I mean, it’s not every day you find out the hottest chick in school is actually a desk-scratching, raw-hamburger-eating, no-reflection-giving-off, bloodsucking vampire!
“I mean, there’s no use in hiding it anymore. I like you, Wyatt, a lot. Have I imagined kissing you in the heat of passion before? Sure, OK, yeah. Only about five bazillion times! Was today one of them? No, not really. Did I use you? Absolutely, but seriously . . . do you care?”
He smiles, blushes, avoids my gaze, and reaches for another sip of hot chocolate, but a quick peek tells me the cup’s empty. “No,” he finally admits, a little sheepishly. “I mean, if that’s what getting used feels like, well, use me whenever you want.” He fiddles with the to-go lid on his brown-and-green, eco-friendly Hallowed Grounds cup and asks, “So, you feel like using me anymore today? Like . . . right now . . . for instance?”
I look at his arms, golden brown in the late-afternoon sunlight, his one-size-smaller-than-it-probably-should-be gray T-shirt hugging every one of his masculine curves.
Suddenly I ask, “Well, I mean, did you feel anything?”
“When?” he asks, playing dumb. “Where?”
“Back there, doofus, when I . . . I . . . attacked you.”
He leans forward, looking around before pinning me with those deep-blue eyes. “Of course I did. You think I stop by your dorm suite night after night hoping to get another look at Abby in her stupid zombie makeup or to grab a free cola? I can afford my own cola. I don’t even really like cola. Of course I feel something for you. It’s just, I dunno, you seem like you’d rather just be . . . friends.”
“I do, kind of,” I confess, although it kills me to say it.
He leans back, a pout pulling down those beautiful puffy lips and instantly making me regret my words.
“What I mean is,” I blather, “I’d rather be friends than get my heart broken again. Look at you. Are you going to sit there and tell me you’re ready to have a serious, committed relationship when every other day you’re snapping pictures next to some half-naked supermodel? How can I compete with that?”
“By giving me a sign. Any sign,” he says, leaning even closer. His breath smells vaguely of gourmet hot chocolate and mini marshmallows.
“Well, I would consider making out with you in the commons for nearly three minutes a pretty big sign that I’m into you, OK? If you can’t pick up on that big of a sign, well, I’m not sure what else to do.”
He smiles like a kid at Christmas and then reaches out across the table and holds my hand gently, like an old-school boyfriend.
No one has ever done that, ever, in all my life.
And it feels so funny, his gaze on mine, so familiar and suddenly so . . . different.
Is that what it was like for him and Abby when they crossed the threshold from friend to boyfriend and girlfriend for those two months last year?
Did he see her differently?
And she him?
I can still taste his coconut lip balm on my tongue, and the urge to taste it again is almost too strong to resist.
“So . . . now what?” He scratches the back of his head with his free hand.
“Now? Well, now I suppose we tell Abby and hope we don’t hurt her feelings when she sees us together and—”
He squeezes my hand gently and says, “OK, yeah, that too but more importantly what are we going to do about Bianca being a . . . you know?”
“Oh.” I blush, instantly feeling fifty shades of stupid. “Well, there’s not much we can do. I mean, the cops won’t believe us. Principal Chalmers already bought her little song and dance about needing a mental-health day. I suppose we just have to keep an eye on her—and each other—until she makes some kind of a—”
Just then his phone skitters across the table, ending up in a pile of empty biscotti wrappers before he can pick it up and read the incoming text.
“Oh,” he says, getting up quickly and letting my hand go like a wet eel, “the shoot is back on. I need to be there in fifteen, and it’s halfway across town.”
His satchel and jacket are on the back of his chair. He grabs them both and looks down. “Come with me,” he offers, his long fingers reaching for mine. “That way I know you’ll be safe.”
“I’m fine,” I say a little defensively, ticked off that he could leave me so easily, especially considering what we’ve both just seen. “I’m here. It’s the middle of the day. What can happen?”
“I just don’t know how long the shoot will take, and I don’t want you being alone.”
“That’s sweet, but . . . I can take care of myself.”
