. Several of them started talking and laughing over each other, leaving Ned cut off in the middle of his intervention.

Enough of this. I looked at Mercedes and raised my voice.

“How many of you are carrying the coins of Dux Bellorum?” I said, loud and sure to carry.

The room fell still, quiet, and every vampiric gaze, thick with power, turned on me. Mercedes actually took a step back. Well, hallelujah.

“What did you say?” The flip guy in the poet’s shirt asked this softly.

“You heard me,” I said.

Again, the long silence and studious gazes dominated. I kept still, chin up, eyes steady. I did not slouch. Neither did Ben. We weren’t the strongest ones here; it was us against all of them, the whole room. But we had startled them. We had an advantage.

“Well,” Ned said wonderingly to the assemblage. “You wanted to know if she had any real power. Now you do.”

Every one of those gazes had become appraising. Calculating. Then—they turned those gazes on each other. Because they didn’t know who among them belonged to Dux Bellorum, and who didn’t. Oh, this had gotten very interesting.

Mercedes pointed at me and smiled. “She has no power. She hides her weakness with words. I want to see her fight. Wolves are nothing without their teeth and claws.”

“Yes, a fight,” said her goateed colleague—Jan. “That will settle this. Clear out the middle here.” He pointed at several of the retainers, both vampire and lycanthrope, nodding with distaste at the discarded blood donors. The retainers began picking up the unconscious bodies and hauling them away. Some of the victims twitched muscles as if coming to wakefulness, their heads lolling and expressions wincing. No one paid them any mind as they were carried off, through the doors to another room. I hoped one with beds and food and lots of juice and water.

“I’m not going to fight,” I said.

“I’ll get in there before you,” Ben said.

“Neither of us is going to fight.”

Jan called, “Which one should she fight? One of them, the female—” He pointed at the pair of werewolves wearing the steel collars and chains.

“No,” their Master said. He had short cropped hair and wore a tuxedo with white leather gloves. He had some kind of accent, Scandinavian maybe. “She’s submissive, it wouldn’t be proper.” He actually stroked the woman’s hair, leaning over her, protective. In turn, the woman pressed into his touch, turning her face to his thigh as if to hide. She was scared. The other prisoner, the man, put his arms around her, a heartbreaking move to shelter her. He stole glances at me, but his gaze was more often on the floor—he was submissive, too, and terrified of me. Of me.

The vampire put his hands on both of them and looked at me, beseeching. As if I could better protect them from this horror show. I almost could think they were beloved pets and not prisoners. If not for the horrid chains.

“I’m not going to fight anybody,” I said, and the vampire slumped, relieved.

“I think you will,” Mercedes said, thinning her smile and waving fingers at the very burly man behind her—a werewolf, one of the bodyguard types in a suit, who started loosening his tie.

They really expected us to strip down, Change, and go at it right here. Ben had tensed, his fingers curling into a shadow of claws. My own jaw was stiff—I’d been baring my teeth unconsciously.

Ned waited, as always, watching to see what I would do. Maybe if it really did turn into a fight, he’d step in to stop it. Emma was looking scared. I wasn’t going to leave it to either of them to decide.

“You people really need to get over yourselves,” I muttered, shaking my head. “I’m not fighting anyone. I’m not your monkey, I’m not putting on a show for you, I don’t really care how old any of you are, and we’re leaving.”

Turning around, I marched out, past Emma, up that long aisle, past all those empty seats. Ben was right with me—in fact, he reached out to open the door and gestured me through, making the move seem suave and planned. It must have looked great from the outside. I walked through the doorway without breaking stride; he followed, and gave the door a nice little slam behind him.

I went another twenty feet into the lobby before I collected myself enough to stop, covering my face with my hands and groaning. “God almighty you’ve got to be kidding me. It’s like they’ve been playing orgy in Rome for the last thousand years.”

Ben was grinning. “That was awesome. The looks on their faces.”

“How long do you think until they burst through the doors and drag us back in there to teach us a lesson?” I said, thinking not just of the couple of dozen vampires, but the lycanthropes and anyone who happened to have a gun with silver bullets. Anyone whose sensibilities we’d damaged.

He regarded the door. “You know? I don’t think they’re coming.” Head cocked, listening, he waited another moment. “They’re talking.”

