Whiteout (Aurora Sky (26 page)

Dante pulled the bill of his cap down. “Wait here just in case. I'll be right back.”

“Hey. Keys,” I said when Dante
pulled them out of the ignition. I wasn't going to freeze my ass off waiting for him.

He grinned and stuck the keys back in the ignition.

“And no fishnets
!
” I called after him.

The door slammed behind him and I sighed, stretching my legs out. If our plan w
orked, I wouldn't have to spend my life inside this truck much longer. The first thing I'd do when we got back to Anchorage
was
find Fane. Well, actually, I'd need to find Noel first—walk into West High in disguise. There's no way Fane would lose contact w
ith Noel. She was the
closest
link to me and anything the agency had up their sleeves.

Hopefully his relief at seeing me would trump the anger he
must
feel at being left
behind. I would never leave Fane
like that again. It was time to put the past behind u
s and move forward into the future… together.

It wasn't long before Dante returned
,
carrying a large plastic sack. He tossed it onto the middle seat and got in. “Jackpot,” he said. “They've got everything in there.”

I dug through the bag, my eyes catching
on sleek, shiny, black material.

I held up a pair of vinyl short shorts. “What the hell is this?”

Dante grabbed the bag and reached inside. “Before you say anything, let me point out those are shorts, not a skirt.” Then he pulled out black tights and comba
t boots. “And these are lace stockings, not fishnets. And look at the boots. No heels.” He held a boot in front of my face.

My eyes narrowed. The
up-close
view wasn't helping.

He set the boots on the floor of the truck beside my feet.

“Wait, there's more.
”

There was more? Great.

He pulled out a long, royal blue wig. I took the wig from him and stared at the mop of bright cobalt strands.

Never mind
blond
—
I was going blue.

He dug through the bag and wrapped his fingers around something I couldn't see.

“Check this out,” Dante said, opening his fingers. Before I had a chance to look inside his palm, he lifted a fake mustache to his face and held it under his nose.

I snorted. Oh yeah, that was suave. Dante would blend in no problem, unlike me with cotton
-
c
andy
-
colored hair.

Dante smoothed on his fake mustache and put on a pair of aviator sunglasses. He leaned against the steering wheel and smiled at me. “Ready. Set. Go.”

“Maybe you are,” I said. “But where am I supposed to change?”

“In the truck,” Dante sa
id as though that should have been obvious.

After some
quick deliberation, I sighed, pulled out my gun, and stuffed it inside the glove box before loosening my belt holster.

“Good thinking,” Dante said, pulling out his own gun. “They won't allow weapons i
n the club.” He stuffed his gun beneath his seat.

Once free of the belt, I
unzipped my jeans. I paused to look around the parking lot and, seeing that the coast was clear, tugged my jeans down my thighs.

“Mind turning up the heat?” I asked.

Dante's hand sh
ot forward. The air vents blasted at full speed when he gave the knob a quick twist.

“… and looking away,” I added.

“It's dark out and I've got sunglasses on,” Dante said. “I'm practically blind.” He leaned back against his door, aviators pointed my way.

I
didn't care enough to repeat myself. We'd already kissed and slept in the same bed. As long as he didn't make a move, he could watch if he wanted. He was annoying, but he was also comfortable—like an old sock. And I wasn't stripping entirely.

To get the l
ace stockings on, I had to lie on my back and lift my legs in the air. The vinyl shorts took some tugging.

“Enjoying the show?” I asked when I noticed the smile on Dante's lips.

Practically blind my ass.

Once changed, I pulled on the blue wig, making sure
to tuck every strand of black hair inside. I smoothed the blue hair over my shoulders and turned to Dante.

“How do I look?”

The mustache lifted with his lips. “Like a sexy Smurf.”

I rolled my eyes. “As long as I don't look like me.”

“What about me?” Dante
asked, leaning into the rearview mirror for a look at himself.

Bush pilot definitely fit him. That didn't stop me from teasing. “I think you should have gone
goth
and I should have gone in as Amelia Earhart.”

Dante put the car in drive. “We're after vamps,
remember? Not locals out to hook up.”

I tried to tug the shorts down my legs a bit, but they weren't going anywhere. The things were molded to my thighs.

