by Holly Hook
He nodded. “Yeah. It's healing pretty fast, though.”
I looked at his bite marks. Unlike the ones I had left on Sanders, his were already almost gone. My healing abilities affected him even before the bite. It was the reason his shoulder no longer had a big slice in it from my throwing my sword. His bite marks were so faint now that I was amazed that Janine had noticed them in the first place.
Janine headed to the kitchen and turned on the light like an afterthought. She fished a frozen dinner out of the packed freezer—George had two to hold all the meat he had stocked up—and threw it into the microwave without much thought. Janine was absent-minded and wandering. For one thing, she hadn't removed the dinner from the box.
“Thanks,” Xavier said, sinking into a chair. “I Transposed over about thirty or forty miles twice.”
“Twice?” Janine asked. She went to work crinkling up the plastic off the TV dinner.
“Yes. Twice,” I said. “It didn't drain too badly this time. You should have seen how bad Xavier got back in Turkey when he Transposed us over to another city there. It nearly killed him. Janine, what's wrong?”
She faced the cabinet like she was the one who had something horrible to say, not me.
I sniffed.
She didn't have a scent.
The bite marks I had given her in my craze had disappeared.
Terror exploded in me as I realized what that could mean. I moved without thinking about it, striding across the kitchen before Janine could react.
And I yanked off her sunglasses.
Janine tried to turn away and cover her eyes, but it wasn't before I saw that Janine's normally brown eyes were becoming reddish, and were now about half as bad as mine.
I had infected her.
My best friend was Turning.
Chapter Four
“Janine,” I gasped.
“Don't look,” she said, covering her face with her hand. She faced the microwave. It hummed as it continued to heat up Xavier's dinner. “Just don't tell my mom, please.”
“But--”
“Don't tell her. She's going to freak.”
For a second, I held back a laugh. Janine was more worried about getting in trouble with her mom than what was happening to her. Parent problems were scarier than what I'd done. But my laugh died. Janine had let me bite her so I wouldn't do the same thing to Xavier. It hadn't done us any good. I had done what Thoreau wanted, anyway.
If the mayor could see this, he would laugh.
“I won't tell your mom,” I promised. I couldn't manage anything else. I wanted to melt into the ground. We had to face the truth. Janine and I had spoken last right before Xavier, and I headed to the bunker. She felt sick, but it didn't look like anything unusual.
“Thanks,” Janine said with incredible relief. She put her sunglasses back on.
I didn't get it. Janine had no reason for relief. I guessed that Janine had already Turned halfway. She had heard me tap on the window. She had seen Xavier's faded bite marks in the dark living room. Her hearing and vision had improved. Now she had no scent. I had been kidding myself, and Liliana had been right to be worried about her.
I heard Xavier's younger sister breathing softly in the computer room. She was asleep. I wondered how Janine had hidden her condition. Liliana would have called us about it.
My best friend's Normal life was over, and it hadn't hit her yet. Janine was one of those rare people who had inherited a little bit of Bathory's blood. Now I had woken that up inside of her.
“I have to leave.”
I turned, but Xavier gripped my arm. I shook his hand off me and stormed for the door. The world was collapsing, and I had to run.
“Alyssa,” Janine said. “Don't go. It's not your fault.”
I knew what would happen. Janine's mother would freak. She'd call the authorities on me. They'd come. They might discover George, too, and take him away. I should have just bitten Xavier in the first place. Then I wouldn't have had to endure the moment in the bunker. I wouldn't have ruined my best friend's life.
I yanked open the door.
“Not this again,” Xavier muttered, following.
Janine said something to him, but I burst into a full run before she could finish. I left George's house behind as I bolted across the street. I wanted to wake up back on the beach with my hand in Xavier's. I wanted to walk under the sun without it hurting me. I wished for Janine to return to her usual, happy self who loved gossip and playing soccer.
I would never stop being a monster.
“Alyssa!” Xavier shouted after me.
I didn't run far, only a couple of streets over. Things were too unsafe for me to wander off. I came to a small park that was completely unlit. It was so dark that my gray vision kicked in. I wondered if Janine could see the same way now. I ran in and sat underneath a tree. My sword dug into the ground, where I wanted to go.
I didn't know how long I sat there, looking at the darkness behind my closed eyelids, but eventually, Xavier's footsteps approached. His scent had changed. He had eaten a few bites of the TV dinner. Janine must have made him eat before he set out. Xavier must have known that I hadn't gone far because he was in no hurry.
“Alyssa,” Xavier said.
I lifted my head. I knew he'd deliver another pep talk. Xavier would tell me that none of this was my fault.
But instead, he sat down next to me and said nothing.
I had screwed up big time, and we both knew.
We both looked out at the darkness together for minutes. At last, Xavier spoke.
“The world needs to stop kicking you when you're down.”
I sighed, glad he hadn't given me a talk. There was no room for one. Nothing would make this situation better.
“It hasn't been great to you, either,” I said.
“Janine doesn't hate you, Alyssa. She was willing to take the risk of getting bitten to help stop the world from ending. I think that's a pretty good trade off.”
