by M. Leighton
I felt the blood seep from my cheeks.
“Oh,” I said, my shoulders slumping forward in dejection.
I felt deflated. No, I felt crushed. For just a moment, I had experienced a rush of…something—pleasure, fate, inevitability—at the prospect of being destined for Bo, of being the one person in the history of the world that could help him. But there was nothing on my skin. I washed it and clothed it every day; I knew it intimately. There was simply nothing there.
“Well, if that legend is true, then I must not be Bo’s mate,” I said quietly.
Speaking those hurtful words aloud nearly brought me to tears. I looked down into the glass of bright yellow liquid, blinking away the moisture that had suddenly accumulated behind my lids.
“I guess that depends on how you look at it.”
“That sounds pretty clear to me. I think the girl would know, don’t you?”
Lucius merely shrugged again, watching me closely. Is that what he was trying to tell me? That there was someone else?
The mere thought of another girl being divinely mated to Bo made my stomach swim with nausea. The air inside the tiny cabin suddenly felt too warm and too thick to breathe, so I jumped to my feet and made my excuses. I had to get out of there.
“Well, I’d better get going,” I said, handing Lucius my still-full glass of soda.
“I need to go and try to get my friends out of the woods. I’d hate for them to be attacked, too.”
I walked toward the door, willing myself not to run—from Lucius, from fate, from the loss of Bo. Again.
“Too?” Lucius asked from behind me.
When I turned to look back, his face was only inches from mine. I hadn’t even heard him get up or make his way across the wooden floor to me. He was just…there. That was always a bit unnerving.
“Pardon?” He’d startled me, addling my already scrambled brain, a feat not particularly difficult by that point.
“You said you’d hate for them to be attacked ‘too’.”
“Oh, right.”
I’d completely forgotten to mention being attacked in my bedroom by a female vampire.
“Well?” It was Lucius doing the prompting now.
I shrugged, not wanting to make a big deal out of it, even though it still felt like a big deal. I just wanted to get out of there.
“Some vampire came into my room and attacked me.”
His jewel-like gaze hardened, focusing on my face with surprising intensity.
“When did this happen?”
“The other night.”
“What did he look like? Did you recognize him?”
“No, I couldn’t see anything, but I think it was a ‘her’ not a ‘him’.”
Lucius’s nostrils flared, as if he was attempting to smell something on me—
or in me.
“Lucius, I’ve gotta go,” I said, hurrying out the door and down the steps. As I walked, I dragged gasps of cool air into my lungs, determined to hold back the despair that threatened.
The legend is wrong. It’s wrong. It’s got to be wrong, I kept telling myself as I came to a stop just inside the tree line.
“Do you even know where you’re going?” Lucius called to me from the front porch.
I started walking again, tossing back over my shoulder. “Which way?” I had to ask; I had no idea in which direction the gorge lay.
“When you get to the boulder, go right and keep straight. You can’t miss the glow of the fire in the distance,” he called.
His voice had grown faint as I increased the distance between us, increased the distance between me and the nagging pain of the truth, or what might be the truth. I wouldn’t, couldn’t let myself believe it just yet.
As I navigated the darkened trees and treacherous forest floor, I found I could no longer hold the devastation I felt inside. Pain bubbled up from deep in my soul and poured down my cheeks in the form of tears. They flowed in tortured silence, dripping from my chin and peppering my chest with salt water.
I don’t know how long I walked like that. Time ceased to move around me.
I was trapped in a web of despair and I couldn’t see my way out.
When I saw the orangey halo of the fire bleeding out into the night, I stopped behind a tree, leaning up against it and wiping at my face, trying to collect myself before I walked on to crash a party.
As soon as I felt mostly composed, I walked casually up to two people I recognized that were standing at the periphery of the gathering.
“Hey, guys. Having fun?”
Mike Eversol and Shaina Dunn turned to look at me.
“Ridley,” Shaina said, leaning forward to hug me. “I thought you weren’t coming.”
I shrugged. “I’m just dropping by. I can’t stay very long.” I scanned the faces in the crowd, but didn’t see Summer. “Do you know where Summer is?”
Shaina turned to look out into the crowd as well. “Um, I thought she was over at the keg with Aisha, but I don’t see her now. I don’t know where she went.”
She turned back to me. “Sorry.”
I smiled. “No biggee. I’m sure she’s here somewhere. I’ll just ask around,”
I explained, backing away.
“See you later,” she said.
“Later, Ridley,” Mike chimed in.
I waved then turned to wiggle my way through the tight throng of bodies and weave my way around the fire until I’d arrived at the keg. There was no sign of Summer or Aisha.
I spotted Drew. As usual, he was never far from the source of alcohol. He was laughing at something Minty was saying, but when he spotted me, his smile faded.
If he hadn’t seen me, I’d have done my best to just avoid him. But, since that option was off the table and there was no polite way to not speak, I approached the duo nonchalantly and asked, “Hey, have you guys seen Summer?”
“Yeah, she—” Minty began, but Drew interrupted him.
“You here alone?”
“Yep.”
“Can’t get a date since wonder boy disappeared, huh?”
