by Lana Melyan
Eleanor was paralyzed again. She didn’t know what to say, she hadn’t prepared the answer to this question. In a few seconds, dozens of thoughts crossed her mind. She wasn’t ready to tell him the truth yet. Maybe she should say that Melinda was visiting her relatives? No. Melinda didn’t have family, her father knew that.
“Did she go to the store?” he asked.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Melinda left. This morning.”
“What do you mean, ‘left?’” Lindsey frowned. “She wouldn’t do that without warning me.”
“When I say left . . . her old friend is sick . . . dying. She has no one to look after her, so Melinda had to . . .” Eleanor’s cheeks warmed.
“That’s very nice of her. But why didn’t she answer my calls?”
“She lost her phone,” Eleanor said with more confidence.
“Really?”
“Yes, at the grocery store. She asked me to warn you, but. . . . She said she’ll call as soon as she buys a new one. So, how are you, Dad? Did they accept your project?” Eleanor tried to change the subject.
“Yes, they did, but on some conditions,” said Lindsey. With a suspicious look on his face, he glanced around the cold, unwelcoming kitchen. “It’s just so not like her,” he said, his eyes stopping on the empty pot of the coffee maker. He pulled it out. “Would you like some coffee?” He filled the pot with water. “I promise, I’ll cook something tomorrow, but today we’ll order pizza. Deal?”
“Yay. Good to have you back, Dad.” She beamed, thinking the absolute opposite. Eleanor knew his presence would complicate things. Not only because she’d have to keep lying to him, but because being her father automatically put him in danger, and she had no idea how she’d explain to him that he couldn’t invite people into his house and that he had to stay inside after dark.
After a little catch up talk over a cup of coffee, they both went to their rooms—Lindsey to unpack his suitcase and Eleanor to prepare her graduation gown.
Except Eleanor didn’t need to do anything. Melinda had prepared it for her a week ago, and now it hung in the closet, ready to wear. Eleanor ran her hand over the gown. “Thank you,” she whispered with a heavy sigh.
She picked up her phone and sent a message to Hanna, telling her that her father was back, and then she asked about the warehouse. The reply was disappointing, but not unexpected: the warehouse was just another trap.
Eleanor looked at the laptop. She sat in the middle of the bed and pulled it closer. Eleanor hadn’t used it since she and Alec took off three days ago. His website was still open on the screen, showing the picture of her old house. She saved the image and was about to close the window when the About Me tab on the top of the page caught her eye. She clicked on it.
The short text didn’t tell her anything she didn’t already know. It was just a blurb. Next to it was Alec’s photograph. He was standing with his hands crossed over his chest, leaning on an antique dresser. On the wall above it hung three different sized pictures—two paintings and one drawing. Though most of the paintings were hidden behind Alec, Eleanor could tell that they were landscapes. But the drawing, which she could see clearly, was a woman—just her face, a beautiful face. Judging by the hairstyle and the collar of her dress, the woman lived in the nineteenth century. The drawing seemed old. It was yellowish and looked like it was scratched or cracked in several places. As she looked at it closer, she heard a deep “hmm,” then realized she was the source of the sound. The woman, whose cold blue eyes pierced her from the screen, looked familiar. Eleanor closed her eyes, trying to remember where she could’ve seen this drawing before. This photograph of Alec wasn’t taken in his house, Eleanor was sure of it. It was nothing like his room, and his house was modern. Besides, even if the drawing was hanging in one of the rooms of his house, how could she have seen it, if she’d never been in that room? She opened her eyes and looked at the drawing again. Hoping to find the artist’s name, Eleanor zoomed in on the picture.
There was no signature, but in the bottom corner she saw some numbers, a date—1834. Eleanor hmmed again. “This is the year I became a Hunter,” she murmured. It was probably just a coincidence. But something told her this memory wasn’t new, and it wasn’t Amanda’s, but Eleanor’s. She picked up her phone and took a picture of the drawing.
