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Lash smiled. “You got something to say to me? No? Wait, you still have no voice? God…what a bummer.”

John could feel Qhuinn gearing up for a lunge, the heat and the impulse rolling off his friend. To stop the collision from happening, John reached behind and put a hand on his buddy’s abs to keep him in place.

If anyone was going after Lash, it was John.

Lash laughed and tightened the belt on his ji. “Don’t front like you have game, John-boy. The transition doesn’t change you on the inside or fix your physical defects. Right, Qhuinn?” As he turned away, he said under his breath, “Mismatched motherfucker.”

Before Qhuinn could jump the guy, John wheeled around and grabbed him around the waist just as Blay locked onto one of the guy’s arms. Even with their combined weight, it was like keeping back a bull.

“Chill,” Blay grunted. “Just relax.”

“I’m going to kill him one of these days,” Qhuinn hissed. “I swear to God.”

John glanced over as Lash sauntered into the gym. Taking a vow to himself, he marked the guy for a beating, even if it got him kicked out of the program for good.

He’d always felt that if you fucked with his friends, you were going to get served. End of story.

Thing was, now he had the equipment to deliver the job.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Around midnight Jane found herself in the back of a black Mercedes on her way home. Up front, on the other side of the partition that was in place, the uniformed driver was that butler who was older than God and as cheerful as a terrier. Beside her V was dressed in black leather, as silent and grim as a tombstone.

He hadn’t said much. But he wouldn’t let go of her hand.

The car’s windows were darkened to such a degree she felt like she was in a tunnel, and in an effort to ground herself she hit a button on the door next to her. As her slice of glass went down, a shocking rush of cold pushed inside and replaced the warmth, a bully scattering the good kids at a playground.

She stuck her head out into the breeze and looked at the pool of illumination thrown by the headlights. The landscape was blurry, like a photograph out of focus. Although by the downward angle of the road she knew they were coming off a mountain. Thing was, she couldn’t get any sense of where they were headed or where they had been.

In a weird way the disorientation was appropriate. This was the interlude between the world she’d been in and the one she was returning to, and stretches of neither here nor there should be hazy.

“I can’t see where we are,” she murmured as she put the window back up.

“It’s called mhis,” V said. “Think of it as a protective illusion.”

“A trick of yours?”

“Yeah. Mind if I light up, as long as I let in some fresh air?”

“That’s fine.” It wasn’t like she was going to be around him for much longer.

Crap.

V gave her hand a squeeze, then put his window down a quarter of an inch, the soft drone of wind flaring up over the quiet hum of the sedan. His leather jacket creaked as he took out a hand-rolled and a gold lighter. The flint made a little rasp, and then the faint smell of Turkish tobacco made her nose tingle.

“That smell is so going to—” She stopped.

“What?”

“I was going to say, ‘remind me of you.’ But it won’t, will it?”

“Maybe in a dream.”

She put her fingertips on her window. The glass was cold. Just like the center of her chest.

Because she couldn’t stand the silence, she said, “These enemies of yours, what exactly are they?”

“They start as humans. Then they’re turned into something else.”

As he inhaled, she saw his face aglow in orange light. He’d shaved before leaving, using the razor she’d once wanted to turn against him, and his face was impossibly handsome: arrogant, masculine, hard as his will. The tattoos at his temple were still beautifully done, but now she hated them, knowing them for the violation they were.

She cleared her throat. “So tell me more?”

“The Lessening Society, our enemy, chooses its members through a careful screening process.