At least Chillers gave us a distraction from Tommy. But after this, I wanted to go after the big fish
. No more dipping into small ponds. If we ever hoped to live in the open, we needed to deal with Melcher. I wasn't going to wear a wig forever. Nor was I going to spend my life hiding.

 

 

 14

Chillers

 

Dante turned the radio on. I hardly noticed him singing along, as I was too buried in thought, plotting Melcher's demise.

A little while later Dante stopped singing. “Here we are,” he said.

I jumped. I'd been so deep in the zone, I hadn't noticed the drive across town.

Outside the windshield, I saw
an ugly concrete building at the end of a parking lot.

“It looks like a warehouse.”

Dante pulled into a spot near the entrance. “It's a lot nicer inside,” he said.

I held back a snort. “I'm sure it's the epitome of refinement.
How do we bag ourselves a vam
p?” I wondered aloud. “We just go in and hang out until the right candidate approaches us?”

My heart picked up speed. Socializing. Now there was something to get nervous about. Striking up conversations with strangers.

Rather than answer, Dante got out of
the truck. Eager beaver. I slid out, cold air prickling my arms and legs when I left the warmth of the cab.

Dante stepped in front of me and brushed the blue hair over my shoulder, out of the way. He scrutinized my neck.
“Keep your hair back so the vamps s
ee you've been bitten. We need to show them you're aware of their existence. That you're open to their advances.”

I touched the spot on my neck that Arlo had bitten and grimaced.

As we walked across the parking lot, I wrapped my arms around my chest.
I shi
vered with each step, the cold piercing my legs. It seeped into every tiny hole in the lace stockings.

Big neon blue letters spelled out CHILLERS over the entrance to the club. A
large
dude dressed in black shined a flashlight over our faces and said, “Ten
dollars.” Once Dante forked over the cash, he nodded for us to enter without asking for IDs. It was so quick I didn't have time to stress.

“Okay, we're in,” Dante whispered by my ear. “Time to split up.”

Before I could respond, he disappeared into the cro
wd. The place was so packed, people were milling around the entrance in tight clusters.

Well, I wasn't standing around the open door with the cold air wafting in.

From outside, the club had looked like one big warehouse. Inside, it was broken up into rooms
. A wall separated the space into two smaller room
s
beyond the entrance. I joined the flow of body traffic moving along the left side. It was like a slow current taking me past a long counter lined with stools on one side and booths on the other.

Young
clu
bgoers
drank from cans of Coke, Fanta, and Mountain Dew. Clothing was extremely casual—mostly jeans on both men and women. Some of the women dressed it up with snazzy halter tops, but many more wore
T
-shirts. As I passed a brunette wearing a black
-
and
-
whit
e MEOW tee, she emptied a mini bottle of vodka into her glass of soda.

Gotta love the youth of America. We didn't need a number to tell us when we could drink.

People were dancing in an area where the room opened up ahead. There was a stage above it with s
peakers set up at the sides, and more tables and booths flanked the dance space.

After nearly a month on the run, the pounding music, strobe lights, and sweating bodies were a shock to my system. My head pounded. This wasn't my scene. It had never been my
scene.

“Teal?” a guy asked from behind me. “Is that you?” He touched my shoulder. I spun around and his eyebrows lowered. “Sorry, I thought you were someone else.”

I nearly rolled my eyes. Great pick-up line. Real original. I couldn't wait to hear the next
one. The guy surprised me by moving on.

Okay, he really had
mistaken
me for someone else. Let me guess, this Teal person had blue hair.

Standing alone felt like standing out. There were girls dancing alone around the stage, and I squeezed through the crowd until I was surrounded on all sides by twisting bodies. I moved with the music. I felt safe here. Anonymous. The music played loud, and
it pulsed and throbbed through my body, putting me into a trance.

A stocky guy in a
T
-shirt and baseball cap swayed to the music. There weren't many guys on the dance floor
,
and he was the only one dancing solo. He moved around groups of girls as though
attracted to their body heat.

As he closed in on a girl in a pink sequin halter top, she moved away. Undeterred, he next tried her friend. She too moved to the side. The lone dancer reminded me of an insect trying to attach himself to the first unsuspecti
ng female. This particular insect didn't bother with one
-
liners. He didn't bother with conversation, period.

