by Claudia Gray
“Remember how I said I did some exploring before the school year started? This is one of the places I found then. I haven’t been back since, but I bet nobody else has discovered it either.”
When we got to the door at the very top of the stairs, I pushed it open carefully. Last autumn, I’d been rewarded with a shower of spiderwebs and dust. The spiders must have moved on, because now we were able to step inside easily. Inside were rooms laid out just like my parents’ apartment, but instead of being cozily furnished, they were piled high with boxes upon boxes, a few yellowed corners of paper peeking out of the lids. These were Evernight’s records—the histories of every student who had ever attended the school since it was founded in the late eighteenth century.
“It’s cold up here.” Lucas pulled the sleeves of his sweater down over his hands. “Are you sure we can’t find someplace else?”
“We need to talk about this. And we need to be alone.”
“The gazebo—”
“Is covered with ice, Mr.-it’s-cold-up-here. Besides, we could be seen outside, and they’d make us come in, and—and then we won’t end up talking.” I turned toward the window so that I could look out at the stars; even now, they comforted me. “We’re both too good at avoiding the subject.”
“Yeah, we are.” Lucas gave in and sat down heavily on a nearby trunk. “Where do we start?”
“I don’t know.” I hugged myself and looked down at the gargoyle on the windowsill, the twin of the one outside my bedroom window. “Are you still scared of me?”
“No. I’m not. Not at all.” Lucas shook his head slowly, his eyes disbelieving. “I ought to be—Hell, I don’t know how I ought to feel. I keep telling myself to stay away. To forget about you, because everything’s changed. But I can’t do it.”
“What?” I was too dumbfounded to hope.
Lucas’s voice was hoarse. “When I first saw what you were, up on the roof—Bianca, it was like nothing I’d ever believed was true.”
“I guess it’s not easy, accepting that vampires are real.”
“That wasn’t the part that got to me, actually.” I knew then that, no matter how freaked-out Lucas had been by the revelation about vampires, my lies had hurt him worse.
“Did you tell your mother? Did you tell anybody?”
Lucas laughed again. “Not hardly.” When I gave him a weird look, he said, “Can you think of a better way for me to end up in an adolescent psychiatric unit?”
“No,” I admitted. “It would probably get you a one-way ticket to the loony bin.”
Gruffly, he added, “Besides, you asked me not to.”
He had read that long letter full of revelations, learning that I had lied—that I was something he should consider a monster—but Lucas had still been able to hear my plea for secrecy and do what I asked. “Thank you.”
“I wasn’t going to come back here. I wasn’t ever going to see you again. It hurt so bad, and I thought the only way it would ever stop hurting was if I made myself forget you.” He dragged the back of his hand across his eyes, as if it tired him even to remember that struggle. “I tried hard to forget, Bianca. I couldn’t. Then I convinced myself that it was my duty to come back to Evernight.”
“Duty?” That confused me.
Lucas, apparently at a loss, shrugged. “To learn the truth? To see things through? I don’t know.” His expression changed as he looked up at me—and it was the same way he’d looked at me before, the way that made me weak in the knees. The way he looked when he said that the man in the Klimt painting had only one precious thing in the world. “But as soon as I saw you again, I knew that I still needed you. That I still trusted you. Even though you’re a vampire—or almost a vampire—whatever you are.” Lucas still said the word vampire like he couldn’t believe it. “It doesn’t matter to me. It should, but it doesn’t. I can’t help how I feel about you.”
I couldn’t hold back any longer. I went to Lucas and sank to the floor. He cradled my face in his hands, and his whole body shook. “You still want to be with me? Even though I lied to you?”
Lucas closed his eyes tightly. “I’d never hold that against you.”
“Then you understand why I had to keep it secret.” All the fear and dread I’d felt poured out of me in a great rush, and I wanted to put my arms around Lucas and melt against him. “You really understand. I never thought you would.”
“I can’t believe I want this,” he whispered. “I can’t believe how badly I want you.”
