Free The Lostkind by Matt Stephens Page A

harsh. More than a few who were caught out in it did not survive. Vincent felt awful for ordering pizza that night, forcing the delivery boy out onto the street during such a night. The ice was getting thick on the roads and the radio was reporting fatal accidents all over New York. The City was hunkering down to wait it out, and Vincent fully intended to do the same once he collected the Pizzas at the door.
    The building Super had handed over the key when Vincent asked to lock up the Laundry himself that night. Vincent knew the reason he gave wasn't convincing anyone. The last year had seen a swift change in Vincent's method, and everyone saw it. The building Super was not unsympathetic, and as long as nobody complained and nobody caused trouble he would turn a blind eye.
    Vincent had promised his temporary charges would behave themselves for one night, and took the stack of warm pizza boxes downstairs himself to make sure of it. The biting cold seemed to suck the warmth right out of the food, but it was far worse outside in the wind.
    He left the laundry door unlocked. They would have to let themselves out early. It wasn't likely anyone would be near the laundry room until well after dawn, but better safe than sorry.
    "We know your neighbors wouldn't like it." Checkov had promised him immediately. "We won't let you down. Besides, Wotcha vouched for you, and her friends are scary as hell."
    The comment caught Vincent short. He didn't know what the connection between the regular homeless and the Lostkind was, but apparently some of them knew more than the general population. It reminded him of when Wotcha had screamed out the truth for all to hear and been avoided because of who was saying it.
    Such thoughts chased him all the way back to his apartment, and he let himself in. The second he opened the door, his nose twitched as he picked up the smell of food. He was surprised to find cardboard take-out boxes on the coffee table in front of him. Someone had brought over Chinese food in the three minutes he'd been downstairs.
    "Hi."
    Vincent spun. Yasi was sitting on his windowsill, pressed up tight against the glass, looking out at the slush. Somehow she managed to do so sitting cross-legged on his windowsill. "Something we don't have a lot of… is windows." She admitted quietly. "You've seen our living spaces. We have huge openings in the walls. Our view is our window and door. I've never looked out over a space and had something in the way. If I want to see the city while it rains, I have to get wet. I want to see the city on a winter's night, I'll get cold. Never had a window before."
    Vincent stared. She hadn't changed a bit. Her slender silhouette was as intimidating as he remembered it. She had simply appeared out of his memory like the last year had never happened. Her teeth shone palely in the darkness as she smiled over her shoulder at him. "I came up to find some friends of our Watchers, see if they had somewhere to ride out the cold. Apparently, they're all here now."
    Vincent flushed for a reason he couldn't really define. "Are you going to get in trouble for coming here?"
    "Maybe." Yasi admitted. "You're not going to tell anyone though, are you?"
    "Of course not, but I meant..." Vincent waved out his window. "I meant, are you going to get in trouble for coming up?"
    "Up Above?" Yasi blinked. "It's... it's uncommon for Shinobi, but it's not forbidden. People from my world come and go all the time. Look at it this way. You live in New York. How often do you go into Jersey City?"
    "Not often." Vincent admitted.
    "It's only a bridge away; there's nothing stopping you. It's just unusual, because you don't usually have anything there to draw your attention for long." Yasi explained. "In the Underground, on the lowest levels, there are people who can never come up to the surface. They've lived too deep too long, they get the bends. On the higher levels, like me? We try to move as much as we can, so that we can come and go