Blood Fever_The watchers

by Veronica Wolff

  I wriggled heat into my fingers and toes, forcing my mind back into the moment. The men were still there, closer now.

  Angling my head as far as I dared, I tuned my ear, trying to make sense of their conversation in the keening wind. Their words echoed down the bluffs, bouncing into my shallow crevice. German, I realized. They were speaking German. I didn’t recognize the voices, but I could tell that one speaker was more deferential than the other.

  The wind shifted, bringing me a phrase. Hat er unter Kontrolle? “Is he in control?”

  Ja, Meister. I didn’t need to rely on my years of study to recognize “Yes, Master” when I heard it.

  The explosive cries of a flock of seabirds bursting into flight shattered the moment. I shifted, waiting for the flapping to subside, considering what I’d heard.

  Is he in control? He who? A vampire? Tracer? Trainee? He could’ve referred to any number of people on this island.

  There was more gruff murmuring, a pause in the wind, and then: Sie werden unvorsichtig.

  “They grow reckless.”

  Again, who?

  Reckless. The word harkened back to my chat with Carden. There were so many different ways to be reckless. There was reckless brave. Murderous recklessness. Or my favorite kind of reckless, disobedience. Then another wrinkle occurred to me: There was also the recklessness of pure instinct that was the Draug.

  I hung on for more, but the voices dissipated and never returned. Even so, I dared not budge. I needed to make certain the men were far from here.

  As I waited, I did several dozen careful scans of the cliff side, but found nothing. There were no clues. No murder weapon waiting for discovery, flashing “look at me!” in the twilight.

  Bored of that, I stared at the runes for a while, discerning others carved along the moss-covered stone. But they quickly lost their power to comfort me. Soon, I was just cold.

  I decided to give it fifteen more minutes, an arbitrary amount of time more to wait, and bided it by staring out at the sea. When thoughts of Carden and my need for him grew too piqued, I distracted myself by pulling a sheet of paper and pencil from my bag to take a rubbing of the runes. A little reminder of my humanity, of how tiny and meaningless we were. That time marched on, but the rest of us had expiration dates.

  I thought about who might’ve left the graffiti so long ago. What would I carve, if given the chance? Drew + Vampires 4ever? I smirked at the thought. How fleeting our human dramas became when viewed through the telescope of centuries.

  Finally, the sky turned the color of metal, and the air took on a bite too sharp to ignore.

  I scrabbled my way back up the hill. Since I was able to leverage my body and control where I put my hands and feet, I found it much easier to go up than down. Carden had been right: Using the strength of my legs was the key. I scanned the rocks as I went, but saw no more evidence beyond that scuff left by Trinity’s heel.

  On the walk back, the pencil rubbing was an odd weight in my bag. Other people had been here thousands of years ago. And who knew, maybe others would walk this same bluff a thousand years hence. I tried to feel a sense of connection to my fellow man through the ages, but instead all I could think was how those Vikings were long dead, and someday I would be, too.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Mei-Ling and I picked up Emma as we headed out the door. The week had limped along. I’d risked my neck to find clues, and all I’d found was a bunch of old Viking graffiti. Worse, I remained torn about Carden, feeling desperate to see him again but also hoping desperately that I wouldn’t.

  Emma sensed something was up with me. “Are you okay?” She’d asked it slowly, her words heavy with meaning. But then she flicked a glance at Mei. We needed to be discreet in front of this girl we didn’t really know.

  Between me having a new roommate and Emma joined at the hip with Yasuo, I wondered if we’d ever talk openly again. “Yeah, I’m okay, I guess.”

  “You haven’t been the same since your mission. Ever since you saw…that girl,” she said carefully. But I knew immediately whom she meant. I’d seen someone I could’ve sworn was my old roommate and nemesis, Lilac.

  Lilac, who was supposed to be dead.

  “I can’t stop thinking about it. That, and—” We stepped outside to see Yasuo waiting for us.

  “Yo, lovely ladies,” he shouted in greeting.

