“Convincing.” She nodded solemnly. “I can do that.”
We’d reached the gymnasium, and I could hear a commotion inside. A crowd had gathered already.
We stopped and locked eyes. We’d been distant lately, but it hadn’t been because we were mad at each other. It was purely due to circumstances—class schedules for one, though Yasuo was the biggest reason. Him, and Carden, too. She’d been enjoying having a secret boyfriend, while I’d been in my own weird world. But I knew Emma. Emma was my friend. We’d get through this.
She held out her pinky. “Friends forever?”
“Forever,” I agreed, twining my little finger with hers. “Pinky swear.”
I opened the door for us, and the shouts and taunts of the crowd swelled—mostly girl voices. Neither of us had many friends in the audience. It girded me. I needed to do this, to fake my own death, to save Emma.
“Ladies,” Alcántara greeted us from his perch outside the ring.
The crowd hushed as we climbed in between the ropes. I caught Emma’s eye. We were together. We could do this.
“Two girls in,” he announced like a boxing emcee. “One out.”
We went to opposite corners of the ring and stood there unmoving, staring silently at each other. Friends forever.
He tipped his head toward us in a dramatically somber gesture. “Commence.”
Emma slid her Buck knife from a holster at the back of her belt. It was thick and serrated, and just seeing it gave me a shudder. She gave me an apologetic shrug.
I flexed my foot, feeling the stars in my boots. I bent to pull one out. My aim would need to be better than ever—not in an effort to kill my friend, but rather to make sure I didn’t kill her.
I stepped forward and gave her a small, reassuring smile. We’d agreed we had to make it look convincing before she pinned and pretend-killed me. Which meant we’d have to draw some blood. I just hoped that, when the time came, she remembered not to twist that knife.
She advanced a few steps, looking reluctant to leave her corner. As she moved, the gym’s overhead lights gleamed white on her wide blade. She might’ve been unwilling, but there was nothing uncertain about the sharpness of that steel.
Once more, I was grateful for this term’s Combat Medicine. I knew the least painful, the safest places to be stabbed. The spots where we’d be least likely to bleed out, those parts of the body that wouldn’t sustain permanent, crippling injury.
Major arteries = bad. Extremities = good.
Feet, hands, fingers, toes were all prime spots, as long as we avoided critical tendons in the hands and stayed far from the arms and legs, which housed some major veins.
The butt, believe it or not, was also a great target, as long as we were careful to avoid nearby arteries. Nick the wrong spot in the butt and you’re toast.
The forehead was definitely something to consider, if we had the opportunity. It’d bleed a lot—head injuries always did—and that would provide some necessary high drama, with the skull protecting all the valuable bits.
The crowd began to hoot and catcall. They wanted carnage, but Emma was hesitating. She was having trouble doing this. I’d have to wake her up, jostle some life into her. See if I couldn’t bring out a spark. It’d be up to me to draw first blood.
I approached and prowled around her, trying to look eager to go in for the kill. I drew a second star, holding one in each hand. I widened my eyes, hoping she’d understand the message. Stand very, very still.
She froze—she got it. I had only a tiny window to act before we looked too obvious. I threw the stars in quick succession. The first I threw at her head and breathed a sigh of relief as it skimmed her hair. The second hit her foot and stuck there.
She made the tiniest shocked whimper, and I had to purse my lips against the emotion. I had to be strong. We could do this.
It was her turn to act, but she wasn’t, so I stalked toward her, hoping to make it easier for her. I shoved her, then shoved again. Come on, Emma, fight.
I grabbed her hair and pulled her down hard, making like I was kneeing her in the gut. I tugged back up, and she didn’t need to fake the sound of pain. I hissed in her ear, “A real friend would fight me.” I hated to do it, but I had to goad her to action or she really would be killed.
Emma flinched back, and finally I saw fire in her eyes. She lunged toward me and slashed at my thigh, managing to tear only the fabric and scrape the skin in the most superficial of wounds that also happened to draw a dramatic amount of blood. She’d been using a Buck knife since she was little and she was good. Thank God.
