“Could be a house. Could be a warehouse. Could be a fucking cemetery with the shell buried in one of the graves. Have fun, princess.”

I kept my expression neutral and turned to leave.

“Oh, and did I mention it’s a race?”

I stopped. “A race?”

“You think you’re the only piece of pussy fancies herself a gangster? There’s another girl out there with that same address, and there’s only one spot to fill.” He glanced down at his fake Rolex. “She left about an hour ago.”

I FUMED THROUGH the entire cab ride. Was I surprised? I’d foiled that goblin’s little game and I should have expected to pay for that. But how badly was he going to screw me over? Was there a competitor? Or was he just saying that, hoping I’d rush and make a mistake?

Even if Benicio found me another way into the gang, the failure would sting. Yes, Mr. Cortez, I know you tried to make it easy, but it wasn’t my fault.

Whining. Complaining. Blaming someone else. I hate those traits in others, and I loathe seeing them in myself. Fate makes you a half-demon? Gives you visions of death and destruction? Makes you crave them like candy and cigarettes? Too bad. Suck it up and move on.

While I was damning myself for not handling Romeo better, I was heaping a generous dose of curses on his head too. My mother would have told me to look at the guy and imagine how many times he’d been rejected or laughed at by a pretty girl. Even if that didn’t excuse his behavior, I should rise above it. But I couldn’t. I wanted to win this race, drop the conch shell on his lap and guzzle the sweet chaos of his rage.

And I would. One way or another.

I CHANGED BACK into jeans and T-shirt, and had the cab drop me off in a tourist section that looked as if it’d been born in the fifties and untouched since. I stood in front of the Ocean View Resort, the kind of decrepit motel unwitting families book by name alone, only to arrive and discover they could indeed view the ocean—if they stood on the roof with binoculars.

Next door a soda fountain promised “authentic malt sodas.” Having once tried a malt soda, this was not a selling point for me. On the other side was the ubiquitous Florida T-shirt shop. Three shirts for ten dollars. If they didn’t survive the first wash after you got them home, you wouldn’t fly back for a refund.

The address Romeo had given me was across the road. A souvenir shop with painted conch shells in the window. None had the markings he’d described, but the sign promised more designs inside.

This was too easy. I wasn’t waltzing into that store until I’d taken a look around.