Blood Crave

by Jennifer Knight

  I watched her fish her keys out of her jacket pocket. “So why do you do it so much?”

  “These are my clients, babe. I gotta be present or else they’ll find someone else to buy from.”

  I eyed her as she stood. Now would have been the perfect time to oh-so-casually bring up the vampire blood again, but as I watched her say good-bye to her clients I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was done with that world. Whatever Danni was into was her business, and I refused to get dragged back into that mess.

  So I followed Danni out the door and let her take me home to my lonely dorm room.

  I was totally going to flunk out of college. I was convinced. Final exams were coming up, and I was completely unprepared. I’d basically bombed this whole semester thanks to Lucas and Derek, so for the next two weeks, I took studying to a whole new level. I lived in the library, drowning myself in useless facts and numbers until my brain felt like old cereal. It was lame. And lonely. And sad. But it was better than agonizing over missing Lucas and Derek. And it would keep me from failing all my classes.

  I did have one social event to look forward to, though. Danni had found me on campus a couple nights ago and cornered me into a double date with Heather and her new blood bitch boyfriend, Ryan. I was being set up with Ryan’s roommate, Harrison. He was not a blood bitch, which was the only reason I’d agreed. Plus I wanted Danni to leave me alone about being so moody, and she’d claimed that this was the only way for me to move on.

  The Sunday before exams was spent in the library for yet another marathon study session. As I trudged back to my dorm room, I tried to make myself feel something about my upcoming date on Friday—excitement, nervousness, anything. But all I could muster was dread. Imagining myself with anyone but Lucas was completely foul. I actually felt physically ill from it as I hurried through the courtyard, angry at myself for staying out past dark. I usually never did that anymore because I had no protection now and the murders were just as awful, and frequent as ever.

  And it seemed that I needed protection because as I approached my building, a blast of wind hit me. I almost shrieked. But I regained composure long enough to see that it wasn’t a vampire.

  Quite the opposite, actually.

  It was Katie.

  I blinked for a moment, letting my bag fall to the floor as my body went limp.

  “Hey,” she said with a smile. Through the static of her crazy werewolf vibe, I could feel her phony niceness. I wasn’t sure why she was being fake with me, but I wasn’t about to confront her. I was too shocked and too happy to see her.

  “I’m not here to talk,” she said. “I have a message. From Derek.”

  More shock hit me like a hammer to the skull.

  “Y-you talked to Derek?”

  “Yep. He, ah . . . he called me when you left. He was pretty broken up, Faith. Really broken up.”

  I pressed my lips together and took a deep breath. I hated to hear that I’d caused him even more pain, but I didn’t regret leaving him. “What’s the message?” I forced out.

  Katie shifted her weight and looked around for a moment, almost like she didn’t want to tell me. Why was she acting so strangely?

  “Just tell me,” I said flatly.

  “He says he wants to meet you,” she said. “He wants to say good-bye.”

  I balked. “Good-bye? Is he going someplace?”

  Katie tossed her short black hair out of her eyes with a flick of her head. “He wants to tell you himself. He said to meet him on the football field at midnight tonight if you want to say good-bye. Otherwise you won’t see him again.”

  My face collapsed into a frown as I absorbed this. Derek was leaving. Leaving where? Why?

  Katie and I stood there for a long moment, and when she spoke up, her voice was softer, almost pained.

  “So are you going to go?”

  I wanted to go see him, but if I did so, I would only end up asking him to stay. And that was wrong. If he was ever going to learn to be happy, it had to be away from me and the pain I caused him.

  “No,” I said finally. “I can’t say good-bye to him. If he wants to go, then that’s good. He should go. He should find a place for himself ... someplace that makes him happy.”

  “He’s happy with you,” Katie said. “He wants you. He’s practically human still, there’s no danger with him if he takes your blood. He can’t turn you. And he’d always love you. Just give him a chance.”

  At first I started to let myself believe Katie’s words, but I forced myself to stay strong.

