“I don’t want you,” I said, and realized I sounded a lot braver than I felt.
He smirked, and his shoulders shook with silent laughter. “Don’t deny your true feelings. We are meant to be together, you and I.”
I took a step closer to him, close enough that I could feel the lack of breath from his nostrils, but sure he could feel mine.
“Over my dead body.”
He leaned in. “Absolutely,” he whispered in my ear, just as coolly. “And then we can be together … forever.”
He kissed my cheek, his lips like ice.
With a final touch that made me shudder, he stepped away, toward the window. His hands were in his pockets. He sat on the sill, swung his legs outside, wiggled his fingers at me sweetly, and then fell out of sight.
Chapter 10
I sank to my knees right there in the middle of my room.
I felt lost, confused, and violated. He had kissed me. My cheek felt frozen where his lips had brushed it, like it would fall off in little icy shards. How could he … why would he …?
I could only settle on one thought. A contradiction, really.
Either he was telling me the truth about being a vampire, or he and Xandra were in this together, and playing a really sick joke on the new girl.
If that was the case, then this was a twisted sort of hazing that would probably leave me scarred for the rest of my life.
Who was I kidding? This was going to leave me scarred for the rest of my life regardless.
If he was telling the truth …
I crawled across the floor to the window, pulled myself up on the sill, and stared out into the yard.
The yard itself wasn’t very big, and it backed up to another house’s backyard. Their little swing set was still, and the small citrus tree in our yard was not moving either. His smell lingered, the strong scent of his cologne turning my stomach all over again.
There was no wind, and only the sound of the occasional car driving by in the night.
And there was no sign of Byron.
I reached up and pulled the window shut, locking it at quickly as I could.
If he was telling the truth, then locking it would only delay him a second or two. It wouldn’t matter.
How had he gotten in, though? Weren’t vampires only allowed to enter a place if they were invited in?
If that was the case, had simply opening my window been enough?
And if I had permitted him entry unknowingly … did that mean he could just waltz right in again, at any time?
I eyed the lock with fearful, bulging eyes.
It might not be worth a damn.
I made my way to the bed, still on hands and knees, knowing my legs wouldn’t be able to hold me up.
Shivering, I pulled the blankets up over my head, wrapping them around myself, and tried to force myself to warm up.
His touch had sapped nearly all of my body heat, leeching it out of me like a mosquito after my blood.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry; he practically was a mosquito, for crying out loud.
Could I believe him? How was it possible that anything that he had said was true?
But it was hard to miss the certainty in his voice, the determination, the resolution.
Regardless of whether or not I was going to allow myself to believe him, I knew one thing for sure.
He’d proven he was not going to give up.
I shuddered, and bit down on my blanket to keep myself from freaking out. I had had enough of that; all that mattered to me now was my own survival.
So that was it then, huh?
Did I believe him?
Yeah … I guess I did.
I mean, how else could I explain his crazy behavior? Everything that he did, everything he said, all of the creepy looks and caresses … My eyes welled with tears as I clenched the soft blanket tighter in my balled-up fists, wishing I could make it untrue—Byron Vesper was a vampire.
Was I absolutely crazy? Had I lost my mind? Was this some weird form of PTSD?
I rolled over and snatched my phone from the bedside table. It was quarter after one. A fresh flood of anger swept over me. Was he determined to make sure I never slept again?
I opened the internet, and typed in, Are vampires real?
I should have known. There was a split right down the middle. There were shady, poorly made sites claiming to be a part of a vampire cult, where they all wore capes, watched lame 80s movies, and ate food with decorations resembling blood. And then there were what looked like professional, university-level sites that discussed vampire bats, leeches, and other blood-sucking creatures from the animal kingdom. A few bloggers claimed to have encountered a vampire, and there were whole sites dedicated to chronicling weird circumstances, dealings with stalkers, and people who had skin that was inhumanly cold. But the comments sections of their posts were filled with ridicule, and a small handful of death threats.
A little extreme, sure, even if I could understand why people thought these bloggers were nuts.
Until Thursday afternoon, I would have thought the same thing. Over an hour of solid reading later, I still was not convinced. So I placed my phone on my bedside table, and stared up at the ceiling.
Lying there, I was acutely aware of my each and every heartbeat. They felt more pronounced than they ever had in my life.
If Byron was serious about what he said …
… and then we can be together … forever.
That meant …
Blood. Hot, wet, metallic blood. That was what he wanted from me.
I realized for the first time how fragile I was. If Byron could nearly punch through a metal door, then how easily would he be able to snap my bones? Would they break like twigs? Or like paper straws? If he could outrun me, there was no way that I could escape from him.
I rolled over and wondered if my parents were sleeping. The fact that I had so readily accepted Byron’s word that he would hurt them, without question, frightened me. But then, why would I question it? I’d seen the impression his fist had made in the bunker door yesterday. I absolutely knew that he could hurt them.
So why didn’t he? Why didn’t he just get them out of the picture and take care of me right then and there? I could be dead by now, or a vampire, or whatever he was planning. The answer sickened me.