A smile played over my lips at his failed attempts until he swayed in my direction.

Before I had time to flit away, he was dry humping
me from beh
ind
, his hands clamped over my hips.

Oh hell no!

No hesitation. Wow. Even if he had useful information to share, which I highly doubted, it wasn't worth grinding to get it out of him.

I twisted around and shoved him in the chest. “Buzz off.”

He regained h
is footing and swayed with the music as though he hadn't just been rebuffed. He'd never even looked me in the eyes.

I pushed my way through the dancers. Way to ruin my solo dance number, fly
boy.

I walked over to the nearest pillar, stopping beside it, an
d twisted my wrist.

“You look like you could use a drink,” a raspy male voice said.

To my right, a young man in jeans and a tan jacket smiled at me. From his voice, I'd expected someone older and more rugged, but he was clean shaven with silky hair and
loo
ked
to be in his early twenties. He didn't show teeth when he grinned, but the way his eyes locked onto my neck wound screamed vampire. It was more than a fleeting glance. His irises brightened the longer he looked.

He was right about one thing. I could us
e a drink. A thick red one fresh from the vein. But blood never seemed to be on the table, unless it was a male vamp wanting it.

I really needed to do more biting
,
if only for the sake of women's lib. Lady vamps shouldn't put
up
with inequality any more th
an humans.

The vamp, if I was correct in that assumption, sidled up to me. Once standing a foot apart,
he
opened his coat and pulled a flask halfway out of an interior pocket.

“If you want a little kick in your cola, I've got it right here. May I offer you
something?” he asked, addressing my neck.

I turned to my other side, obstructing his view of my neck wound. “What about you? Are you drinking?”

The vamp's eyes shown in the strobe lights that began cartwheeling across the dance floor
in a flurry of fragme
nted light
. “That depends. Are you offering?”

Was I offering? Let's see. Sure. Why not? This was the plan, wasn't it? Lure a vamp out of the club and abduct him. How was that for a poetic twist?

Although killing wasn't the plan, I kinda wanted to stab thi
s vamp. One less creeper in the world.

“What's your name?” I asked.

“Zack.”

Darn. Not Jab.

Zack. Jab. Did it really matter? They were all the same. Predators.

“How about I get you a drink first?” Zack suggested, still showing no teeth when he smiled.

O
ver
his shoulder, I noticed the grinder guy
had attached himself to a curvy brunette, humping her from behind.

Any second she'd break away. I watched obsessively, but he kept right on grinding. She moved forward and he moved with her. A group of women, rockin
g to the tempo, gave them extra room to carry on. It appeared the fly had succeeded.

I turned my attention back to my own pest problem.

I am the spider
, I reminded myself.
And he is the insect.

“How about we find a nice private corner and you suck my blood
already?” I suggested, cutting to the chase.

Zack grinned, and this time he showed teeth. He had at least two up top that were filed to points.

“Straight to business,” he said. “I dig it. Follow me.”

He pushed away from the pillar and walked along the ser
vice counter, leading the way.

Dante sat at the far end of the bar, aviator sunglasses still over his eyes. He turned to take a look at Zack as he passed. Once Zack cleared Dante, he aimed his aviators at me and mouthed, “Jab?”

Once he saw the shake of my
head, Dante lifted a bottle of root beer to his lips. His faux mustache touched the rim as he tilted the bottle back.

“My friends and I have a corner booth. No one disturbs us.”

Friends. My ears perked up.

“There are more of you here?”

Zack grinned, showin
g his teeth again. “Yeah, want to meet them?”

“Sure.”

“What's your name?”

“Anna.”

Zack led me to a corner booth. Even the strobe lights didn't reach the shadowy vinyl bench between the dank wall and table.

Three guys and a young
blond
woman maybe a couple
years older than me sat in the shadows.
She-vamp or suck toy?
I wondered, glancing at the
blond
. She had fierce blue eyes and wore a short-sleeved black dress that looked more like funeral attire than nightclub. Her hair was layered and long enough to cover her neck. While the guys shot me a fleeting glance, the
blond
gave me a hard stare that took
in ever
ything, including the bite mark
on my neck. First guess: vampire.