Blood Stain: Book Three of the Blood Type Series (complete)

Hairline Fracture

Following school the next day, I drove to John's house. He'd been mysteriously absent from all our classes and hadn't replied to any of my texts. Even my calls had gone straight to voicemail. Given the very enlightening conversation I'd had with Mr. Abernathy, I was bursting with new information. Unfortunately, it wasn't John I found there.

"How long did you work for Conrad Abernathy?" I said as I made myself comfortable in one of the chairs.

"Long enough," Hannah replied absently, giving me only a fraction of her attention as she flipped through the pages of some fashion magazine.

"Why did you leave?" I persisted. Mr. Abernathy had hinted at some sort of complication, a conflict of interest. If it involved Hannah, there was no telling what it was. "Did it have anything to do with John's and your relationship?"

Stretched out on her stomach on the couch, long legs bent at a ninety-degree angle and crossed at the ankle, Hannah was busy circling various images and scribbling notes in the margins. She looked so normal, so . . . human with her dark hair piled messily on top of her head, that for a moment I almost forgot she wasn't. As I often did with other vampires I met, I wondered what her story was. When and under what circumstances had she left her human life behind?

"John had nothing to do with why I left. Margaret and I didn't get along," Hannah replied, her answer suspiciously simple.

"Big surprise," I said, moving from the chair to perch on the armrest near her feet. "Margaret doesn't get along with anyone except herself."

Hannah snorted. "Very true. She has a particular talent for inspiring hostility in others."

We each sat quietly then, with nothing but the sounds of flipping pages and the occasional squeak of the marker against the glossy advertisements to break the monotony of silence.

"So are you going to tell me what happened between you and Margaret?" I finally asked, when my curiosity had reached peak levels.

"You're a smart girl, Blake. What do you think happened?"

I was only all too familiar with Margaret and her unbearable personality. Taking into account what I knew of Hannah and how she seemed to enjoy provocation, however, I was reasonably sure she wasn't blameless.

"I'd like to hear your version," I said.

With an exasperated sigh, she closed the magazine and tossed it onto the coffee table, sending it skidding off the far side to the rug below. Neither of us made a move to retrieve it. She glared at me over her shoulder. "Margaret and I are both powerful Compellers who like to be in charge. You do the math."

"I get that," I said testily. "But you haven't exactly answered my question. Something obviously happened. When I spoke to Mr. Abernathy yesterday, he mentioned you."

"He did?"

"Well, not specifically," I amended. "But I knew he was talking about you. He made it sound as though something happened and he was forced to let you go."

Hannah rose abruptly. Sauntering over to the bookshelf, she began pulling random CDs and DVDs from the shelf—turning them over to study the jackets and essentially doing everything except telling me what had happened.

"You're being intentionally evasive," I snapped, my patience wearing thin.

Seeming in no hurry, she turned slowly to face me, rolling her eyes dramatically. "Fine. There was . . ." She paused, as though searching for just the right word. "An incident, I suppose you could call it, which might have gotten a little out of hand."