  “No,” I said. “No. I won’t give him anything more than friendship. You—you tell him for me, that if he wants to be my friend, I’ll always be here to help him. I’ll always love him that way. Otherwise, this is that way it has to be.”

  Katie seemed to relax, as if relieved by my words.

  “I’ll tell him.” She took a step and touched my arm. “Take care of yourself, Faith.”

  And she was gone.

  Final exams just happened to fall on my least favorite time of the month: the full moon. I got through exams with passing grades, which was a humongous feat after having slogged through the semester with only sections of my brain in working condition.

  Friday night, and three weeks since I’d last spoken to Derek, I stood outside of my building in the courtyard, waiting for Heather. After Katie’s visit, Derek had tried calling me relentlessly for two days until I’d finally just shut my phone off. I couldn’t say good-bye to him.

  I fiddled with the silver necklace Lucas had given me as I waited in the scanty yellow light of the courtyard lamps. It had finally stopped snowing. I wasn’t exactly sure when that happened, but now the ground was sprouting with fresh grass and the trees were starting to bloom waxy green leaves. The world was becoming alive again.

  I checked my watch. Heather was late. I didn’t like being alone at night even with the silver at my throat and the double-ended stake stuffed into my purse. I was still grossly vulnerable. And there had been so many murders this past week; two or three every night. It had me—and everyone around me—totally on edge. I only wished the stupid pack would find the brood already. If they couldn’t manage it, not only would countless more die, but Lucas and the others would be entrenched in a war.

  I winced as my body scorched, and then shoved the thought aside. He doesn’t matter. He doesn’t even care that you’re out here unprotected. You could be dead for all he knows. . . .

  I checked my watch again and then pulled out my cell phone. I called Heather and got her voicemail. I waited ten more minutes, fingering the stake in my purse and imagining the moves I’d make if a vampire came at me.

  Feeling idiotic, I went back up to my room and called Heather to cancel. But she didn’t answer. I tried her three more times, only to find that her phone had been disconnected.

  What if something bad had happened to her? The vampires could have found out about her use of their blood and killed her. It was totally plausible. I called her about a gajillion times, but she never answered.

  I couldn’t sleep at all that night.

  The next morning, seven o’clock on the dot, I flicked on the news.

  Sure enough, there had been murders last night. A car full of people. I gasped as the news lady listed the names. Ryan Avery, Harrison Klinger, and Jessica Faust. That was Heather’s boyfriend and his roommate! The girl was one of the blood bitches. But Heather’s name hadn’t been read. What did that mean? I flicked the news off and called Heather immediately.

  No answer.

  I started pacing to keep the tears from taking over. Heather wasn’t just my friend, she was my human friend. And that meant something to me—it meant everything. If Heather died, it was almost as if my humanity died with her. I had next to no other human friends, no real ties to the human world besides perhaps school and my mother. For some reason, and maybe it was just because Heather was my age, I just felt that if she was gone, it wouldn’t be long before I followed in her wake. It
was selfish, but I had to face the facts: I attracted vampires. Whether it was because of my otherness or whatever, I had an uncanny ability to get mixed up in their world.

  And I had zero protection now. I’d sworn off all supernatural creatures. Not a smart move for a vampire magnet.

  I had this horrible, sinking feeling that the attack on Heather’s car had been because of me. The vampires knew me, knew my gift. They had already tried to turn me twice—first Vincent and then Silas. What were the odds that the same car I would be getting into would also be the one that the vampires targeted? It was just too much of a coincidence.

  I had to acknowledge the truth: the vampires were coming for me. Derek had refused to go back to them, and in order to lure him in, they were doing just as my mystery attacker said they would. They wanted to use me as leverage. Because they needed Derek. He was the key to the uprising, and without him they were doomed.

  So if the vampires found me, the war was essentially over before it had even begun.

  And here I was. A sitting duck.

  Late that afternoon, I sat blankly at my desk, staring at the barren white wall until my cell phone blared through the silence. I dove for it, hoping to see Heather’s name on my screen.