He frowns. “Isn’t that what Scarlet Stain always says . . . just before Count Victus traps her in some dastardly scheme and she secretly wishes she hadn’t acted so brave and let her brand-new boyfriend run off to a photo shoot without her?”
I snort, relieved he can read me so well but still wishing he wouldn’t put his work over me. What, like he’s going to change his mind and give up a chance to make a few quick grand with one of fashion’s hottest photographers just to sit around some coffee shop with nerdy old me?
“How’s this?” I ask, shooing him off. “I’ll leave before dark, rush back to the dorm, lock the door, and stay put until you come to save me, OK?”
“Be more specific,” he warns, slipping the jacket over his perfect chest and the satchel over his perfect shoulder. “Text me the minute you’re leaving here and the minute you get inside the door of your dorm. If it takes longer than ten minutes, I’ll be there, no matter what.”
I smile, thinking that was sweet, and watch his tight little rump exit the building—me and every other chick in the café, not to mention those two guys by the window. This shoot—and every shoot—is too important to cancel on account of some hysterical girlfriend.
Or BFF.
Or casual make-out groper in the halls.
Or whatever it is he thinks—or I think—I am.
Chapter 11
Reece catches me in the lobby, next to the chest of drawers by the staircase, the one with the chipped porcelain knobs and scratched claw feet.
It’s 7:18 p.m., the sun has just set, and it takes exactly twenty-two seconds from the time I walk into the lobby to check my mail and get shoved into the stairwell nobody uses. Ever.
He has no rope, no gun, no knife, no dagger, no handcuffs, no chains. He has only his bare hands and his inhuman strength.
Suddenly I am pinned to the wall, arms at my side, Reece’s face inches from my own, fangs trembling. “Hello, Nora,” he seethes, his fangs making his voice sound different, slightly feminine but no less spooky. “Enjoy your . . . date?”
“I sure did,” I somehow manage, straining my wrists against his cold, deadly grip. “How about you?”
He smirks, stepping back slightly, releasing me. “Oh, that Bianca. She’s quite the catch.”
“I bet.” I rub my wrists in front of my chest, looking at the door.
“Try it, and I’ll snap your neck in six places by the time you take your second step.”
“Why?” I shout, hoping someone—anyone—will hear me. “Why me? Why are you doing this to me?” I hate the frantic tone in my voice, but what can I say? This kind of thing doesn’t happen to me every day.
“I told you why. And lower your voice. You’ve delayed my plans long enough. I won’t have you stall anymore by siccing your neighbors on me.”
“Why are you doing this?” I say, quieter this time, deliberately biting off each word to ensure I finally get an answer to my question.
“I already told you. I need your special skills. I need you, I need you now, and you will not deny me again.”
“What are you going to do? If I refuse, I mean? Are you going to turn me into a vampire, like you did Bianca?”
He looks vaguely surprised I’d make the suggestion.
“Of course not. You would be useless to me then.”
I smile, suddenly holding all the cards.
“Well, if you need
me, and you can’t turn me, then what’s the big deal? Why should I care? You can’t hurt me, so what power do you hold over me?”
Now he smiles. “You’re right. I can’t hurt you, per se, but I can hurt what’s important to you. Or should I say, who’s important to you.”
“Don’t you dare,” I shout, pounding on his marble-hard chest with my soft, useless hands. “Don’t you dare touch them.”
“Then do what I want.” He pushes me back against the wall, his face in mine now. We’re so close, I can see the tips of his fangs are not as perfectly white as the rest of his teeth but instead are weathered and worn. “Do what I want, and nobody gets hurt. Hmm, I’ve always wanted to say that! It’s so easy, Nora, to do what I require. So simple, for someone of your . . . talents. Why do you resist?”
“Because,” I say, inching for the door, surprised when he lets me get all the way there, put my hand on the knob, and open it without, as he’d promised, snapping my neck in six places, “I write about vampires, not with them.”
