by Кристи Кук
“She’s got something unusual — I can’t remember what it’s called, but it’s some sort of extrasensory thing. You know, like her sense of smell and hearing are heightened or something? Anyway, the weirdest thing happened while you were away this weekend. After you left Friday, we were all hanging out at the café. When I came back for curfew, Jenna was standing outside the door, and she was acting really weird. She asked where you were, and I told her you went into the city, so then she asked where Aidan was. As if I would know! Anyway, she was asking all these bizarre questions and, I swear, she seemed worried about you. I finally made her go away, but she told me to tell you to watch your back. At first I thought she said ‘neck,’ but that wouldn’t make sense.”
I choked on my coffee. Watch my neck? Did Jenna know Aidan’s secret? No, she couldn’t. Cece must have misheard her. “That’s totally freaky,” I finally managed, wiping my mouth with the back of one hand. “I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to her. We don’t have any classes together or anything.”
Cece set her cup on the desk and stood up, smoothing down her sweatshirt. “Well, I always figured she was jealous of you, anyway. You know, about Aidan. Not that they’ve ever. you know. I mean, he’s always ignored her like he ignores everyone else. But, I don’t know. something about the way she looks at him. Hey, don’t forget your phone. I think whoever it was left a message. It made that little chirping sound.”
“Oh, yeah. Thanks.” Please, let it have been Aidan. I flipped open my phone and held my breath as I dialed voice mail and punched in my code.
“Hey, Vi,” came Aidan’s voice, soothing my jangled nerves. “I just wanted to tell you that I’ve got to go away for a few days. I’ll be thinking about you, okay? Sleep tight, love.” And then a click.
“Aidan, huh?” Cece asked with a grin.
I just nodded as I flipped shut the phone, my skin warming all over. He’d called me “love.” I liked that. A lot.
Five days later, I had another vision. It happened right by the fountain in the courtyard, while I was on my way to trig class. I’d run into Kate and we were walking together, talking about Jack and his suspension from the football team, when my vision started to tunnel and the dull humming began in my ears. I was barely aware of Kate calling out my name as I stumbled to my knees.
It was daytime, in Manhattan. I saw Patsy, dressed in a gray pin-striped suit and black wool coat, standing on the sidewalk under a burgundy canopy. Cars were rushing by, and Patsy held up one hand, as if she was hailing a cab. She pulled out her BlackBerry and slipped her headset over one ear. I forced myself to concentrate, to look for clues that might help me figure out when this was going to happen. There, in the corner of the BlackBerry’s screen, I saw a date. Today’s date.
A yellow cab pulled up. She shoved the BlackBerry back into her purse as she opened the door and got into the cab. She called out an address, but I couldn’t make it out — Madison Avenue, maybe, but I couldn’t be sure. The radio was on, some sort of smooth jazz playing as the car slid away from the curb and into traffic.
Patsy pulled out a file from her briefcase and started flipping through it, and I noticed a chip in her brownish-pink nail polish. It was just a small chip, barely noticeable, but— a car horn sounded, and then another. A screech of tires, and then the impact — hard, and I heard someone scream.
“Violet!” Kate cried, her voice pushing through the fog in my brain. “Violet, hey, come on!”
I opened my eyes, my breath coming in fast puffs as I clawed at the stones behind me. “It’s my stepmom,” I said, my voice sounding far-off.
Kate reached for my arm, steadying me. “What happened? What did you see?”
“She was getting into a cab, and then. then there was a crash,” I stuttered, barely able to catch my breath.
“Was she hurt?”
“I. I don’t know. It ended right there, right with the crash. But it was today; I saw the date on her phone. Oh, God, I’ve got to warn her!”
“Come on, let’s go.”
Next thing I knew, I was running beside Kate, her blond hair fanning out behind her. We were headed back toward the dorms, and as we approached the building, the door swung open. We made our way up the stairs and down the corridors toward my room. Thank God that Kate was with me, because I’d dropped my bag back by the fountain and didn’t even have my room key with me.