He was playing with me.
He had been watching me. He had known everything that Xandra had told me about vampires. He knew exactly what to say to me to freak me out.
That terrified me.
So why, when he spilled into my room in the blink of an eye, smothered my throat with his icy, immoveable grip, had my reaction not been to cower in terror? I should have quaked with tremors. Yet I had been obstinate, stood up to him—defied him, even.
He probably liked that.
I slapped the bed in aggravation. Of course he would. And that would explain why he was biding his time.
Well, if he wanted a fighter, he was going to see that I wasn’t going to give in so easily. He’d better prepare himself for my iron will. I had never done anything that anyone else ever wanted me to do. That’s why it was so easy to become a liar. I just didn’t care what other people wanted or expected.
Rolling onto my back again, I resumed staring at the ceiling. My eyes followed the same crack that I had looked at every night since we moved in.
What I wouldn’t give to go back to worrying about making friends or reflecting on the dumb and embarrassing things I said at school.
Now I was one of those teenagers that you hear about in movies.
How was this even happening?
Was there even a way out of this? Was my only choice to let him have his way?
No, that couldn’t be. I wasn’t ready to die. Seventeen is too young to die.
But what other choice did I have? It wasn’t like I had super strength, or super speed, or anything like that. I could do nothing to defend myself. His vice grip was impossible for me to break free from.
There had to be a way.
He seemed to think the garlic was amusing, almost as if he thought I had been clever. Should I just start wearing a necklace of garlic around school?
Then there was the daytime issue. Byron couldn’t walk around in daylight, no. But daytime always ended. In fact, the shortest day of the year had only been a few weeks ago.
There were months of long nights ahead.
I hesitated, and then rolled over and dug through the fluffy blanket again until I found my phone.
The battery was nearly drained, but I typed in one more thing.
How do you kill a vampire?
Some of the results didn’t seem plausible.
Sunlight—well, that would explain why Byron fled on the morning after he’d trapped us in the storage room. Religious objects … I didn’t have any of those, my family being very lapsed Catholics from at least two generations ago. Then there were things like a wooden stake in the heart, decapitation, and even a suggestion about poisoning human blood and allowing the vampire to drink it.
I shut the screen off again and tried to suppress a shudder. I had a hard time imagining myself shoving a pointed piece of wood in someone’s heart or cutting his head off. And as for poisoning myself before giving my body over to him … a murder/suicide felt more like an extreme final act of spite than a legitimate option.
It didn’t look like I had many options to kill him.
Kill him. Just the thought of it drove a wedge of ice into my chest.
Well, it was kill him or let him kill me. And he wasn’t human anymore, right?
In spite of how grim everything felt, a little ray of hope warmed me. Maybe I could kill him. Crafting a wooden stake would be simple enough. I’d grab a pocket knife from a corner shop, and whittle a few stakes to carry with me. The metal detectors at school wouldn’t pick them up, and I could use the excuse that they were for a shop project if anyone found them. It was a start, at least until I could conduct more thorough research.
It was just a shame that it was almost dawn again by the time I came to that conclusion.
Two nights without sleep.
Maybe Byron wouldn’t actually have to sink his teeth in me for me to die.
Chapter 11
Not long after the first pinks of sunrise started to filter into my room, I heard Mom and Dad get up. They both had to work today, I knew, and it wouldn’t be long before one of them peeked in to say goodbye to me and let me know what my chore list for the day was.
With everything that had happened, I didn’t want one of them to find me like this, lying in my bed with tear stains on my pillows. It might raise too many questions, and if they started asking, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to hold it together.
I dragged myself to the shower, and stood in the hot water, washing the night away. I still felt cold all the way to my bones, as if Byron’s touch had left some permanent mark on my skin, a kind of vampire frostbite. When I stepped out of the shower, my skin was bright red from the heat, and it still didn’t feel like enough warmth.
I dressed in a pair of yoga pants and a loose-fitting tank. I couldn’t stand the idea of wearing jeans or anything that might be considered cute. If Byron was watching, I didn’t want him to think I was attractive at all. In any way. Just for good measure, I finished the ensemble with a bulky sweatshirt. Its high collar covered my neck.
There. Good luck sinking your teeth in now.
“Well, well, well, look who’s awake before noon.”
As I walked into the kitchen, I found my mom throwing a few dishes from dinner the night before into the dishwasher. The look she gave me could have melted glass.
“Didn’t sleep well last night,” I replied.
She made a clicking sound with her tongue, and I winced. It sounded too much like the small stones bouncing off of my window last night.
“It was probably the late-onset guilt from lying to your parents.”
I closed my eyes. I couldn’t react. She didn’t know. She didn’t understand.
What a cliché teenager thing to think, right? But she really didn’t understand.
“Yeah,” I replied quietly, and what she didn’t know was that I was lying to her. Again. And that made me feel even more wretched.
Surprisingly, her face softened for a moment as she looked up at me, standing there lamely in the doorway.
