“But I’m eighteen. I’ve got my own house and a job, so if you add all three of those factors together that makes me an adult.”
My mother looked at me skeptically. “What job, what house?” my mother asked.
“That’s great news, honey,” my Aunt Jennifer said, wearing a smile, “but don’t you think you ought to stick around here, close to family, where it’s safe?”
My Aunt Jennifer scrolled on her phone. Her distraction was palpable.
“Nah,” I said. “It’s time for me to grow up. This winter I’ll be nineteen years old.”
Allen snapped his newspaper. I wasn’t sure what his reaction was because he kept his face hidden behind the enormous panels of the paper.
“Need a roommate?” Ben asked.
“I don’t think you’ll like where I’m going,” I said.
Ben seemed amused. I think he thought I was joking. “Where are you going?” he asked.
“Back to Dracula’s manor,” I said.
Ben’s eyes sprung open. Allen kept his paper raised. My Aunt Jennifer continued scrolling on her phone.
My mother shoved away from the table. The sound of the chair legs scraping across the floor grated.
“Are you nuts!” my mother shouted.
“Not nuts. The Dracul brothers will be away for a while. They need someone to housesit for them.”
“I’m with Elise on this one,” Ben said, standing up and scraping his own chair across the floor. He shot me a dirty look, and he looked hurt that I didn’t tell him about my new plan.
I couldn’t tell him. I knew he’d blow up over it and then blow my cover. If Ben hated anyone, it was the sons of Dracul.
Jennifer’s cell phone rang. She answered it swiftly but kept her eyes on me. “Hello, Your Highness,” she said. “Yes, that’s wonderful. Of course. Thank you so very much.” She ended the call. “You’ll never believe this, family, but the Queen wishes us to attend the ball for her son, the crown prince. He’s looking for a wife.”
“What queen?” I asked.
“The queen of Castle Heights,” Allen answered. Ben stood by my mother with his arms crossed, scowling the same as her. I tried not to laugh.
My eyes moved from Ben and my mother to my Aunt Jennifer. “Castle Heights has a queen? Why didn’t I know this before?”
“You didn’t ask,” Ben said.
“Forget this ball. Let’s get back to the despicable nonsense that is my daughter,” my mother said.
“I guess some things will never change,” I said. “That’s why I’m moving out. I need to get out there on my own.”
“Fine. Go back to the place where you were almost killed.”
“Dracula is gone. He’s not coming back,” I answered.
My mother rolled her eyes. “How do you know that?”
“Because Dimitri said so,” I said.
“And how do you know you can trust him?”
“You keep everything from me, and yet you expect me to trust you,” I said.
My Aunt Jennifer folded her hands and rested her chin on them. She said nothing.
“Dimitri is giving me a ride to school. I’m taking my things with me then.”
“So that’s it, huh?” Ben asked me.
“That’s it,” I said.
I pushed away from the table. Being away from my mother’s control for that short while gave me a new boldness. I realized that I needed them all to stop treating me like a delicate flower. I wanted them all to stop telling me what to do.
Dimitri had promised to tell me the things I wanted to know. The only stipulation was that I would housesit. According to Dimitri, he and his brothers trusted no one else in town to housesit for them.
If the Grimm sisters, Allen, and Ben weren’t going to tell me what I was, I would have to figure it out on my own.
I rushed to my room. My things were already packed.
My Aunt Jennifer had given me a new watch to replace the other one I had lost. I used it one last time to send Dimitri a message saying that I’d meet him outside in the front of the mansion.
I left the watch on the nightstand along with the cell phone Ben gave me during my first day at school. I basically walked out of the mansion that day with everything I had come in there with.
Dimitri was already parked outside when I stormed out of the house. I was a bit nervous to see him again, particularly because it was under such different circumstances. I also didn’t know exactly how much I could trust him.
Dimitri zipped out of the car and made his way to the passenger side door so fast that I almost missed his movements.
“Like me to take those for you?” he asked, pointing at my bags.
“I can handle it myself. Tell me where to put them,” I said. The trunk popped open. I walked to the back of the car and dropped my bags inside the tiny trunk.
“Everything okay?” Dimitri asked me.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“Not so good.”
I nodded.
Dimitri pulled the car door open for me. I climbed in. He drove a Porsche, a black one. I settled into the black leather seat. The car smelled good.
Dimitri hopped into the car after me and drove away.
“How’d Ben take the news?” Dimitri asked.
“Not too good. I think I shocked everyone.”
“To be honest, you shocked me too when you accepted my offer.”
“I hope you’re absolutely sure that there is no chance that your father will be back,” I said.
“Trust me, he won’t,” Dimitri said. “Even if he tried to come back, he wouldn’t be able to make it on the premises. We hired a witch to invoke a powerful spell around the house. But really, that was only to settle Alexi’s mind. What we did to our father will ensure that he won’t be back for a very long time.”
I knew that the Dracul brothers didn’t kill their father, but that’s all I knew.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what did you do to him?”
Dimitri cracked a smile. “I can’t tell you that. What we did to him would work well on any of us vampires. We can’t have everyone knowing the special way to stop us.”