But as long as I was with Kate, that didn’t matter. The door to my room burst open just as we reached it, and before I’d taken even one step toward my desk, my cell phone flew right across the room, into my shaking hands.
With fumbling fingers, I dialed Patsy’s cell. Seconds later, it began to ring.
“Hello? Violet?”
She was outside; I could hear the sounds of cars whizzing by, of car horns and jumbled voices as people walked by. Thank God, there was still time!
“Pats — Mom?” I corrected myself. “Mom, listen, I know this sounds nuts, but don’t get into the cab, okay?”
“What? I can barely hear you; I hate this headset.”
“Listen to me!” I yelled. “Don’t get in the cab. Take the subway or something.”
“There’s a cab. I’m sorry; I’m running late to a meeting. I’ll call you tonight, okay?”
“No, don’t get in the cab! Do you hear me?”
“You’re breaking up, Violet. I’ll call you later.” Click.
“No!” I screamed, sinking down on my bed.
Kate’s face paled. “What should we do?”
“There’s nothing we can do.” I threw the phone across the room, watching helplessly as it skittered across the floor and banged against the desk.
“I’m going to go tell Mrs. Girard what happened, okay? She can send word to your teachers.” Kate rushed out, and I closed my eyes, hoping for another vision. I had to know what happened, damn it. Sandra had tried to teach me to summon a vision, to replay it so that I could look for details I’d missed the first time.
I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate, trying every trick that Sandra had taught me. Nothing.
I wanted Aidan. He was back at school; he’d come back the day before. I reached out to him telepathically, calling out his name in my mind.
Are you okay? Aidan’s voice, inside my head.
It’s Patsy!
Meet me at the chapel.
I snatched my cell phone off the floor, shoved it into my back pocket, and ran out without even closing the door behind me. I knew I was breaking a rule, taking my cell with me, but I didn’t care. I ran the entire way to the chapel, my heart pounding.
As soon as I stepped inside, Aidan’s arms were around me. “What happened?” he asked, his lips against my ear.
I started to cry again. “A vision. I saw Patsy get in a cab— today — and then there was a crash. I tried to warn her, but she couldn’t hear, she wouldn’t listen,” I sobbed, my face pressed against his chest.
“And you’re sure this is going to happen today?”
“Yes! Yes, it was exactly like I saw it happen. I even saw her take a call. It was me! Calling to warn her, but she wouldn’t—”
“Shhh, calm down. Okay, how long ago did it happen?”
“I don’t know. Maybe ten minutes?”
“Have you tried calling her back?”
I swallowed hard. “No. Do. do you think I should try?”
“Do you have your phone?”
“Yeah, right here.” I pulled it from my back pocket, but my hands were shaking so badly that I dropped it. No way was I going to be able to dial.
As if he understood, Aidan picked up the phone and hit the redial button, then handed it back to me.
I held my breath as it began to ring. Once, twice, three times. On the fourth ring, she picked up. “Hello?”
“Mom!” I nearly screamed it, I was so relieved to hear her voice. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“Hey, can you hear me?”
“Yeah, I can hear you just fine.”
“
I was just in an accident, nothing major.”
“I told you not to get into the cab. I had a vision; I knew something was going to happen, and—”
“Please, Violet,” she said, then sighed loudly. “Don’t start this again. Anyway, I’m fine. They’re taking me to the hospital, just to check everything out. The driver. well, he’s in pretty bad shape. Thank God I was wearing my seat belt.”
“What hospital? Where are they taking you?”
“What? Oh, I don’t even know, maybe Mount Sinai? Wait, no, the EMT is saying Lenox Hill. But listen, Violet, you do not need to leave school and come down here, okay? I’ll call you after I leave the hospital. I have to go now. They’re putting me in the ambulance, and I can’t use the cell—” I heard a click and she was gone. I let out my breath in a rush, and Aidan’s arms went back around me, steadying me. “You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I lied. “Sounds like she’s fine. She told me to stay here.”