  Not Heather, but still someone who might know something.

  “Danni, hi,” I said, exhaling into the phone. Why hadn’t I called her sooner?

  “So you heard?” she asked.

  “Yes. It was on the news. I was supposed to be in that car, Danni. I was supposed to be there.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Her voice was rough—haggard. “You’re one lucky chick.”

  “They didn’t say anything about Heather, but she had to have been there—it was her car. She’s not with you, is she?”

  “I didn’t see her at all last night,” Danni said. “So do you think it was the serial killer dude?”

  No, I think it’s the vampires.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Why wouldn’t it be him?”

  “Well, I mean, the victims were boys. He always kills girls.”

  “First time for everything,” I said, running my hand over my tired eyes.

  “Yeah,” Danni said pensively. “Maybe he didn’t have a choice but to kill the dudes. Maybe they saw him attack Heather and Jessica, and he had to kill them to keep them from talking.”

  I swallowed hard. “So you think he killed Heather?”

  “Seems so, babe.”

  Suddenly I was furious at her casual tone. I knew it was just her, but it was so callous. “You don’t give a shit about her at all do you? She was just another stoner to you, right?”

  “Hey,” her voice came harshly now. “She might have been a client, but she was my friend, too.”

  “Right. A friend you let get high out of her mind practically every night for the past four months. Her brain’s probably scrambled eggs by now thanks to you.”

  “Heather makes her own choices.”

  “Yeah, and you facilitate them.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “I’ll admit I shouldn’t have let her have a taste that first night in Zydeco’s. She was a mess and I played into it. That was my screw-up. But after the first time, there was no point refusing her. She was hooked. She would have gotten it from someone else if I didn’t sell to her.”

  “So as long as she’s turning into an addict, you might as well make some money in the process? Nice, Danni. I can tell you really care about her.”

  “That’s not what I meant. Jesus, you’re such a pain in the ass.”

  “Did you even talk to her like I asked?”

  “I never got the chance.”

  I was tempted to throw the phone across the room, but something kept me holding it to my ear—I wanted her to apologize. Wanted us to be friends, even though she was borderline dangerous. She was all I had.

  Pathetic. . . .

  “All I meant before,” Danni said, and I could hear her forcing her voice to be level, “was that if she was going to do the drugs anyway, at least I knew they were safe. Relatively.”

  “Oh yeah, because this mystery drug you guys take is so safe,” I said, dripping sarcasm. “You still won’t even tell me the name of it.”

  “Not the point,” Danni said, avoiding giving me a name, yet again.

  “Then what’s the point, Danni?” I was tired of fighting. So, so tired....

  “The point is that I care if Heather is dead or not, all right? I know I come off all tough and shit, but when a friend dies—or might be dead—it’s enough to crack the shell. For anyone. So just . . . just stop acting like you’re the only one who cares about her. And Ryan and Jessica, too.”

  I blinked at my white wall, as it finally sunk in that three people were actually dead and that two of them had been Danni’s friends.

  She was silent for a moment. “It just doesn’t feel real, you know? About Heather, I mean. Like, it’s not real until there’s a body, as sick as that sounds. I have a feeling Heather’s probably dead, but I don’t know. Maybe she’s not.”

  It was a possibility. If the vampires wanted me, then taking Heather was a good way to lure me out of my room. Vincent had done it before with Derek. And it had worked. Too well. If the vampires weren’t after me and the attack last night was a coincidence, they might have taken her so they could turn her for their army. Either way, she could be alive. And if that was true, I had until sundown to find her.

  “We should go look for her,” I said.

  “For sure,” she agreed instantly. “I’ll be there in five. I’d say don’t be late, but I know you will be anyway.”

  She hung up and I raced around the room getting dressed and pulling my hair into a harried ponytail. Ten minutes later, I met Danni at the driveway outside my building. The weather was beginning to warm up, but the sky was still that sheet of white instead of spring-blue. Danni didn’t seem to mind the chill in the air, though, because the top on her convertible was down and she wore only a thin camisole in bright green.

