Free Overbite by Meg Cabot Page A

guess?”
    “It’s not what you think,” Meena said.
    “I thought you could only tell how people are going to die, not what they’re thinking.”
    “You’re not exactly hard to read, Alaric,” she said.
    This stung. He said, “Well, as it happens, neither are you. The last time you wore a scarf like that around your neck, it nearly cost me a leg. So I’d appreciate a little heads-up this time, since I happen to enjoy being able to walk.”
    Her cheeks went almost the same color pink of the scarf.
    “All right,” she said, reaching up to remove the sunglasses. Beneath them her dark eyes, which she’d carefully made up, were nevertheless red-rimmed from crying. “Yes. I did get bitten last night. But it wasn’t by Lucien, Alaric. Not this time, I swear.”
    He felt the sidewalk sway beneath him. He didn’t understand this, because despite his protests that they should get to Freewell as quickly as possible, Abraham had pulled into a fast-food drive-through in the Prius (Alaric would never get over the indignity of having been forced to ride in such a vehicle) along the way, insisting that breakfast was the most important meal of the day, and they’d need the protein.
    Now Alaric was glad, even if the alleged “McMuffin” he had eaten was sitting like a rock in his stomach.
    “Impossible,” he said to her. “We haven’t had a vampire sighting in the city—in North America —in six months. We killed all the Dracul. You know that. You were there.”
    “This wasn’t a Dracul,” she said.
    Alaric shook his head, confused. “But there’s never been another clan reported in—”
    “Well,” Meena said, “then someone needs to alert Homeland Security. Because last night I had a close encounter with an illegal immigrant of the very fanged kind.”
    “Why didn’t you call it in until this morning?” Alaric demanded. “What’s going on, exactly, Meena? Abraham wouldn’t tell me anything. He said you’d tell me. If you chose to.” He didn’t mention how angry this information had made him. What had Holtzman meant, if Meena chose to tell him?
    And why had Meena chosen to tell Holtzman anything instead of him? He was the one who’d saved her life at St. George’s, not Holtzman. Was this all because he refused to believe her theory about Antonescu?
    But who could? It was crazy. Demons were inherently evil. They were not capable of free will. He didn’t care what Saint Thomas Aquinas had written eight hundred years ago.
    “Look, I appreciate the coffee, but can we just go inside?” Meena said, suddenly looking less mulish, and more tired. “It took me forever to get a cab from the train station, and now I’m late, and I’m sure everyone is wondering where I am.”
    “Abraham’s already inside,” Alaric said. “He’s told everyone he’s your lawyer.”
    Meena rolled her eyes and tossed her coffee cup into a nearby trash can. “Great. My lawyer. Now it looks like I did something wrong.”
    Alaric caught her by the wrist as she started to walk past him and into the building. Her bones felt as small and fine as a bird’s.
    “ Did you do something wrong?” he asked, his gaze burning down into hers. He didn’t want to ask it. He knew it was wrong of him, and he probably shouldn’t have.
    But he couldn’t help it.
    She reached up with her free hand to push some bright copper hair from her eyes. Eyes that, he saw, were suddenly brimming with tears. “I guess that depends from whose point of view you’re looking at it. Yours? No. My own? Yeah. Yeah, I definitely did.”
    He felt a sudden wave of tenderness toward her that, had it been anyone else, he’d have ignored. He tried to ignore it. She’d violated every rule in the book.
    Then again, so had he, at one time or another.
    But this was different. She’d also put herself in danger. And then she hadn’t called him. It hurt his feelings . . . even though he’d go to his grave before he’d admit it.
    But now she was shaken and