Edie Spence (Book 5): Bloodshifted by Cassie Alexander Read Free Book Online Page B

and keeping cops out.”
    In a town as striving as I’d always heard LA was, it was genius—and to a degree foolproof. Dammit. “I bet there’s a line out the door.”
    “Every night.”
    I looked at the broom I held. “This place must be a license to print money—so why the hell are we carrying buckets?”
    “Paying employees comes with liabilities. We just cash the DJs and the bouncers out each night. The more people we have here during the day, the more we have to explain why our Masters only come out after sundown. Raven does have some dedicated bloodslaves, a few registered family donor lines, but, well”—his lips twisted to one side, as if he was weighing what to tell me—“it’s been a lean year, let’s just say.” He reached into his bucket, pulled out a roll of trash bags, and handed me one. “Come on. I always start in the bathrooms. I like to get the worst parts done first.”
    *   *   *
    Hell’s bathrooms were stainless-steel affairs, all the easier to clean with harsh chemicals, but still gross. Jackson claimed they had attendants in them, but I assumed those people were just there to make sure that people weren’t doing drugs they hadn’t purchased locally, and not keeping the place clean.
    I tried to do a good job, within the limits of what could actually be done—I was a daytimer, not a magician. But keeping busy was good for me, it kept my mind off Lars’s attack, and while I was scrubbing I could pretend that this was some sort of shitty summer camp where I could just bide my time until my parents returned to save me.
    Only my mom probably thought I was dead, and if I was going to be kind to her I would have to keep it that way and not explain what had happened to me. She’d never even get to meet her own grandson.
    Oh, baby—you’d love her. And she’d love you. She’d spoil you half to death, I know it. A wave of sadness hit me like a physical blow. What Lars had done wasn’t half as bad as knowing I could never really go home.
    “What’s wrong?” Jackson asked from two stalls down. I inhaled, startled, and realized I’d been holding my breath.
    Everything was wrong. Not that I could tell him that. I gathered myself up, using the wall of the stall I was in for strength. “I just feel like some sad vampire Cinderella in here.”
    “It’s been a while since you cleaned a toilet, huh?”
    “Yes. Not that I’m too good for this, but it has, as you say, been a while.” I leaned back onto my heels. I couldn’t imagine doing this while eight months’ pregnant, either.
    “What did you used to be?”
    “I’m a nurse.” I was unwilling to use the past tense just yet. Nursing wasn’t something you ever gave up—either you were or you weren’t one. It was a permanent state of being.
    “So how did you find out about vampires?”
    “I used to work on a secret hospital floor for sanctioned donors.” I left out the occasional werecreatures and shapeshifters and daytimers and blood. No matter how safe I might feel around Jackson, the less anyone here knew about me the better.
    I heard him stand and he appeared in the doorway of the stall—the brows on his forehead knit into almost one solid line. “You mean there’s a place where they take care of donors? On purpose? Keep them in one piece?”
    “Yeah.” Which, I realized, implied that here was not like that.
    His expression slowly relaxed as he considered things. “That sounds almost civilized. And it explains why Lars wasn’t able to take you, plus or minus a pint. You knew about the system. Where was that?”
    “Back east,” I said, still being coy. He snorted and didn’t press, but then he went quiet, clearly thinking hard. I felt compelled to say something. “It’s not like it’s equality central out there or anything.”
    He nodded, standing at attention with his mop. “Still. It’s nice to know that there are different ways to be.”
    I nodded back at him. There was a chance that in the future