Midnight Secrets

by Rita Stradling

  “Should I …?” I reached up toward his wrist on my right, but Justin only stepped in closer, tilting his head even farther.

  I leaned back against the wall. “Unless I grow five inches, that’s not happening.”

  “How about I lift you then?” He moved in really slow, giving me time to object. His hands slid around my legs, and he scooped me onto him. Immediately, I wrapped my legs around his hips. My entire body thrummed at his nearness, soaking up his warmth.

  Justin tilted his neck, showing his smooth expanse of skin. Pain radiated through my mouth, and the sharp prick of my fangs notified me that they’d fully extended.

  “Are you sure?” I asked, my fangs thickening my voice.

  “I’m the one asking for it.”

  Needing no further encouragement, I pushed the points of my teeth into his soft flesh. Justin inhaled sharply, his breath expanding his chest. Over the past year, I’d perfected the amount of pressure to use. I bit down, pulled out, and then began to drink his salty, metallic blood.

  While I drank, Justin carried me across my room and dropped my butt onto the counter. Knowing that it was the right thing to do, I unwrapped my legs from around him, but his hands were still wrapped around my hips and front pressed up against the length of mine.

  Under my tongue, the punctures closed, no longer pumping blood into my mouth. I pulled away slowly as a familiar tingling warmth filled my body.

  “Drink again,” Justin whispered, voice hoarse.

  I ran my thumb over Justin’s pulse. “I don’t want to take too much.”

  “You’re not, and if you plan to go off on your own, you’ll need enough blood to last a couple of weeks.” He pressed just the littlest bit closer and ducked his head toward mine, an almost mischievous glint lighting in his eyes. “Drink again, January. I double dare you.”

  Shit. I wanted to. The warm feeling pumping through me was one of the best sensations in the world, and drinking more blood would only make that better. But, if I was going to end this, I had to do it, and this here was making me want to dive back down the Justin rabbit hole — more like Justin black hole.

  Scooting back on the counter, I regarded him with what I hoped looked like a smile. “Let’s call it a night. And let me say again that what you did this year —”

  Justin broke away from me, crossed the room, and threw open my door, leaving me mid-sentence. He didn’t even give me a chance to say a final farewell. He just took off.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Another phrase my mother repeated almost daily was that people will always screw you over if you give them a chance. It was another all-purpose phrase of hers that she managed to apply to a myriad of situations. If one of her boyfriends wasn’t coming around anymore, “Well, people will always screw you over if you give them a chance, January.” Since I was a small child, my mother and I had never seen eye to eye. Even before I got hit by a truck and woke up a vampire, I’d always cherished this beautiful thing called life and all the people I was lucky enough to have in it. That was why I had no room for people who hated me, like Justin.

  The way that he was toward me the last time we were together was still making my head spin, but he’d only acted like that after I’d told him I was finished. If I’d given in, he’d have just gone back to the same old cold jerk routine. No thank you. Relationships like that were toxic. With my mother and Justin out of my life, I was determined to be a negativity-free zone for the rest of high school.

  Five days with no blood, and I was doing just fine. I hadn’t started hearing people’s heartbeats. My fangs weren’t aching all the time. I didn’t need Justin. I had this.

  “We might be living in a cramped one-bedroom,” my grandmother said as she watched the road. She said the words as if she was continuing a conversation, but we had been driving with only the buzz of the engine and jangle of keys for entertainment since we left the house on King Street. My grandmother’s old, beat-up van rode low under the weight of all of our earthly possessions packed like puzzle pieces in the back, save for a small hollow where Bailey sat, tail wagging.

  Nana pursed her lips, causing wrinkles in her otherwise youthful face. At the rate Mom was aging, she was bound to overtake her mother any day now. Nana was only in her mid-fifties, but I always thought my grandmother looked like an actress in an old, classic film — like Catherine or Audrey Hepburn. Her looks were beautiful and yet severe, amplified by her graying chestnut hair pulled so tightly against her scalp; it was as if she was afraid some strands would escape and attack her face.