And with that I’m gone, out the door, around the corner to the elevator, through the doors, pushing the button, up to the sixth floor, and in sixteen steps I’m behind my own door, bolted shut, every light on, the biggest knife in the kitchen drawer resting in my hand as I sit in the love seat, facing the door.
And still his laughter echoes in my ears, as loud and as close as if he were in the room with me.
Chapter 12
I’m still right there, knife still in hand, head on my chest, when Abby gets home just past midnight. The slamming door wakes me, and I snap up.
Abby stands there, her eyes wide. “Hey, Nora, what’s with the big-ass knife?”
I don’t answer her. Instead I ask, “Has Wyatt texted you lately?”
She drops her script, keys, and greasy bag of goodness from the local vegetarian drive-through on the coffee table, then drags her pink phone from her jacket pocket. Scrolling through, she frowns and wrinkles her nose. “No.”
“Me neither.” I nudge my phone, where it rests on the coffee table, with my foot. “Don’t you think that’s odd?”
She shrugs, which I know from experience is one step away from an eye roll.
“Not if he got lucky working out at the gym or pumping gas or buying gum at the drugstore. You know that guy. All he has to do is step out the door, and chicks are all over him. Why do you think we finally broke up? It was like dating Bra—”
“No, this is different, Abs,” I say, interrupting her as much to quit hearing about other girls as to tell her what I need to say. “We, we . . . saw . . . something today, after school, after you left.”
“We, whom? You mean . . . you and Wyatt?”
Abby is no dope, and joke as she might about her and Wyatt breaking up, it’s still a sore spot for her. Because, just like me and my fabled snowboarder, it wasn’t quite as mutual as she’d have me believe. And all this time, though I’d never admit it to her, the reason I never tried harder to be with Wyatt was out of loyalty to her. All may be fair in love and war, but roomies have a code, right?
Now her eyes are alive, almost fiery, and I resist the temptation to correct her with a curt “We, who?”
“Yeah, my point is, he knew I was upset,” I say. “He knew he left me hanging and . . . and . . . after what happened, he would have called. I just know it.”
“After what happened? What happened?” And she is angry. Angrier than I thought she would be.
I’d sat there for hours, clutching my knife, waiting for Reece to appear out of the mist and fly at my throat to finish the job.
Waiting for Bianca to break down the door and gouge out my eyes with those desk-writing claws of hers.
Waiting for them both to tag team me with vampire wrestling moves until I was in pieces on the dorm suite floor.
When they didn’t, I let my mind stray to Wyatt, to his kiss, his warm, soft lips, his rough but tender hands, the way he’d expertly pulled me to him, the way his large hands felt on the small of my back, the swell of heat beneath his shiny track pants . . . and how I would tell Abby.
When I would tell Abby.
What I would say, what tone I would use, how loud or how soft, where I’d be standing when I said it, and how long I’d wait after she got home.
I’d even said a few lines out loud, you know, the way they do in cheesy movies—or vampire books:
“It just happened, Abby.” (Followed by my sad face.)
“We didn’t mean to hurt you, Abby.” (Said with a hand on her shoulder.)
“You’re not mad, are you, Abs?” (Said in an indignant tone.)
And always, in my imagination anyway, she was kind and understanding and gentle.
The Abby who took being a B-movie star in stride, who signed autographs for hours after dinner on the rare nights she had off from her busy shooting schedule, who’d gladly loan me the most expensive outfit in her closet for a book signing and not care a whit if I brought it back with Sharpie stains all over the sleeves.
I never considered this Abby: the jealous Abby, the still-in-love-with-Wyatt Abby.
Suddenly her eyes are alive and suspicious—and she’s waiting for an answer.
And I know if I don’t give her one—right now—that will be her answer. She’ll know immediately what she already clearly suspects.
In a split second, I blurt out my confession. “We didn’t see Bianca’s reflection in my locker mirror today after school!”
I wasn’t going to tell Abby.
Not this, anyway.
I wasn’t going to tell her about Bianca—about our proof.
She hadn’t believed me in food and culture class, and I figured one revelation was enough for the night. But in my exhaustion, my fear, my shame, I confessed to something unbelievable over something . . . wonderful.
