I tried to swallow, but the inside of my mouth was suddenly dry enough to be a fire hazard. “You—you want me to move out,” I managed to say.

She nodded reluctantly. “Not, like, today or anything. But as soon as you catch this guy, I’d like you to start looking for another place to live.”

I nodded, unable to stop the rush of tears that spilled down onto my cheeks. I couldn’t even blame her. I had put her life in danger; kicking me out was completely fair. If anything, it was surprising that she hadn’t done it the first time, when Olivia had broken in.

But in that moment I realized that as much as I had tried to hold myself back, to keep a distance, I thought of Molly as my friend. Vampire or not, spy or not, justified or not . . . it hurts when your friend doesn’t want you around.

Molly, unaccustomed to genuine emotion, looked distressed by my tears. She stood up and patted me awkwardly on the shoulder. “Uh . . . I’m gonna go out for a while. We can talk more later.”

She speed-walked out the back door. A moment later, Jesse finished his call and came into the room.

“What was that about—” he began, then saw my face. I was trying to get my tears under control but not having a whole bunch of success. “Oh, hey . . . what happened?”

“Can you—” I pointed at the roll of paper towels on the counter, and he went to retrieve it for me.

“She wants me to move out,” I said shakily, blowing my nose on a paper towel. I have never pretended to be a pretty crier.

“What? Why?”

Oops. I still didn’t want to tell him about Anastasia. Things were delicate enough between us. So I just said, “Too dangerous.”

Jesse ripped another paper towel off the roll and handed it to me. I nodded in thanks. “Well, I can’t really blame her,” he said frankly. I looked up from the paper towel to gape at him. “Come on, Scarlett. You know as well as I do that all this wasn’t what she signed on for.”

I flinched. With an effort, I met his eyes, my voice hardening. “Are we still talking about Molly?”

He looked away. A minute of awkward silence ticked by, and then Jesse stood up. “I can finish these calls by myself,” he announced.

Something had shifted between us. I could actually see his body language changing to professional detachment. “Why don’t you take the rest of the night off, get some rest,” he added. “We’ll start early tomorrow.”

“Good idea,” I said flatly.

Chapter 38

After Jesse left, I got my cane, swung my leg down carefully, and made my way toward the living room, collecting my cell phone as I passed the counter.

I got myself settled on the couch. Screw going back up those stairs, I was too tired. I held up my phone and realized that I’d missed a text from Dashiell. He had found the Luparii in France, but they weren’t responding to his requests for negotiation, and there wasn’t time for him to push it any farther. It was a dead end. And Will and Kirsten hadn’t contacted me, so I was assuming they were coming up dry too. There was no way to call off the scout.

Not knowing what else to do, I tried calling Eli again. This time the phone went straight to voicemail, so either his battery had died or he’d switched his phone off. Frustrated, I ended the call and dialed Hair of the Dog. The bartender transferred me to Will.

“Have you heard from Eli?” I said loudly. The back room was a lot quieter than the main bar area, but it still wasn’t actually quiet.

“Huh?” Will said distractedly. “Sorry, what?”

I repeated the question. “Oh.” Now Will sounded . . . reluctant. “Um, I’m sorry, Scarlett, but he checked out of the motel, and I don’t think he’s been back to his place. I think he left town.”

Oh.

I fought back tears. I did not want to cry again, goddammit. I had already cried too much this week. This year. And it wasn’t like Eli and I had been going steady. I’d saved him after he killed someone; he’d saved me after I killed someone. Maybe he just figured we were even now. And the night we’d spent together . . . that must have been good-bye.

Could I really blame him?

I leaned back on the couch, staring at the ceiling. Sometimes you are just so completely screwed that you almost have to admire it. Eli had left town right after sleeping with me which, aside from being humiliating and sad, also meant that Lydia was demanding something I couldn’t produce. The nova was going to attack a bunch of people tomorrow night, and the Luparii scout was going to go after the werewolf pack if he couldn’t find the nova, which we hadn’t been able to do even with knowledge of the city and a week’s lead time. Jesse and I were . . . complicated. Molly was evicting me on justifiable grounds.

The steady thrum of pain from my leg suddenly intensified, as if to remind me it existed. “Yes, thank you,” I told my leg. I had almost forgotten to catalogue my messed-up knee. Fantastic. I honestly didn’t know what to be most upset about. I leaned back on the couch pillow, feeling trapped and frustrated.

I wish I could say I tapped into reserves of inner strength and struck upon a plan to fix everything, but that’s not really my style. Instead, I laid there for a good long while, alternately pouting and feeling sorry for myself. I wasn’t even twenty-four, dammit! Most of the people I knew from high school were currently being supported by their parents while they figured out what to do with their useless but enjoyably obtained liberal arts degrees. I shouldn’t have to deal with all of this! It wasn’t fair.