Out Now

by Saundra Mitchell

  The guy laughs, harder than my joke warrants, and gives me a sly little grin. His eyes are locked on mine, and, oh man, I can feel that look in the pit of my stomach. Something inside me wakes up as he reaches out to shake my hand. “I’m Kenton.”

  “Austin,” I stammer, suddenly terrible at flirting. Because that’s what happening, right? His hand lingers in mine, and little sparks dance up my arm. “I’m... I, uh, do I... I don’t know you, do I?”

  It is literally the most awkward I’ve ever sounded—my brain and my mouth are going through an acrimonious divorce—but Kenton’s smile only gets wider. He still hasn’t let go of my hand. “Nah, I’m new. We just moved here, and I started at Orchard East a couple weeks ago.”

  “F-from where?” His eyes are the most amazing color, storm-cloud gray fading into pale blue—or maybe the other way around. Or maybe both. They’re magic.

  “Different places,” he murmurs. He steps closer, and his free hand touches my chin, tipping my face up. I didn’t have anything from Miyu’s flask, but I feel drunk as Kenton’s thumb traces my jawline. “Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are, Austin?”

  “N-n-n...” My tongue doesn’t have the energy to finish the word, and I swallow it, just as Kenton presses his soft, perfect lips to mine. I can’t believe I’m kissing this boy I barely know—and he’s a total bro, too, not at all my type—and yet I can’t imagine doing anything else. It’s like magnets are locking us together, and it feels utterly right.

  His hand squeezes my waist, his tongue presses against my own, and then he sucks my bottom lip into his mouth. And then his teeth bite down, hard, and the sudden burst of sharp pain breaks the spell. I stumble back, cold everywhere, sweat breaking out on the back of my neck. Kenton is grinning at me, shaking with silent laughter, his eyes lit up from the inside and his teeth smeared with my blood. My shoulders sag. Ah, shit.

  “VAMPIRE!” I shout, but I’m already too late. Whatever the signal was, he’s already given it, and chaos erupts inside the Harbor Haven Country Club. The windows facing the bay shatter as creatures of the night leap through the glass. People scream and run for the exits, only to find their way blocked by more cackling bloodsuckers sporting Greek-lettered sweatshirts and Roman numeral tattoos.

  Bros. It’s always bros. Whenever this sort of thing happens, people immediately blame the goth kids, but they’re never right. Every time, it’s the bros: Dudes with hemp bracelets and cargo shorts, and horse girls with super blond hair. Bros are gonna fucking kill us all.

  Kenton dives at me, his true face showing at last, fangs gleaming and eyes burning like hotplates. We crash into the refreshments table and topple to the floor. Desiccated brownies and mushy grapes rain down on us, and I’m only barely able to wrestle my crucifix free from my pocket in time. I slap it against the vampire’s forehead, and he roars as his unholy flesh burns on contact with the sacred object.

  Retreating into a crouch, he snarls at the cross in my shaky grasp. All around us, people are screaming and fighting for their lives, vamps feeding with frenzied abandon. I really hate school dances.

  “I thought we were gonna make out, bruh,” Kenton taunts me, twisting his neck until the vertebrae give a sickening, unnatural crack. Vampires can be killed by decapitation—and fire, sunlight, and stakes through the heart—but their bodies can take a lot of punishment. They love showing off their messed-up physiology, because it grosses mortals out. “You tasted so sweet!”

  “Go back to hell,” I snap, but my confident tone is a sham. We’re in a corner, and he’s blocking the way out—and as for my protection...well. A crucifix is like bug repellent: No matter how well it works, you eventually get bitten anyway. If I make the mistake of looking directly into his eyes again, he could even mesmerize me into dropping it—which is why I’m looking him in the chin instead. “Ugh. I can’t believe I couldn’t tell you were a vampire. You’re wearing a puka shell necklace!”

  “Hey, man, these are the real deal—I bought them on a beach in Kauai!” Kenton scowls. And then, without warning, he pounces again—teeth bared, fingers elongating into claws—and I shrink back as my life flashes before my eyes.

