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The night left a layer of grime on my skin I’d never be able to wash away. I headed back to the lobby of the Alta Vista in the closest thing to a walk of shame I’d ever known. I usually didn’t do things I regretted.
When I did, they all had to do with Rainey. Yet she waited for me in the lobby, her legs curled underneath her as she lost herself in some story on her ereader. She loved to read. It helped her stay out of other people’s heads.
“How did it go?” She looked up and smiled wearily, not noticing I returned until I sat next to her on the couch. The sun would rise in less than an hour, and that meant that the Alta Vista had slowed to a ghost town. I felt tiny in the huge room with just her and a lonely concierge.
“I’m sorry I acted the way I did earlier tonight.” I folded my hands tightly in my lap, unable to look at her as I asked for forgiveness. “I let things get out of control fast.”
“Hey, I get it. I have a thing for redheads, too.” Rainey laughed at her own joke, but she sobered when she saw my face. “Did anything bad happen? You don’t look okay.”
I wanted her to fight for me, not with her fists or anything stupid like that, but it hurt that she could so easily laugh off what happened with Amanda. Okay, I got the memo. She didn’t feel that way about me anymore.
“I talked to Lennon. She’s in denial about a lot of what happened.”
“I don’t blame her, based on what we saw in that apartment.” That felt like it happened a lifetime ago. Rainey put her ereader in her bag and dug her keys out before standing. “Did she have any information for you?”
“Not anything I wanted to hear. Rachel’s working with Soul Divider.”
Why did everything in my life have to involve Noah? It was bad enough that I had to confront this vampire who robbed me of my powers, but to do it I had to deal with the creature that robbed me of everything else.
We walked in silence back to the parking garage.
“Cirque Macabre is closed. You don’t need to be the Fire Dancer anymore,” Rainey said. She hadn’t started the car yet. She waited until it was safe, just us, to tell me what she thought. “The fire caused a lot of problems. I know it made you feel special, but remember all the things that were harder for you because you had it.”
“Rachel shouldn’t be able to take it like it’s hers.” The fire belonged to me. Callie may have figured out how to use it, but it was still mine. Rainey drove by Circus Circus on purpose. She could have taken the back way, but there was no traffic on the Strip at this hour. Across the street, the Riviera sign proudly boasted the all new Soul Divider show. It all grow smaller in the side view mirror.
“It’s not like she can use it,” Rainey countered. “I want you to think about this. You have the chance, for the first time ever, to dictate your own future. Lucille’s not telling you what to do and neither is Cash.”
“Yeah. Now you are.”
“No, I’m not. You could never see things from the inside.” Rainey reached over and put her hand on my leg. I jumped, I hadn’t expected it, and it just confused things more.
“Things didn’t go any further tonight than what you saw, with Amanda. Or Tristan. Nothing happened.”
“Why are you telling me that?”
“Because I don’t know where we stand. You saved my life, but you’re pushing me away. You’re telling me not to bother trying to put my life back together, but that’s exactly what I have to do. Everything I know is gone.”
Rainey pulled into the parking lot of her apartment complex. She’d been sleeping on the couch while I healed, and had given me her bed. I followed her into the apartment, not sure where to go. I didn’t deserve to be in her bed tonight, she didn’t need to take care of me anymore. And she certainly didn’t want to join me in it.
Once inside, she collapsed on the couch, exhaustion setting in, and kicked off her shoes with a sigh. Her head fell back, curls crushed against the cushion, and she rubbed her face hard. In the thick of my mission, I totally forgot she had to go to work in a couple hours.
“I can’t protect you from the vampires. But I can protect myself. I love you, Holly. I always will. I’ll do whatever I can to help you, but I think I’ve made myself pretty clear. That’s not the life I want.”
She was giving me an ultimatum. Her or them. I didn’t want the vampires in my life either, I just wanted to take back what was mine. But Rainey saw it as one in the same.
It should have been an easy decision, but instead I lay awake in her bed as the sun crept through the slats of the vertical blinds, figuring out a way to make it all work without destroying everything.