“Are you feeling okay?” Mom said, pouring some coffee into a to-go coffee cup. She stirred in a spoonful of coconut oil. “You must be cold, wearing all those layers.”
I shrugged, sliding into one of the barstools on the other side of the island. “Maybe I’m getting used to Florida already.”
Dad walked in, briefcase in hand, adjusting his red tie. “Just wait until July. We’ll all find we aren’t used to any of this yet.”
“At least it isn’t snowing,” Mom replied.
Dad looked over at me, also pouring some coffee into a mug that Mom had set out for him. “You’re staying here today, right?”
No “good morning,” no “how are you?” Just straight to the point.
Apparently he was still mad at me.
“Yeah,” I replied, trying to scrub the tiredness out of my eyes.
“Promise?” he said.
Abso-frickin’-lutely.
“Yes,” I said.
He frowned at me like I’d spoken with an attitude—when, right now, housebound was my greatest desire. Or second greatest—after Byron Vesper’s head struck from his shoulders, or a stake through his chest, or a mouthful of poison, or …
Whatever my dad thought he’d heard in my voice, he didn’t comment on it.
I had forgotten everything from before Byron Vesper appeared in my life. He was like when my grandmother got cancer, and everything else in the world went on hold for a few months—jobs, school, social life. It was an all-consuming blight that took over our lives. Byron Vesper was like that, blotting out my memory of life before him.
He was like cancer. Except instead of killing my grandmother, he was going to kill me.
Dad walked over and kissed me on the cheek.
“Are you going to drop the car off for the oil change?” Mom asked. She reached into the fridge for a Tupperware box full of leftovers.
“Yes. We still meeting for dinner at six?”
“Yes. I’ll see you there.”
They both walked around the island, Mom throwing some files in her bag, Dad pulling a coat on.
They made it almost to the garage door before Mom turned around and looked at me.
“There’s a list on the fridge. Make sure to keep my dress pants out of the dryer when you throw the laundry in. And your father’s shirts need to be ironed. There are leftovers for dinner in the fridge.”
She had almost closed the door when I heard her say, “Love you, sweetie.” Like an afterthought.
She didn’t even wait long enough for me to say it back. This was how it was. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have even cared that they were cold-shouldering me. Their indifference would have been welcome, knowing I was going to have the house all to myself for the day.
But now, with Byron and all of his insanity, the last thing that I wanted to do was stay at home all by myself.
Because I knew that I wouldn’t actually be alone. And although I was perfectly happy to be stuck indoors, with Byron stalking me, I also knew that he would be out there, somewhere, waiting. Maybe not until after dark … or maybe before, if he had some way of avoiding sunlight. Like, say, by hiding in the bushes, or under an awning, where he could watch me through the windows—could be watching me right this instant, perhaps, eyes raking over my skin …
I shuddered.
I had promised my dad that I wouldn’t leave today, but could I keep that promise if push came to shove? How did I know that they weren’t going to get home today and find my drained corpse spread out on the couch? Just because he didn’t kill me last night didn’t mean that he wouldn’t kill me today.
The only advantage that I was almost sure I had was that it was daylight.
I froze.
Daylight.
I ran back to up my room, tore off the sweatshirt and replaced it with a swimsuit, and then threw a t-shirt over it. I dug through my closet until I found a scarf, and tossed that around my neck instead—I didn’t want to give Byron any temptation. But would the scarf draw attention to my neck?
I tossed it back into the closet.
Maybe I could play it off to him like I didn’t care. I doubted he would believe it, but if I could somehow make him second guess his certainty that I was terrified, then I would have a leg up on him.
I found a sunhat that Mom had purchased when we had first gotten here, but since she didn’t like it, she had given it to me. I grabbed my phone charger, found my favorite pair of sunglasses, grabbed the sunscreen from the linen closet, and ran outside.
The backyard was mostly occupied by the large screened in porch; “lanai,” the Floridians called it. Inside the lanai was where we kept the grill, and, my favorite part of the entire house, the pool. After putting my stuff down, I dashed back inside, tossing food and sodas into a small cooler before returning to the pool lounger. Now I had everything I needed to make sure that he couldn’t get to me.
I sighed as I stepped out into warm sunlight, let in through the screen even as the bugs were held at bay by it.
I pulled one of the lounge chairs beside the pool in direct sunlight, making sure not a single inch of it—or me—was in the shade. I’d have to keep moving it throughout the day, of course … but that was fine by me. The warmth of the sun heated my skin, melting the icy feeling that lingered on my flesh since Byron’s nighttime visit. I could almost feel the cold evaporating from my bones.
I felt safe, at least for the moment.
I set an alarm for almost noon and promised myself that I would do all of the chores that Mom had given me while the sun was at its peak. There wouldn’t be very many shadows. Hopefully I’d be safe.
For the first time since last night, I felt like I had a little bit of control back. I knew that I was probably too proud of myself, and that it was unwarranted, but it was better than cowering under my blankets in my room, waiting to see if he showed up.
No One Will Believe You Page 6