Later in the afternoon, Eleanor and Lindsey, each with large slices of pizza in their hands, sat on the couch in front of the TV, watching The Vampire Diaries. Eleanor chose the show on purpose, except she didn’t exactly know why, what exactly she was trying to achieve by making her skeptic father watch a show about vampires and werewolves.
“Who comes up with this stuff?” Lindsey said with a sneer. “Gosh, look at her. She could at least clean the blood from her face before kissing him. It’s disgusting.”
“I know. But they don’t mind. They love blood, remember? It’s their food.”
“So?” Lindsey scoffed. “We love salsa, but we don’t walk around with it dripping down our chin. Imagine somebody kissing you with bacon fat all over his face.”
“Ew, Dad.” Eleanor wrinkled her nose.
Chewing his pizza, Lindsey watched the show without comment for about five more minutes, then he sneered again. “They can walk under the sun because they have a daylight ring?”
“Yeah, right,” said Eleanor with sarcasm, taking a bite of her pizza. “Only in movies. In reality nothing can protect them from the sun except—”
“In reality?” Lindsey turned to her, looking perplexed.
Eleanor choked. She tried to swallow the pieces of pizza in her mouth but coughed, spitting out chunks of food.
“Honey, are you okay?” Lindsey asked, clapping her on the back.
“I’m fine, Dad,” she said, clearing her throat. But when she looked at Lindsey, she saw a smile on his face, which was slowly growing into a laughter.
“What?” asked Eleanor, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Oh, very nice, Dad. Did you imagine someone kissing me right now?” As she childishly poked him in the shoulder, she realized that for a moment, she was Amanda again. Her anger, her grief, her urge for revenge were gone. But only for that one short moment. Keeping the grin on her face, she stood up. “I’ll go wash up.”
While she washed, the restless thoughts began buzzing in her head again. Three days had passed without any results. They had no idea where to look for the transitioning bodies or where Fray was. Every wasted day got him closer to his goal. They needed a new plan.
“I need to make some calls,” said Lindsey after they cleaned up the living room. “Are you going somewhere?” he asked, as Eleanor grabbed the car keys.
“I’m meeting Hanna. You know, to prepare some stuff for the post-graduation party.”
“It is tomorrow, right?” asked Lindsey.
“Right,” said Eleanor.
When she arrived at Hanna’s house and opened the front door, she heard arguing voices. Kimberly sat curled up on the couch, looking from one to another.
“What’s going on?” asked Eleanor. “Did something happen?”
“That’s the thing, you see,” said Hanna with an edge in her voice. “Nothing is happening.”
“I’m glad that you’re aware of that,” said Eleanor.
“I appreciate the irony, Eleanor,” Riley grumbled. “Maybe you have some thoughts? The floor is yours.”
“Maybe,” said Eleanor, sitting next to Kimberly.
“Well?” asked Ruben, who stood behind the couch with his hands on Kimberly’s shoulders.
“I was thinking that maybe, instead of looking for bodies, we should look for Fray.”
“That’s what I was thinking, too,” said Hanna.
“We can’t,” said Riley. “Samson said to find the bodies. So that’s what we need to do right now.”
“Listen, guys,” said Eleanor. “Now is the best time to go after him. It’s five of us, and all he’s got is a bunch of vampires.”
“No,” said Riley firmly
. “We tried it once, remember? We were seven then, and you still had to die. Who knows how many vampires he has now. We can’t risk it.”
“Let’s say we got him, locked him up somewhere,” said Ruben. “Then what? It’s not going to make him hand over The Book and the daggers.”
“No. But I’m sure if we find him, we find the rest.”
“Not now, not when Fray expects us to go after him. Samson thinks he would definitely use the Book the moment he got it back. But not the daggers. He thinks that the daggers are hidden separately. Fray is not going to go near them until the last moment. When the transitioning vampires wake up, the risk of losing the daggers will be minimal. Samson knows what he’s doing and we’ll do as he says. We’ll look for the bodies.”
Eleanor couldn’t argue with Riley, because he knew what Samson was up to, and she didn’t.
