“Don’t touch me,” I say.
“All right. Noted. I won’t do it again. Are you okay?”
It’s Kian. Kian and his stupid Kian smell and heartbeat. It’s so loud, like war drums pounding in my ears.
“Fine,” I grit out.
“Hey, Mads,” Sunny Orange says. Her voice is as peppy as her Color, but it also has a rich tone, like a blues singer.
“It’s Madeline to you. Or Headmaster. Try that nickname again, and I’ll throw you to the fairies.”
“I’m just being friendly. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“Not even the Crow calls her that, so what made you think you’d get away with it?” Rose Red. That rough, low voice is Rose Red’s.
“My irresistible charm. Obviously.”
“Nova.” It’s Madeline again. “Eyes please.”
I lift my head, but I don’t straighten my back. My hands fall into my lap as the world burns my eyes. Everything’s too bright and black around the edges.
“Your tribe is Belladonna: you, Emery, Kian, and Oskar. Before, this was the only tribe with three members, but since you’ve arrived, the numbers have evened out again. Your buddy is Emery. She’s also your roommate.”
Yeah, whatever, goth baby.
Lub-dub.
I resist the urge to jam my fingers into my ears again.
“I’ll let Emery take care of you from here,” Madeline says. Then she pauses for a strangely long few seconds. “I have other students to attend to.”
When she steps away, Sunny Orange takes her place. She grabs my hands and squeezes them. “Yes, you guessed it. I’m Emery. We are going to be best friends.”
A different heartbeat demands my attention. It jumps in through Sunny Orange’s hands. It jolts my own heart, turns on the waterfall in my mouth, and then my nails are in her wrists. Her wrists are hard as stone, but it doesn’t matter. My nails dig in so deep that red blooms, bleeding through her orange.
My gums ignite, and I yank so her forearm is in front of my mouth. Saliva drips down my lips as I’m about to bite down into a throbbing point of orange. An artery. No, where the red blooms. I just want to lick it, taste it. But she tears away. One second she’s there, the next she’s gone.
Her voice comes from outside our row, along one of the walkways. “God, your nails are crazy, and you’re hella fast. You just cut through my skin before my shell was fully formed.”
“What the hell, newbie?” Rose Red says. That velvety texture is hard again. I think his hands are clenched into fists.
I think his Color is more like blood.
“Gross, she’s drooling everywhere,” a voice I don’t recognize joins in. Another guy, but I don’t bother to look for him, because my eyes are on Kian.
Mouthwatering, the only one with a pure scent. Spicy, minty. I want that chartreuse point on his neck.
My hands are a blur of pink as I make a grab for him. He catches my wrists before I can, but then my legs are pumping, bending and springing, ready to jump for him. I do, and he slides back, but his hold on my wrists is strong. I can’t get close enough to bite him.
Just a taste.
Please, just a taste.
Rose Red hooks his arms around mine from behind, fists to either side of my face. I could turn around and bite him, but I want Kian. I need Kian.
“Out of the way, Oskar.”
Rose Red lets me go, but then iron clamps around my arm. It barely fits. And when I look, it’s not iron at all. It’s Madeline’s hand. She moves, just moves, doesn’t tug or anything, and I’m ripped away from Kian like a sticky note torn off a wall.
“Let me go!” My voice is strange, gravelly. It’s almost like I’m growling.
“You didn’t drink it,” Madeline retorts. “We’re going to my office.” She snaps her fingers. “Kyrie, your help please.”
Turquoise joins vermilion and my feet drag along the floor. Their heights are too different, so I’m lopsided, but they keep up the pace like it’s nothing, like my struggling doesn’t affect them at all. I thrash and gnash my teeth as students part for us. Kian stays behind, but his heartbeat follows me.
Lub-dub.
Lub-dub.
Lub-dub.
A door flies open into a dark room, dark until Madeline flicks the light switch. There’s a humongous black dragon mural that spreads from one wall to the next. It’s as worn down as the walls. Its green eyes bore holes into my already-trashed stomach.
Madeline lets me go while Turquoise holds me in place. I struggle and yearn for any blood I can get. It doesn’t have to be Kian’s. Any blood will do.