Bitterness radiated from him like cold air from an open freezer door. Drew was not so callous that he didn’t care that Bo had “disappeared,” nor would he maliciously wish for someone to be hurt or harmed; he was simply still sore from being dumped.
Men and their egos! I thought.
“Nope. Where’s Summer?” I asked again, ignoring his comment and refusing to take the bait.
With a snort, Drew turned his head and took a long pull from his cup, one presumably full of beer.
Minty, having been watching our exchange with visible discomfort, answered me when Drew didn’t.
“I saw her and Aisha walking off into the woods. I think they were going to use the bathroom. You know how girls are,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Two by two.”
I grinned. “You mean smart for not going off into the woods alone?”
“Touché, Heller,” Minty teased.
“Which way did they go?”
“Back that way,” he said, pointing behind us, into the darkest part of the woods, the part furthest from the fire.
Figures!
“Ok. Thanks, Minty.”
I walked off, not even deigning to acknowledge Drew. I wasn’t going to waste my time on him until he grew up and got over himself.
When I’d gotten into the trees and far enough away from the party to hear the night, I stopped to listen. Wherever Summer and Aisha were, their chatter would lead me to them.
As I listened, however, I realized that there was one problem with that—there was no chatter. There were no noises that might suggest that anyone besides me was in the woods away from the others.
Even while I was thinking how odd that was, foreboding was swelling ominously inside my head like a big thunderhead.
Swallowing the unease that rose to the back of my throat, I walked further into the darkness and stopped once more to listen. Nothing.
“Summer!” I called, not too l
oudly.
Nothing.
“Aisha!”
Nothing.
“Summer!” I shouted more loudly this time, walking a few steps farther into the night.
Still, I heard nothing but the leaves and bracken settling beneath my feet.
Just before I turned to head back to the party, a burst of wind puffed my hair away from my face. It was as if something had passed in front of me, moving so quickly that I couldn’t see it.
I held my breath and listened. The faint whispers of cloth shifting against skin reached my ears. I looked left then right, but saw nothing in the blackness.
“Summer?”
I turned in a circle, all my senses reaching out to scan my surroundings for someone, for some thing. When I was again staring into the dimmest part of the woods, that rush of wind feathered across my face again, only this time, it carried the scent of earth, as well as a sound.
“T,” the soft voice sighed.
Fear needled at my nerves. The voice was so low I couldn’t make out anything familiar in it, but that letter, that nickname, was one that Drew used to call me.
Adrenaline flooded my body, infusing my muscles and my heart with blood and oxygen, preparing me for flight. In one smooth movement, I turned on my heel and I ran as fast as I could back toward the light of the bonfire.
I didn’t have to see behind to know that something was following me.
Closely. That knowledge, that feeling like I was prey, pushed me faster and faster through the forest.
Just before I burst through the trees into the clearing where the party was happening, something hit me in the back. I screamed as the skin between my shoulder blades tore beneath the scrape of something razor sharp.
I practically fell into the arms of one very surprised Minty.
“What the h—”
“Minty, run!”
“Ridley, what the—”
“Run!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. I moved away from Minty to approach the fire. “Run!” I repeated.
“Ridley, your back,” Minty said from behind me.
I turned toward him and that’s when I heard the frightened screams erupt from several girls that were standing around.
“What?” I asked, twisting my arm to reach behind me. When I drew my fingers away, they were bloody.
I looked up at Minty. He was staring at my sticky red hand.
“Minty, we’ve got to get everyone out of the woods.”
It wasn’t hard to convince the already-scared girls to stick together and get the heck out of dodge, and I found that the more reluctant partiers were easier to motivate once I showed them my back. I saw Minty pointing to me a couple of times and realized that he was using the same tactic. No one wanted to be shredded for the sake of a party.
When everyone was heading quickly back to the road, to their cars, Minty crossed behind the fire, over to me.
“Let’s go, Ridley. We need to get you to the hospital.”
“Where’s Drew?”
Minty paled visibly. “He- he—”
“He what?”
“He went to take a leak right after you left.”
Minty was afraid Drew might be in danger. After learning that Drew had disappeared into the woods shortly after I had, I was even more afraid that Drew might be the danger.
“Minty, we’ve got to get out of here.”
“I can’t leave—”
“Minty, there’s nothing we can do for him now. We’ll never find him in the dark.”
I saw the indecision on Minty’s face as he warred between self preservation and loyalty to his friend.
“Minty, he wouldn’t want you to die looking for him.”
I hated to be the one encouraging someone else to leave a friend behind, but Minty had no idea what Drew might have become, what he could be capable of.
And unfortunately, he would never know that I wasn’t intentionally sacrificing Drew’s life for his, that I wasn’t a coward. He would just have to think poorly of me. It was the only way.
Finally, after a few more seconds of hesitation, Minty nodded and we quickly hurried after the crowd.
As we walked, neither of us said a word. We were both lost in thought, though I doubted the same thoughts. He was feeling guilty for leaving his friend, yet afraid for his own safety. I was wondering how in the world I could’ve missed that Drew was a vampire.