  I jumped into her car, giving her a brief smile.

  She nodded at me and started off down the road.

  “Where to?” she asked.

  I gripped the edges of the leather seat, biting my lip absently. “I guess we should check out the wreck?”

  “Nah. That’ll be swarming with cops and news crews.”

  “Still? You think?”

  “Oh, hell yeah. This case is top news. The public is in an uproar over it—they’ll be all over that place for days. Nah, why don’t we start wherever you were supposed to be going?”

  “Zydeco’s,” I said reluctantly. I despised the place. Every time I went there something catastrophic happened. But then again, the vampires seemed to like it in that silly club—probably because of all the drunk, easy prey—so it was a good starting point.

  Danni turned toward the club. “It’s not open yet,” she informed me as she turned on the radio.

  “What time does it open?” I asked, checking the clock. It was five—two hours until sunset.

  “Seven,” she said.

  I made a face. “We’ll just look out back for now.”

  “You don’t wanna wait for it to open? We could ask the club staff if they saw her or something.”

  “No. I can’t, ah . . . stay out that late.”

  Danni chuckled skeptically. “Okay, granny, what aren’t you telling me? Why the curfew?”

  “No reason, I just need to do some studying.”

  “Liar. Exams were last week. You’re officially on summer vacay.”

  I looked over at her profile, watching the creases along her almond-shaped eyes as she watched the road. “How do you know when my exams were?”

  “Because I’ve been stalking you.”

  “Shut up.”

  “You told me the other day, remember? When I met you on campus?”

  “Right—when you harassed me into this stupid double date in the first place.”

  “Harassed is a strong word,” Danni said thoughtfully.
“More like forced.”

  “I’m going to take a summer class anyway,” I said absently. “So I can stay in my dorm room during the break.” There were two weeks between the spring and summer semesters, and I seriously didn’t want to go back to California for them. If I took a summer class I could stay. This place—this hell I’d come to call home—was my only tie to Lucas. I wasn’t ready to leave it yet.

  Danni didn’t respond, so I stared out the windshield and saw that we’d come to Zydeco’s parking lot on the side of the building. We exited the car and walked around the empty lot.

  “Nothing here but the smell of coagulated vomit and exhaust fumes,” Danni said, leaning against the trunk of her car.

  I circled around the lot, looking for what, I didn’t know. I glanced up at the side of the brick building and saw a security camera facing the lot. I pointed at it. “I wonder if that shows anything.”

  “Maybe,” Danni said disinterestedly.

  I folded my arms across my chest. “You could be a little more helpful.”

  “What do you want me to do? There’s nothing here.”

  I shifted my weight, glaring away from her. “I know. Besides, it seems like they got intercepted by the vam—the killer before they came here. They were on the way to pick me up.”

  Danni shrugged making the afternoon sun flash on her silky shirt and leave a white spot in my vision. “So what’d you wanna do?”

  I circled around the lot once more, thinking about the vampires—where they’d likely take their prey. If they’d killed her, they’d have just left her with the others, which made me think they’d either successfully turned her or were keeping her to get to me. Hopefully, it was the latter. And if so, they’d take her to their lair.

  Well, the only lair I knew of was Vincent’s and last I knew, it had been turned into a vampire-feeding-frenzy thingy. It seemed like a stretch that they’d still be there after the pack raided the place twice, but it was worth a shot. I had nothing else to go on.

  “There’s some place I want to check out,” I said, going back to the car. “Come on, I’ll direct you.”

  Twenty minutes later, I’d successfully gotten us to the barn. Without the snow surrounding it, the whole thing looked strikingly dull. On the night Derek had been turned, the barn had been a dark, foreboding structure stabbing a sea of white powder. Now it blended in with the deadened, green-mottled grass. It was old and filthy—lonely looking like a stray dog.