I
just
need
blood.
My legs give out, and I don’t feel the impact of my knees banging against stones, because Turquoise holds me up.
This hunger is eating me alive. The minute of strength it provided is over. I’m done. My mouth is so dry it feels chapped. There are little cuts along my gums, my tongue, the insides of my cheeks.
Turquoise slowly lowers me to the ground and releases me. I can barely sit on my own. My arms have to help, and they’re shaking, about to give up.
Madeline grabs the royal-purple curtains that line the entire wall in front of me (the whole thing must be a window) and tugs them back slightly before replacing them. “The sun is coming up,” she murmurs. Then she starts rummaging around in a big black desk. Its dark swirls and grooves remind me of her dress, except it’s all sleek and no frills.
More ridiculously bright rainbow Colors jump out from behind the curtains. One goes for a pen on Madeline’s desk. Madeline snatches it, but the butterfly doesn’t let go. No, wait. It’s not a butterfly. Those are tiny hands. When it brings its wings in tight together, straining against Madeline’s hold, I realize it has a human figure.
“Cause mischief elsewhere,” Madeline snaps.
The… fairy (pixie?) jingles like a bell and disappears through a crack in a wall.
I curl my arms around my stomach and my spine droops forward like a sad plant stem. The royal-purple rug is soft and hard against my forehead. It doesn’t have much padding. I can feel each uneven dent in the stones underneath.
“I could get more from Zanza,” Turquoise says. Based on the clothes and height, I thought Turquoise was likely a man. After hearing their voice, I’m not so sure. It could pass for a boy’s voice, but not a man’s.
Madeline replies, “No need. I’ll get more from Zanza. Nova can have mine. She shouldn’t wait any longer.” Her feet patter across the floor, and then her small hand is on the back of my neck. She’s cold as ice. “You’ll either drink this yourself, or I’ll force it down your throat.”
I press my lips together and don’t move. Madeline uses her insane strength to prop me up. Then Turquoise is behind me again, holding me there while Madeline unscrews the top of the black insulated bottle in her hand. She presses the lip of it against my teeth, bypassing my lips. I bite down on the cold metal, but I don’t take it, and I consequently don’t try to drink it.
“You’re a stubborn thing,” Madeline muses. “I suppose that’s why you haven’t tasted any blood yet, despite your body’s cries for it.”
Her fingers curl against my jaw, forcing my mouth open, and she tilts the bottle toward me with her other hand. I can’t close my mouth. Red hits my tongue, thicker than water, sweeter than any soda, but bitter. Too bitter, like drinking straight herb juice. When I swallow, it soothes my insides. I feel it slide all the way down to my stomach, and, for a moment, everything stops hurting.
“What is that?” I ask when Madeline lets me go. Turquoise lets me go, too, and I’m able to sit up on my own. What a relief. I thought my spine had turned into a limp noodle.
“Blood. It’s yours now.” She takes my hands and puts the bottle in it, waiting for me to grasp it. I do.
“I thought you didn’t want me to drink blood.”
“I don’t want you to drink blood straight from another person. It’s like eating go
urmet versus a TV dinner. Downgrading tends to be difficult.”
“Okay,” I say, because I have zero experience with eating gourmet even though I worked at Elysian Fields.
Worked. I let that sink in for a minute.
“Don’t drink it all at once,” Madeline says. “It’ll last up to twenty-four hours.”
“Is it supposed to make you queasy?”
“No, but you have been starving yourself, so that kind of reaction sounds reasonable to me.”
“You’re really not trying to poison me.”
“No. We’re trying to help you. Have you listened to a word I’ve said?”
“So let me talk to my mom.”
Madeline sighs.
“She’ll be worried about me. She’s probably freaking the hell out.” Probably.
“We’ll take care of it.”
“How? Just get me somewhere with an internet connection, phone reception, anything, and I’ll tell her I’m fine.”
“If that was all you’d do, I might let you, but you want to sneak out of here without having any idea of how to control your vampire nature. You can’t tell your mother what you are. You can’t see her until you can take what you are and live accordingly. Do you want to risk your mother’s life? She’s unchanged.”