“Might save vampire lives if this way of stopping vampires is different from killing them.”
Dimitri shrugged. “Nah, I think we’ll take our chances. This other way is worse than death.”
I decided to cut to the chase. “So, this deal of ours, when will we consummate it?”
“How about tonight? I’ll get you settled into the house. We’ll have dinner. Maybe take in a movie.”
I would have killed to go to a movie.
“And you’ll be gone for a month, right?”
Dimitri nodded. I was going to be alone in the Dracul manor for a month. I couldn’t wait to explore it. I figured a month would be plenty of time to for me to find an actual job. Maybe I could rent a room from someone too.
Ben pulled up behind us as soon as we arrived at the school. We literally got out of the car at the same time. “School lets out at two forty-five,” I said to Dimitri. “Can you pick me up then?”
“I’ll be right here, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”
I avoided Dimitri’s gaze. He was heartbreakingly handsome and also very intimidating.
When Ben approached me, Dimitri greeted him before driving off. I think he enjoyed getting a rise out of Ben just a little too much.
“I hate that guy,” Ben said. “I don’t see why you want to hang out with him.”
“Who said I was hanging out with him?” I asked.
“You’re staying in his house.”
“He’ll be gone,” I said.
“You’re really going to stay in that enormous creepy house by yourself?” Ben asked.
“Yes, I am,” I declared.
We walked into the school. The students stared at me. Some of them whispered to one another while doing so.
“Looks like you’re popular,” Ben said.
“I wish they’d st
op staring,” I whispered.
“It’s hard to do.”
“Why because I’m so weird?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s it. Your locker’s over here.” Ben sat his bag down on the floor in front of the lockers.
I pulled out the slip of paper that I wrote my locker combination on.
“Paper huh?” Ben asked. “That’s old-fashioned.”
“Yep.”
“Here,” Ben said. He knelt down and unzipped his bag. He pulled out the watch and the cell phone. “You should keep these in case you find yourself in trouble.”
“No, it’s fine,” I said. “I’ve managed to survive eighteen years without them.”
“For me. Please.”
“No, Ben. I won’t take them.”
Ben huffed and stuffed the phone and watch back into his bag. He opened the locker right next to mine.
I gave Ben a look.
“What?” he asked.
“Seriously, right next to each other?”
“What?”
“Did you kick somebody else out of this locker to move me in?”
“No,” Ben said loudly. “Why would you think that?”
Jace approached us. “So, liking my locker, Grimm?”
“My last name is Harris,” I said.
“Right. Harris. You liking my locker, Harris?”
“Back off,” Ben said to Jace. “He’s just bitter,” he said to me. “He’s like totally obsessed with me. He thinks we’re best friends.”
“Jerk, we are best friends,” Jace said. “Why else would I allow you speak to me the way you do?”
“Ben, you kicked Jace out of his locker so I could have it?” I asked. Ben didn’t answer me. “Listen, Jace,” I said, “I’ll go to the office and get assigned to a new locker. You can have yours back.”
Jace grinned. “Nah, that’s okay. Besides, that’s what friends are for. Ben begged me, you know. I figured it was the least I could do for a guy who has been my best friend since we were in diapers.”
“I didn’t beg you, Jace,” Ben said. He shook his head.
Jace smiled. “You totally begged, dude. Why don’t you just tell her—”
“Tell me what?”
“Nothing, Reagan. Look, Jace, I don’t see why you’re complaining. You’ve got a locker next to Zoe. The love of your life who doesn’t love you back.”
“Shut up,” Jace said.
“When are you going to give it up man? Everybody knows Zoe’s into werewolves. Not the eternally cursed like you.”
“That’s because she doesn’t know how savage I am,” Jace said. “But she’ll see.”
“Savage?” I asked. “Is savage a good thing? Because that sounds like a bad thing to me.”
“You’ll learn the lingo,” Jace said. “See you guys in history.”
Jace left me and Ben standing by the lockers.
“Ignore Jace,” Ben said.
I smirked. “Since we’re locker buddies, we might as well walk to class together,” I suggested.
Ben fanned himself. “Oh, I thought you’d never ask,” he said.
4
I’m not sure what I expected school to be like, but I took to it like a fish to water as far as classes were concerned.
I soaked up every piece of instruction, even the instruction that included material that I already knew.
By the time my morning classes were over, my hair had grown another inch which meant that I’d be back to braiding and pinning it up in no time. On my way to lunch with Ben, I was sulking over my hair when I heard a girl screaming.
The girl stood in front of the school gym’s double doors.
“What’s wrong?” Ben asked her.
“There’s a girl, in the locker room, dead.”
Ben pushed into the gym. I followed behind him. I don’t know why I followed him.
“Shouldn’t we get someone? Like Mrs. Bright or the principal?” I asked Ben.
Ben pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed. “Uh, yes. I’m at the high school. Someone says there’s a dead body in the gym, in the girl’s locker room. I’m going there now. I haven’t seen the body yet.”
Ben ended the call.
“Shouldn’t we go get someone?” I asked again. “What if the killer is still in there?”