  “Never mind,” I mumbled. The sight of him made me inexplicably grumpy. Sometimes a girl just wanted some girl time. “It’s no biggie.”

  But I needed to be mature about this. Emma and Yas were my friends. I was glad someone had found love. I would be mature about it. “Yo, yourself,” I called back. “Isn’t this out of your way?” The guy’s dorm was a creepy castle-looking thing on the other side of campus; it would’ve been much faster for him to have simply walked to class and met us there.

  He clapped a hand to his chest. “It must be love.” His goofy tone was meant to play down the meaning of his words, but I knew there was truth to them.

  Emma’s response was to look down and zip her jacket, the tiniest smirk the only thing to indicate that she’d heard.

  Calm, cool, and collected—that was Emma. It was why I loved her. She wasn’t one of those squeeing, melodramatic kind of girls, who got all weepy and huggy and ohmygod-I-love-you about things. It was what made her and Yasuo so easy to stomach as a couple.

  Our friendship was the same way: smooth, steady, and drama free. I didn’t need her to squeal and flap and air kiss to know she loved me. Emma would have my back till the bitter end. It was all the show of love I needed.

  Except…

  The image of Carden slammed into my mind. There was another kind of love that I’d be very open to. And I had a willing partner. I didn’t know if the vampire offered love in any emotional sense, but I suspected he’d happily offer the physical part—which was not to be underrated. I was desperately curious about sex. The bond had given me a physical craving for him, but ever since watching him on the beach, spying the unexpected layers of sadness and anger at Acari Kate’s death, I’d ached for him in a whole other way. I wanted him to kiss me again, sure. But now I had the weirdest urge to simply be held by him.

  Only I would want a vampire hug. Freak.

  “Earth to Blondie.” Yas reached over Emma to scruff my hair. “What is up with you?”

  I flinched away. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you’re wearing your crazy eyes this morning.” He raised his brows, going all bug-eyed.

  I didn’t feel like playing along. I had big, round eyes to begin with—my dad had always called attention to them—and it was something I didn’t feel like remembering at the moment.

  Yas wasn’t one to pick up on subtle cues, though. “Last time I saw you with those eyes, you were about to fight your roommate.” He quickly looked to Mei-Ling. “Not you, Tiger Cub. Of course.”

  “Tiger Cub?” Emma and I asked in unison.

  But Mei ignored him, asking me, “What happened to your last roommate?”

  My pals and I exchanged a look. “Dead,” I said.

  “We hope,” Emma muttered.

  “That chick was crazy,” Yas said with gusto. “There was some big competition in the spring,” he explained to Mei. “One-on-one girl action. It was nuts. Princess here won the show.” He scruffed my hair again.

  I shot him a look. “Would you stop that?”

  “Never,” he assured me. Puffing with pride, he added, “Emma here saved the day in her own way. When she found out she was going to have to face D in the ring, she pulled out. Now, that’s balls.”

  I rolled my eyes. “How romantic.”

  “That’s how he sweet-talks me,” Emma said quietly. “He accuses me of having testicles.”

  Yasuo snorted like it was the funniest thing ever. And it was true—her shy prairie manner had a way of turning simple statements into amazingly funny deadpan.

  I stole a look at the two of them. They weren’t holding hands—that�
�d be stupid—but I caught them bumping shoulders. He looked like a puppy dog.

  What would it be like to walk along, doing the occasional shoulder bump with Carden?

  Like that would ever happen. My excruciating hunger came back full force at the thought. I tightened my abs, pretending the pain I felt was simply muscular instead of this deep-down longing.

  I shoved my hands in the pockets of my fleece, racking my mind to come up with more conversation. The best I could come up with was, “So much for summer. It’s getting cold already.”

  Was I colder than usual, more susceptible to even the weather without Carden’s blood?

  Between my thirst for Carden and the memory of Lilac, I was tense, and Emma must’ve sensed it. She was never the one to break the silence with conversation, but she turned to Mei and asked, “Which class do you have this morning?”

