“No.”
“But you are.”
Raven’s eyes told me everything I needed to go, and I bit my lip so hard that it threatened to break open and start bleeding. Remembering who I was standing with, I stopped before I tasted blood. I didn’t need to tempt my friend.
“Please,” I said. “You have to tell me what happened.”
“I don’t have to tell you anything,” she said. “Goodbye, Kim.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, and she looked different than she usually did. She wasn’t looking playful anymore. She didn’t look calm or happy or content. She looked angry, and she looked tired.
She was exhausted, I realized, and she was worn out from carrying this secret. Well, either that, or she was worn out because she hadn’t been eating enough. I didn’t exactly want to be her dinner. I loved her so much, but not that much.
“Yeah,” I whispered.
Then I turned, and I walked the rest of the way back to my apartment.
I WOKE UP STILL WEARING my clothes from the bar, and despite being alone, I had s
omething to keep me company: the worst hangover I’d ever had in my life. I wasn’t sure what had gotten into me or why I’d chosen to drink so much. At the time, it had seemed like the right choice. It had felt good to drink a lot and to get a little wild and crazy.
I needed to let go of more of the garbage from my life. Throwing caution to the wind had been exactly what I needed to do that. Only now, I was nursing the world’s most horrible headache, and that was just the thing I needed to combine with my aching heart.
Raven.
They’d gotten Raven.
I didn’t know how or why or when it had happened. I didn’t know why I hadn’t noticed. Something like your best friend losing her humanity was something you’d usually pay attention to, yet I hadn’t.
Why the hell not?
I knew the answer. I’d been obsessed with my boyfriend. The two of us had been inseparable for over a year. Then he’d suddenly become entirely too “busy” for me, and as it turned out, busy had a name: Amy.
I stood up and started pacing in my room, ignoring the way my head felt like it was on fire. I really needed to learn how to control my drinking. That was another thing Hank had always complained about. He thought I was to wild. Would he be happier with Amy?
I would like to think that I held no ill-will toward either of them, but losing Hank had been like a slap in the face. The truth was that I’d probably lost him long ago, just as I’d lost Raven. As with her, I hadn’t even noticed him slipping away until it was too late for me to do anything about it.
“Well,” I looked down at my cat, who was currently rubbing his body around my legs. “I guess that’s that, huh Victor?”
Victor only meowed.
I picked him up and kissed the top of his head. Then I carried him into the kitchen, opened a can of wet cat food, and set it down on the floor. Victor quickly slid out of my arms and started eating, acting like he hadn’t seen food before.
“Come on,” I muttered, watching him. That cat ate more than any other cat I knew. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to have to put him on a diet. Turning away from the world’s best companion, I grabbed a glass, filled it with water right from the tap, and started drinking.
So, this was it.
I was a hunter without a partner.
I was a hunter without a best friend.
The only creature I had was Victor, and he wasn’t exactly fierce and mighty. The only thing I had left to go after was the vampire. I’d learned, through years of hunting and talking and bribing people, that the Vampire of Garnetia was, in fact, the one who had had my friends killed that night all that time ago. Even though I’d suspected it while being attacked in the Grove, I’d double and triple-checked to make sure that my suspicions were right. While his lackey had me pinned beneath his steel-toed boot, the vampire had been sneakily working behind the scenes to make sure I never smiled again.
Well, fuck that guy.
I was going to smile.
I was going to get my happiness back no matter what it cost.