  Nana gave me a side-eye glance before focusing back on the freeway. “The Roberts didn’t specify what type of accommodations they were providing, January. It could be an RV or a trailer.”

  “All right.” I rolled down the window and inhaled the mid-morning air. “Maybe there’s an infinitesimally small chance that they’ll have a trailer parked behind their mansion.”

  “When they include ‘lodgings’ in a housekeeper’s income, baby girl, it’s usually a studio with a hotplate, and if you’re lucky, perhaps a mini fridge. I don’t want you to get your hopes up.” Nana tapped her hand to the beat of the ticking blinker, a nervous habit of hers that spoke volumes to how anxious she was.

  Laying my head on my grandmother’s shoulder, I looked up into her face. “You don’t need to be stressed. First, I couldn’t care less about where we’re staying as long as I have a bed. And second, Charlotte said the unit is above the spare garage and behind the pool house.” I couldn’t help a little smile at the words “pool house,” and I augmented the grin by leaning back to give my stern grandmother an overexaggerated wink. “You can finally realize your dream of being a professional synchronized swimmer.”

  My grandmother’s lip gave a little twitch at that as this truly had been a dream of hers. “They won’t let us use their pool, honey. Which is a pity because I’d like to teach you how to swim.”

  “Hampton High has a pool,” I said, waggling my eyebrows at her.

  She grinned and nodded. “Good.”

  Satisfied that I’d earned my nana smile for the day, I turned back to my phone and opened up the text screen. I stared down at a message I’d sent my best friend Charlotte the moment we loaded our last box into the van.

  “We’re moving into your neighborhood!”

  There was still no response beneath it, and that was fine.

  My grandmother turned on her signal to veer onto the nearest off-ramp. We had only driven a short distance, but we might as well have traveled to the other side of the world.

  Our van turned into a residential street with modular three-story mansions packed on both sides.

  “We should have stayed on the other side of town.” She shook her head, staring in the rearview mirror like she might flip a bitch and hightail it back to my mother’s now officially condemned house.

  I checked the mirror myself, peering into the backseat at the boxes locked together so tight that I had no idea how we were going to unload the van. My grandmother squeezed the wheel until her knuckles turned white. Obviously, she saw the same thing as I did in the rearview mirror — absolutely nothing to go back to. My house was officially condemned, and Nana gave up her government housing unit.

  After winding around several streets, we crossed through a small wooded area. The forest was only a narrow strip as if the neighborhood within didn’t want to acknowledge the city beyond existed. On the other side of the woods, a thirty-foot wall ran the length of the forest. The road ended at a large, wrought-iron gate with a glass and metal guard station at its entrance.

  Our van trundled up to the booth, rolled to a stop, and belched a big cloud of exhaust.

  A guard stood and waved away the exhaust-filled air. “Welcome to Willow Estates. Are you the Roberts’ new housekeeper?”

  “She is.” I raised my hands around my grandmother. “Do we just head in?”

  Once the smoke cleared, the gate guard looked straight at me and grinned wide, and I couldn’t help b
ut notice how drop-dead gorgeous the guy was. Beneath a wide-brimmed cowboy hat, his hair was a sun-bleached blond, falling about his pretty-boy face. His eyes were a bright purple-blue, framed in thick lashes. He had a scar on his eyebrow and chin, making me think that maybe the hat wasn’t a fashion statement. Looking at this cowboy, I wanted so much for my butterflies to wake up and dance around. They didn’t. For a straight year now, my butterflies were loyal to one jerk and one jerk alone.

  “Do we just head in?” Nana asked.

  “What?” The cowboy’s eyes widened, and he turned back to my grandmother. “Yeah. Sorry.” He winced. “Go on ahead, if you’re brave.” Maybe it was supposed to be a joke, but he didn’t sound like he was joking.

  “Well, he was cute,” Nana said as we wound our way through mansions that got progressively more spaced apart all the way up to a private road. “Maybe he goes to Hampton High.”

  “Maybe.” I glanced over at my grandmother. “Not to change the subject, but why do you think we have to be brave?”