“Oh, this again?” she says casually, reaching for the white bag with the red-and-green Veggie Heaven logo on the side. “Seriously, give it up. So she dissed you in front of Reece. Big whoop. It’s happened a million times before; it’ll happen—”
“It’s more than that,” I say even as she divvies up our standing midnight-after-work order: two small bags of broccoli bites and spinach puffs for each of us. “It’s real this time, and it’s not just me. Wyatt saw it too.”
I sink my teeth into a broccoli bite. It’s so good, so hot and real, that it reminds me I haven’t had anything to eat or drink since half a biscotti—Wyatt stole the rest—at Hallowed Grounds.
That was hours ago. Long, lonely, scared, anxious hours.
Abby finishes off her spinach puffs and starts in on the broccoli bites, saying around a mouthful of both, “Now you’re involving him in your paranoia?”
“Well, yeah, I didn’t mean to, but . . . I was scared.”
“OK, I get that. So what do you think you saw that has you sitting up with a pathetic butcher knife in your hands at 12:30 in the morning? Just like, I might add, a character in one of your books.”
“Bianca had no reflection, Abby. She wasn’t there. I mean, she was standing right there, and we could see her with our eyes, but when we looked in the mirror, she wasn’t there.”
“There . . . where? When?”
“After school today! Wyatt and I were hanging out by my locker waiting. I have that big mirror in my locker, you know, and when Bianca showed up, we both looked—no reflection. She was there, right behind me. I should have been able to see her and, poof, nothing was there. I didn’t want to rely on my own eyes, so I asked Wyatt to look. He saw it too. It was like we could see right through her, to the lockers behind her, the doors, the track field beyond, but only in the mirror.”
“What is this?” she asks with that here-she-goes-again tone, getting up and tossing our empty fast-food wrappers into the trash before grabbing two Jolt Colas from the fridge. “Another scene from one of your books? You’re trying out some new material on me? Or should I say old material, because I don’t mean to rain on your picnic, but that’s like really bad m
ovie stuff. And I should know, girl. I’m the queen of bad movies. Even the writers for Zombie Diaries wouldn’t touch that old shtick with a ten-foot pole. Not being able to see a vampire in a mirror. Nora, you of all people should know better.”
She harrumphs back into her seat and slides me a cold Jolt, old-time saloon-style, the glistening red-and-yellow can skidding down the entire length of the coffee table as if it were wearing roller skates.
I pick it up and suck at it greedily, suddenly thirsty, the triple caffeine rocketing through my veins like a freight train—on speed and acid—heading straight for my already frazzled brain.
“Abby, please listen to me. I know how stupid this sounds; trust me. I know how much it sounds like something out of some stupid vampire book. There’s no other way to say the impossible without it sounding impossible. But you have to believe me. I’m not making this up. It’s not some vendetta against stupid Bianca, whom I couldn’t care less about, whatever you and Wyatt think. It’s not even about Reece. This is about vampires, real vampires, in our school. It’s about our safety. It’s about life and death.”
I tell her the rest as we finish our sodas: about Reece in the shadow of Bianca’s locker, his fangs, his threats in the lobby stairwell. I show her the fresh bruises on both of my biceps from where he held me tight against the rough concrete wall. I tell her that’s why I was sitting there with a knife when she came in.
I can tell she doesn’t believe me, thinks I’m being hysterical. But whether she’s concerned about vampires or about my sanity, either way she’s on red alert.
Fueled with enough green veggies to make Popeye proud and enough caffeine to fuel a shuttle to the moon and back, we pledge to stay up all night and keep a constant vigil on the front door.
We almost make it.
Chapter 13
Wyatt is missing.
Abby and I race to homeroom the next morning, late because we both stayed up so late waiting for him, late because Abby’s alarm clock was covered by six pillows and a goose-down-filled duvet, late because she had to stop for coffee on the way. His seat is empty by the time we burst into Mrs. Armbruster’s room a full six minutes after third bell.
The Vampire Book of the Month Club Page 7