Lucas brushed his mouth against mine, just once. Maybe he meant for us to stop there, but I didn’t. I slipped my arms around his shoulders and kissed him again. I stopped worrying about everything else and just thought about Lucas and how close he was, the cedary scent of his skin, the way we breathed together when we kissed, like we were two parts of the same person. Little shivers of excitement made me tingle in my fingertips, my belly, everywhere.
“I ought to be running like hell.” His breath was hot against my ear. His fingers slipped into the waistband of my skirt, using it to pull me nearer to him. “What have you done to me?”
When he clutched me against his chest, I wanted to draw back. I was used to drawing back at this point because I was afraid of what my desire for Lucas could do. Now I would’ve expected Lucas to be the one who was afraid, but he wasn’t. He trusted me enough to kiss me, to sink down on the floor so that we were kneeling opposite each other, to close his eyes when I ran my hands through his hair.
“This is when it’s hard for me to stay in control,” I whispered, warning him.
“Let’s find out how much control we need.”
He tugged at the neck of his sweater, exposing his throat to me. Daring me, basically, to prove that I could hold back. I simply pressed one hand against his bare skin, and I opened my mouth wider beneath his. Lucas made a low sound that did something strange to my whole body, like I’d stood up too quickly and made myself dizzy. His hands slowly edged up the hem of my uniform sweater, testing my reaction. I kissed him harder. So Lucas pushed the sweater up my back, all the way, and I lifted my arms to help him shrug it off. Now I only wore a thin undershirt and my bra, midnight-blue, clearly visible beneath the white sleeveless T.
Lucas’s eyes were wide, and his breath was coming fast and shallow. Our kisses were more desperate now. He peeled off his own sweater and spread it out on the floor, like a blanket, then lowered me so that I lay on it, beneath him. He was still breathing fast but struggling for control. “Not here, not tonight—but maybe we could bring some stuff, find some other place to be alone one night—”
I silenced him with another kiss, deep and passionate enough to say yes. Lucas returned the kiss and held me tight—though not so tight that I couldn’t roll him over so that he was the one with his back against the floor. Now Lucas lay beneath me, and I was hyperaware of everything: his thighs around mine, the cool square of his belt buckle against my abdomen, his fingers playing with my bra strap, edging it aside.
For one second—just one second—I wondered what it would be like if Lucas and I had come up here prepared, with blankets and pillows and music and protection, and we had all night to be together. “I wish we could,” I gasped. “I wish we could be sure that I could stop.”
“Maybe—maybe it doesn’t matter.”
“What?”
Lucas’s eyes were bright, and his breath was fast and hot against my cheek. “You bit me once and you stopped in time. You didn’t need to kill or to change me. Just to bite. If that’s all it is—then maybe—Oh, God. Okay.”
He wanted what I wanted. The hunger blazed inside me, and there was no reason to stop. I pushed Lucas down against the floor and bit deep.
“Bianca—” Lucas struggled for only the first second as the rapture caught up with us both: my pulse flowing into him as his blood flowed into me, more powerful than the most passionate kiss, weaving us both together. The taste of his blood was familiar to me now but even more irresistible. I swallowed it down, r
elishing the heat and life and the salt against my tongue. He shuddered beneath me, and I knew that the bite felt just as amazing for us both.
Lucas gasped, and I forced myself to stop. Slowly I pulled back from Lucas. He was dizzy and weak but still awake. He put his hands on both sides of my face, and suddenly I felt self-conscious. My lips were stained with his blood, and my fangs were still sharp. How could Lucas look at me as a vampire with anything but revulsion?
Instead he kissed me, blood and all.
When our mouths parted, I whispered, “That’s all it is. I promise. Is that okay? Can you take that?”
“I want to be with you, Bianca,” he said. “No matter what you are. No matter what.”
Chapter Fourteen
“CAN YOU SIT UP?”
“Not yet.” Lucas held his hands over his eyes, then let his arms sag back onto the floor. “I need another second.”
“I tried not to take too much blood.” I really, really did not want to have to go to Mrs. Bethany for help again. “You gave me permission, right?”
