I winced and leaned in. “You know, Lucas, any other time, I’d say yes, please. But . . . Nana will kill me for saying this, but we’re kind of going out there so she can pick someone up. At least, that’s my ulterior motive. I want her to find a hot date.”
“So . . .” Zack turned slowly in his chair to peer back at me. “Your nana has been hanging around the Baldwin household for about a week now, and, we’re getting the feeling that she might be going to Sammy’s Dance Hall with her hot date if you know what I mean. Lucas was offering so you wouldn’t be third wheeling it.”
“Really?” I sat back in my seat. “That woman didn’t say a single word to me all week.”
Maybe I had been reading Nana all wrong. Maybe she wasn’t single for my entire life; perhaps she was just private about it.
“They have a lot in common,” Lucas added. “They go to the same type of church and listen to the same type of religious music.”
“Well then, yes please, save me from being the third wheel.”
Damn. Well, at least this whole ordeal might make one of us happy in the romance part of our life.
“You do know that I have a rigorous application and approval process that anyone who wants to date my nana has to undergo.”
Zack lifted one brow. “It can’t be harder than the anyone who wants to date a member of the Baldwin family process your nana is going to have to go through.”
“That’s fair.” I allowed. “You do know that even though she’s my nana, she’s still only fifty-six, right?”
“Aunt Pam is fifty,” Lucas said. “She also owns her own business and is a straight-up badass at Scrabble.”
“Impressive. On a side note,” I said, “Am I going to find out the results of the trials before Sunday?” Nervousness spread through me at the thought.
“You should get it by the end of the trials. So, everything is in that complex we went to Monday, and it’s all staggered.” Zack turned fully to face me. “We’ll bring you there at around six a.m., and you can sign in. Then, they’ll give you your times. There are probably going to be close to a hundred or so competitors there. They keep all the transfers separate from the freshman, which you should be thankful for, as it’s an absolute madhouse in the freshman complex.”
“Though the scoring is all mixed up within the grades,” Lucas added. “Senior entrance trials are a lot harder than the freshman ones.”
“Honestly, usually only one or two transfers make it in a year because the testing so heavily favors the freshman,” Zack added as he looked back and bobbed his dark brows. “Blackburn likes them young — the easier to brainwash.”
“Ominous,” I said.
“He’s kidding. It’s the best school on Earth.” Lucas looked into the rearview mirror and sputtered, “I didn’t mean — there are a lot of great schools.”
“You’re good, Lucas. You can love your school whether or not I get into it.”
As we pulled up to the house and I climbed out of the back of the Baldwin boys’ truck, the night was conspicuously silent. I didn’t hear blasting techno or a single upraised voice.
“We’ll be here to pick you up at five thirty,” Lucas said. “You can register until seven, but you’ll end up with crap times for the obstacle course. You want to get in there before the other tests. Ideally in this order . . .” he counted off on his fingers, “Athletic Trial, Character Trial, lunch, Academic Trial.”
After saying our goodbyes, the Baldwin boys headed up the driveway, and I wandered toward my front door, knowing what would be there. Justin’s message only had one word:
Please.
It was just one word, but I stared at the note for five minutes until the lines no longer seemed to form letters anymore. I took a moment to let Bailey out, and then, feeling like the worst kind of idiot, I headed over to the pool house.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Justin sat alone at his glass patio table. Ribbons of blue light refracted from the pool and danced over his face as he sat there. He looked a million miles away, and I didn’t say a word as I slipped into the chair next to him and pulled my legs to my chest. The only sound around us was the light lapping of the water and the shushing sound of leaves blowing in the breeze.
“Hey,” I said after a minute of silence. For some reason, I couldn’t muster any of my earlier fury at the boy. Our situation just felt ugly and sad. “You should know that today was my first day volunteering at the BNP, and I’m going to be doing it three days a week.”
He only looked over, his golden eyes meeting mine, but he said nothing.
“And . . . success, you finally succeeded in convincing your parents to pull the scholarship. It was a little overkill though, as I already told you that I planned to turn it down. You managed to paint me as the whore of Babylon to your family and friends, and probably all of the Blackburn Academy student body. Maybe that was your intention.”
He still said nothing. Absolutely nothing. He just watched me in silence.
“You really have no response to that?”
You know what? I actually had plenty of rage still broiling in me. I set my feet on the ground and stood.
“Charlotte Russell’s mother told Gina that you and I had been in a relationship for some time.” Justin gave me a look that clearly conveyed that he’d warned me it would happen. “She came to my mother as a concerned parent and started talking in Gina’s ear about you being a bad influence on Charlotte. I set the record straight. I told my mother that you and I had been hanging out for a year. I said that I wanted something to happen between us, but you seemed on the fence. I told my mother that I was going to ask you to be my girlfriend. That was right about the time that Susie came out of meeting with my father to announce that you’d been attacked in the woods. Then, I got a text from you that said no contact.” Justin set his elbows on his knees and leaned in. “You seem so determined to cut anyone but me slack. If you hear a rumor about me, you don’t come and talk to me. You break up with me over text.”
I sat back down. “I didn’t break up with you. We’re not going out.”
