Dark Debt (Chicagoland Vampires #11)(69)
Author: Chloe Neill

“Get in the boat!” I told him.

“You know how to drive a boat?”

“I remember how to drive a boat,” I clarified. “My grandparents had one on the lake for a few years, and my grandfather taught me how to drive. Get in,” I said, and when he hopped down, I pointed him back toward the dock. “Untie the ropes and pull in the buoys. Push us off from the dock.”

“We’re clear,” Morgan said, and I popped the ignition, felt the engines roar to life behind me. I nudged the wheel enough to point her away from the dock, just as voices rang out behind us, and gunshots began to ping through the air.

“Get down!” Morgan screamed, covering his body with mine as bullets rained around us. An old soda can, sitting forgotten in a cup holder, was hit, spraying soda into the air like a fountain. Morgan tossed it overboard.

“Go,” he said, and I pushed down the throttle. The boat’s nose lifted, the hull skipping over waves as we roared into darkness.

Chapter Twenty

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY

The lake was dark and quiet, the hum of the engine and the slap of water against the sides of the boat the only sounds. If the circumstances had been different—if it had been Ethan beside me instead of Morgan on the rear bench, silently mulling over his fate, and if we hadn’t been running from gangsters—it might have been a romantic trip.

As if he’d known I’d been thinking of him—and maybe he had—Morgan moved up to the front of the boat, took a seat in the opposite chair.

“It always seems to come so easy for you,” he said.

“What comes easy for me?”

“Being a vampire.”

The sentiment was so utterly absurd I laughed. “Did you miss the panic attack?”

“All right, present circumstances excluded. And do you want to tell me what happened back there? Because I don’t think it was really about getting off the island.”

I pushed windblown hair behind my ears. “Just something that happened to me a few nights ago. It made me a little panicky.”

“A little?”

I nodded, kept my eyes on the dark water in front of me, squinting to see the lights of Chicago, praying I’d recognize them before we ran out of gas . . . and that dark panic circled me again.

“Anyway, other than that, being a vampire seems to come easy for you.”

“There is no part of my being a vampire that has been easy, from the first attack to tonight’s little pool party. I was kicked out of school. I watched Ethan die. My best friend unleashed a demon onto the city. None of it has been easy. Some of it has been pretty great. Most of it has been awkward.”

“You have a House,” he said. “Solid from the ground up.”

He was right about that. And ironic, I thought, since my father’s first words to me after I told him I’d been made a vampire were to denigrate Cadogan House. “They’re old, but not as old as Navarre House,” he’d said. Perhaps not. Perhaps not as chic, or as historic, and God knew Cadogan had had its share of bumps. But ultimately, when you dug down to it, we were solid. The foundation was solid, because Ethan was solid.

“Yeah,” I said. “I got really lucky. And you got the really short straw in that respect.”

He looked surprised by the admission, as if he’d expected me to rail against him, blame him for the House’s issues. But that wouldn’t have been fair.

I paused, not sure we’d reached total candor. On the other hand, what did I have to lose from honesty?

“Navarre has always been standoffish, at least in my experience. And it’s been harsh when dealing with Cadogan. The city’s faced a lot of crap the last few months, and you haven’t exactly been helpful. How much of that is due to the Circle?”

He didn’t answer at first, as though he couldn’t decide whether to be pissed.

“I’m asking if you want me to give you the benefit of the doubt. You’re only responsible for your actions,” I said. “Not hers. And I know you loved her—that you all loved her. That she was very, very important to you. But it sounds like she gave you a crumbling castle.”

Morgan sighed, sat back in the chair, glanced at me. “Yeah. She did. And yeah, I avoided most of your shenanigans because I had shenanigans of my own to deal with. We’ve been walking a very thin line since I came on board. That line keeps getting thinner, but the other vampires don’t seem to appreciate that. They’ll try to take the House for this. Because of what’s happened.”

“Irina’s faction?”

He nodded. “I have tried to do right by Celina’s vision, but how can I, when it was built on sand? I mean, look at this.” He laughed, but the sound was entirely humorless. “We’re on a boat, trying to escape an island of mobsters who’d kill me in a heartbeat if it gave them a chance to get a return on their investment.”

I glanced back. There was only darkness behind us, the gurgling sound of the engine the only thing I could hear.

“We’ve escaped,” I said. “Now we find our way back to shore. And that’s the same thing you have to do. It’s your House, Morgan. For better or worse, and whether Celina chose you for the right reasons or not, you’re its Master. Own it.”

*   *   *

The sky was overcast, the city lights gleaming orange beneath it. The dashboard held a small compass, so we used both to guide our way back to the city.

Chicago looked so peaceful in the darkness, a strip of light at the edge of the world, shapes emerging as we drew nearer. The height of the Willis and Hancock buildings, the sprawl of lights along the lakeshore, of cities stretching from Indiana to Wisconsin, the lights of Navy Pier.

“Where exactly are we going?” he asked.

That was an excellent question. Driving a boat was one thing; parking it was something entirely different. There were several marinas around Chicago, but I didn’t really know how they were arranged.

There was one obvious place in Chicago to park a boat. Lots of boats, as it turned out, were already parked there, if much bigger than this one. I’d have to negotiate around the breakwater, lines of riprap that protected Navy Pier and the Chicago Harbor from the worst of Lake Michigan, but that, I thought, would be relatively easy. The entry point was beside the Chicago Lighthouse, which also served as headquarters for the RG. Hell, I could even wave at Jonah on the way in. Not that I’d do that right now.

I directed the boat toward the lights. “We’re going there.”