I realized the crowd was chanting, “Knife, knife, knife.”
The sound turned my blood cold. I guessed I had some real fans in the audience. Not.
Emma’s eyes had narrowed—she was finally feeling the battle lust, and for a surreal moment, I believed it. I believed she’d turned on me. That she wanted to kill me.
It made me feel so alone.
I had to glance at the crowd. I had to. I had to see Carden and feel some sort of support. I looked to the audience, but my eyes lit on Ronan instead. He stood close by, looking like he might spring into the ring and intervene. I had to look away.
Then I spotted him. Carden. He looked calm. I’d be calm, too.
Staring back at Emma, I squatted to pull out my other star, flexing my thigh as I did, encouraging the blood to flow where she’d slashed me. I stood and sprang toward her, pretending a slight limp. I threw as I ran, as lightly as I could, hitting her in the belly. I hoped it was shallow enough not to do any damage. I’d had to do something—it’d look too suspicious if I hit her in the foot again.
Weaponless now, I grabbed her and we began to grapple. I spun, trying to flip her in a move we’d practiced a thousand times in our sparring. She slashed, and her knife sliced my butt.
I shouted, shocked at the pain. It was technically one of the “safe” places to be injured, but man it stung. I stumbled backward.
My uniform leggings were soaked with blood. Emma left red footprints on the floor of the ring as blood oozed from her abdomen and foot. We couldn’t take much more of this.
I needed to end it.
I didn’t give myself a chance to think twice. I just ran for her and swatted her hand. Her knife went flying. With its scalloped grip, I knew she’d never have let that thing go so easily, but I had to pretend to disarm her to make my strangulation more convincing.
We grappled, and I put a foot behind hers to trip her. We fell, and I let her roll on top of me. Here it came. We made like we were wrestling, but we had to make it quick. Anything more and it’d look too staged, too fake.
She slammed my shoulders down, and for a moment my head swam for real with the impact. I felt her hands wrap around my neck. Her eyes locked with mine, and I detected the slightest twitch in her eyelids. I twitched mine back. Do it, Emma. We were in this together. Friends forever.
Time to let my bestie kill me.
She squeezed, and panic swelled. I tried to suppress it. This was pretend. I’d be all right. We’d both come out alive. I had to trust her. I did trust her.
But still, cold panic and solitude began to swallow me. I was alone. I was being choked to death.
Not alone, I told myself. I tilted my head to catch another glimpse of Carden, standing at the edge of the gym. His strawberry-blond head rose above the rest as he waited for the moment I might need him.
I wouldn’t be afraid. I trusted Emma. Trusted Carden.
I pretended to writhe, but she pinched harder. Even though I’d pushed away the panic, as my vision dimmed, I began to writhe for real. My deep-seated animal instincts flared to life—I couldn’t suppress those. I didn’t need to act out the hammering of my heels against the ring, the gasping of my mouth, automatic, like a fish out of water.
I let go. Forcefully, I crushed every one of my instincts. I suppressed my all-consuming urge to survive. I let it all go.
I blacked out.
The first t
hing I felt was cool air in my nostrils, filling my lungs. It felt so good, tasted so good.
My eyes fluttered open. I felt Carden, but I saw Ronan. Fury distorted his features. I didn’t understand. Was he angry I was dead? I willed him to look at me so he could see I was alive.
But he didn’t look, and then I caught sight of Yasuo, too, fuming, raging, his fangs bared. It hit me that everyone in the crowd was looking where they were.
I turned to see, and the pain in my neck was severe. I coughed, and my throat convulsively gagged and gulped, and I had to spit out the saliva that was too painful to swallow. I focused, and it took a moment to make sense of what I was looking at.
Emma’s feet dangled above the ground, kicking at the air. A hand held her up by the neck. Alcántara. He held her, dangling and flailing, but he stared at me. He waited for reality to register in my eyes and then gave me a slow smile.
I tried to mouth words, but couldn’t speak. I coughed again. What are you doing? I wanted to scream.
