Free Darkness Before Dawn by J. A. London

that you know about me is tell the Agency about the theater. I wanted to ask you to honor your promise not to.”
    I shake my head.
    “Dawn, there are good vampires out there. We’re not all like those monsters who attacked you, and we’re not all like my father.”
    “Prove it. Turn yourself in to the Agency. Work for them.”
    “That’s impossible. I won’t have them monitoring my every step. They’d lock me up and use me only at their convenience.”
    “So?”
    “I wouldn’t be able to wander the night.”
    “Your problem, not mine.”
    “It would’ve been your problem when you were attacked on the trolley,” he says. “Had I been locked up in an Agency tower somewhere, then where would you be now?”
    An image flashes through my mind: me being fed on by vampires. No, a single vampire. Nameless, faceless, shapeless. But he sounds just like the one in front of me. I force it out of my head.
    “Why did you rescue me?” I ask.
    “I told you: right place, right time.”
    As soon as I saw Victor standing next to his father, I thought this was all a game, and his intentions were to manipulate me. I figured his father sent Victor after me, maybe even arranged that attack on the trolley so his son could rush in and save the day. That sounds exactly like something Valentine would do. No, Victor saving my life can’t be just a coincidence.
    “You expect me to believe that?”
    “Would you rather I hadn’t?”
    “It’s just a little unlikely,” I say. “The city’s delegate being saved by a Valentine vampire? I mean, what are the odds?”
    “Good, if you watch the night like I do,” he says. “You really think you’re the first human I’ve saved?”
    A strange part of me wants to believe him, to think he’s different from the monsters in my dreams. But I have seen what monsters can do.
    “There have been others?” I ask.
    “Of course. Those weren’t the first Lessers I’ve slain, either. The Night Watchmen patrol this city, but I do my fair share, too.”
    “Why? What do you have to gain from killing your own kind?”
    “They aren’t my kind!” he says, his voice low but bordering on anger. “They’re murderers who think they have the right to feed off any human they please. I’m not like that. Humans have hearts and souls, and have every right to walk the night without fear of being attacked. But we need more blood, Dawn. Vampires have the right to survive, too. Trying to bully it out of the humans—I know that’s not the way to do it, but we can’t survive without it. Animal blood doesn’t cut it for us. You know that.”
    “Save it for the negotiation table. Or are you here to take my blood?”
    “If I wanted it, I’d already have it.”
    I can’t deny the truth of his words. He’s had so many opportunities: on the trolley, at the theater, right now. He’s done nothing to indicate he’s a threat to me, but I’m having a hard time looking beyond the fangs. And he did threaten Rachel.
    “Dawn?” It’s Rachel again.
    “Coming!” I look at Victor. “If I don’t go, she’s going to come in here.”
    “Just think about what we can do to get more blood.”
    “We?”
    “You’re the delegate, but if there’s something I can do to help, I will.” He purposefully sets my stake down on my dresser and starts walking toward the balcony.
    “Victor?” He stops, his back to me. “You knew I would be at the manor tonight. Why did you go there?”
    “Because, like you, when I’m summoned by my father, I can’t say no. Disobeying him can lead to … unpleasant consequences.”
    A chill goes through me as I try not to imagine what those might be. I feel a twinge of sympathy toward him—which is the last thing I want. He’s a vampire. I can’t forget that. I move to my dresser and pick up my stake.
    “If Rachel had come in here, would you have killed her?”
    He turns and his eyes pierce mine. “The only answer you’ll believe is yes, so why bother to ask?”
    He’s