I heaved again and heard Lorraine turn on the faucet. She stuck her arm into my stall and waved a damp paper towel at me. “I would stay and help you, but I’m a sympathetic vomiter.”
I nodded and opened my mouth, growling as though I were birthing a dinosaur. “That’s okay, Lorraine,” I choked. “I’m sorry you had to see this.”
Once Lorraine hightailed it out of the bathroom I turned around, sitting on the toilet, head in hands.
Keeping this secret was going to be harder than I thought.
“Sophie! Soph, are you okay?” Nina pushed in through the bathroom door next and I groaned.
“Can’t a woman get a little privacy?”
Nina crossed her arms in front of her chest, jutting out one hip and taking me in. “Not if you’re going to keep the door open while you sit on the toilet. What’s going on? Lorraine said you had the plague.”
I looked over Nina’s shoulder and grimaced at my red-rimmed eyes, the banana-pudding hue of my face. Strands of hair were already starting to shoot out around my head like intelligence-seeking antennae, and I frowned at my best friend, my eyes scanning her.
“Sounds about right,” I said, trying in earnest to make my wrinkled, pilling twinset look passable.
In addition to using the immense years of her afterlife to brush up on history, name-calling, and general trivia, Nina had also spent her time collecting an incredible array of vintage couture to support her massive fashion habit. She stood before me today in a corset I know she nabbed from a French noblewoman (premaking her a tasty tidbit), a great little blazer, and a pair of jeans so skinny I had mistaken them for a scarf and worn them around my neck all last winter. I had long ago given up the contention that my fashion habits only paled in comparison to hers, as she spun in a drop-dead pair of sparkling silver Louboutins; I knew that my Target shoes and my surprising-as-mushroom-soup wardrobe never stood a chance.
“So,” Nina said, dark eyes raking over me, “should I call in the dead collectors?”
I blew out a sigh and stood up, turning on the tap and splashing cold water onto my burning cheeks. “No. I’m not really sick. I faked it.”
“That’s usually my line.”
I rolled my eyes. “My problem, remember?”
“Right.” Nina leaned against the sink and checked out her impeccable manicure. “So, what exactly is your problem today?”
“Don’t say it like that. I don’t have a problem every day!”
Nina raised her eyebrows and I was out of supporting information. “It’s Sampson,” I said, my voice hushed. “I don’t know how I’m going to be able to keep his coming back a secret. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to keep a lid on everything until it all gets sorted out.”
“First of all, as he’s lying on our couch, he’s our problem. And second of all, it’s not a problem we’re going to have for very long.”
I patted my face with a paper towel. “Why do you say that?”
Nina leaned in conspiratorially. “Well, he needs to no longer be hunted, right? You know, all returned to glory and stuff?”
I wasn’t sure I knew where she was going. “I’m hoping to find out who’s after him so he can stop running.”
“Potato, po-tah-to. You know who the werewolf hunter is. It’s that Fang, right?”
“Feng.”
“That’s what I said.” Nina bared hers in the mirror. “So, you just go to this Fang person and let her know that you’ve got everything under control. That she can call off the attack of this particular werewolf.”
Nina looked supremely proud of her plan, and even as I remembered the warm and friendly way Feng had welcomed me into her office the first time I met her—by closing her fingers around my neck—it was hard not to be infected by Nina’s grinning self-assurance.
“I guess I could do that. But”—I frowned—“the Du family’s whole existence is based on werewolf hunting. I don’t think she’s going to let one go just because I ask her to. She doesn’t exactly seem the favor-granting type.”
Nina shrugged and whipped a lipstick out of her bra. She puckered her lips. “It’s worth a shot, isn’t it? Besides, Sampson’s been here a whole night and it’s not like the city has gone to rabid dog hell.”
I raised an eyebrow and Nina rolled her eyes. “That’s a compliment.” She frowned. “Okay, wait. Sampson was running the UDA all on the up-and-up or, you know, down-and-Underworld-y for ages. Why weren’t the Sisters Grimm after him then?”
I frowned myself. “I don’t know exactly. Maybe he was just off their radar?”
“Well, there you go. Either you convince this Feng that Sampson is not the threat she thinks he is, or we make sure to, once again, get him off their radar.” Nina was proud, but I couldn’t even begin to hide my skepticism.
“Fine,” Nina said, wrinkling her nose. “Option number three? You can’t do a job that’s already been done. Tell Feng that Sampson’s already dead.”
I sucked in a shaky breath. For some reason, I felt as though he already was.