by B. F. Simone
Katie bit her bottom lip. How could she freak out when her best friend was sitting across from her eating chocolate ice cream and grinning.
Allison threw her head back—her red hair rocking back and forth in her ponytail. “You’re gonna flip,” she laughed. “I’ve got the biggest and juiciest gossip.”
Katie grabbed her sherbet and mixed the liquid and solid swirls. “You could strip down and dance naked on the counter tops and it wouldn’t phase me. I’m all out of shock for today.”
Allison laughed harder. “Okay, then. Mr. Right, our math teacher. Guardian. Mr. Rhineheart. Guardian. Even Myrtle the office lady. All of them.”
Katie was wrong. There was still a little shock left. “Mr. Right? He’s so—so boring.” She imagined her dad freaking out after he found out the private school he’d been paying for was a hoax. Then again, he knew didn’t he?
“Yep. The teachers, the principle, the secretary, the nurse, I think even the janitors are all guardians. That accelerated program I’m in, is a cover up. They’re my training classes.”
“Wait, why? At our school of all schools?”
“We live, in a guardian community. Apparently, It used to be a school that only taught guardians, but then some starting marrying outside of the community and more kids weren’t born guardian than were—so in order to keep the secret and not risk looking suspicious, we just blend in. We can weed out most of the normal kids from guardian families by pretending they don’t meet ‘Hamilton High standards’ but there aren’t enough of us in training to make up a real school. And that’s how you get an accelerated program.” Allison shrugged.
“You mean to tell me Christi Taylor is a guardian?” Katie scowled, thinking about every time that girl said, ‘Accelerated program,’ as if she were a toe away from Harvard.
“I like how that’s the first thing you think of.” Allison said, scooping out more ice cream from the box.
“They really shouldn’t call it that, it’s misleading.”
“I think that’s the point, Kay. She really doesn’t have anything to boast about, she’s mediocre at best.” Allison laughed and threw up her hands dramatically. “OMG. I can totally tell you what really happened to Crispy Christi now!”
Katie laughed. “How could you keep a name like Crispy Christi from me?”
Allison stopped laughing long enough to say, “You remember when you found out she wore that wig?”
Katie’s mouth dropped. Christi used to flip her hair in Katie’s face, “The other day my stylist said she’d die for hair like mine. She’s in love with my volume.” That stupid girl hated the way Katie’s hair was frizz-free with natural looping curls throughout. Time and time again she’d come to the school with some weird puffy copycat version until the year they started high school, it was as if her hair had transformed. Her hair bounced with every step and shined with silky sheen. Even Katie was envious for a few months—until she found Christi in the bathroom shifting the “head of curls” on her head.
“She said she wore a wig because her ‘stylist’ gave her a bad hair cut,” Katie said, reliving that glorious moment Christi spun around so fast her wig tilted.
Allison burst into a new set of giggles. “That summer before high school, remember we went off to that summer camp?”
Katie could never forget that summer. She wanted so bad to go to camp with Brian and Allison. She’d begged her dad week after week until he snapped. They couldn’t afford it and he told her that she needed to grow up. It was the first and only time he’d ever yelled at her. She still wasn’t completely over it. If she had known they had money problems she never would have brought it up. She never asked him for anything extra again. “I remember,” Katie said, taking in a small mouth-full of ice cream.
“That’s where they revealed the big secret. Christi smuggled in at least twenty candles.” Allison rolled her eyes. “She’d always light them around her head board and on her night stand. One night she laid down on her bed and the next thing I knew she was screaming bloody murder and her hair went up in flames.” Allison laughed herself to tears. “I swear to God, you know how much hair spray she wears, I thought the whole camp was going to explode.”
Katie laughed hard. It felt good to laugh.
“She pretty much had a buzz cut until camp was over. It was either that or leave early and forfeit her right to be a guardian.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t opt to have her memory erased,” Katie laughed.
“Even Christi wouldn’t risk that.” Allison paused. “Remember Neil Tanner?”
