Milo, on the other hand, was waiting for me on the front steps. I ducked out of sight and went in through a side entrance instead. What could I say to him? It’s not you, it’s your life mission to kill my kind? I’m just not that into your trunk full of stakes?
I hid in the library during lunch, but I still had to go to Art class, and there was no avoiding him there. He jumped up when he saw me. The expression on his face made me want to cry. He looked so happy to see me.
I slid reluctantly onto the stool beside him.
“Hey,” he said, sitting down again. “How are you? Are you okay? I tried to call you last night, but your mom said you were still out—in the storm and everything—I was worried.”
“I’m okay,” I said, pulling out my sketch pad. “I just needed to think.”
“About me?” he said anxiously. “Did I do something wrong?”
“It’s been a weird week,” I said. Yeah. Wild understatement. “You know, starting with the murder and all…I guess I was sort of spooked by the whole ‘vampire hunter’ thing.” I dropped my voice to a whisper at the end. And “spooked” didn’t actually begin to cover it.
Milo rubbed his temples, looking heartsick. “I shouldn’t have told you. I should have waited.”
“No, I’m glad you did,” I said. Really, really glad, considering I had been about to show him my fangs and all. “You kind of had to. Don’t feel bad. But Milo—”
“Oh, no,” he said.
“Well, remember I was going to talk to you about something, too?” I had to do this. Hard and fast, like ripping off a Band-Aid.
He nodded. I took a deep breath.
“There’s someone else,” I said.
Milo looked stricken. “There is? But I thought we—”
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. I really like you. But I have a boyfriend now, and I wanted to be honest with you. It just worked out that way.” I didn’t think Daniel would mind this characterization of him, not that he’d be getting a full description of this conversation or anything. I turned back to my sketch pad and drew for a moment while Milo sat there in stunned silence. I wanted to be nicer. I wanted to give him a hug and tell him how much I wanted to be with him, but obviously I couldn’t do any of that.
I looked at him sideways. “I am really sorry.”
“No, that’s—that’s okay,” he said in a subdued voice. “We can still be friends, right?”
I smiled awkwardly. “I hope so.” This feeling can’t be my heart breaking…vampire hearts don’t even beat, so how could they break?
It was the biggest relief when the end of the day finally came, and I managed to get away and walk home by myself without any boys at all.
I wandered through the cemetery for a while, trying to organize my thoughts. I needed new clue sheets. Ones that said Wilhelm, Olympia, and Crystal. And maybe Bert and Zach, too, although there was no doubt they’d gone out and come back with blood, so I didn’t know how else to explain that. Really, I didn’t know how to explain any of this.
In the end I went home to drop some more casual, inquisitive questions on them. When I came in, Zach was, as usual, in the process of eating just about everything in our kitchen. He had made himself a giant bowl of nachos, mixing blood in with the salsa.
“Oh, my God, Zach, gross,” I said, covering my eyes. “I’m never going to be able to eat salsa again.”
“Yum, yum, yum,” Zach said, smacking his lips. “You’re missing out.”
I could not believe I’d ever found this person attractive. To avoid looking at him, I picked up a sheet of paper that was lying next to his books on the table. There was a giant red A+ at the top of the page.
“Whoa,” I said. “Is this your calculus exam?”
“Yup,” he said smugly.
“Nice work,” I said with genuine admiration. “How did you—”
“That’s it!” Crystal yelled. She stormed into the kitchen from the den, then turned around to yell back into it. “I don’t know what you’ve done with my husband, Bert, but until I get him back, you are sleeping downstairs in the basement, and I don’t care if you get eaten by termites while you’re down there!” She marched right past us and down the hall into her room, slamming the door behind her.
I raised my eyebrows at Zach. “What the heck is going on with them?”
Zach shrugged. “No idea.” He stuffed another nacho into his mouth.
I gave him a disgusted look and went into the den, where Bert was sitting at his desk, typing numbers into his calculator as if nothing had just happened.
“Bert?” I said. “Um. Dude?”
He looked over the top of his glasses at me. “Yes, Kira?”