  But I’m saved by a tremendous crash, a chair slamming sideways into the vampire’s head and sending him off-target at the last second. Lucas stands over me, his eyes so wide they’re almost jittering. Before Kenton rises again, Taisha appears out of nowhere with a metal canister, and she sprays its contents into my attacker’s face. It’s holy water, from one of the country club’s regulation emergency kits. It sizzles like acid when it hits the bro’s ungodly flesh.

  “Come on!” Lucas shouts, hauling me to my feet.

  The three of us take off through the chaos of the dance floor—past Miyu and the Asian Student Union kids as they wrestle a vamp to the floor, past the helpless DJ as a monster in deck shoes and a backwards hat rips his throat out—but before we make it very far, a group of cheerleaders fighting a second group of undead cheerleaders crashes into us and sends us sprawling.

  I’m back on my feet in an instant, charging for the first exit I see that isn’t blocked. A wide, half-lit hallway, it leads past a dining room and bar, and then makes a sharp turn into a dead end. There are some closed doors, though, and the first one I try opens into some sort of walk-in closet that smells of artificial lemon. I dive inside, and only realize Lucas has been at my heels all along when he dives in after me. He slams the door shut and then curses loudly, panting. “Shit. Shit. This door doesn’t have a lock!”

  “W-where’s Taisha?” I gasp out, my heart hammering my rib cage so hard the bones might crack. The space is dark, but enough light leaks in that I can make out my sworn rival’s terrified expression.

  “I don’t know,” Lucas snaps, bracing himself against the door. “I think she stayed with the ASU kids when we got separated. Why the hell did you trap us in a room without a lock?”

  “I didn’t trap us anywhere.” He’s making me wish I’d stayed with the vampires. “You followed me, remember? And how was I supposed to know this door doesn’t lock?”

  Lucas lets out a grunting breath and rubs his face. “The other rooms down here are offices...it might not be too late to sneak out and—” He’s interrupted by a scream from up the hallway, frighteningly close, and then the blood-curdling sounds of some pretty hideous violence. His eyes bulge, and his voice becomes a terrified squeak. “And now we’re stuck here! I could die in a supply closet, thanks to you!”

  “You’re welcome to leave anytime,” I rasp through my teeth.

  I’m worried about Taisha. She’s tough, but none of us have ever faced a full-scale attack before. I hope she did stay with the ASU kids; Miyu’s dad was part of the recession-era vamp hunting squad, and I know he taught her some tricks.

  “How did they even get in here?” Lucas demands. “Vampires need an invitation to enter any non-public building, and Harbor Haven is privately owned!”

  “You saw them—it’s a whole pack of bros. Most of them probably belong to this fucking place.” Only, even as I say it, I know it doesn’t totally make sense. In order to Turn into one of the undead, a person has to actually die first and stay that way for at least twenty-four hours; after that, their fatal vulnerability to sunlight pretty much keeps them out of regular circulation. There’s a lot of vamps here tonight, and Orchard Bay is small enough that we’d have noticed that many missing people. So, either they’ve been lying dormant for years, gathering numbers, or...and when it hits me, I actually smack my forehead. “The banner.”

  Strung across the entrance to the club, a giant banner greets everyone who arrives tonight with an enormous message: Welcome, One and All, to the Orchard East Homecoming Dance! Harbor Haven might be members only, and the school might require tickets for admission, but Welcome, One and All, is a loophole big enough to fit a dozen thirsty vampires through—and the homecoming committee put it right there outside the fro
nt doors. Even though we can’t stand each other, Lucas and I share a look and roll our eyes, because Julie.

  A moment passes before Lucas speaks again, his tone full of disdain. “I can’t believe you were making out with a bro.”

  “Hey! He mesmerized me, okay?” I’m indignant, my cheeks heating up. Along with their immortality and other superpowers, vamps also have this special pheromone thing that they use to subdue their prey. It triggers a chemical response that makes people docile and swoony and compliant, so that even if you live in a vampire town and you’re naturally suspicious of bros, a pretty face with dreamy gray-blue eyes can still render you helpless. “I was in a trance!”

  “I can’t believe you’ve lived in Orchard Bay your whole life and you still don’t know how to avoid being mesmerized.”

