Wicked Kiss (Nightwatchers) by Michelle Rowen Page A

here,
remember?”
    “I’m not as bad as you might think. We’re the same. We should
be on the same side.”
    My grip tightened on the phone. “I’m on my own side. Nobody
else’s.”
    “Then you should want all the information you can get about
what’s to come. Meet me there in an hour.”
    He hung up.
    I stared at the phone before I finally placed it back on its
base.
    I’d been searching for him for a week and had come up with
nothing but air. If Stephen didn’t want to be found, then he wouldn’t be found.
But now he wanted to talk to me.
    On his terms.
    My first instinct was to find Bishop, but if Stephen saw him
with me I knew he’d leave and I’d never see him again.
    I had to get my soul back on my own. Put the lid back on this
box and keep it there. Then I’d be able to leave the city again, get past the
barrier. Other people’s souls—including Bishop’s—wouldn’t drive me crazy with
hunger. Everything would be better.
    I could still fix this.
    * * *
    The Trinity Mall. Not my favorite place in the city.
    Over three hundred stores on four levels, it was a shopping
mall slash tourist destination. Trinity was huge enough to have a few malls, but
this was the crown jewel right in the heart of downtown. I used to love coming
here with Carly, shopping for hours on end, and having lunch in the food court
downstairs, back when we both had regular-size appetites. We’d still gorge on
the food—hamburgers, Chinese food, souvlaki, French fries, you name it. She’d
complain about her slow metabolism and grumble about how I never gained a pound.
I’d tell her she looked fine—because she always did whether she realized it or
not. I should have told her how much I envied her curves.
    But then I ran into some trouble here. After my parents’
divorce was finalized six months ago, I went on a bit of a shoplifting spree.
Or, as my guidance counselor put it, “a cry for attention.”
    It was never much, just enough to give me a rush of excitement
that I was getting away with something. That I wasn’t being perfect, or good, or
coloring inside the lines like everyone had told me to all my life. Instead of
focusing on being a perfect student and getting all As, I got a lipstick. A
scarf. A leather wallet. I knew it was wrong even as I shoved them in my pocket
or under my shirt. I didn’t try to justify it as something I needed that I
couldn’t afford. I could afford it. My father felt enough guilt over the divorce
and his move across the ocean that my monthly allowance, written on checks with
his gold-stamped law firm logo in the corner, were so big I didn’t even need to
apply for part-time jobs. I mean, I couldn’t buy a car or anything major, but
for the necessities of life, I could get what I needed.
    Getting caught had been mortifying in so many ways. No charges
were laid, but my humiliation was witnessed by several kids from school. The cop
had been a jerk to me, treating me like a total juvie and a spoiled brat. I’d
sat in the back of a cop car for an hour, and only through sheer will had I
avoided having the anxiety attack I always got in enclosed spaces. I’d closed my
eyes and breathed in and out, pretending to be somewhere, anywhere else.
    My penance for my short life of crime was to do some community
service. I worked in the kitchen at a local mission and had the chance to
interact with people who really had it bad while I had never appreciated how
good I had it. I had a home, a roof over my head and a mother who loved me. I’d
met homeless people who had nothing and nobody.
    It was the most important lesson of my life. Be grateful for
what you have, since it can be taken away at any time. Sometimes fate steps in
to pull the rug from beneath your feet whether you’re prepared or not—and we all
fall differently.
    I now regretted my month of shoplifting, and not just because
I’d been caught. I knew it was wrong and I’d done it for stupid reasons. Not
that there was ever a good reason