  From the cowboy’s introduction, I half expected that we were heading to a haunted house. But if ghosts haunted this mansion, they hid their presence well. Sculpted hedges and towering poplars lined the driveway. The house itself was huge, looking like an entire block of homes had smashed into one. A three-story colonnade striped the eggshell exterior of the façade. Even though it was literally a Colonial, the house automatically reminded me of the old English manors in Jane Austen books.

  We followed the road as it curved up before widening into a parking area with probably thirty cars cluttering into it. Nana refused to double park, so we pulled up and parked halfway in a bush.

  My grandmother paused in unbuckling her seatbelt. “I think it might be best if you stay with the van while I go in to talk to the Robertses.” She shot me one concerned glance as I followed her. “Honey, please, stay in the van.”

  “I just want to stretch my legs.” I gestured in a long sweeping wave. “And my seat is now occupied.” I nodded to where Bailey had immediately hopped into my vacated seat, sticking her head out of my window.

  “January . . .” Nana pursed her lips, looking like she was sucking on a grapefruit. Obviously, she was concerned about me running amok or something. I was starting to get a little offended.

  “I’m not three years old. I can stand outside of a van without the world erupting in chaos.” I held out my hands in the international sign for surrender. “I swear that I will not do anything whatsoever uncool. Bailey stays in the van, and I will be flawlessly polite to every single person who wanders by our parking spot.”

  “I’m not worried about what you’ll do.” She patted her hair with rough and calloused hands, though the tight bun was still perfectly intact. “You just haven’t had a lot of experience dealing with these types of people, and they can be impolite to servants —”

  “And I give as good as I get,” I said, realizing what she was getting at. Well, crud. She was right. But, while I might have an inability to take grief from people who thought they were inherently better than everyone else, I wasn’t going to ruin this job for her. “Nana, I will not, in any way, sabotage you on the first day. I won’t even leave the confines of this parking lot.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Sighing, she nodded and headed up the concrete stair to the raised doorway. She glanced back once at the door, checking that I wasn’t car-tipping or something.

  Even though I attempted to stay put leaning against the big purple van and petting Bailey, within ten minutes, I felt so restless that I needed to move from the spot. I jogged over to the edge of the parking area to where a marble stoop led up to a second story. Going to my tiptoes, I peered over the grounds.

  From where I was standing, a long, terraced veranda spanned out over the hillside, and a pool sat at the bottom of a hill. Swimsuit-clad teenagers lounged all around the pool on lawn chairs. At one end, liquor bottles weighed down a long table. “Lovely,” I muttered, “Looks like home sweet home.”

  My gaze passed over the partiers, sticking on a blond girl who was hopping in place, and happiness surged through me. I’d recognize her strawberry-blond hair and mischievous, cherubic features anywhere. Char grew up at the opposite end of King Street before her mother remarried a computer programmer she’d met online. I took one step onto the marble balcony when I froze, remembering the promise that I’d made to my grandmother to stay in the parking lot. I scrambled for my phone and shot off a text.

  “I’m here in the parking lot of the Roberts house!”

  Going to my tiptoes, I peered down the many terraces to where Char talked animatedly. Her blond hair swished as she made grand gestures, but she froze, holding up one finger to the crowd around her. Rushing over to a long, red-cushioned lounge chair, she grabbed up her phone and checked the screen before setting the phone back down.

  Happy tears came to my eyes. After my mom got picked up for a laundry list of small offenses and probation violations, I could put on a brave face for my grandmother — she needed that from me. But, between my house getting condemned, losing my mom to court-ordered rehab, and throwing this whole vampire condition into a path of uncertainty again by cutting Justin out of my life, the last five days felt like hell on Earth. Even if I couldn’t confide everything that was going on, I needed my best friend.

  Char and her mother had been the only two people who stuck their necks out for us as the rest of the world decided that we were worthless scum who deserved to be without a job, home, or basic sustenance. Char had begged her mother to help, and Mrs. Russell had immediately recommended my grandmother to a wealthy family who offered a decent salary and accommodations.