“Me? Risk her life? I’m not going to kill my mother.”
“I’ve seen it happen before, with new bloods unable to control their hunger. We can provide for you here while you learn to control your thirst, and we have the strength to stop you should you have a momentary lapse.”
I laugh. “This is so elaborate. I can’t believe this.” But I can’t not believe it either. Blood. I really did just drink someone’s blood, didn’t I? In a weird flask like an alcoholic. I shake it, and liquid sloshes around inside of it. Red liquid. I saw it. Definitely red.
“I thought blood is supposed to taste metallic,” I say.
Madeline’s vermilion sand settles. “Not to a vampire.”
“I was bitten. Does that mean I caught this like a disease? Is there a way to cure it?” I touch my neck again, but there are no marks to validate my words.
“No. You’re a second-generation vampire. It’s always been in your blood. It just hadn’t awakened until last night.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Your father is a vampire.”
“I don’t even know my father.”
Madeline sits down, probably on her knees, and her dress blooms around her. She rests her petite hands in her frilly black skirt and says, “You met him last night.”
“What?” But I remember his words. He said, “Your blood is mine.”
My fingers twinge as I press them into the hard insulated bottle. “Does my mom know about him? Is she in trouble?”
Turquoise takes a step behind me, and I think Madeline looks up at them. The vermilion sand tumbles a little faster. “We don’t know. We couldn’t linger after we called the attention of monster hunters. If they did their job, though, your mother should be fine. And your father should be dead.”
Well, that got dark fast.
I can’t think of the right questions to ask.
“So… you’re going to confirm all this,” I say. “Eventually.”
“Yes. We want your mother safe as much as you do. But it will take time to verify. The situation has to cool down, and we are all the way in Alaska, after all.”
And apparently they took me straight onto a plane after—“Did you knock me out?”
“Yes.” She pauses. “Not me personally, but Kyrie did. He was careful, though. You didn’t sustain any damage. We heal faster and better than the unchanged.”
What am I supposed to say to that? Hell no. This is all… No.
I stand up and dash away before Turquoise can grab me—not that he tries to. I go to the thick, heavy curtains and tear them open just as Madeline exclaims, “Nova!”
I don’t see anything, not beyond the plants, trees, fog backdrop, and the sun peeking out like the devil’s skull above it all, rising higher and higher into the sky. A sunbeam lands on my skin. It sizzles like meat in a pan, bubbles, and sears up my arm. I scream and fall. Madeline rips the curtains from my hands, replacing them, banishing the sun.
“It burned me!” I shout, holding my arm out. I can’t see it, just the pastel pink of my Color. God, but I feel it.
Madeline sighs. “I warned you. It’s been sunnier than usual lately. The fairies usually give us more cloud coverage. It’s likely the pixies. They’re bigger pranksters. Regardless, hopefully you’ll heed my words now that you’ve been burned. You might want to get some rest, situate yourself and see if you need anything in your room. The first day of school starts Monday night. It’s on your calendar.”
“Y-you’re not lying to me at all, are you?” I say, and I can’t believe I’m saying it.
“It’s the truth, all of it,” Turquoise, Kyrie, says.
Names. I guess I should remember names.
If the vampire stuff is true, if the fairies are true, the storm borders, all of it, I think that means I’m stuck here.
I’m really stuck here.
CHAPTER 7
I keep my eyes closed long after I’ve woken up. Madeline brought me to my dorm room. Thankfully, Emery was out, so I crawled into bed and fell asleep. I was exhausted, and I’ve still got a bit of a stomachache.
I don’t know what to do.
Scratch, scritch, scritch.
Emery must be here. I heard one of the desk chairs move earlier. It might be the culprit for rousing me. I’m surprised she’s still willing to be my roommate. I did dig into her wrists and try to drink her blood, after all.
I really did that.
I can’t believe I did that.
Vampire. I don’t think Madeline is lying. Definitely not lying. I recall the sun trying to turn me to dust. I’ve got to get this under control somehow.
I move, barely, subtly enough Emery shouldn’t notice, and tangle my fingers in my almost shoulder-length pink hair. I press through the different choppy layers I made when I last cut it.
