The street lamp behind Reagan outlined the curve of her hips, interrupted by the bulge of her fanny pack. Leather covered her legs, leading down into thick-soled boots. Only a tank top covered her upper body, but she didn’t hug her arms against the chill.

I’d never been so glad to see someone.

“Red, where are you running off to? Aren’t you glad to see me?” she asked, watching him skitter to the back.

Her gaze swung to the two guys at the end of the bar, both larger than her, and both ready for battle.

She didn’t even flinch. “What are you two lug nuts looking at? Sit down before you hurt yourselves. Hey, have any of you— Oh, Penny. There you are.” She sauntered in like she belonged, when she most certainly, without even a question, did not.

Hipster Lumberjack stepped in front of me like we were besties. “We know the vampires did something to her,” he said, refusing to move. “The last thing she needs is help from your kind.”

“Oh yeah?” Reagan said as Broad Face filled the doorway behind her. He wiped blood off his chin, but didn’t advance. He probably didn’t want to be thrown again. “And. What. Kind. Is. That?” Each word was its own threat.

“Blood junkie.”

The bartender reached under the bar for something.

“Trixie, no need to jump to conclusions. I’m just here to pick up my friend,” Reagan said, giving a thumbs-up to the bartender.

“I’m not tryin’ to hate on you, Reagan, but I gotta do my job,” Trixie said. “We both know you have a reputation for ruining bars.”

“That was one time, and it wasn’t even my fault. A Mages’ Guild wannabe started it.” Reagan didn’t elaborate as she turned back to Hipster Lumberjack. “Blood junkie is a derogatory term for a vampire, actually. I’m not the one after the blood, so therefore, I am not a junkie.”

“Trixie, do you need someone to take out the trash?” one of the guys from the corner asked.

“He means me, Trix.” Reagan raised her hand. “I am the trash in this scenario.”

“You’ve got five minutes to settle down, Reagan, and then I gotta throw you out,” Trixie said, shaking her head with a small smile still on her lips.

Reagan nodded. “Sounds good to me. Like I said, I’m just here to pick up my friend. And hopefully have a little libation as I do so.”

“We know the vampires did something to her,” Hipster Lumberjack said, refusing to back off.

“Five minutes, you said?” Reagan asked Trixie.

“Four, now,” Trixie answered.

“Right.” Reagan leveled her gaze at Hipster Lumberjack. “You know what the vampires did to her, do you?”

“Yeah. Look at her.”

“Yes, look at her. Look at the untrained mage who killed four newbie vampires, scared the fifth so badly it cowered from her, and protected a mid-level vamp from one of the oldest vampires who walks the earth. A vampire so old and powerful that she very nearly killed my boyfriend—who is a blood junkie, by the way—and the higher mid-level vampire fighting by his side. If I hadn’t given him my blood just now—which is legal, since I’m magical and also willing—he would’ve perished, I would’ve gone crazy, and you’d all likely be dead. All because no one has ever documented what happens when you force an untrained natural into a life-or-death situation.”

“If she did all that,” Broad Face said, his hands on his hips and his expression sour, “then how come she is in here looking for help?”

“I said she was extremely talented and powerful.” Reagan stepped closer to Hipster Lumberjack, their faces now a foot apart and neither one backing down. “I didn’t say anything about her intelligence level. I mean, seriously. Who runs for their lives in this day and age without at least taking their phone? Wallet-schmallet, you can steal what you need. But a phone? Yeah. You need that. Or, at the very least, a good set of running shoes. Penny, you fail that test, I don’t mind telling you.”

“You got one minute left,” Trixie warned her, pulling out her shotgun.

“I just called Roger,” Red said, emerging from the back. He stayed on that side of the bar. “He’s not too far away. He’s thinking about paying us a visit.”

Reagan stiffened and turned her head, her focus no longer on Hipster Lumberjack. She narrowed her eyes at Red, who flinched before lifting his phone up like a shield.

“I can’t tell if he’s bluffing,” Reagan said softly.

Trixie lowered the gun to the bar, her eyes on Red, too.

Reagan noticed and took a step back. “Come on, Penny, let’s get moving.”

“Afraid of a little muscle, are ya?” someone from the corner table said.

Another one of them snickered. “That’s right, run away, little vamp maggot.”

Reagan swung her gaze in that direction and the taunting cut off.

“Tell Roger that Darius took a beating to keep Penny alive,” Reagan said, and it was clear she was talking to Red. “He’s in this all the way. I’ll be taking over Penny’s training for now, but that means I can’t keep my eye on the city. The Guild is already slipping in. If we don’t start hunting them down soon, we’ll be overrun. The blood junkies have the nights mostly covered, but we could sure use some help during the day.”

“Roger won’t help some vamp lover,” Hipster Lumberjack said with a sneer.

“Congratulations,” Reagan replied. “You’re as dumb as you look.”

“Wait just a minute—”

Hipster Lumberjack didn’t get time to finish his sentence. Reagan spun and grabbed him so fast that even my flinch was delayed. She threw him like an empty trash can, ramming him into Broad Face. The two of them tumbled out of the bar.

“I didn’t see what happened. I was putting the shotgun away,” Trixie said, straightening up.

“I did. She—”

“Awesome,” Trixie said over Red. “Reagan, you’d best be leaving.”