CHAPTER FIVE
It took some fancy talking to get Minty to forego taking me to the hospital himself. I knew he felt indebted to me, like I’d saved his life and he needed to return the favor. But I finally got him to see that I would get into huge trouble if I left my car abandoned by the side of the road.
Reluctantly, he dropped me off at my Civic. He wanted to follow me to the hospital, but I deterred him, telling him he needed to make sure that as many people as he could find got out of the woods without harm. I could tell by the determined look on his face that he would take that mission seriously. I almost expected him to salute me or say “Aye, aye, Cap’n.”
Once I was alone, I hopped in the car, jerked out my cell and started speed dialing. I tried Summer’s phone and got no answer. I tried Aisha’s phone and got no answer. Then I tried them both again. And again. And again.
When it became glaringly obvious that redial wasn’t going to magically make them pick up the phone, I started the car and headed home. On the way, more than ever, I wished that I had some way of reaching Bo. I had questions, concerns, doubts. I needed to feel that amazing buzz of his closeness, to let it drown out everything but Bo and the overwhelming feelings that I had for him.
I drove to the house, hoping that Mom and Dad would be asleep. And, much to my relief, they were. Dad would be tired from his flight and Mom would be fighting an addiction. Both led very fatiguing lives, but in two totally different ways.
********
The next morning I woke with my cell phone plastered to my face where I’d slept on it. I’d apparently fallen asleep between my every-ten-minute calls to Summer and Aisha. At least I’d gotten hold of Minty, though. He’d spoken to nearly everyone he’d seen at the party and they were all fine. Except Summer, Aisha and Drew of course. He’d asked if I’d gone to the hospital. I didn’t want to lie, so I told him that I’d come home and that my injury wasn’t as bad as we’d thought, certainly nothing worthy of a trip to the ER.
And that was the truth. As soon as I’d crept past my parents, I’d gone straight to my bathroom to assess the damage. My sweater was shredded, but my skin, though deeply scratched in four long gashes, wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. In fact, it looked to have already begun healing. It didn’t even bother my sleep (obviously, since I’d slept with a phone as my pillow).
Before I sat up in the bed, I sniffed. For the first time in weeks, I couldn’t smell Bo. I could only assume he hadn’t visited me, though I shouldn’t have been surprised. Since my unwanted female vampire visitor, I’d been keeping my window closed. Unfortunately, that barred Bo from entry as well, unless of course he wanted to break it, which he would only do if I was in imminent danger.
Unbidden, Lucius’s story popped into my head. I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d found that mate that was somewhere out there, waiting to rescue him. With a growl in my throat and an ache in my chest, I pushed that thought aside and dialed Summer for the zillionth time.
Still no answer. Same with Aisha. I wasn’t going to call Drew, of course.
I’d be avoiding him like the plague in the future.
I was lying in bed, debating on how best to spend my day when my phone chirped. I nearly dropped it in my haste to answer. I didn’t even check the caller ID; I just hit the button and said hello.
“Ridley, the nicest, sweetest, prettiest girl in the whole school. How are you, my friend?”
It was Savannah on the other end of the line, laying it on thick. That could only mean one thing.
“Uh-oh. What are you getting ready to ask me to do?”
Her las
t idea had involved breaking into the marina, stealing a boat and launching a lantern out onto the water to honor her dead mother, a felony that never happened because we were accosted by vampires en route.
“Oh, come on. It’s nothing that bad.”
“That bad?”
“Well, I don’t think it’s bad at all.”
I sighed. “Alright, spill. What is it?”
“I want you to go with me to the Halloween dance tonight. Since we are both, like, almost widows, I think we should go together. I think it would be fun, and we both need to get out and do something carefree.”
I couldn’t argue that point. I needed some fun. And some “carefree.” I could barely remember what that felt like. Anymore, my life was consumed with an aching need and an ever-growing hole in my heart. And sprinkled between those two were spots of fear and depression, frustration and loneliness. My life had been no picnic since I’d met Bo. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. I couldn’t even think of giving him up.
As if on cue, my chest squeezed at the haunting prospect of losing him to someone he couldn’t deny, someone he’d be bound to in a way that he’d never be bound to me.
Like I’d done a hundred times already, I refused to let my mind travel that path. Instead, I did the unthinkable. I agreed to go with Savannah.
“I’ll go. You’re right, we need some fun.”
“Really? You will?” Savannah squealed.
I couldn’t help but smile as I held the phone at arm’s length. “Yes, but I’d like to have some small amount of hearing left so that I can enjoy the music,” I teased.
“Oh, sorry. I just figured you’d say no.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes you look so sad when I see you. I thought maybe I remind you of Bo,” she confessed soberly.
I hated that she saw me that way. I hated that she thought that. I hated that my misery without Bo was so perceptible.
“No, you don’t. And, who knows? Maybe you’ll see a whole different Ridley tonight.”
“R-eally? ‘Cause you know I can’t see a thing, right?”
Even though it was simply Savannah’s way, to make fun of her infirmity, I still felt the heat rush to my cheeks. It made me feel wretched when she did.