Mom never said anything about my hair, about my eclectic, eyesore style in general. That’s because we’ve never been close. But she’s all I have, and I’m all she has. I’m sure she must be worried about me. Or maybe she’s staring out a window for hours like she does sometimes. At night. Always waiting to see if her insomnia will give in or if the sun will rise first. Sometimes, she’ll stare long after the sun comes up. She’ll miss work over it. She never hears me over it.
Maybe she’s known about vampires all along. Maybe she knew about my “father.” Has she been running away from him? Is that why we’re constantly moving?
Now that I’m eighteen, would she really be worried that I’ve disappeared or would she expect it? Accept it?
A paper flutters, and I can’t take the black hole of my thoughts anymore. I roll over to grab my insulated bottle from off the headboard and drink. I drink again when it does nothing to soothe my thirst or dry mouth. It’s too sweet to be refreshing, with an underlying bitterness. Then I see Emery sitting at one of the desks, a paintbrush in one hand and a gunmetal-gray lollipop in the other. I think I can make out some of her hair. It’s long, that much is for sure.
Ah, the full-length mirror. I can see her in it. Like magic, her mirror reflection strips away her Color in place of the image everyone else sees. She’s gorgeous. Supermodel gorgeous, the type you’d see in magazines.
Her hair reaches her butt, and it’s thick, micro-braided with colorful strands of likely synthetic hair because of how vivid they are; it’s pulled back into a ponytail this morning. Her skin is dark and as flawless as Kian’s, maybe more flawless. I doubt she’s ever had a fight with acne. Then again, she’s wearing perfectly applied makeup. I mean, perfect. Her eyeshadow is the same rainbow array as her hair. She must like loud colors, because her outfit is a lot the same. Not rainbow, exactly, but she’s picked an orange-and-pink color scheme that screams confide
nce, not eyesore.
“Morning, Nova,” she says, voice buzzing with untapped energy. “I’m so glad you’re in Belladonna. Now I don’t have to pair with those two boys all the time.” She rolls her eyes. “You’re also fortunate you didn’t get stuck with Banana Pepper. How lame would that be? I get the teachers want all the tribe names to be a nightshade, because of the ridiculous amount of them around here, but come on.”
“You’re chipper first thing in the—” I glance at the clock and take note of the dark curtains’ faint backlight “—late afternoon.”
“Chipper is my middle name.”
“Emery Chipper.”
“Bower. Emery Chipper Bower.”
“You are kidding, right?”
“Yeah, I don’t have a middle name, but if I did, it would be something elegant like Alexandria.”
“Emery Alexandria Bower. I don’t like it.”
“Me neither. How about Justine?”
“Better, I think.” I twist around and look at my phone on the nightstand. It’s plugged in. “Did you put that charger there?”
“Yep. Madeline told me to give it to you. We don’t typically have phones here, but whatever. It doesn’t work, right?”
“It doesn’t.” But I’m glad it’s charged. I grab it, pull up the camera, and say, “Smile.”
Emery doesn’t miss a beat. When I look at the picture, she’s got a winning smile on her face. It’s so perfect and so like a model I have to wonder if she’s practiced it.
“A commemorative photo?” Emery asks.
“Something like that. What are you doing?”
“Working on a pullover design. I had an idea and wanted to get it down on paper. I like fashion—if you couldn’t tell.”
“Do you have extra supplies? Paper? Paints?”
“I’ve got plenty to share! Is fashion your thing, too? Your hair is a great pink.”
“Not really.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“Most people call me aloof and eccentric.”
Emery is a chatterbox and a half. She just keeps going, and I’m done talking. I want to paint Kian’s green, the exact shade.
I get out of bed and Emery gasps. “You really did wear your uniform to bed! Take it off right now.” She sets down her paintbrush and lollipop, gets up, and storms over to an outdated black wardrobe. Then she starts throwing clothes on her bed. “You’re shorter than me, so we’ll have to get you your own clothes, but for now these slacks and this blouse. It looks like our waists are about the same size.”
Nightshade Academy Episode 1: Awakened Vampire Page 4