  I bite my tongue on what I really want to say, but what comes out as a result is what I really, really don’t want to say. “I was lonely, all right?”

  Immediately, I hate myself for admitting it out loud. It’s exactly the kind of thing enemies love to hear, but Lucas just huffs out this weird breath. “How is that possible? You’ve got, like, a billion friends.”

  “You’re the one with a billion friends.” My tone is unattractively sullen. Everybody loves Lucas—teachers, directors, the other drama kids—and there are days I think I’m losing my mind because I’m the only one who sees how fake he is.

  “Oh, please! You’re always the center of attention at rehearsals, you’re always making people laugh...even Mr. Lutjen likes you better than me.” He’s talking about the director of the fall show, and making no sense. “‘Austin, your line delivery is perfect!’ ‘Austin, your instincts are spot-on!’ ‘Austin, if you didn’t exist, we would have to invent you!’”

  Although his attempt at Mr. Lutjen’s Dutch accent is satisfyingly awful, the quotes are all real. And yet. “He still picked you for the lead over me.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m a better actor,” Lucas snits, without even trying to make it sound like a joke.

  I’m so outraged I swear I feel a blood vessel burst open in my eyeball. Thanks to my brain/mouth divorce, I’m once again saying exactly what I shouldn’t. “Are you kidding? You can’t even figure out how to act straight!”

  I regret it immediately, of course. There’s not a single person in the drama club who doesn’t think Lucas is gay—well, except for Jenna Holcomb, who thinks they’re going to get married someday, and we all cringe when she brings it up—but nobody says it out loud.

  Everybody likes Lucas too much to talk about him behind his back, and everybody feels bad for him on account of his older brother getting eaten by a vampire at prom four years ago, so no matter how blatantly he checks out Katie’s older brother when he picks her up from rehearsal, everyone agrees not to notice it.

  “Screw you.” Lucas turns his face away from me, but his breathing thickens, and I can just see the silvery glimmer of a tear when it rolls down his cheek. I am the worst possible person.

  “I’m sorry.” I hate saying it, though, because I still can’t forget our first encounter. “I didn’t... I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Screw you, Austin Klein,” he reiterates, getting angrier. “Everything’s so easy for you, isn’t it? Making friends, getting laughs, flirting with whoever the hell you want. You don’t even stop to think about it, do you? You just do whatever and it all falls into place!”

  “Yup, exactly. My life is perfect.” I hurl it back at him, louder than I should, and I check myself. All the screaming from down the hall is loud enough to drown out a marching band, let alone our bickering, but it’s better safe than sorry. “I’m trapped in the closet with a homophobe because everything just ‘falls into place’ for Austin Klein.”

  His shock is almost palpable. “Ho—homophobe? Did you just call me a homophobe? How dare—”

  “‘I’m not like you,’” I interrupt, mimicking the same mordant tone he’d used the day we met. “I told you I thought your outfit was cute, and you glared at me like I was a sex criminal. Then you said, ‘I’m not like you.’”

  For a moment, Lucas struggles to find his voice, and when he does his tone is haughty. “You weren’t really talking about my outfit.”

  A mirthless laugh erupts from me because, of course, he’s right. We were fourteen, and I was barely out of the closet, and I said his outfit was cute because it was easier than saying he was cute. Because I didn’t know how to safely admit it wasn’t his clothes, but the way he filled them out, that I liked so much. “Nope. I wasn’t. But you were definitely talking about me being gay when you acted all disgusted by me.”

  “It wasn’t like that.” He sniffs again, crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s just... I’m sick of people always assuming that I’m gay because I like acting instead of sports. I’m sick of people gossiping about me, or thinking they can tell me my own business.”

  “The only thing I was trying to tell you is that I thought you were cute,” I state curtly, not sure how to explain that it isn’t his love of theater that had me convinced he was gay. It was seeing my own mannerisms mirrored in Lucas—his sibilant S, his way of talking with his hands—that made me sure we were on the same page. Frankly, it had been a relief that first week of school, to hear another voice that sounded just like mine. And then he ruined everything with the first words he spoke to me.