“Scanner Tanner?” He was the only kid in their middle school with a photographic memory. It was starting to click for her. “Let me guess. He’s not at some ivy-league private school in Washington?”
“Nope. He went to camp and had a break down. Said he wanted to go back to his normal life. They called an omitter and now he goes to a public school in Meridian.”
Katie looked up. When everyone found out Neil wasn’t at Hamilton High, trumor spread that he’d gotten a scholarship to a college prep school. A public school the next city over was far from that.
“Last I heard, he’s still in the ninth-grade and can barely remember his own name.” Allison looked down into her bowl of lumpy chocolate soup and shrugged. “I wouldn’t have let them do that to you. I would have fought them off and took you to the mountains or something.”
Katie smiled and stared down at her own lumpy rainbow swirl. Her eyes burned. It didn’t matter what else anyone told her about this world or any other. She’d be okay because she had Allison—even Brian was only trying to protect her in his own way. Her two best friends were on her side. She scooped up her soft ice cream and it never tasted better.
“I’m glad that I have you guys,” Katie said.
“Ha. You have me. Brian got you into this mess.” Allison rolled her eyes. Katie thought for a moment and realized the one reason her two best-friends never told her why they started hating each other—the year the tripod collapsed.
“What happened after you guys found out you were Guardians?”
Allison frowned. “At the end of summer camp, we had to pick partners. I picked Brian—obviously. By the end of freshman year—I don’t know.” The words began to rush from Allison’s mouth. “At first we were good. We learned things and we had a lot of fun. Then I picked things up faster than him—he resents me for being better.”
Katie watched Allison grind her teeth. “Why didn’t you just change partners?”
“We tried. You aren’t allowed to change partners until you graduate. It’s supposed to teach us how to work closely with someone and over come problems. But that’s pretty pointless when your partner is spiteful and lies to everyone and himself.” Allison stood up and put her bowl in the sink. The spoon raked across the bowl.
Katie checked the kitchen doorways out of guilt. She expected him to walk in at any moment with a look of pure betrayal written on his face.
“He’s lucky he didn’t get expelled for having a bounty hunting knife, let alone bringing it to school.” Allison slunk back into the breakfast nook.
“Where’d he get it?—Will? Will? A bounty hunter?” No.
“Used to be. Now he’s on the board. Lucinda used to be a level-0 bounty hunter too, but a long time ago she got hurt so bad she had to retire.”
“What happened?” Katie asked, remembering the way Lucinda sometimes rubbed her hip.
“I don’t know, they never talk about it.” Allison slapped her hands down on the table making Katie jump. She looked at the doorway and lowered her voice. “There’s only one reason why Lucy is coming out of retirement.” Allison’s eyes grew wide. “There are only two types of vampires that can walk around in the day, pure bloods and half-bloods. I’m positive Tristan isn’t a pure blood, there are only a handful of those left. Plus, Lucy got him into our school. No way he’d pass the hand test if he were a pure blood.”
“What—”
“Shhh—Kay. No wond
er Will is pissed. We probably weren’t supposed to know about any of this. That’s why he made us lie about what happened.”
Katie leaned in closer. Waiting for Allison to continue.
“Half-bloods are taboo. At least, giving birth to one is. Lucinda’s sister must have been a guardian.”
“Allison, I’m not completely following.” Allison had a way of forgetting that others couldn’t read her mind.
“Guardian women aren’t supposed to have relationships with vampires. It’s taboo, especially if she gets pregnant. Something messed up happens to the baby after it’s born and they die. But sometimes they live. The teachers try and tell us they don’t, but everyone knows it’s propaganda. When the baby lives it’s half-guardian and half-vampire. They’re called shades, because they will never truly live in the light and or the dark. They are cursed int he shadows. A bit pretentious to think us guardians are ‘the light’ but you know how that goes.”