When the blood stopped rushing in my ears and I managed to calm my breathing, I could hear the voices, muted but angry. People were talking fast, speaking over each other, accusing, pleading, soothing.

Ben added, “I think they’re arguing with each other to figure out who belongs to Roman and who doesn’t.”

“The ones who called for the fight, Mercedes and the guy with the goatee. They wanted a distraction.”

“They’re Roman’s,” Ben said. “They don’t want anyone to know.”

We’d pretty much known about Mercedes already, but even the faintest scrap of information about her or any of the others made the whole confrontation worthwhile.

We stepped aside just as the door swung open and Emma came through, harried, lips pursed and upset.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry, I know that was awful, it was…” She put her hand on her forehead and looked downright human. “I’m sorry. I don’t have any influence here or I’d have tried to do … I don’t know. Something.”

“Just tell me the blood donors were volunteers. That it was consensual,” I said.

She didn’t answer, and I rolled my eyes. I wondered where the nearest Underground station was and if the trains were still running so we could get back to Mayfair without getting a ride from Ned and Emma. I wanted to move out of the town house and check into a hotel. I wanted to get out of here.

The door opened again, and the stout, careworn vampire came through. He carried a polished, carved cane, surely an affectation. A vampire wouldn’t need a cane. He was short, which surprised me—he’d given the impression of filling more space.

Emma made room for him, stepping aside and bowing her head deferentially. Ben and I stood side by side, braced, waiting. The man studied us as we studied him.

“You’ve broken up the party,” he said finally. “They’re all leaving through the stage door.”

“Can’t say I’m at all sorry,” I said. “I was having a terrible time.”

He curled the tiniest smile. “The party wasn’t for you. Ned invited you because the others wanted to have a look at you. None of them really believed your reputation could be at all deserved.”

“What reputation? The one where I’m an antiestablishment loudmouth, or the one where I can’t seem to keep out of trouble?”

“Yes,” he said, and I sagged. “It’s a very great pleasure to meet you, Ms. Norville. It’s been a long time since I’ve encountered a Regina Luporum.”

“A what?”

“Queen of the wolves,” Ben said.

“I’m not the queen of anything,” I muttered.

“You stand up for your kind when few do,” he said. He bowed slightly, bending forward at the shoulders, a gesture that managed to confer respect without detracting from his own dignity. “I am Marid, I was born in the city of Babylon, and I am two thousand, eight hundred years old. More or less.”

I could have been forgiven for falling on the floor with hysterical laughter right then. But I was stuck. “I didn’t think I could be surprised anymore.”

“Neither did I,” he said.

“It’s not that I’m skeptical or anything, but you sound so … so…” I could have said any number of words—modern, ordinary, American. But that wasn’t right. “You don’t sound like you’re over two thousand years old.”

Ned came through the front doors, looking pleased with himself. “That’s because you have to change your accent if you want to blend in, but no one ever mentions that, do they? You think actors on the stage of the Globe sounded anything like the fellows on the BBC? God, no. We’ve all adapted. Most of us, anyway.”

“Well, Ned,” Marid said amiably. “Did you get what you wanted out of this?”

The Master of London was rubbing his hands together, gleeful. “This turned out to be far more interesting than I was expecting.”

“What were you expecting?” I said, horrified.

He shrugged. “A bit of banter, a bit of posturing. Not the threat of a werewolf pit fight there on the stage.”

I turned to Ben. “Can we call a cab or something?”

Emma said, “No, we can take you back—”

Sighing, I said, “No offense, but I think I’ve had enough vampire hospitality for a while.”

Ned raised placating hands. “Please, Kitty, peace. You can’t afford to throw away allies.”

“Is that what you all are?”

“Kitty. Please stay,” Ned said. “You’ll break Emma’s heart if you go elsewhere.”

I would, too. Damn. She actually had her hands clasped together, pleading. Heaving a sigh, I turned away and paced, wolflike. I didn’t say yes, but I didn’t say no.

Marid—the man who had just told me he was alive when Babylon was the height of modern civilization—interrupted with a calm statement. “You know of Roman. You know of the Long Game.”

“Yes. I’ve faced him down twice,” I said.

He raised a brow. “And lived?”

“I had help,” I said.

“No doubt.”

“So you know about him, too,” I said.

“I’ve known about him from the beginning. There was no Long Game before Roman.”