“Where do we look? You should know something,” said Eleanor. “I haven’t been here, but you have been watching him all those years. Are there any specific places he spent the most of time, for example?”
“We did keep an eye on him,” said Ruben. “But he’ moves around a lot. We couldn’t follow him everywhere.”
“Sometimes we lost him for years,” said Riley. “But he always showed up when some of your descendants were about to turn eighteen.”
“And sometimes, Samson asked witches to do a locator spell,” added Hanna.
“Yes,” said Ned. “That’s how he found that Chinese warlock’s house. The witch did a spell and located Fray in that house. I tailed him from that day until he came here.”
“Does he have a residence?” asked Eleanor.
“We never came across one,” said Ruben. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a home somewhere.”
“Today, in the warehouse, we tried to beat some information out of the vampires,” said Riley. “But they didn’t know anything.”
Ruben rounded the couch and sat on the other side of Kimberly. Eleanor pulled out her phone and showed Ruben the drawing she’d found on Alec’s website.
“Does this look familiar to you?”
Ruben looked at the half of Alec's face on the left side of the screen. His forehead crinkled. "Do I look like I have amnesia?"
"Not Alec." Eleanor rolled her eyes. "The drawing."
Ruben looked at the screen again, then shook his head. “Should it?”
“I don’t know. I think I’ve seen it before. This face . . .And look at the date.” She enlarged the picture.
“Isn’t this the year Samson turned you?”
“Yeah. It might be a coincidence, but I can’t shake this feeling . . . look.” She passed the phone to Riley beside her in the armchair. “Do you recognize this?”
“No,” said Riley, studying the photo.
“Let me see,” said Hanna, taking the phone from Riley. She and Ned looked at the picture for a long moment. “No,” said Hanna, returning the phone to Eleanor. “Doesn’t ring a bell. Where did you find this?”
“On Alec’s website. This picture was taken in some house. Not his, I’m sure of it.”
“Are you saying it might be Fray’s house?” said Riley.
“Why not,” said Eleanor excitedly. “If Fray trusted Alec with the Book and the dagger, it means they’re close.”
“If they’re close, why would Fray kill his parents?” asked Ruben.
Eleanor stood up and began pacing. Riley went to the small table with drinks and poured himself a glass of whiskey.
“Alec’s parents didn’t spend much time with him,” said Eleanor, stopping abruptly. “When he showed me his website, I was surprised to see photographs from all over the world. He traveled a lot, not with his parents, but with his uncle. He said his uncle started taking him places when he was twelve.”
Ruben leaned forward and looked up at Eleanor. “Uncle?”
“So they’re that close,” said Ned.
“I think they are,” said Eleanor. “The only picture he took while hiking with his father was the picture of my old house.”
“And that was a lie,” said Hanna. “Because it was definitely Fray who showed him that place.”
Eleanor took another few steps back and forth, then stopped again.“I am sure he’s transitioning right now,” she said grimly. “But he’ll show up eventually.”
“And when he does—” Kimberly spoke for the first time. “You might want to ask him why his family changed their last name before they moved to LA.”
All five pairs of eyes turned to her at once.
“How do you know that?” asked Ruben.
“I did some research. After Alec . . . after he killed Melinda.” She paused for a second, then continued with a sigh. “I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen everything with my own eyes. I liked him a lot. I was trying to find out if something like that had happened before, if he had a criminal background. I knew he moved to Green Hill from LA. I had to break into the school database to see if they had any records on him. I couldn’t do it by myself, so I asked James to help me.”
“Who’s James?” asked Ruben.
“He’s . . .” Kimberly hesitated. “He’s my ex.”
Ruben cleared his throat and leaned back on the cushions of the sofa.
“What?” Kimberly gazed at a chortling Riley. “He’s good with the computer stuff.”
“So.” Ruben leaned forward again, looking softly at Kimberly. “Did he help you?”
“Yes,” said Kimberly with a deep breath. “We found out that Alec lived in LA only a year. His school records said he moved there from Williamsburg, Virginia. James researched further. There are only three high schools in Williamsburg, but there was no Alec Stafford in any of them. There was only one Alec there—Alec Mayson, who graduated two years ago.”