  “Combat,” she said, her voice quick and tight. The girl was usually so hard to read, but just then it was like she’d used a neon sign to announce her anxiety.

  I forgot about my own problems for the moment. “You’re worried about your hands, aren’t you?”

  Her eyes flew to mine. “Yes. How did you know?” She sounded unsettled that I’d guessed.

  “Don’t freak out.” I gave her what I hoped would be seen as a casual nudge. “You mentioned it before, remember? Besides, you keep fisting and unfisting them.”

  Yas added, “Girl, you look like you’re secretly fantasizing about strangling someone.”

  She looked from her hands to me, and I saw the flicker of vulnerability in her eyes. Mei was showing me just a little bit more of herself than before. “It’s just…everyone looks so bruised.”

  “Wait,” Emma interrupted.

  I was on instant alert. A tide of Acari was headed toward us on the path. It was time for class, and yet they were headed back to the dorms, away from the academic buildings. “What’s up with that?”

  “Class is canceled,” said one of the older girls as she walked by. I recognized her as the first-floor Proctor. “Everyone is ordered back to the dorms.”

  “Why would they cancel class?” asked Mei.

  She and I shared a weighty look. That was a very good question.

  Then weird got weirder. As the students passed, we spotted a vampire standing off the path in the distance. A cluster of Trainees stood behind him, like a bunch of glowering pups.

  My gaze was drawn to one in particular—Rob, staring the hell out of me. I glanced away, unsure how to play it. If I stared him down, he’d see it as a challenge, and I had quite enough of those at the moment.

  Yasuo’s attention went to the group instantly, as though summoned. “I’ve gotta roll, guys.”

  “Should we—”

  “Like now,” he said, cutting Emma off. He broke into a jog, headed away from the path.

  I frowned, watching his long, loping stride. Unlike the girls, Trainees were sometimes allowed off the path. “That’s such bullshit.”

  Emma grabbed my arm, pulling me close. “Watch your language, Drew.”

  “I know, I know. But”—I lowered my voice—“I don’t get why the guys are allowed to do more than we are. Am I the only one who has a problem with that?”

  There was a lot on this island we had to put up with. Every girl’s seemingly imminent and likely death was at the top of the list.

  But the thing was, that made a sick sort of sense. If the vampires were training us to be an elite corps of agents, then obviously our training would be ruthless. Only the strongest, the most clever, survived to ascend to Watcher status.

  But going off the island had given me a new perspective. Looking around and picking it all apart, some of these rules struck me as pure whimsy. “It seems pretty arbitrary, if you ask me. And in a totally sexist kinda way.”

  When Emma and Mei-Ling didn’t answer, I looked from one to the other, giving them probing looks. I could see by their furrowed brows that if they hadn’t considered it before, they were now.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Wow,” I said. “Grab it.”

  One end of the corduroy couch was miraculously free, and Emma dove for it, claiming space enough for the three of us.

  I plopped down, then smooshed closer to Emma to make space for my roommate. “What do you think is going on?”

  Girls were trickling into the common area. Our entire floor was jammed in, Acari leaning against walls, draped on couch arms, sitting in chairs. Some of the girls didn’t take a seat; they just stood rigidly, as if they were waiting to be taken to the firing squad. Those were mostly the new Acari.

  Mei-Ling wasn’t the only new girl, not by a long shot—a whole new crop of Acari had arrived, and new Trainees, too. There were no surprises—it was the usual gaggle of outcasts. I did my best to ignore the lot of them.

  Gooseflesh crept up my arms. More than half of these girls would be gone by December.

  Emma leaned close. “What’s she looking at?” We dared not use any names. One thing the blood was good for was amplified hearing.

  I tracked Emma’s line of sight till it landed on our Proctor, Kenzie, who stood staring out the window. I shrugged. Every Proctor was holding her own meeting on her own floor. As ours waited for people to arrive, she looked pretty checked out. “Who knows? I make it a point not to think too much about Kenzie.”

