Page 114 of Red Rooster

26

Buffalo, New York

“You’re a lucky girl. Not just anybody can say they had a Russian prince over for dinner,” Lanny said as he dropped down beside Trina on the top step of her parents’ back deck.

She rolled her eyes and took another sip of her vodka tonic. “It’s tsarevich, dummy.”

He elbowed her. She couldfeelhis smile, the way it took up physical space. Her dad had busted out the good scotch and Lanny had had enough to put down three men; he was only pleasantly buzzed, loose and relaxed in a way he hadn’t been in a long time – even since before the craziness had started. He’d been living with his diagnosis – wallowing in misery – for a long time now, she realized. It saddened her.

“Don’t get all technical on me,” he said, a laugh threaded through his voice. “He’s an asshole. End of story.”

“Hmm. And yet you seem weirdly fixated on him.”

He made an affronted noise. “He turned me into a…” He gestured toward himself.

“Can you not say ‘vampire’?”

“It’s a stupid word.”

“I think you just insulted yourself there, champ.”

He grimaced. “I just mean…”

“Yeah, I know.”

It was a beautiful late summer night, just cool enough for her to be grateful for her light jacket, the crickets and tree frogs hosting a pastoral symphony across the moon-silvered fields. Trina stared out across the shadowy vista and took a deep breath of country air, resolutely pushing aside the worry that it might be the last chance she had to do so for a while.

Lanny wasn’t one for quiet, though. Never had been. Trina suspected it was because he had so many siblings; he’d never learned how to enjoy silence.

He said, “This just doesn’t seem likeyouto me.”

She glanced over with surprise. “What doesn’t?”

He shrugged, gaze fixed on the purple horizon. “Out here in the country. Being a farm girl and all.”

“It’s not a farm.”

“Look at all that acreage.”

“We don’t have animals.”

“Tell me somebody here doesn’t have a tractor and I’ll buy that it’s not a farm.”

She made a face, and he laughed.

“I don’t look like I could be a farmer?” she asked, only half-joking. A part of her – before they found Nikita, before Lanny’s cancer confession and subsequent turning – she’d entertained fantasies of finally telling him how she felt. Of them transferring to a local sheriff’s department and building a little house on the family compound. Wildflower summers and downhill sledding winters.

But that was part of a fantasy that asked too much of Lanny. That assumed all the obstacles could be overcome.

And that was before she’d known that the obstacles involved his need to drink blood.

As if he sensed her eyes on him, his slid over, narrowing. “Nah, it’s just – you like having a cause, you know? Something good to do. At work, in the city, you stand out. You’ve got this walk, you know? Like you’re a badass and you don’t care who knows it.” He grinned a moment, sly enough to make her stomach leap. But then it faded. “Here, though…you fade.”

“Ifade?” She tried to disguise the flare of hurt in her voice. Tried. “Damn, you’re a sweet talker.”

“No. I mean–”

“I’m invisible.”