“Well, it felt like it. And, I honestly can’t keep up with where your head is at. One minute I’m in your bed with you straddling and kissing me, the next you’re telling me to get out of your life with no explanation. It’s aggravating. So, all of this is because you thought I lied about you to my mother in order to get your scholarship pulled?”
“No.” I traced my fingers over the bumpy glass surface of the patio table. I needed to admit the truth, but, God, I didn’t want to. “Susie told me about your transformation from one guy to someone completely different, seemingly overnight. She also told me the date of that seemingly huge transformation.”
“It wasn’t you,” he said.
“Well, that’s one hell of a coincidence then.”
He looked away for a second and then back. “It wasn’t your fault. It had to do with me and my life. Meeting you just put some things in motion, but it wasn’t ever about you. What I’ve done to my friends, they might never forgive me for it, but it had to be done. I needed them out of my life and away from me.”
I fisted my hand. “Because you got addicted.”
Justin’s head shot up, and his brow furrowed. His expression looked utterly baffled. “To what?”
“To . . .” I glanced around the pool area and seeing that no one was there, I leaned over to Justin’s ear. “To biting.”
He turned abruptly, so his face was inches from mine. “Addicted to being bitten?”
“That’s why you didn’t want me to stop.”
“No.” Justin laughed, actually laughed in my face. Lowering his voice, he said, “I didn’t want you to stop because it’s hot as hell, and I like having your lips on my skin. I definitely like pinning you to a wall and having you on my lap. But, the actual act, that’s like saying I’m addicted to donating to the BNP.”
What?
I sat there, utterly stunned for a moment. “It made a lot of sense i
n my head. Up until three weeks ago, I thought you hated me. You came over, and no matter how many times I tried to engage you in conversation, you didn’t say anything. Then the moment that I tell you that I wanted to stop biting you, you start acting like my boyfriend. I guess I felt like you knew that was what I wanted, so you were doing what you had to keep me biting you.”
“January.” He mussed his hand through his dark hair and sighed. “I don’t know how to explain this. All week, every week, I had to be someone else all the time. I couldn’t ever drop my guard. Then I would go to your house, and suddenly, I could just relax for a moment. I don’t know if you’ve noticed by now, but I’m an introvert, and I was so exhausted that I just wanted to kick back, close my eyes, recharge, and listen to you. And you . . .” he grinned, “You had plenty to say. You were always talking. It might not have seemed like it to you, but the times I spent in your bedroom this year were the best hours of my entire year — even before this week. When you told me that it was over, I reacted badly. I should have just asked you if I could stick around. I guess, at first . . .” He winced, “I was hurt because the visits were my one escape from high school hell, and it turned out that you didn’t want me there. Then, I picked up on the fact that wasn’t exactly the case.”
“And you can’t tell me why you had to alienate all of your friends?” I asked.
“No. But trust me, I had to do it.”
I couldn’t think of a single explanation — except drugs — that would make sense with that. “So, if I never bite you again, you’d still want to hang out with me?”
“I’d be disappointed, but only because I like it, not because I fiend for it or some shit.” A small smile crept onto his face. “I’m not calling the idea stupid. But, if you had just asked me, I could have told you flat out that it was wrong. It would have taken all of three minutes. Instead, you blocked my number and avoided me. What did you think I was going to do, turn into a crazed junkie and force you to drink my blood?”
I rubbed the back of my neck and admitted, “No.”
“So, were you just mad that I told my mother that about us? Because I was under the impression that was what you wanted.” His brows lifted. “Are you sure that you’re not the one who’s hiding what we have here?”
I didn’t know how to answer that. Was I? Maybe I was a little bit. Everyone else had a very different picture of Justin than the boy I knew. They saw him as this cold front, and to me, he was the guy who crept past my barbed wire and warmed my timid heart. I didn’t want to be seen as the victim of deceit or the soon-to-be-abused girlfriend of a monster. But I didn’t see a monster sitting next to me. Could I be the only one in the world who had Justin Roberts right? That seemed so ridiculous, but yet, it felt true.
“I should have treated you better two days ago. To answer your first question, no, I didn’t know about you telling your mother until the next day. She definitely views me as the villain, and she’s spread that far and wide, but it sounds like that’s not your fault.”
He reached out toward my hand. “Can we go into the pool house. I feel like people are watching us here.”
Justin and I kept the lights off and closed the door. It wasn’t complete privacy, but with the patio lights on, no one would be able to see us from the main house. When I went to sit on the big cushy couch next to him, he motioned for me to sit on his lap, and I hesitated for only a moment before giving in. I curled up against him and rested my head on his shoulder. “This is why I blocked your number, Justin. I have absolutely no self-control when it comes to you, and I thought I was doing what was best for you. If my biting you was the reason that your life fell apart, I didn’t want to keep doing it.”
His arms wrapped around me. “It wasn’t. Susie told me what happened in the forest. Well, she said that a couple of guys approached you, but you managed to get away before they could get close.”
“What were they?” I asked, leaning back a little to look at him. Enough light filtered in from the patio to illuminate his worried expression. “They weren’t vampires.”