“Ten-four.” Reagan gave her a salute and stalked from the bar.

I stared after her for a beat before starting. All eyes were glued on me.

“Sorry. She’s…” I had no excuses. She just was, and they likely knew it. “I’ll just…” I hurried after her. “Thank you,” I yelled over my shoulder.

“Don’t lose that trick, Penny,” Trixie called after me. “That is the best weapon in your arsenal.”

“What trick?” Reagan asked as we turned down the sidewalk. Hipster Lumberjack was fighting Broad Face’s limbs to stand on his own. “What’d you do?”

“She thinks my looking forlorn and vulnerable is a trick of some sort.”

“Oh. Yeah, it totally is. Not to mention your whole Snow White vibe with that pretty face and those batting eyelashes. You had that hipster dude ready to change his whole world to fit you in it. You need to use that whenever it suits you. Catching an enemy off guard is the easiest way to defeat him.”

“I’m out of my element,” I admitted, feeling the sting of failure from my time in this city.

“You’ve been extremely sheltered all your life. And now you’re in the thick of things in the wildest magical city in the nation. It would be weird if you weren’t in culture shock, to be honest. But we’ll get there.” She nudged me with her shoulder in camaraderie.

I took a shaky breath and let slip a smile, feeling the heavy weight on my shoulders lighten a little. She couldn’t have known how much I needed to hear those words.

She turned left suddenly, and I hurried to catch up.

“Where are we going?” I asked, glancing behind us, thankful I didn’t feel the furious itch between my shoulder blades anymore.

“This is going to cause a massive fight, but Darius and I agree that you shouldn’t stay with the Bankses. They’re jamming you up.” She stared into my eyes as if she was looking for something. “The only time mages usually pair up is if they form a dual-mage pair. But you want to work with everyone willy-nilly. You don’t even care if it’s someone from the same magical species. You’re so desperate for team sports that when you can’t pair up with anyone humanish, you give personalities to rocks and work with them. You leeched off my power in the warehouse, without asking, and used me to help you do that spell. That power is unheard of, as far as I know. And it is massive. You’re the sneakiest type of thief. I’m not even mad about it. I’m too jealous to be mad.”

She turned right at the next corner.

“So where are we going?” I asked again.

“To get my car. I had to get to Darius in a hurry, so I took the fast one that I borrowed without asking the other day.”

“Did he really almost die?”

“No. I was being dramatic. But he was in a bad way. She broke his back, then each limb, and tossed him to the side. She wasn’t trying to kill him, just get him out of the way. Which she did. With quick economy.”

Agony welled up inside of me. “I’m so sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault. He’s the ape that challenged you while he had a very old vampire hanging out in his house. Granted, no one could’ve known how your magic would affect her, but for a guy who is a master at overthinking the smallest detail, this is definitely his fault. Moss is still blaming you, though. He’ll always blame you. Unless there is even a remote possibility that he can blame me.”

“Is he okay?”

“He has a lot of broken bones from getting his ass kicked, but he’ll mend.”

“So you got there in time?”

“I was already on the way. I can feel when Darius is in pain and…various other things through the bond. That guy is very rarely worked up. I know when shenanigans are going down. Here we are.”

A shiny midnight-blue Lamborghini sat around the corner from Darius’s house. Red and blue flashing lights from police cars lit up our surroundings.

“You stole his Lamborghini?” I asked with awe.

“Can’t you hear? I said I borrowed it.”

“Yeah. Without asking. That means stole. He’s going to be pissed.”

“Probably, but he’s in the doghouse for keeping secrets lately, so I don’t really care.”

I took a deep breath and shrugged it off. I had my own problems…I didn’t need to jump in the middle of theirs.

“I didn’t think magical people used human cops for magical issues,” I said, pausing by the Lamborghini, almost afraid to touch it lest I mess it up somehow.

“You set off a great many explosions and ruined quite a bit of his house. Not to mention blew the door off. Hats off for that, by the way. My kinda girl. Get in.”

The car beeped and the lights flashed, unlocking it.

Red and blue played across the leaves of a bush at the corner. There had to be a lot of cops over there.

“How is Darius dealing with all of this while…mending?”

“Darius, Moss, and Ja are all tucked away in the vampire chambers on the third floor. The doorways are hidden. Marie is dealing with the human element.”

“Wait—”

“You’ll want your seatbelt.” Reagan looked pointedly at my lap while starting up the car.

She pulled away from the curb, and I stretched the belt across my body.

“Ja isn’t dead?” I asked as she meekly drove the car out of the area.

“No. Well…Marie couldn’t tell. You did a number on that ol’ broad. She probably rues the day she accepted Darius’s invitation to visit his lodgings in the Brink. That thing was sliced, diced, and fried.”

“Could you tell what the spell did?”

Reagan glanced at me as she got onto the freeway. “You don’t know what spell you used?”

“No. I made it up. The idea was to protect Marie.”

“Well, you certainly did. From what I could tell, Ja was blackened by an explosion, strangled by something resembling a flower, and she also had razor slashes, and missing fingers—that broad was torn up.”

“The last spell didn’t do all that. She went through quite a lot.” I stared out the window as Reagan shifted gears and stomped on the gas. The car shot forward.

“She did go through a lot. A lot.” Reagan sounded troubled, and I looked over in time to see an anxious expression cross her face. In a moment, it was gone.