Her hands clawed at his, but he only tugged her closer. He wrapped a hand at her belly and used Emma’s own knife to slash her down the middle.
He dropped her to the ground, a lifeless, bloody heap, and finally I was able to make a sound. A keening, nonsense wail that tore my throat as it came out.
“There is no cheating.” He looked out at the audience and proclaimed, “Only one shall emerge alive.”
I scrambled to my hands and knees, scuttling to Emma. She was dead. I shrieked, pleading, “But it wasn’t her fault. Blame me. It was my idea. Punish me.”
Alcántara slowly turned his head, looking at me with those eyes, cold like black stones. “I just did.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
With the end of the semester came my ascension to Initiate. There weren’t many girls left from my original group, and the vampires held a torchlight ceremony for us in front of the standing stones. In the darkness, I couldn’t see the castle on the hill, but I felt it out there, looming. Full of secrets. The secrets of men.
Once it’d scared me. Now I saw it as a challenge.
The rest of the year was a numbed blur, and how bizarre it all was. Vampires and an oddly sentimental acknowledgment of Christmas, or Yule, as some of them chose to call it. There was a night of lights and incense and familiar melodies sung in eerily somber Latin.
It was so weird to think that somewhere in the world, people were out there, shopping at Target, and doing Black Friday and Cyber Monday and all that. While it felt so timeless here, just me and my new, dark blue catsuit.
Carden gave me a small gift—a replacement for the throwing star I’d given to Mei-Ling, only this one bore a delicate feather pattern etched along its blades. “A lethal wing, for my wee dove to fly,” he’d told me. There was nothing in the world that could’ve been more perfect.
Well, maybe there was one thing. I don’t know how or from where, but Ronan had managed to steal back the photograph of my mother that’d been confiscated. He gave it to me as a gift…but also as a warning, he’d said, and it was his accompanying advice that was the only thing to sully what was such an extraordinary surprise. The photo was a reminder, he’d said, of who I was. Of being human. In those words, I heard his recognition and admonishment of my relationship with Carden.
I tried to shrug it off and just enjoy the picture. Because I was also determined to enjoy my vampire. McCloud was a greater comfort to me than I’d ever known.
I tried to contact Yasuo, had even asked Josh to intervene, planning “accidental” run-ins, all to no avail. Once, in the dining hall, I’d caught his eyes on me, gleaming with fury and blame.
He hadn’t spoken to me since Emma’s death. He was so angry. So sad. But it was okay. So was I.
Yasuo wasn’t the only one who wanted revenge.
Read on for an excerpt from
VERONICA WOLFF’s
next Watchers novel,
coming soon from
NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY
It was a new semester, and this term Martial Arts Intensive was my combat class. We were practicing some basic Brazilian jujitsu, doing sweeps. Half the girls were lying on their backs, swiping the feet out from under their partners, who stood above them.
Apparently my partner had different ideas. Before I’d regained my footing, she clipped my heel out from under me, sending me toppling.
“What the hell?” I hopped up, giving a shake to my ringing head.
“What?” she asked, playing dumb.
“You’re supposed to let me get into position before you sweep me.” I approached again, taking a tone that was more ridicule than reprimand. “This is practice, Audra.”
“I’m Frost,” she snarled, though I didn’t need to be reminded of her ridiculous new name. I’d become acquainted with her when she was Emma’s roommate, and I remembered the day she’d announced it, chosen in honor of her love of life on Eyja næturinnar. Shudder.
I couldn’t help it—I smirked. “Isn’t that one of the X-Men?”
The girl was a nerd the caliber of which made me look cool. I mean, I might’ve been smart, but I wasn’t a dork, thankyouverymuch. But under that white-blond bob she had a tiny heart and a brittle mean streak that, when combined with her slavish affection for everything the vamps represented, made her a natural fit for the island.
She swatted at my leg, glaring at me with almost comically narrowed eyes, but I skipped out of her reach.