“Maybe it’s not him?” Hanna said.
“It’s him. There was no picture, but everything matches. He was the captain of the school football team, took photographs for school events, and the parent names are the same—Matilda and Clark.”
“Actually, it makes sense,” said Hanna. “I took Craig’s last name and changed my age so I could go to high school with you.” She glanced at Eleanor. “Fray did the same with Alec.”
“We have to dig deeper,” said Eleanor, agitated. “It might help us find something new about Fray.”
“I’ll contact Mike tomorrow, see if he can help,” said Ruben.
“Okay,” Eleanor said with a sigh. Realizing that there was nothing more to add to the subject, she headed to the basement door, muttering, “Where is that punching bag?”
14
As Eleanor, Hanna, and Kimberly walked to the school’s backyard, all three of them beamed. The atmosphere was saturated with excitement. Most of the graduates had already taken their seats, and the rows of red caps and gowns looked like a poppy field. Behind them was a colorful garden bed of festively dressed up parents. Eleanor’s eyes searched for Lindsey. She found him sitting in the last chair of the first row, next to Kimberly's mother.
“Your father’s the only one she knows here,” said Kimberly, looking in the same direction. “Let’s go sit.”
“There,” said Hanna, pointing at the three empty seats in the fifth row.
The podium was decorated with white and yellow flowers. Ms. Finch fixed the crooked pile of diplomas. Above her, an arch of balloons stretched from one end of the podium to another.
“Isn’t this exciting?” said Hanna.
“Don’t tell me that you haven’t done this before,” said Kimberly, looking at her sideways.
“Twice. But I never enjoyed it; I never had friends like you. Now, when the mission is accomplished,” she glanced at Eleanor, “nothing in the world would make me go through high school again. So, yes, I’m excited.”
The ceremony started, and the principal invited the first speaker to the microphone. After two more speeches, the principal began calling the names to hand out diplomas. Kimberly was the first of three of them to receive her scroll, tied wit
h a thin golden ribbon. Then next was Hanna. Eleanor’s turn came shortly after. On her way back to her seat, she looked toward her father. A tall man in a fine suit stood right in front of Lindsey with his back to the podium, and somebody was placing an extra chair for him. Lindsey looked out from behind the man. Eleanor raised the scroll of paper in her hand and waved to her beaming father.
There were only a few diplomas left on the table when the principal called, “Alec Stafford.”
“Yeah, right,” Hanna chuckled.
But the principal waited with a smile, looking at the further rows. Following the principal’s gaze, Hanna, Kimberly, and Eleanor turned their heads.
“You son of a bitch,” Hanna muttered as she saw Alec, with a huge grin across his face, pop out from between the students.
“He looks too happy for someone whose parents just died,” said Kimberly.
“Maybe he doesn’t know yet,” said Hanna. “Maybe he was transitioning, and after he woke up, nobody told him.”
Eleanor’s heart pounded. “It can’t be . . . Hanna, he couldn’t.” With narrowed eyes, she carefully watched his moves. His gait seemed a little different, like he was measuring his every step. “After what he’d done, he had to transition for at least four days. Today is the fourth day and he’s already awake? No.”
“Yes,” said Hanna. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t dare show up.”
As Alec received the diploma, he glanced at the graduates. It took him two seconds to find Eleanor. The moment their eyes met, Eleanor’s hands clenched into fists. Turning his eyes away, Alec looked above the red caps, at the rows of parents sitting behind them, and waved his hand.
“If his parents aren’t here, who is he waving to?” asked Hanna.
“Let me guess,” said Kimberly. “To his uncle?”
Eleanor and Hanna stared at her.
“No,” said Eleanor, rage rising in her voice. Craning her neck, she looked back. On the extra chair, next to Lindsey, sat Fray. Her hand shaking with anger, she pulled out her phone and called Ruben. “Where are you?”
“I’m on my way to meet Mike. Tell Kimberly I’ll be there soon,” she heard Ruben’s voice on the other end.