  In fact, I purposely steered clear of our Proctor. For all I knew, she might’ve been the nicest person on the island, which was all the more reason to steer clear. I’d lost one friendly Proctor already. Losing another would be harder even than dealing with yet another cruel Initiate.

  My weight was jostled as someone else dropped onto the couch. I felt all expression fall from my face. Masha. She wedged herself next to Emma, then caught my eye. “Sad,” she said, shaking her head with mock grief.

  “I’ll bite.” I crossed my arms, bracing for it. “What’s sad, Guidon Masha?”

  “I hoped maybe it was you who died.”

  I looked at Emma. “Don’t the Initiates have their own dorm to go to?”

  Maybe it was a dumb thing to say, but I was getting more and more fearless with girls like her. Stupid, maybe, but a big part of me thought maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t. This island had a lot of posturing, and I’d come to the conclusion it was a good idea to set yourself up as someone to be reckoned with.

  Emma wasn’t dumb, though, and she gave me a warning look.

  “I take any excuse to keep my eye on you,” Masha told me in her Russian-accented snarl. “One day very soon you will go down. It would be a shame to miss it.”

  I gave her a grim smile. “I’m not out of the game yet.”

  She took her whip from its little holster and began to slide it through her hands over and over. She peered around us to look at Mei-Ling. “Acari Mei,” she said slowly. “How do you like your new friend?”

  “I just arrived. I have no friends.”

  A naive person might think Mei-Ling was selling me out. I was not a naive person. That was the smartest thing my roomie could’ve said.

  Masha gave her a sly smile. “Pretty answer, Acari. But you will need someone to watch your back if you are to live through the month.”

  I pressed my thigh against my roommate’s in a silent show of solidarity, and though Mei didn’t so much as shrug, she nudged her leg firmly against mine.

  In that moment, I decided my roommate’s stoicism was the awesomest thing in the world. Her face was utterly emotionless, and the nonresponse was aggravating Masha. The Guidon loved nothing more than terrifying her peers—what would she do if she were no longer scary?

  Masha cut her eyes at me, then back to Mei. “Who is your combat instructor now that Angel was killed?” She was digging for something, I was sure of it. She thought I had something to do with the murders.

  “Watcher Clara,” Mei said evenly.

  Masha snorted a laugh. “Good luck to you. Clara trained Trinity, and she’s eager to see her killer found. She will be very interest
ed to hear that you spend so much time with this.” She stabbed a thumb my way.

  “Watcher Clara’s trained a lot of girls,” Emma pointed out.

  “I’ve heard much about my roommate’s feats,” Mei said. “Are you suggesting she’s under suspicion for this as well?”

  Masha gave a little shrug, a little innocent tilt to her head. “She had the motive and maybe the friend to help her.”

  Was she implying Carden? Did she suspect something was going on between me and the Scottish vampire? Either way, it sounded to me like Master Alcántara’s words coming out of her mouth.

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “Dangerous words, Guidon Masha.”

  Emma bristled, and her arms flexed, practically vibrating with tension beside me. “Are you saying Drew had something to do with the murders? You’re nuts. It’s impossible.”

  “I thought Guidons were stronger than the younger girls,” Mei-Ling said, her tone innocent and matter-of-fact. “Are they so easy to overpower after all?”

  Masha’s face hardened. Even with Emma sitting between us, I could feel waves of anger wafting off her.

  “Quiet,” Kenzie said, and her timing was impeccable. I suspected I was one comment away from a thrashing.

  “This isn’t over,” Masha growled under her breath.

  “So you’ve said.”

  Kenzie banged on the window. “I said, listen up. I’ll make this brief. Another body was found. A human. He was drained.”

  The room exploded with questions. This was huge. There was a small human community on the island, and though they sometimes worked for the vampires, driving cars, operating boats, or farming I don’t know how many bushels of those godforsaken turnips the vamps were always feeding us, there was an unspoken pact. They didn’t bug us and we didn’t bug them.

  We certainly didn’t exsanguinate them.

  She raised a hand to silence us. “The Directorate is investigating. They are actively searching for the killer. The punishment will be death.”