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Pulling shit like that was another not-so-subtle fuck you.

A lot of the freaks who chose a career with the racial authorities were racists down to the bone. They loved to toss digs like that at non-humans. It probably gave them a chubby, since they did it to Nick whenever circumstances offered the slightest chance.

The fact that Nick was famous likely only goaded that impulse more.

He barely grunted when the limousine driver politely shut the door behind him and walked around to the driver’s-side door. She settled herself in front, then smiled at him in a friendly way through the connecting window.

“There’s blood in the refrigerator, if you’re hungry,” she said cheerfully.

Nick didn’t answer.

Still, he knew he’d probably eat.

He hadn’t eaten in almost seventy-two hours. They’d held him for two days, and the last blood he’d had was Wynter’s, and that was well before they’d made it to the area of the portal. More to the point, he wasn’t about to leave himself vulnerable right now. A hungry vampire was a weak vampire. Maybe worse, a hungry vampire was a vampire that lacked self-control.

Still, he didn’t grab for the fridge handle right way.

Maybe that was pride.

Maybe it was stupidity.

Maybe it was something else entirely.

He glanced around the back of the car. His eyes took in images flickering on news reels, each one playing on a different semi-organic screen. Those screens covered the insides of all the windows, with each window showing a different channel.

It all felt both alien and disturbingly familiar.

He knew which one St. Maarten meant it to be.

She meant for him to feel at home, to be reminded of the normality of his life here.

But it didn’t feel normal to him now.

It didn’t feel like home, either.

He watched a news program about violence increasing in the New York Protected Area, mostly due to the political radicalization of organized crime. Nick stared blankly at images of dead humans with their throats ripped out, while a serious newscaster talked about how several prominent politicians had been pounding their fists about the need to crack down on the vampire underworld. Nick knew that meant the White Death.

He wondered if there was any truth to it, or if it was more grandstanding.

He barely noticed when, about twenty minutes later through heavy traffic, they turned onto a road he’d once been reasonably familiar with, but hadn’t visited in a long time.

By then, he’d drunk through the entirety of two blood bags he’d found in the small fridge. He’d stopped at two, but found himself eyeing the third, now considering drinking down that one, as well. In the end, he reached for the bag with a grumble and tore off the seal.

He drank it down rapidly, but barely tasted it.

Briefly, their location distracted him.

The familiar street led into the Dorsal Community.

It was the richest, most exclusive block of the swath of New York City known as the River of Gold––a sea of thin, dizzyingly tall skyscrapers that lined Central Park West. Those skyscrapers housed the richest residents of Manhattan proper.

The tallest among those was Phoenix Tower, where Lara St. Maarten lived, at least when she was staying in Manhattan.

Nick watched it grow closer through the virtual windshield, his eyes on the flaming bird on the side of the building, and that sick feeling in his gut worsened.

He knew what St. Maarten wanted.

He knew, and it felt like death.