“No I don’t. How can anyone be half human and half vampire, Allison.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never met one, as far as the school is concerned they don’t exist. I bet my new purse and pumps that Lucy came out of retirement to be his mentor. She wouldn’t trust anyone else with that secret. That’s a secret that can ruin a family’s reputation.”
Every guardian family has a dirty secret. Tristan said it earlier. He was talking about himself. “But Lucinda said she was going to be my mentor,” Katie said sure she knew what Allison was going to say. It didn’t take a genius to put the two together.
Allison nodded. “It’s one mentor per pair. You and Tristan are going to be partners.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The rest of the evening, Katie and Allison exhausted every topic they could think of in relation to Tristan: where he came from, why he came to live with Lucinda and Will, if he was dangerous, what he ate, how long he would live—but, every answer they could possibly come up with always led back to what he wanted with Katie.
Had he found her name somewhere in this house? She always left things when she came over. Sometimes Lucinda labeled food she’d bought just for Katie. Katie checked the Rainbow sherbet. The cherry pop-tart box. The bag of Pink Lady apples. Nothing. And anyway, that didn’t answer how he knew her full name or what she looked like.
Long after Allison had gone to sleep, under the fluffy down blanket Lucinda put out on the queen size guest bed in the guest room, Katie still focused her thoughts on Tristan. He couldn’t be dangerous or Lucinda wouldn’t have let him stay there. Not in the same house Katie had considered a second home. The very same house Katie had pretty much grew up in. All those years her dad worked hundreds of odd jobs just to pay the mortgage and put her through private school. He worked days and nights it seemed—especially when she was younger—and it was this house that she called home.
She looked around the dark room. There was only a small amount of light coming in through the window, but she knew this room like she knew every room in this house. By heart. She could see the dresser right across the bed and how now, a TV sat mounted above it where an old ocean painting used to hang. She could see where the door to the little walk-in closet was even though it really melted into a shadow casted on the wall. She could feel the soft cream-colored rug without stepping on it. This room was just as much hers as her room back home. There was no way Will or Lucinda would bring someone into the house that was dangerous.
Katie rolled onto her side and adjusted her pillow. Her head was heavy. Though her eyes were just as heavy, vivid thoughts from the day flashed across her mind, one in particular repeated over and over: Tristan’s eyes. Every time, there was something in them she couldn’t shake—a type of urgency behind them…a type of anger.
Sunlight woke Katie up. She had hoped, that maybe for a second, she would have forgotten yesterday. However, like a stack of dirty laundry, it was there waiting for her the moment she opened her eyes.
Allison was already gone, probably eating the pancakes Katie smelled. All she had yesterday was her dad’s eggs—edible but gross—a peanut butter sandwich for lunch and rainbow sherbet ice cream for dinner.
Her stomach led her to the kitchen.
It was nice to see Will reading the paper at the table and Brian pouring what looked like a second bowl of cereal. This was normal. Katie sat at the booth next to Allison, who was scarfing down pancakes with as little grace as ever. Katie smiled. Normal.
“How are you this morning?” Will said, looking over his paper. His hair was a mess, but that was standard for a Saturday morning.
“Fine. I guess,” Katie said. On the table was an empty plate waiting for her to fill it with the loads of food on the table: bacon, eggs, pancakes, a fruit mix, a box of cereal, milk, orange juice.
Everything was normal. Too normal. Or just the same.
Why did that put her on edge?
She looked at Lucinda who was pouring a cup of coffee at the other end of the kitchen.
“Where—” she couldn’t bring herself to ask. It was clear why she couldn’t stop blinking blindly at Brian slurping milk from his spoon. They were acting normal. Like Tristan didn’t exist. Or were they? What difference did it make that he was there? Why did she expect them to be different just because Tristan had walked into their lives?
“What was that?” Will said, looking up from his paper.
“Nothing.” Katie forked a few pancakes onto her plate. She needed to be cooler about all of this. There was no point in making anything a big deal if they weren’t.