  Rather suddenly, I realize that the screaming and violence in the hallway has ended—and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the good guys who won this particular fight. But Orchard Bay kids are really good at compartmentalizing bad news, so Lucas just lets out another sullen breath and lowers his volume a little. “Sorry. I should’ve been nicer. But I’m not a homophobe, and I’m not gay.”

  Maybe it’s because all our friends could be literally dying on the dance floor right now, but my resentments suddenly seem pointless. I’ve been angry because he made me feel more alone; angry because his denials suggested that what I am is shameful; angry because he frustrates me, mentally and sexually. But maybe I should let it go.

  Whatever Lucas Coronado’s deal is, he saved my life from Kenton the Vampire Bro, and at the very least that evens the score.

  “Fine. I don’t care,” I say. And then, because I’m a shameless liar, “I didn’t really think you were all that cute, anyway.”

  He might be about to respond, but footsteps in the hallway shut the both of us up quick. The corridor doesn’t extend too far beyond the supply closet, and it ends in a blank wall. The only reasons to come down here during a massacre would be to run from vamps—or hunt for victims.

  And whoever is out there isn’t running.

  The footsteps draw closer on what seems like a beeline for the supply closet, and Lucas and I stare at each other with dinner-plate eyes. Then, just as a shadow breaks the light passing through the gap under the door, he dives at me and tackles me to the ground.

  I’m laid flat in an instant, his fingers tangled in my hair before I can react, and as he yanks my head back and bares my throat to his teeth, I think, Of fucking course Lucas Coronado would turn out to be a vampire.

  He plunges his face into the crook of my neck, his mouth latching on to the flesh over my jugular—and I brace my hands against his shoulders for a futile final struggle, just as the closet door is flung open wide.

  Lucas is snarling, pulling my hair and sucking at my neck as hard as he can...but he’s not actually biting me. A figure looms above us, outlined by the light from the hallway, a black silhouette with burning golden eyes—a vamp.

  My head spins, my heart surging with terror, my body giving me a familiar fight-or-flight ultimatum, but Lucas is delivering the performance of a lifetime. His teeth graze my skin, his tongue slides warmly over my pulse, and he grunts with animalistic passion as he pantomimes feeding.

  He’s pretending to be a vampire, pretending to have cornered me in the closet and subdu
ed me. It’s a gambit that shouldn’t work—vamps can smell the difference between mortals and the undead—but I’m so suffused with terror right now that it’s actually possible my scent overwhelms Lucas’s.

  I force my head to loll back, my lids to slide shut, and my body to go limp. Well, most of my body. Honestly, I know it’s messed up, but Lucas is making out with my neck, and I can smell his cologne, and one of his hands is just slightly touching my butt... We could die at any second, but have I mentioned how hot he is?

  The light from the hallway glows red through my eyelids, Lucas tugs at my hair...and then the door creaks shut and the closet goes dark again. For a long, agonizing moment, we don’t move. Finally, the footsteps outside recede, and we separate, both of us panting as if we’ve just completed a hundred-yard dash.

  Lucas hovers over me, his lips swollen and his eyes hidden by shadows, but I can feel him studying my face. I’m flustered and shaking and still totally erect, and the only words I can manage are, “I can’t believe that worked. We should both be dead right now. Maybe you are a better actor—”

  But I can’t finish, because Lucas tackles me a second time, covering my mouth with his. Suddenly, we’re making out—and I mean, making out. It’s the mixed martial arts of kissing. He’s pulling my hair again, our legs twined together, and his tongue is so deep in my face it nearly touches my uvula.

  We roll one way and bump into some shelves, then roll the other and collide with an empty bucket, and the whole time our teeth are clicking together and our breaths huff out in steamy blasts.

  Whatever vampire magic Kenton worked on me earlier, this kiss is a hundred times more exciting, because this one is real. I rake my fingers through Lucas’s silky hair, he grunts deep in his throat, and I press my hips against his so hard that if you put a piece of coal between us, I’d give you back a diamond in two minutes. I’m dizzy and breathless, and only have about fifteen percent of my virginity left by the time we split apart again.