Ben grabbed my hand. “I doubt that. I need to see the body for myself this time. Too many have died. No one seems to know who the killer is, not even the Castle Heights police or my mother.”
The gym was quiet and empty. Everyone had already cleared out to go to lunch.
I trailed Ben across the basketball court. A large C&H was painted in the middle of the floor. The school mascot, a crow, sat on top of the C.
Once we made it to the locker room, Ben pushed the girl’s locker room door open. “Hello!” he called. When no one answered he went into the locker room.
“Whatever you do, Ben, don’t touch anything,” I said. “I’ve watched enough crime shows to know that you never touch anything.”
“Crime shows, huh?” Ben looked back at me and smirked.
“What? You act as if this is so normal. As if finding a dead body is no big deal.”
“It isn’t all that big of a deal in Castle Heights,” Ben said.
We looked around the girl’s locker room. We didn’t see anyone. I heard the tapping of high heels on the locker room floor.
“What are you two doing in here?” Mrs. Bright asked. Her eyes wide with surprise.
Ben had his back to us. He was peering into one of the single stall showers, peeking behind the yellow shower curtain. “She’s in here,” Ben said. He stumbled back. “It’s…it’s Annabelle.”
“Annabelle!” Mrs. Bright shouted. “Not my Annabelle.” She pushed past Ben and shoved the curtain aside. The Principal who I had never met, but could identify because his picture hung in the school hall near the entrance, hovered behind Mrs. Bright as she confirmed that it was indeed her daughter dead in the shower.
“You two go on,” Principal Pike said to us.
“Oh, my!” Mrs. Bright cried.
“Come on, Ben,” I said. I grabbed Ben by the arm. I had to practically drag him out of the gym.
Ben’s expression was markedly sullen. I felt for Mrs. Bright. “Ben, maybe you should go home early,” I said.
“No, it’s okay. I can’t believe they got Annabelle.”
“Who do you think is responsible for these deaths?” I asked.
An announcement came over the intercom. “School is being dismissed early,” a woman’s voice said.
Ben threw his arm around me. “Come on. Let’s go,” he said.
Dimitri was supposed to pick me up from school, but since we were getting out early, I thought it might be best for me to stay with Ben for a while, considering what he had seen.
Ben drove to a park. The air was chilly. I clutched my coat. I figured Ben wanted to process things before he had to speak to my Aunt Jennifer about it. I had no idea what state Mrs. Bright’s daughter was in when Ben found her. I did not know how she died because I did not see her body.
I put my hand on Ben’s shoulder. “What happened to Mrs. Bright’s daughter?” I asked.
“Her throat was torn out.”
I placed my hand on my own throat. A fog of chilled air hovered in front of my face when I exhaled. “Who would do something like that?”
“Or what? In Castle Heights, you have to ask what.”
“Okay, then what?”
“Not a vampire. A vampire bites and sucks blood.”
“What if the vampire sucked her blood before ripping her throat out?”
“That’s possible. But what would be the point unless a vampire killed Annabelle for revenge?”
“Is Annabelle’s death consistent with the others? I mean, did other recently murdered people have their throats ripped out too?”
“Yes,” Ben said.
“What other sort rips out throats? A werewolf would and could do that for sure,”
I said.
“Yes, that’s true. But why? The motive isn’t clear. Most werewolves are not malicious. At least not anymore malicious than any other. There are bad ones, just like there are bad beings of all sorts.”
“So maybe if we can figure out what these recent murders have in common, maybe we’d be able to figure out if a werewolf is involved,” I said.
“I’ve tried to find the connection. I haven’t found any.”
“If you give me the names of the others, maybe I can come up with something.”
“You should stay out of this, Reagan. You need to lay low.”
“You know what, Ben, I’m tired of everyone treating me like I’m a delicate flower incapable of standing up on my own two feet.”
“That’s why you’re moving in with Dimitri?”
My eyes burned. “I’m not moving in with Dimitri. I’m housesitting. He isn’t even going to be there. He’s going away.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“So what about tonight? The two of you will be alone tonight.”
“What of it?”
Ben frowned. “You’re killing me, Reagan.”
“How so?”
Ben ruffled his own hair, before balling up both of his hands. “Can’t you see that I like you, Reagan?” he asked.
“I like you too, Ben,” I said.
“I mean, I like you like you. Like, I like you in a romantic way.”
I had been avoiding this conversation for days. The intensity of Ben’s feelings had become more than apparent. I guess the first time we hung out, it was clear that he liked me. I liked him too, but I didn’t know to what extent. I mean, he was immensely adorable. Sometimes, when we were alone, I wanted to hug him or kiss him. Sometimes I felt a charge between us. But he was my Aunt Jennifer’s adopted son. I thought that the relation was just too weird, even though technically we weren’t related.
“We’re like cousins,” I said finally.
“We’re not cousins. Not by blood. And not by decision as far as I’m concerned. We don’t share DNA. Well, that’s not true, we share…oh, never mind.”
“What? What were you about to say? What about our DNA?”
Castle Heights: Crown of Glass Page 4