“Good. I imagine she’s a tough lady.”
“She’s pretty tough,” I agreed. “But what about next time? Why won’t she listen to me?”
“Like I said before, some people don’t want to believe in things they can’t understand.”
“I hate this stupid gift of mine. Hate it! What good is it?”
“I think time will tell, Violet.”
“Yeah, right,” I muttered, wiping my eyes. “Oh, great. I forgot all about Kate.”
“What about her?”
“She went to tell Mrs. Girard what happened.”
“You’ve got your phone. Call her and leave a message.”
“Okay,” I said, my hands still shaking. “I don’t think I can go back to class, though. You think they’ll understand if I skip?”
“Definitely,” Aidan said. “I’ll skip the rest of my classes, too. Blackwell will understand.”
I called Kate and left a message while Aidan went to the café to get us something to drink. Fifteen minutes later, we sat side by side up in the chapel’s dusty loft. Patsy had already called to tell me she’d been released from the hospital and was resting up at home, no worse for wear.
“I ran into Jack at the café,” Aidan said, handing me my coffee. “I told him to tell Kate what happened. You know, if he sees her before she gets your message.”
“Thanks.” I wrapped my hands around the cup, warming them. “Actually, speaking of Jack, what does he think you’re working on? You know, in the lab?”
“A blood-borne, parasitical disease, similar to malaria— which is pretty much the truth. He’s probably managed to put two and two together by now, though he’s never come right out and asked. He’s got a brilliant scientific mind, though. The work he’s doing, studying his brother’s medical condition, is graduate-school-level work. He’s a good guy. I trust him.”
I nodded. Jack seemed like a good guy. Still, I hoped Aidan was right to trust him. “Speaking of his brother, what’s the deal with the only-child thing here at Winterhaven?”
“Oh, I’ve got a theory about that,” he said with a smile.
“Somehow I knew you would, Einstein,” I murmured.
“I think it’s an evolutionary mechanism of some sort. Similar to the Rh factor, some protein left behind that affects the mother’s subsequent pregnancies. The only kids at Winter-haven who have brothers or sisters have half siblings through their father. In fact, in all the years I’ve been here, Jack is the first person I’ve ever known with a full-blood sibling. I have to think that’s somehow related to his brother’s condition. Maybe his seizures are caused by a circuit overload of psychic abilities. It kind of makes sense, and that’s where Jack is focusing his research.”
“Huh. Interesting. Okay, so tell me more about your research. You said your. condition. was sort of like malaria,” I prompted. “How?”
“Well, I compare it to malaria because malaria is probably the best known parasitic disease, and certainly the most studied one,” he said, suddenly sounding much more like a professor than a student. “Anyway, the more I learn about parasites and their crafty ways, the more I realize that genetic variation and natural selection can yield behaviors in single-celled organisms that look like pure malevolent genius.
“For instance, the malaria protozoan Plasmodium falciparum infects humans, causing the malarial symptoms that everyone knows about, but it affects the mosquitoes, too. For years people thought that the mosquitoes suffered no ill effects from infection by Plasmodium falciparum. They thought they just served as a handy way for the parasites to get from person to person. But it turns out the infected female mosquitoes do display one unusual behavior — they bite more often, seeking more blood than they need to nourish their developing eggs. This increased biting leads to a higher death rate for infected mosquitoes. You know why?”
“Why?” I played along.
“Because what happens when a mosquito bites you?”
I just shrugged.
“You smack it,” he answered with a smile. “It’s not a big stretch to say that this parasitic infection turns the mosquitoes into vampires of a sort.
Just like malaria, vampirism is transmitted by a bite, and just like malaria, the vampirism parasite multiplies in the red blood cells, causing behavioral changes as well as physical symptoms. And this is pretty interesting too: You know how I said that it’s the female mosquito that transmits malaria to humans? So in essence, it’s the female becoming the ‘monster’?”
He paused expectantly.
