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The four of the, but I wasn’t listening My thoughts were racing

This had always been about Molly, really Count Asshat had wanted to frame her, turn her friends into vampires, and watch her be killed by her own community, preferably in that order I’d throrench in his plans by showing up at Molly’s last night Now, to inal plan succeeded, the Count would make it look like Molly had broken out of Dashiell’s mansion and disappeared

It would be a disaster in so many ways The whole Old World would think Dashiell had been in on it, because how else could anyone sneak out through his security system? They’d definitely believe I was involved Faith in the Old World leaders, and the Vampire Trials themselves, would be completely destabilized

And, of course, Count Asshat would kill Molly

But only if he could get in Would Hayne really give up the code to the gate, and show Count Asshat and his thugs how to dis, even if the vampire pressed Hayne I’d always heard you couldn’t press a huainst their core self, and Hayne’s loyalty to Dashiell ran as deep as his blood Maybe if the bad guys had Kirsten or Ophelia, their daughter, at gunpoint, but Ophelia was on a weeklong trip to Sweden with Kirsten’s cousin Runa The arrangeo to make sure Kirsten would have time to concentrate on the Trials I seriously doubted Count Asshat had found a way to abduct Ophelia froail," I said out loud, and the others stopped talking Whoops Thinking with ood idea "That’s how they’ll do it," I said to the others "Abigail’s on duty tonight, right? They’ll stand at the gate with a gun to Hayne’s head until Abigail lets them in"

Kirsten’s already-pale face went a shade whiter "Will she?" she whispered

"Yes," Dashiell said shortly "The security people would only sacrifice their lives for either Beatrice or ail knows that She’ll trade Molly for her brother"

Suddenly I didn’t feel like calling hiail," I said to Dashiell, but he was already touching the screen of his phone

"No reception," he said, annoyed At one point, the lack of cell phone service in the theater had seeured it would be an excellent way of keeping the proceedings quiet and orderly But noould have given an awful lot ofthis anywhere else

"There’s a landline!" Kirsten said, already spinning, her skirts swirling around her, toward one of thecabinet sitting unobtrusively under the counter Kirsten yanked open the drawer and pulled out a dial telephone that had probably been designed in the 1990s There was a long cord attached to it, and a phone jack next to the filing cabinet "I sahen I was looking around," Kirsten added, dropping to her knees to plug in the cord Her usually ni Jesse took a step toward her to help, but she got it plugged in and began to dial Her back was to us, and I squirmed from the suspense "What about the Trials?" I asked Dashiell quietly "Do we cancel tonight?"

He opened his mouth to answer, but Jesse spoke first "If you do, they will know for sure you’re on to theot Frederic to join the hiotten to any other vaot Katia They ht of the swollen crowd There were plenty of Old World people present, and we hadn’t exactly made sure every one of them had an LA County address I didn’t think the Count was actually in the building--he would need to couys who had Hayne, and there was the bad reception working for us again--but Katia ht have pressed anyone into service, pun intended, before we’d captured her

Dashiell’s eyes were locked with Jesse’s, which would have been really scary if he hadn’t been huht," Dashiell said, his voice heavy

"Abby, slon!" came Kirsten’s voice from the corner

The four of us turned to look Will and Dashiell’s faces had taken on the grave stoicis bad news, but I was a female, and therefore didn’t need to project emotional fortitude if I didn’t feel like it I rushed over to Kirsten and crouched down Her eyes ainst h it wasn’t actually a physical force, I was alth of it "Is he alive?" Kirsten said into the phone Her knuckles hite where she held the handset