“Is everything okay? Why is Crystal so upset?” I sat down on the couch and folded my legs underneath me.
Bert glanced around with a puzzled look. “Is she?” His gaze drifted back to the pile of papers in front of him. “Oh, dear, this doesn’t look right,” he muttered, scribbling something in one of the margins.
Now, I’d only lived with Bert and Crystal for a year and a half, but even I knew that this was really bizarre Bert behavior. He cared about Crystal more than anything in the world. He would drop everything for her, even if it meant losing a couple million dollars on a business deal. His whole unlife was about being devoted to her. There was no way normal Bert would ignore her and hurt her feelings the way he’d been doing for the last few days.
Maybe this abnormal Bert was also the kind of guy who killed teenage football stars.
I shoved my hair back, rested my head on the back of the couch, and stared at him while he wrote. He seemed unfazed by my scrutiny.
“Hey, Bert,” I said, remembering his strange absences lately, “where were you on Sunday?”
“Sunday,” he said blankly.
“During the day,” I said. “Zach and I were up around noon, and Crystal came out looking for you, but she couldn’t find you.”
“Oh,” he said. “I was watching TV.”
I stared at him. “No, you weren’t.” Of all the lies to tell, this one was pretty obvious and poorly thought out.
“Yes, I was,” he said, in a blunt, sort of mechanical voice. “I watched TV all day. I was right downstairs. Watching TV. All day.”
I heard the back door close quietly.
Something clicked in my brain.
I knew who it was. I knew who had murdered Tex.
Chapter 23
A cold wind blew dead leaves in my face as I walked down the street, my boots clopping loudly in the gathering dark.
It didn’t matter. I didn’t need to be sneaky.
This vampire knew I was coming.
I stepped onto the basketball court behind Luna High School. Tall oak trees towered overhead, and the smooth green grass of the small cemetery stretched off to one side. A discarded basketball sat in the middle of the court, rocking gently.
“I know you’re here,” I said, stopping at the edge of the white lines. “And I know that you’re the one who killed Tex.”
There was a rustle in the trees overhead. I looked up as Zach swung off a branch and landed lightly on the ground.
He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and smirked at me.
“Oh, really, Miss Clever Pants,” he said.
“You screwed up,” I said. “You got greedy. That’s how I figured it out.”
Zach rocked back on his heels and tossed his shiny blond hair. “Figured what out?”
“You can mesmerize,” I said. “It’s like how Wilhelm could turn into a bat right away when he was turned. You had the power as soon as you became a vampire. You mesmerized Bert.” He opened his mouth to speak, but I hurried on. “That’s how you got your alibi. You mesmerized him to say you went on the blood run, while really you were here, luring Tex to his death.”
“An interesting theory,” Zach said noncommittally.
“I wouldn’t have figured it out, but then you also mesmerized poor Bert to do your calculus exam for you
,” I said, crossing my arms, “which is, by the way, the most supremely ironic illustration of your laziness and stupidity that I can imagine.”
Now Zach was scowling. “I don’t call an A+ stupid,” he snapped.
“Oh, and I forgot to add, your selfishness,” I said. “Don’t you even care that you’re messing with Bert’s head? Haven’t you noticed how weird he’s been acting this week? And how it’s upsetting Crystal? What if you broke Bert’s brain?”
“He’ll be fine,” Zach scoffed. A slow, sly smile spread across his face. “He’s always recovered before.”
Cold chills prickled across my skin. “You’ve done this to him before.”
“How else was I supposed to practice?” Zach said with a shrug. “Once I realized I could do it—and with him it’s so easy. He’s such a malleable guy” He frowned again, taking a step closer to me. “Not like you. You have to be so difficult. You couldn’t make things easy for me.”
“You tried to mesmerize me?” I said indignantly. I remembered the googly eyes he’d been giving me for months. “Oh, my God—is that what all the creepy staring was about?”
His lip curled into a snarl. “My powers are getting stronger all the time. One day I’ll succeed, and then we’ll be together again, forever and always.”