“Yeah?” I prodded, having no idea where he was going with this.
“Remember how I also said that only a female vampire can make a male? Well, from what I can tell, there’s probably, oh, a hundred male vampires in the world for every one female. Maybe more. Fascinating, isn’t it?”
“Really?” That was surprising, actually. “But still, there are some female vampires, right? So some male vampires must be able to. you know, transmit the parasite or whatever you call it.”
“Any male can. It’s just that they don’t have the primal urge to do so, like the females do.”
“Okay, that’s just weird.”
He laughed. “Trust me, you don’t want to meet a female vampire.”
“I don’t want to meet any vampire,” I shot back, before I realized what I was saying. After all, it was so easy to forget what Aidan was.
“I’m sorry,” I said, reaching for his hand. Aidan remained silent, but I could see the hurt in his eyes.
“Don’t be,” he finally said, giving my hand a squeeze.
“But hey,” I said, trying to lighten the mood, “I guess this means that I don’t have to worry about you infecting me, right?”
“It takes more than a bite to infect a person. Much more.”
“Like. what?” I prodded.
He shrugged. “It starts with the bite, but then the vampire must drink until the exact moment that the victim’s heart stops beating. Then you begin replacing their blood with your own — your infected blood. You start off forcing it, but eventually they’ll begin to drink.”
“From. from the vampire?” I stuttered, my stomach roiling at the very thought.
“From the vampire,” he conceded. “The vampire’s infected blood reanimates the victim’s body, so to speak. Like I said before, it occurs on the cellular level, and the body is kept in a state of suspended animation. Your body temperature drops, you don’t age, your hair and nails don’t grow.
You become, in essence, immortal. Broken bones heal, damaged tissue regenerates.”
“And the special powers?” I asked, morbidly fascinated.
He nodded “Yes, superhuman strength and agility, heightened senses, telekinetic powers. Actually, the vampire’s powers are derived from the cellular energy that’s created when fresh blood is converted to infected blood. That’s why a vampire is stronger when he’s just fed, and weaker the longer he goes without feeding.”
“But what would happen if you just. you know, stopped feeding? Would that event
ually kill you?”
He exhaled sharply. “No. Trust me, I’ve tried. At first you start to weaken, but then it’s like some self-preservation autopilot kicks in. The thirst becomes unbearable, unstoppable. A vampire starving himself is dangerous and unpredictable, an indiscriminate killer.”
I shook my head, trying to clear it of that image. “But back to the whole making-a-vampire thing. Anyone can do it?”
“Yes, but it’s not easy. It takes a great deal of focus and control to ensure that you stop feeding at precisely the moment the heart stops beating.
Otherwise, it’s too late.”
I had to ask. “Have you ever turned someone?”
“No, Violet,” he said with a sigh. “I’ve never even had the urge to infect someone. The whole male/female thing, remember? Still, being a male doesn’t diminish the bloodlust, so let’s not get complacent about it, okay? I’m still a monster. If it weren’t for the elixir—”
“I don’t believe that,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re not a monster, Aidan.”
“Are you so sure, Violet? Because, honestly, you have no idea what’s going through my head at any given moment. I can hear the blood rushing through your veins, you know. My hearing is that good. And right now, it’s rushing faster, which means your heart is beating faster. And you know why?”
All I could do was shake my head. He was right; my heart was racing like a rabbit’s.
“Because you’re frightened of me,” he said, leaning in toward me. “Because that’s nature’s way of protecting you— making you fear me, telling you to get away, and fast. Because nature knows how much I would love a taste of your blood.”
“You. you really want to drink my blood?” I stammered.
“More than you’ll ever know.” Those words were whispered against my neck, his breath warm against my skin. A shiver worked its way down my spine. I felt his lips, just below my ear, pressing lightly against my flushed skin.
I was supposed to be frightened. But there was no denying that I was totally turned on. I desperately wanted — no, needed — something that I couldn’t even explain. My head fell back, and I’m pretty sure a moan escaped my lips.