Another piece of information landed with a thud. “Then you must know who his allies are, where he has power, how to stop him—”

“I didn’t say that,” Marid said, tilting another inscrutable smile.

I looked back and forth between the two Masters. “Do either of you know who’s with Roman and who isn’t?”

“Not all of them,” Ned said. “Some have been playing both sides against the middle for centuries. They’ll have to choose allegiances soon. Many of them don’t believe that time has come.”

“I think many of those will not take Roman’s coins in the end,” Marid said. “They’ve known their own power too long.”

“I hope you’re right, of course,” Ned said. “I’m not sure I’ll depend on that hope, however.”

They were like generals forming a battle plan. “Where do we fit into this?” I asked.

Ned said, “We, meaning you and your mate? Or all the werewolves?”

Taken aback, I had to think a moment. “I don’t know,” I said simply. Queen of the werewolves, huh? Was it too late to go home? “You were the only Master in there who didn’t have werewolf bodyguards. Why not? Do you have a relationship with the local wolves, or are you just not as cool as the other vampires?”

“Please,” he said, an attempt to brush me off. But there was a status thing involved. He hadn’t tried to present Ben and me as belonging to him.

“Does London even have an alpha wolf?”

“Yes. I’ll introduce you to him soon.”

“I may just go looking for him myself.”

“Kitty,” Ned said, hands flattened in a placating gesture. “Don’t interfere in situations you don’t fully understand—”

“Did you even try to stop that bloodbath in there?” I pointed at the door. “Or did you join in? And you want me to trust you?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but Marid got there first. “You should understand, this—this is playacting. Harmless, in our eyes. In the old days—” He smiled wistfully, shaking his head. “We built temples to ourselves, bought slaves by the wagonload—don’t look at me like that, Ms. Norville. Don’t judge. If you’d lived in those times you’d have felt the same. We slaughtered them in worship to our gods. We never worried about how we would feed ourselves, or how we would dispose of the bodies. Some of my colleagues would go back to those days, if they could. I think those are the ones most likely to follow Roman.”

“Do you know—is Roman here, in London, for the conference?” I asked.

“No, I don’t believe he is. Only his servants.”

“No chance to go after him directly then.”

“Only his servants,” Marid repeated.

Ned said, “I should remind you that I’ve declared London neutral territory for the duration of the conference. For either side to make an offensive would invite retribution.”

“We’ll see how long your truce lasts, Ned. We’ll talk further on this.” Marid tipped an invisible hat to the London Master and went to the front door, and out.

Ned drew a breath and sighed.

“If I get a chance to hurt Roman, I’ll take it,” I said.

“I suppose you will. Marid’s right, I suppose hoping a truce will last is wishful thinking. But I have to admit, I rather like wishful thinking. It doesn’t do to let the imagination stagnate.”

TOGETHER, EMMA and Ned talked me off the ceiling and convinced us to stay at the town house. They persuaded me we’d be safer there, especially now that Mercedes and her allies had seen me. I thought I’d been coming to London for a conference. I had hoped all my battles this week would be verbal and academic. Wishful thinking, indeed.

In our luxurious borrowed room, Ben and I curled up in bed, naked, holding each other. I pulled all the covers up to cocoon us, making us too warm, but the heat was comforting, and Ben didn’t complain. Just played with my hair and breathed against my scalp. I rambled.

“I just keep thinking of how much worse it could have been,” I said. “They had slaves, bodies, and blood, like it was all a big party, like it was normal. Like I shouldn’t complain because it used to be so much worse. Like I’m supposed to be happy that they didn’t go so far as to kill anyone. Am I deluded? Is this the way the world really is and I shouldn’t even fight it?”

Ben said, “You’re an idealist. And that’s okay. The world needs idealists to keep the rest of us out of the gutter.”

I tilted my head to look up at him in the darkness, the slope of his cheek and flop of brown hair over his ear. “Really? Or are you just trying to make me feel better?”

“Of course I’m trying to make you feel better.” He squeezed, settling me more firmly in his arms. “Is it working?”

“Hmm.”

“Was that yes?”

I had to think about it for a minute. If I focused on the moment, yes, it was working. But my mind kept drifting back to images I would never be able to erase from my memory. Right, then, time to stop that. At the moment, in the whole world, there was only me and Ben.

“Yes,” I said finally, and kissed him.