“But now her mother is going to reject her, and she's going to know what it's like to have no one.”
Xavier snorted. “You have more people than you think you do. You have me. You have Janine. You will have Trish and Thorne and the others once we get them freed. Your dad, too. And Janine will have us.”
I knew his words should comfort me. I couldn't remember a darker night. It felt even thicker than the one Russell Fox had emerged from so long ago. It was as if the atmosphere was already changing.
“I know I have you,” I said, resting my head on his shoulder. "I'm glad."
“I'm never going to leave you," Xavier said, rubbing his hand through my hair. "I don't care what happens. And don't you dare say that you don't deserve me. Stop listening to what everyone says about you."
His words hit me deep in the chest. Xavier knew me. "That's hard when society, the media, and your own family all say you're a monster."
"I know that it is," he said. "It wears you down. Hey, I'm supposed to be an idiot. A reject."
"You're not," I said, thinking of how Thoreau liked to taunt Xavier. "Maybe we should all run away so Thoreau can't find us." I felt like a coward, but it was logical. If Thoreau needed me, removing myself from the picture might help.
Xavier sighed. “I don't know if that plan will work. He did use your blood to track you down once. That's why that banshee attacked you in that store. He might still have some of your blood.”
“Then why hasn't he tracked me down again?” I asked. Panic rose inside of me. Allunna had taken my blood to Thoreau after my fight with her. He might still have some of it. The mayor could be toying with me, making me easier to handle. I answered my question. "Maybe it's because he didn't have to track me down. He just had to wait until I did what he wanted."
Deep down, I knew that running away wouldn't work. The mayor would draw me in. Thoreau had plenty of bargaining chips. He'd set everything against us. The only way out would be to try something he wouldn't expect.
“Alyssa, you
said something about finding new fighters when we first got back to the beach. Remember that?”
“Never mind about that. I haven't had fantastic ideas lately, as you can see.”
“No. I want to hear it. One of your ideas saved my life.” Xavier leaned close to me. His breath caressed my cheek. “I'm so happy that I'm still here with you.”
“You were mad that I went to Thoreau and then let him send me to Death's underworld.”
“You didn't have a choice. At the time, I didn't want us to get too close." He leaned closer, kissing my cheek. Tingles raced through my body like happy flowers. Xavier wrapped his arm around me, pulling me to him.
We were full battle partners now, locked in for life. Everyone knew that battle partners often took it further.
“Come on,” Xavier said. “We should get back to Janine. I left her alone in the kitchen. Janine said that she heard you come to this park.”
I stood, unsure how long Janine had before she became a full vampire. My Turning happened when I was two. The memory was fuzzy.
It took everything for me to return and face her.
Janine still stood in the kitchen when Xavier and I entered the house. My best friend picked at another TV dinner, pushing around the food with a plastic fork. I watched as she brought a carrot up to her mouth, took a bite, and grimaced at the taste. She managed to swallow. Janine could still eat regular food.
Soon, she would throw up when she tried.
"Hey," she said.
I couldn't remember the first time my parents had to feed me out of a blood bag, but I did recall trying chocolate cake when I was five. I threw up. Soon, Janine would have to explore other food options. That would make it real.
“You're back,” Janine continued, spearing another carrot with a fork. She chewed that one and swallowed, eyeing the mashed potatoes like they were liver and onions. A look of worry came over her face. “Are you okay?”
“I should be asking you that question,” I said, fighting not to flee again. “How are you feeling?” My words were sharp. I was angry at someone, and it wasn't the person in front of me. Maybe it was Thoreau. Maybe I was furious with myself.
Janine turned away. “My stomach's not liking this food. Too many preservatives."
Xavier shot me a look. The full situation hadn't hit her yet. Janine still grasped onto denial.
Xavier slipped his hand into mine and squeezed.
He didn't want me to run. Xavier had lost a battle partner before. He was scared of repeating the experience.
“We should rest and think," Xavier said. He spoke more to Janine than me. “Tomorrow we need to figure out how to stop Thoreau from merging the worlds. He's very, very close. You haven't heard yet, Janine, but things are going downhill."
Janine looked up. “What happened at the bunker? You haven't told me yet."
I had to deliver my bad news. A tremor swept over me. “I don't know what to do,” I managed.
I told Janine everything.
“What?” Janine asked, walking over to me. “That can't be true.”
And even though I had ruined her life, she let me collapse into her arms.
Chapter Five
I lay on the floor of the living room again. Janine had returned to her room. I didn't shed tears very often, but tonight I had, all over Janine's shoulder, for more reasons than one. I finally had Xavier, but I had lost everything else. He was the only thing holding my sanity together. My father was still captive. Thoreau had enslaved the Underground. Janine didn't understand that she couldn't come back from where she was going. The world just might end. And there was nothing I could do about what Thoreau had told me.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him laughing at me.
The only course of action I could take was to avoid going into the Infernal at all costs. As long as I stayed out of there, I wouldn't go demon.
But could I stay out of there? Thoreau probably still had a sample of my blood. If I ran, he could use it to track me with one of his Dark Mages. I had the feeling he reserved that tactic for whenever I wouldn't fall into his plans.