“I did. I’m not sure I was thinking straight, but that’s my fault, not yours.” Something in me that had been strung too tight finally relaxed, and I could breathe deeply again. As long as Lucas felt that way, everything would be all right. “Did your parents or Mrs. Bethany tell you to do this?”
“To bite you?”
“I know better than that. I meant, to tell me about the school?”
“The exact opposite. They wanted me to lie to you, which is why I did at first.” This part still made me feel ashamed. “I’m sorry, Lucas. I thought it would be safest for both of us if I went along with the story Mrs. Bethany made up to cover the hours you forgot.”
“It’s weird. I remember you biting me this time—but it’s hazy. Like how sometimes you can’t quite remember a dream five minutes after you wake up. If you hadn’t been here with me the whole time and kept me awake, I probably would have forgotten that, too. You’d think being bitten by a vampire would be one of those things that would stick in your memory. You know, stand out from the usual?”
“The forgetting is part of the bite. I don’t know why. Maybe nobody knows why. It’s not like there are scientific explanations for vampires.”
Lucas breathed in deeply, then slowly pushed himself up on his elbows until he was sitting. I braced his shoulder with my free hand, but he shook his head. “I’m okay, I think.”
“Now you know why, when we kiss, sometimes I have to, well, hold back.”
“I understand now.” His smile looked a little funny. “That part is sort of a relief. I was starting to think I needed to switch to a new mouthwash or something.”
I giggled and kissed him on the cheek. “Don’t worry. I didn’t turn you into a vampire.”
“I know. I mean, my heart’s beating. So no vampire.” Lucas took the handkerchief from his pocket and held it to his neck. As he dabbed at the wound, he winced. “I still can’t believe you were born a vampire. I’ve never heard of that.”
“How could you have heard of it before you ever knew that vampires were real?”
“Good point.”
“I’ll never bite you again, unless you ask me to.”
“I believe you.” Lucas laughed, and it was a strange sound—like he was laughing at himself for some reason I didn’t understand. “I believe you completely. Even now.”
I hugged him tightly. For Lucas to say that after he’d learned how I lied to him, well, it was as much as I could ever have asked for.
We bandaged Lucas so neatly that nobody would notice while he wore his uniform shirt, went back downstairs, and just managed to avoid missing curfew. He kissed me easily at the entryway to the guys’ dorm and then walked away, giving no hint that tonight was different from any other.
“You’re acting weird,” Raquel said that night as we brushed our teeth at the sinks. “I know things have been tense with you and Lucas. Is everything okay?”
“We’re great. We kind of had a misunderstanding over the holiday, but everything’s all right now.” What she’d perceived as me “acting weird” had been me trying to angle myself so that Raquel couldn’t see that the toothpaste I was spitting out was pink with Lucas’s blood. “How are you?”
“Me? I’m awesome.” She said it with real relish, which made me stare at her in surprise. Raquel laughed. “Sorry. Now that Erich’s gone, Evernight seems halfway bearable.”
“Really? Listen to you. By next year you’ll be Evernight’s one and only cheerleader.”
“One, if you ever call me a cheerleader again, I will wipe the floor with you,” Raquel said around her toothbrush. “Two, it wouldn’t be very exciting to cheer for a school whose only sports are equestrian events and fencing. Seriously, talk about being stuck in the Dark Ages.”
“More like the early eighteen-hundreds.” I turned off the cold water tap and gave her a smug smile. “And I notice that you didn’t say you wouldn’t come back next year.”
This earned me a wet washcloth thrown at my head, but I managed to duck.
That night, as I lay in bed and Patrice slipped out the window for a late snack, I tried to evaluate how I felt. Once again, I knew that almost mystical closeness to Lucas, but this time it was even better. He knew now; he understood everything. I didn’t have to lie any longer, and that alone was a vast, soaring relief. Nothing else really mattered.
Or so I thought, until the next morning.
I awoke with the same heightened senses I’d felt before. My parents had said that I would get used to the sensations, but I certainly hadn’t yet. I tugged my pillow over my head in a futile attempt to muffle the sound of Genevieve singing madrigals in the shower, the birds cawing outside, and someone downstairs who was already sharpening pencils. The pillowcase felt coarse against my skin, and the smell of Patrice’s nail polish was almost overpowering.