“Okay, ew,” I said, taking a step back. “But what I don’t get is, if you’re such a great mesmerizer, why didn’t you just convince Tex that he was wrong and you weren’t a vampire?”
To my surprise, Zach chuckled. “Oh, you know about that,” he said. “You have been busy.” He picked up the basketball and began to bounce it slowly from one hand to the other. “Tex was an idiot,” he said.
“It sounds like you were the idiot,” I said. “Letting him see you in the mirror and all. Hello, Vampire 101.”
“Yeah, that totally freaked him out,” Zach said with a nasty laugh. “He ran away like a startled chicken. But then the dumbass came back when I called him.”
“From the school pay phone,” I said.
“I told him to meet me here at midnight.” Zach shrugged again. “I wasn’t planning to kill him.”
“Sure,” I said. “That’s why you set up a whole alibi with Bert.”
“Better safe than sorry.” Zach dribbled the basketball behind his back. The long shadows of the oak trees hid his face. Stars were starting to appear in the dark purple sky. “I had Bert drop me off here. And then Tex came, and I showed him what it meant—to be super-strong, to run like the wind, to live forever. I mean, being a vampire is awesome.” He spread his hands like this was obvious. I realized he really meant it. Zach loved being a vampire. To him, it didn’t suck at all.
“But Tex didn’t get it,” Zach said, shaking his head. “He was like, ‘What about my football scholarship? What about Notre Dame?’ Like that matters! Who would pick going to college over living forever?”
Um…me, I thought.
“So we fought.” Zach spun the basketball on his finger. “What can I say? He pissed me off. My original plan was to bite him and then kill him—how cool would it be to have a guy my age around the house, right? I mean, Wilhelm and Bert are never going to watch football with me, or help me steal a keg, or crash a beach party. You know? I thought Tex would be cool about it. But he wasn’t, and then I figured, well, Plan B.” He stopped the basketball abruptly between his hands. “Kill him and then drink his blood. Turns out it tastes pretty good that way, too.” I could see his teeth glinting in the dim light.
“But you were interrupted,” I said. “Right?”
“I heard someone coming,” Zach said with a nod. “So I ran home, climbed a tree, and waited for Bert to arrive so I could walk in with him. The tree outside your bedroom, I might add.” I could hear him leering.
“Ew, Zach, can’t you stop being gross for one minute?” I said. “Malevolent and lecherous at the same time is kind of overkill.”
He took another step toward me. “Overkill,” he said softly. “A funny choice of words.”
“You’re going to confess,” I said, trying to sound firm. I didn’t like being unable to see his face. “You’re going to come home with me and tell Olympia and Wilhelm what happened. They can decide what to do.” Hey, this strategy had worked with Rowan. Maybe I had a knack for getting cold-blooded killers to confess to their crimes.
Apparently not. “Oh, I don’t think so,” Zach said. “I think you have two choices. One, you keep quiet and take whatever punishment our dear vampire parents decide to give you. Personally, I think a stint in a padded coffin would be good for your perspective.”
“I’m not the one who needs locking up,” I said.
“Or two,” Zach went on as if I hadn’t spoken, “I kill you right now.”
“Oh, please,” I said. “I’d like to see you try.”
“I wouldn’t,” said a new voice. “I’ve got a better idea.”
Zach and I turned around. Someone was standing in the shadows under the basketball hoop. He was pointing a crossbow at Zach.
“Option three,” said the newcomer. “I kill you instead.”
Chapter 24
For a heart-stopping moment, I thought it was Milo. I thought he’d finally connected the dots and now he was here to kill me and Zach. I actually thought, Well, at least this death will be faster than last time. Then the streetlight beside the basketball court suddenly turned on. Bright yellow light flooded the area, illuminating the court and Zach’s furious face and the guy calmly aiming his crossbow at my sort-of-brother’s heart.
It wasn’t Milo. It was Daniel. I guess that shouldn’t have surprised me. He did have a habit of turning up at key moments. Most likely he had been following me since school ended, even though I’d told him to let me handle this.