“Are those your angry eyes?” I stifled a giggle, hearing the voice of Toy Story 2’s Mrs. Potato Head.
“I hate you.”
“I’m sure there’s a club.” I began to step over her hips to straddle her where she lay on the floor, but before I got into position, she cuffed the back of my knee, hooked my ankle, and whipped my foot out from under me. I crashed to the floor, cracking my head against the thin mat.
I rolled upright more quickly than before, angry now. It was wrong of her to catch me unawares during a simple workout, but I hadn’t tucked my chin, and falling incorrectly was definitely my bad. I hated when I messed up, especially in Priti’s class.
“Stop it.” I stepped over her and quickly found my balance, positioned over her. “You’re not even doing the move right.”
She cupped her hands behind my ankles, but I was doing all I could to make it difficult, imagining myself anchored to the floor, and this time it took her a few tries before she could topple me.
I felt Priti’s eyes on me, so finally I let the girl sweep me. I then popped back to standing, asking sweetly, “Do you need me to give you some pointers?”
Frost and I had been butting heads since we’d found out we were to be placed together as roommates in the Initiate dorm. We both hated the situation—me because Frost was a brownnose with the vampires and the last thing I needed was a snitch roomie, while she just hated me…well…apparently there was a constellation of reasons I was still only beginning to understand.
“I’m doing something right,” she said. “You fell, didn’t you?”
“This is class, not a fight to the death.”
“Kill or be killed,” she said, trying to sound cool.
“So tough.” I rolled my eyes. As if I hadn’t learned that lesson already. “Look, I don’t like the new room situation any more than you do.”
Honestly, I blamed much of her attitude on jealousy. Enamored of anything with fangs, the girl fancied herself a bit of a scholar on island matters. But here I was, someone who was considered a genius, who’d also attracted the attention of two of the island’s most notable vampires.
First and foremost, there was Carden McCloud, the swoon-worthy Scottish vampire I’d bonded with. Nobody knew just how intense our relationship really was, but there was no hiding the fact that we spent a lot of time together. Increasingly, his eyes gleamed with lust—and somehow even more unsettling, fondness—when he looked at me.
Then there was Hugo de Rosas Alcántara. I detested the ancient Spanish vampire, but I was undeniably obses
sed with him, too. My best friend, Emma, was dead, and I blamed him. The dream of revenge had become the thing that spurred me to get out of bed in the morning. It was what drove my workouts. What kept me up at night. It might take me years to exact my vengeance, but I would have it.
“Time for holds,” Priti called, and her bell-like voice momentarily elevated the place into something more transcendent than just a stinky, sweat-stained gym. Her lithe grace promised a female power that I, too, might carry inside, though I had yet to access it fully. “On the floor, little birds. Time to grapple.”
Everyone dropped to their knees, awaiting her next instruction.
“Begin in the cross-side position. Five minutes. Go.”
I moved quickly, pinning Frost on her back before she had a chance to get up. “How about I go first?” Draping my body across hers, I began to go through the rote moves we’d learned.
“This is such a joke,” Frost said, snarling. She bucked her hips, and I lurched forward, releasing my grip to catch myself before my nose crunched into the mat. “I can’t believe they put me with you.”
I felt Priti standing close by but out of view. She chuckled. “Ladies, please don’t kill each other.”
“We won’t,” I said, but my eyes on Frost added a silent yet. I stole a glimpse of the girls next to us, going through their moves in a way that rehearsed mechanics, not gave bloody noses.
I resumed my original position, lying across her body, putting her in a hold. “You just can’t stand that the vampires like me.” I tilted my head, whispering for her ears alone, “More than you.”
She let out a feline snarl and grabbed my arm. “No.” Her nails dug into me as she wrenched my elbow to her chest, thrusting her hips and flipping me onto my back. “I can’t stand you because you think you’re better than everyone else.” She straddled me, pinning my shoulders with her knees. “You think you know so much. But guess what, Drew?” Little bits of spittle flew from her mouth, and I squinted against the onslaught. “I know more.”
Blood Fever_The watchers Page 23