“Do you have to give yourself a pedicure every single day?” I threw back the covers.
Patrice glanced down at my bare feet, which obviously hadn’t been given much attention in a while. “Some of us place a higher priority on hygiene and grooming than others. It’s simply a matter of preference. I try not to look at it as a reflection on anyone’s character.”
“Some people have better things to do than paint their nails,” I retorted. She ignored me and continued brushing burgundy polish onto her little toe.
By the time I got downstairs, I felt like I was getting a handle on my enhanced senses. What worried me more was the suspense about seeing Lucas. Even though he’d asked to be bitten, the wound had to hurt. What if that had scared him off?
He wasn’t waiting for me when I came downstairs. Last term, when we’d been together, he’d usually waited at the entry to the girls’ dorm, backpack over one shoulder, but today, nothing. I shrugged it off and told myself that Lucas had simply overslept again. Sometimes he did, and after the previous night, no doubt he needed his rest.
At lunchtime, I looked for him on the grounds. Lucas was nowhere to be seen. Still, I said nothing to my parents or anyone else. Lucas had said last night that he believed in me, and that meant I had to believe in him. Even when I got to chemistry class and saw that Lucas had skipped, I kept telling myself that I had to have faith.
It was just after class when Vic sidled up to me in the hallway, doing a very poor job of acting casual. “Heya. Remember that time you sneaked into our room?”
“Yeah, just before Christmas.” I squinted at him. “Why?”
“You think you could do it again? Something weird is going on with Lucas, and he won’t say what’s up. I figure if anybody could talk him into going to the doctor, it’s you.”
The doctor? Oh, no. Stricken, I grabbed Vic’s arm. “Get me up there. Now.”
“Okay, already!” He started leading me toward the guys’ dorm, glancing around furtively as if we were being followed. “Don’t panic. It’s not like appendicitis or something. Lucas’s just acting strange. Stranger than usual, that is.�
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Everyone was on edge since Erich’s disappearance, so it wasn’t quite as easy for me to sneak up there this time. Vic had to scout each hallway, wait for the coast to be clear, and then motion frantically to me. Then I hurried into the next hallway and ducked into a corner while Vic checked the next hall. Finally we made it, and I stepped inside their room.
Lucas lay on his bed with his hands on his stomach, as if he felt sick. When he looked up at me, I saw surprise—and then relief. He was happy to see me, despite everything, and that made me so glad I had to smile. “Hey,” I said, kneeling by the side of his bed. “Stomachache?”
“I don’t think that’s the problem.” He closed his eyes as I brushed a few strands of hair away from his sweaty forehead. “Vic, could you give us a few seconds?”
“Sure thing. Just hang your necktie on the doorknob if you get busy in here. Usually I’m all about the free porn, but—”
“Vic!” we protested in unison.
He held up his hands and backed out, grinning. “Okay, okay.”
The second the door shut, I turned back to Lucas. “What’s wrong?”
“Ever since this morning, it’s like—Bianca, I can hear everything. Everything in this whole school. People talking, walking, even writing. The pens scraping on paper. It’s all so loud.” It was all so familiar that an eerie shiver swept through me. Lucas squinted, as if the light was too much for his eyes. “Smells are intense, too. Everything is just…exaggerated, I guess. It’s unbearable.”
“It happened to me, too, after I bit you.”
Shaking his head, Lucas insisted, “It can’t be the bite. I didn’t feel this last time. I woke up at Mrs. Bethany’s sort of light-headed, but that was all.”
“More than once,” I whispered, remembering what my mother had told me. “You can’t become a vampire until you’ve been bitten more than once.”
Lucas jerked upright, so that his back was wedged against the metal headboard. “Whoa, whoa. I’m not a vampire. I’m alive.”
“No, you’re not a vampire. But you could become a vampire now. It’s possible for you. And maybe—maybe once it’s possible—your body starts to change.”