A line puckered between his dark brows. “What makes you say that?”
“Because they thought that they could sneak up on me in the dark, which, trust me, you can’t do that to a vampire. I have perfect night vision, and people glow. From the research I’ve done in the library, I’m pretty sure it’s something like thermal vision, but not exactly. Most are red, yellow, or purple, but those guys were white with a bluish tint. They were crawling through the underbrush, thinking that they could actually sneak up on me.”
“Damn it.” Justin’s arms squeezed around me. “Were there more than two?”
“A lot more. Maybe twelve.”
“Twelve?” He said the word like he couldn’t believe it. “What?” His breaths were coming fast, and I could feel his heartbeat from where I was touching his chest.
“Whoa, calm down. I’m never going to run in the dark alone again.”
“This is really important . . .” Justin paused to catch my gaze, “I need to know the exact words they said.”
“He wanted to know what I was. I said that I woke up like this and called a hotline. They said that someone told me to claim that and I was lying. They called me a new kind of sab, whatever that is.”
“Did it seem like they were there for you specifically?” He said through anxious, labored breaths.
“Yeah. I got that feeling . . .” I said, slowly. “That was the third morning in a row I ran that route, and they seemed to think they knew something about me. They said I chose a side.”
“January.” His arms squeezed around me. “Listen. A couple of days ago, you said that you saw someone that looked strange in an alley before. You described them to me. Did they seem like they were spying on you?”
“No.” I put my hand on his chest, hoping that I could calm him down. “It was the night that you and the Baldwin brothers came to meet me when Nana’s van broke down, some chick came up to our car and asked to use our phone. She had all my red flags rising. So, I barely opened the window, and our fingers touched. There was this bolt of static, and then I saw her fangs and pointed ears —”
“We need to go,” Justin said, his voice full of panic. “We need to go now.”
“Whoa. What? Where?”
“As far as we can fucking drive from here. January, get up.”
I hopped off his lap and spun. “Justin, you’re freaking me out. What’s going on?”
He stood up, and his hands cupped my cheeks. His golden eyes were frantic as they met mine. “Please, January, you have to trust me. Do you have a passport? If we can get to the border before your nana realizes you’re gone, maybe we can slip through with a bribe. I have some money hidden in the house —”
“You’re scaring me. What the hell is going on?”
“I can’t tell you,” the words seemed to pain him on the way out. “Please, trust me.”
“Justin, the trial is tomorrow morning. Can we just calm down for a second? What can you tell me?”
“I could give a fuck about the trial and Blackburn Academy right now. January, we need to put states, maybe countries behind us.”
Of course, he could care less about the trial. He vowed to sabotage me in it. A cold, painful lump formed in my belly, and my heart rate started to slow. I stepped back away from his hands. “Justin, is this another ploy? Tomorrow is my trials, and tonight, you’re trying to get me to flee the country?”
“No. Fuck.” He reached up and grabbed two handfuls of his hair. “Damn it. This isn’t the same as risking going into the trials. This is . . .” He let out an exasperated huff.
“This year, I’ve been hiding your existence from . . .” he paused, “Two different groups. And, while I’ve been hiding you, I’ve been trying to figure out something. I almost have it. But I can’t tell you.”
“What? You’ve been trying to figure out something about me, but you can’t tell me?”
This all sounded so ridiculous, and I wa
s beginning to feel a little pissed off. Would Justin really scare the absolute shit out of me just to get me not to enter the trials? He kept making excuses for his behavior, and I kept blithely accepting them, but there was definitely a pattern here.
I sighed. “Justin, I’m sorry, but I can’t drive off into the night with you without telling Nana and my mom. It would destroy them.”
“Damn it,” he whispered, his breaths coming hard and fast, “It will destroy them a lot more if you’re dead. January, you’re not a vampire. You’re a —” He sucked in a gasp, and his body grew rigid. His hands flew up to his throat, and his eyes went wide.
“Justin?” I grabbed at his face. “Are you choking?”
His face was stiff, and he didn’t respond. It was like he’d turned into a statue. When I checked his pulse, it was racing, but he wasn’t breathing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Without a moment’s hesitation, I grabbed a heavy porcelain lamp from the end table, yanking it up. The cord snapped from the wall and hit a vase, and I hurled the table lamp toward the window wall across the pool house. I didn’t even look as it shattered the glass.
“Help! He’s not breathing!” I screamed while fumbling out my phone to dial 9-1-1. After putting it on speaker, I tossed it to the couch while rushing around Justin’s body.
I stood to the side, wrapped an arm around him, and pounded my hand down on his back. But he wasn’t making choking sounds. He wasn’t making any sound at all. How was he still standing?
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” A woman said over the phone.
“My boyfriend is not breathing!” I called as I pounded the heel of my hand onto his back. “We need an ambulance.”
The dispatcher called off a series of questions, but I couldn’t focus. I yelled out our address and location as I tried to get Justin to bend forward, but his body was stiff as a board. Giving up, I wrapped my arms around his stomach, made a fist, and covered it with my other hand and pounded on his stomach right above his belly button.
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