“Looking for me?” said the reason she couldn’t be cool about any of it. She didn’t want to turn around and look at him. No, it wasn’t that she didn’t want to, she couldn’t. But that was stupid she had no reason to be bashful.
“No,” she said, focusing on the bowl of eggs she picked up.
“A little self-absorbed aren’t you? I wasn’t talking to you,” Tristan said, sliding into the booth next to Brian. Katie blushed.
Brian shifted. Katie realized he’d been staring at his bowl of cereal like Kellogg’s was going out of business. His “pity” face.
“Yes, Tristan,” Lucinda said. “I need to know your pant size.”
“What for?” he said, picking up one of the discarded news columns.
“You only have three pairs of pants, four shirts, and you need a uniform. Did you think clothes just popped out of thin air?” Lucinda said. She leaned against the kitchen counter and crossed over her legs. “Morning, Sweetie,” she said to Katie.
“I like to travel light,” Tristan said behind the paper. Katie couldn’t stop staring at where his face would be. She felt like she was starting to forget exactly what he looked like. It was an odd feeling to have, like a compulsion. She just wanted a peak.
He dropped the paper and it crunched. Every one briefly looked at him as if he’d had a spasm, but he smiled. Directly at her, as if he knew she’d been staring.
Katie looked away.
“I was under the impression you were done traveling. Why else—”
“Alright, I’ll get more clothes,” he said, cutting off Lucinda. “But I’ll buy them myself.”
“You’ll also need some school supplies—“
“Got it,” Tristan said a little louder. He hid behind the paper again.
Lucinda breathed hard and changed the subject. Katie sat and half listened to the idle chatter between Will, Lucinda, and Allison. Mainly, because she didn’t understand what they were talking about and partly because she couldn’t help but feel Tristan was staring at her from behind the paper.
She knew that sounded dumb, but he hadn’t turned the page once. His messy black hair didn’t move from one side to the other, and she could still feel those blue eyes probing her. He was a vampire after all. Maybe they could do that. See through things. It would explain the smile when he caught her staring the first time. Then again, intuition could explain that.
“I’m taking them to the Pony Express to meet Fenkly.” Will closed his paper
.
“You couldn’t arrange a meeting anywhere else?” Lucinda said, putting her coffee mug in the sink.
“You know Fenkly. If he’s going to put on a show he’s going to make it difficult. He doesn’t sell to minors anymore so it’s not a big deal, Lucy,” Will said.
“What’s the Pony Express?” Katie ate the last piece of bacon on her plate.
“A drunk’s pub,” Tristan said, looking at her. When had he put down his paper? Stealth wasn’t even the word.
“We’re going to meet a fate aren’t we?” Allison smiled.
“A fate, indeed,” Will said.
“Seriously?” Brian asked with a little bit of color in his face. Katie knew this face. It was the one he wore to remind his parents he was an innocent, good kid. It rarely worked.
Will frowned. “Remind me to search you at the door.” He turned his attention to Allison. “You’ll like this, Allison.” He gestured for Tristan and Brian to move so he could slide out of the booth.
Allison nearly pushed Katie out of the way to get out of the booth. She followed Will out of the kitchen rattling of so many questions Katie couldn’t keep up. Brian watched her with contempt. Katie watched him for a moment. Now that she’d thought about it, it wasn’t the first time she’d caught him staring at Allison like that.
Whenever Will was around talking to Allison his eyes would flicker.
Tristan chuckled to himself. Or maybe at her.
“Brian, you better go get ready. You’re lucky he’s taking you,” Lucinda glared at him. She definitely was not over yesterday. It struck Katie as odd that Tristan didn’t seem to care about yesterday. He sat next to Brian as if he’d been doing it his whole life…sitting there in that seat. Katie changed her mind. That wasn’t it. Earlier, Tristan reached over him to grab the paper. Even now, as Brian left the room, it was like he didn’t exist to Tristan. Tristan wasn’t over it—he was ignoring him.