Besides, Milo was adorable, but he didn’t seem like a particularly successful vampire hunter, at least from what I’d seen. Oh, I wasn’t unhappy to see Daniel. I wasn’t psyched about the pointy wooden thing, but I still liked the fierce hotness of the guy holding it. He didn’t look at all bothered by Zach’s bulging neck muscles.
“Wait,” I said. “Daniel, wait. Don’t shoot him.”
“Zero tolerance, Kira,” Daniel said. “That’s our policy. He’s tasted human blood; he’s dangerous now. We can’t have him running around risking all our lives.” His eyes shifted to me for a moment. “Especially yours.”
“But it’s my fault,” I said. “I’m the one who turned him. I don’t want him to die twice in one year because of me.” I stepped in between them and Daniel lowered the crossbow a little, although he didn’t put it down. “We can handle this. My parents didn’t get rid of me last year when I bit him—they’ll know how to deal with Zach.”
“I don’t need dealing with,” Zach growled. “I was behaving like a normal vampire should.”
“You see?” Daniel said. “It’s different with him, Kira. He can’t be trusted.”
Suddenly Zach grabbed my shoulders and threw me aside. I crashed into the court’s high fence and thudded to the ground. A jolt of pain shot up my wrist and radiated through my whole body.
Zach hurled himself at Daniel, who didn’t have time to raise the crossbow. Zach knocked the weapon out of his hands and slammed his fist into Daniel’s face. Into Daniel’s perfect face! I let out a shout of anger.
“Zach, stop it!” I yelled.
Daniel staggered back but managed to dodge Zach’s next punch. He ducked and spun around, kicking Zach hard in the stomach. Zach tumbled, rolled, grabbed Daniel’s foot, and yanked him off balance. They rolled across the court, wrestling and punching and, although I’m sure they wouldn’t want me to share this, biting and hair pulling as well.
I used the fence to pull myself upright. I was pretty sure Zach had broken my wrist, which was a giant pain because we can’t exactly go to hospitals. Olympia would have to fix it, and even though we heal fast, it was still going to hurt a lot for a few days.
“Stop!” I shouted again. “Zach, it’s over! Leave him alone!
”
Of course they didn’t listen to me. I spotted the crossbow and ran over to it, but I couldn’t figure out how to shoot it. I was pretty sure I’d impale my foot if I tried. But I could still point it.
“Zach, stop it now!” I commanded, aiming the bow at him.
Still not listening. Together they rolled and flailed so fast that I couldn’t possibly have hit the right one even if I’d known how to use the stupid thing. Frustrated, I walked over to them, waited until they rolled toward me, and then kicked Zach as hard as I could in the back of the head.
“OW!” he yelled, losing his grip on Daniel. Immediately Daniel seized his hands and wrenched them behind his back. Zach ended up with his face planted into the court. He bellowed something muffled into the pavement, but I think perhaps it was best that we couldn’t understand it.
“Kira, give me the crossbow,” Daniel said, kneeling on Zach to hold him down.
“No, this isn’t fair,” I said. “I mean, I don’t like the guy, believe me. But I got a second chance. Shouldn’t he get one, too?”
Daniel’s gaze shifted over my shoulder. “What do you think?”
I turned around to find Olympia coming through the gate. She glanced up, and I realized Wilhelm must have been looking for us in bat form. A small, dark shape fluttered down from the sky, and a moment later the bat went poof and turned into Wilhelm. He looked all craggy and confused about being outside so soon after sunset. His gray hair stuck out in all directions.
“Teenagers,” he huffed at Olympia. “I warned you. They’re unstable. Too much TV, that’s what I say.”
Oh, please. He should talk.
“In my day—” he started.
“Yes, dear,” Olympia interjected. “But they can also learn. I agree with Kira.” She gave Daniel a stern, clear-eyed look. “We’ll handle it ourselves.”
“I’ll have to tell my family about this,” Daniel said. “I don’t know if they’ll agree.”
Wilhelm snorted. “Wait till they see where we’re going to put him,” he growled. “He’ll be a fine, upstanding member of society by the time he gets out.”
Never Bite a Boy on the First Date Page 15