I stared at the ceiling of George's living room for a long time. I had memorized all the little patterns on it. In the other room, Janine tossed and turned, trying to sleep as her body continued to change. Soon, she would only need an hour or so per day.
The fangs came in last. I remembered that part. Once those arrived, you had officially Turned.
Mom had screamed when she peeked into my mouth a few days after fleeing the hospital.
Then she filed them down with something metal, and it was horrible. An awful grinding filled my head, and my teeth ached. I remembered the ugly brown curtains in the hotel room we'd stayed in at the time. That color, and the grinding.
I didn't know what had happened to my set of files. I had left them at the house when Thoreau had broken in with the ATC.
I wondered if Janine would like them.
Eventually, when the first light appeared outside, I got restless and turned on the TV. My thoughts were driving me insane. I needed something to distract myself.
The news was on. A couple of anchors were talking in low voices about the new water park that was opening in a couple of days. They both had big smiles on their faces, maybe because most of Cumberland's Abnormals were gone. I turned the volume up a little, sure that Janine would hear it. I wanted her out here. I had to know for sure that she didn't hate me, even though she had every reason to.
Janine emerged from the guest bedroom five minutes later, fully awake, the sunglasses back over her face. I hated sunglasses. Thoreau wore them.
“What's going on?” she asked.
She moved faster and with more grace. Quicker. It wasn't something a Normal would notice, but I could see it. She sat down next to me as if I hadn't destroyed her Normal life. I couldn't tell if there were any changes to her teeth yet.
Meanwhile, Xavier still breathed from the computer room, exhausted and knocked out.
“Nothing. Things are all happy in the Normal world,” I said. “They're talking about a water park instead of how bad Abnormals are.”
“I've wanted to go to that park," Janine said. "Maisha and I have been talking about it for months. We were planning on going swimsuit shopping just for the opening. Maisha's all excited about sunbathing and checking out the shirtless boys.”
Janine stopped right there. She tripped on the word sunbathing.
There would be no more of that.
Ever. It was beginning to hit, and the person at fault was sitting right next to her.
“Janine, I--”
It was my turn to choke. The screen changed to a recording of Thoreau, dressed in his suit and sunglasses and his full human glamour. The sun reflected off his bald head as he gave the camera his charming smile and gestured to the water park behind him. It was obvious this had been filmed late yesterday, well after the scene at the bunker.
I didn't have to turn up the television. I could hear what the mayor was saying, even though the volume was minimal. I didn't want to look at Thoreau, but I had to force myself. I had a bad feeling about this.
“Now that the Abnormal problem has come under far better control, this is a perfect time to celebrate the victory for the City of Cumberland,” he said. “It's predicted that one or two thousand people will attend the opening ceremony for Water Adventure right here in the Grand Plaza at midnight Friday. It's been months of planning, and I've been working with the design team to bring the people of Cumberland this amazing gift. After the events of the last few weeks, the people need a reason to celebrate. I'm looking forward to speaking at this ceremony."
I forced myself to avert my gaze from Thoreau to another part of the TV screen. I focused on the water slides in the background, the fake mushrooms that spouted sparkling water, the curvy river filled with inner tubes and the food stalls in the distance. It was an excellent park, sure to fit thousands on the hottest days. Spotlights were everywhere, shining down on a gigantic, p
erfectly round swimming pool right behind Thoreau. It must be as wide as half a football field and able to fit hundreds of people. I had never seen a pool that big.
The dread feeling exploded in my gut.
“Janine,” I said. “Look.”
“I'm watching this for you,” she said. “I understand if you don't want to see this.”
“No. Look. Behind the mayor.”
She did, lowering her sunglasses to do so. Her eyes were a tiny bit redder.
“Oh." She frowned. "That pool looks like what you said portals look like."
“Exactly,” I said. “We have to wake Xavier up.”
Thoreau continued to speak about rewarding the people of Cumberland. He gestured to the pool behind him. There was a load of open sidewalk around the pool, enough room for tons of guests to stand. It was a strange setup for a water park. A platform had already been built on the far side of the pool, complete with a podium and a microphone where Thoreau would speak.
I didn't like this one bit.
The news cut to another story as I raced down the hall and invaded the computer room without asking. Xavier was asleep from sheer exhaustion, and Liliana was in a sleeping bag. I had to step over her, and I gave Xavier a gentle nudge with my foot. “Up,” I whispered as he blinked. “Sorry for the rude awakening, but Janine and I just got a rude awakening.”
Xavier dressed and joined us two minutes later, blinking sleep out of his eyes. By then, the news story had finished, and they were talking about a new dog park instead. It was all feel-good stories now. The missing ATC agents hadn't even been mentioned this morning as if Thoreau had coerced the news into not mentioning it. It was media at its finest. We told Xavier what we'd seen, and Xavier's eyes got huge.
“They've been planning the Cumberland Water Adventure for years,” Xavier said. “They started planning it when I was six. I remember my parents telling me how fun it would be to go.”
“Well, there's going to be a giant portal in it,” I said. “And room for about two thousand people to stand around it. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?”