  After a year of Char growing progressively more distant, I thought that our lifelong friendship was crumbling, but when I’d needed help, she’d been there right away.

  Char stood straight, and I expected her to head up the veranda stairs when she hurried over toward the group standing next to the pool. She grabbed onto one of the guys and threw her head back in an exaggerated laugh.

  I knew that laugh — it was the one she used with Hampton boys when they’d strike up conversations with us while we were shopping or grabbing a bite to eat at the mall. It was her I have such pretty hair, adore me laugh and hair fling.

  I swallowed hard. Feeling a little bit of dread, I raised my phone and dialed in Char’s phone number. It rang three times, and Char spun again, rushing over to her phone and scooping it up. She pressed the screen, and the dial tones stopped ringing in my ear.

  In the distance, Char tossed her phone onto the chair and rushed back toward her group.

  Oh.

  A feeling a little like getting punched hit me in the stomach. Chewing on my lip, I watched the party, feeling like an unwanted interloper. I should never have crossed those train tracks. This was a huge mistake. This thought was heavy on my mind right as someone stepped up to the side of me, lifted a beer, and poured it over my head.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Cold liquid drenched down my face and hair, dripping onto the front of my shirt and soaking through to my sports bra. I stood there, dripping sour beer, my face sticky. And suddenly, I wasn’t standing in front of the ridiculously lavish mansion. I was eight years old, holding up a soaking wet permission slip, all I could smell was the sharp reek of vodka. The alcohol had soaked into my dress, but my mom muttered apologies while refilling her cup.

  Blinking out of the memory, I looked up into a boy’s glowering face.

  Justin.

  What. The. Actual. Fuck?

  Justin lowered his arm, letting the last drops of his beer fall to the cement. A muscle in his jaw ticked as he stared down at me with golden eyes. “Everyone knows the consequences of gate-crashing here — you were warned.”

  I stood there in total shock for a few seconds, looking up into Justin’s angry expression, my brain short-circuiting.

  Someone clapped Justin on the shoulder. “You have to stop doing this stuff, dude. She probably just came with a
friend.”

  Justin shrugged off the guy’s hand. “Blame whoever took her here. They knew the consequences and dumped her at the party, anyway. That’s a much shittier thing to do. Go ahead of me, Corey, I’m going to make sure she leaves.”

  “I’ll go get you a towel. Wait here, and ignore Justin, sweetheart.” The random guy was talking to me, but I couldn’t pry my attention away from Justin’s familiar features.

  Looking up at the guy I’d been meeting in secret for a year, dripping with beer, something in me snapped. I ripped off my shirt and smacked him in the face with it. “Screw you!”

  The wet material made a loud smacking sound as it hit his cheek. The sopping cloth transferred beer onto the side of Justin’s head, plastering his short black hair down like a licked kitten. As the material dropped away from his face, I resisted the urge to do it a second time.

  His eyelids narrowed over his golden eyes, but otherwise, he showed no sign that I just smacked him upside the head after half-stripping.

  We stood there, glaring at each other, both of us too angry to speak. Justin broke the silence first. “You shouldn’t be here, January.”

  “I’m moving in here, and you knew that. I most definitely am not gate-crashing your stupid elitist party.” I turned on my heel and rushed back toward the van. To my utter chagrin, his running shoes squeaked across the concrete behind me. Ignoring him, I threw open the van’s back doors and went to my tiptoes to grab out the carry-on suitcase I’d been using as a grab bag. Bailey’s head shot up into the little hollow between boxes, and she whined as she stared past me at Justin.

  “January, I changed my mind about you living here, all right?” His voice came from just beside me. “You need to leave.”

  Seeing that there was no convenient place to set my carry-on down, I shoved it into Justin’s arms. Reflexively, he grabbed the bag, as I expected he would. Without answering him, I ripped open the zipper and started rooting around for a clean shirt. Shooting another glare at Justin, who thankfully hadn’t thrown my bag, I pulled up the zipper so violently, that it came off its threads.