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Chapter One Hundred Seven

LUNA

Orlando wants to know if I seriously went through the donor door, and I guess I seriously did. Everyone else seems to have a silky scarf like mine, like a particular kind of bandana in the wrong neighborhood. That must be why I was ushered through that particular entrance.

I should go back, because the front of this line isn’t somewhere I want to be.

They’re not going to ask me to donate a bag of old shoes, that’s for sure.

This is Charles Bourbon’s club, and there’s only one thing a human can donate to a vampire.

So what I’m still doing in the donor line—if Orlando Lugano must know—is engaging in thoughtlessly risky behavior.

Falling behind the woman in white, I return his text.

—I can’t go back. I’ll find a way

out and meet you inside

Your message was not delivered.

Try again?

Tapping Try Again gets me the same answer.

Okay, well, I’ll keep going until the signal improves. It’s not as if I have a choice. Going all the way back means sitting on that line while Carmine engages in his own risky behavior.

I want the knife.

I will get the knife.

The ramp ends in a tunnel of live flowers where the couple ahead of me is greeted by one of two beautiful people in stark white overalls with iPads. From both their emotional shapes, they seem pleasant enough—until I notice they have a pattern in common and I’ve seen it before.

They’re in thrall.

“Have you signed our waiver?” the white-overall woman with a hot pink pixie cut asks. Her lipstick matches her hair.

“I actually have to leave.”

“Sure. You go out that way?—”

“Will I have to wait on the big line?”

“I’m afraid so.” Pixie smiles wanly and looks over my shoulder at the next person.

This is going to delay everything. Orlando knows where I am. He’ll find me or I’ll find a way out of the donor line.

“Fine!” I take the iPad. I read everything I sign, so I read fast, knowing I’m not going through with this. I’m just trying to get in past the point where they’ll have to send me out the front door. I sign it, then hand it back, convinced it can’t be legally binding.

What are they going to do, take me to court?

Smiling, Pixie leads me to yet another, wider hall and slides open a pocket door marked #6. It leads to a narrow passage lined with two-way mirrors on each side, creating an infinity effect. “Step up here.”

I do it. The floor has a texture like an emery board. She slides the pocket door closed.

“ Turn to the red line on the floor, please ,” a soothing, disembodied voice comes from everywhere.

Engineered to obey voices from school loudspeakers, department store ceilings, and police cruisers, I put my toes to the red tape on the floor.

Gently, in a way that doesn’t throw my balance, the floor moves along the length of the mirror, like a treadmill.

My cheeks and legs can feel the prickly valence of hard attention through the mirror.

This isn’t just a fun passage to the next adventure. I am part of a catalog. I am being shopped to see what I’m worth for a good suck-and-fuck.

Not good. This is wholly and completely not good.

“You are safe. You are special. You will be treasured.” The voice is butter smooth, and doing more than reciting trite exhortations. It’s putting me under a glamour.

The floor stops moving.

The attention gets stronger. Can I move it, shift it, the way I moved Carmine through the water?

I cannot. Maybe I’m too nervous and unsure. Maybe I need to know where I’m sending it. Maybe I should learn about my power before I assume it’ll get me out of trouble.

This is taking too long. The glamour is a heavy pressure on my body and mind. I can resist it without too much trouble, but why do they think they have to lay it on this thick?

I need to bail now.

The ceiling camera is a baleful half-globe of an eye.

“Hey, I think I should go home.”

“ Face the mirror please ,” the everywhere voice says in a sterner tone.

Deep breath. I just have to get through this hall, then I bail.