“She found our striga.” I said.
“Really?” Celeste asked, excited. Then she took a deep breath. “I have no idea what you're talking about.” she said. She looked at Marissa for a few more seconds, then said to me “Who is your friend.”
“Oh, hi,” Marissa said. She extended her hand toward Celeste. “I'm Marissa. I assume you're Celeste?”
“Yes.” Celeste said. She looked at me and raised her eyebrows.
“She knows what we are and what we're doing here.” I said.
“You exposed the VI?!” she said, loudly. “I don't care who this girl is, you cannot do that!”
“What is the VI?” Marissa asked.
“I didn't expose you.” I told Celeste.
“So you're telling me you're...” she waved a hand at Marissa. “... whatever she is, just guessed?”
“Okay, well, first you need to back off.” Marissa said, stepping closer to Celeste. “Brynne didn't tell me anything, and I never heard of this VI until you said it.” She took another step toward Celeste. “And second of all, I don't appreciate how you are talking to her. I have no idea who you are, lady, or how you know Brynne, but you're going to have to get used to me being around now, and I don't put up with people yelling at my girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend!” Celeste said. She looked at me with an odd, sort of hurt, look on her face. “Are you two dating?”
“Um,” I shrugged. “Seems like it.”
“Guys,” Jess said. We all spun toward her. “I'm really not feeling too well. Could we maybe have this discussion tomorrow, after I've slept? I could use some quiet.”
“Come on,” I told Celeste. I stepped toward the bedroom door. “I'll fill you in in the other room. And maybe you can make a call and get some blood?”
“Yes, right, I can do that.” she agreed.
“You okay alone for now?” I asked Jess.
“As long as Roderick doesn't show up.” she said.
We went into the living room and Celeste made a call to have some blood delivered. She also called Paolo and told him we had an encounter with the striga, that she would call him back with more details once we had briefed her.
“So who the heck is this girl?” Marissa asked me, nodding toward Celeste.
“Um, I... it's complicated.”
“Complicated is something I can handle.”
“Who I am is none of your business.” Celeste told her, snapping her phone shut. “And I think it's time you go.”
“Hey, I've taken a lot on faith today, and I've tried to be helpful,”
“You have been.” I told her.
“I deserve some answers, I think.”
“You're just going to have to get used to the idea that you can't have the answers you want.” Celeste told her. “Now, is there someone you need to call for a ride, or will you be walking?”
“Stop being rude.” I said. “Marissa, yes, you deserve answers. Really, you're better off not knowing, though.”
“Yes, you are.” Celeste agreed.
“I promise I will tell you everything tomorrow, just let me get some rest and let me make sure Jess is okay and I will tell you everything. My whole life story, if you wish, even.”
“Fine.” Marissa said. “But I'm staying here.”
“Absolutely not.” Celeste told her.
“Celeste, I don't see...”
“Brynne, I don't like this.” she told me. She let out a loud huff. “You shouldn't even be with this girl.”
“What, jealous?” Marissa asked, smiling.
“That is not it at all!” Celeste shouted. “I...” she stood and turned toward her bedroom, then stopped and turned back, avoiding looking at me. “Fine, stay. Whatever.” she said. “Don't come whining to me when this goes as badly as Teresa did, Brynne.”
She stomped off to her room and slammed the door. Wow. That was... ridiculously irritating, actually. What, she's so afraid we'll be exposed that she can't be nice?
“Sorry.” I said.
“Who is this girl?”
“We're kind of stuck living here while we look for the striga. She's sort of... I don't know, in charge, maybe.”
“She's your boss?”
“Not exactly. More like... jailer, almost.”
“Well I'm about to put a smack down on this girl if she keeps talking to you like that. Or to me, too.”
“Yeah,” I said, imagining this skinny girl fighting. “That's an interesting visual.” I laughed.
“Hey, I took karate classes when I was younger. I could take her.”
“I'm sure you could.”
“Anyway, back to this promise.” she said. “Tomorrow morning, right? You tell me everything.”
“If you want.”
“I want.” she grabbed my hand and pulled me toward her. “Too soon for a goodnight kiss?” she asked.
“Um,” Wow, she makes her moves, doesn't she. “Yeah, a little.”
“Hug?”
“That I can do.”
Sunday, May 25
I was up most of the night, checking on Jessica every five minutes. She slept through the night, and was mumbling in her sleep about Roderick.
I shook her awake at a little after eight to give her some more blood. She was still very, very weak. I wanted to hunt the guy down and drain his blood for her, but I knew that would be a dumb move right now.
I got her into this. I made her like I am, and now she's in danger. And her family is, too. I'm a cancer. I touch people's lives and infect them, ruining everything.
“How is Jessica?” Celeste asked when I entered the kitchen.
“She'll be okay in a few days, I think.”
“I need to talk to you privately this morning.” she said, eyeing Marissa across the room. “She needs to leave.” she whispered to me.
“She doesn't need to go anywhere. We already told her almost everything, anyway.”
“Brynne, you can't trust anybody, especially not some girl you just met and hardly know.”
“So you're saying I can't trust you?”
“What?” she asked, surprised look on her face. “It's different.”
“We just met.” I pointed out. “I hardly know you.”
“We're on the same side, we're both trying to stop all these people from dying.” Her eyes narrowed. “At least I am.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You seem to think hooking up with some stranger...”
“We did not hook up!”
I heard Marissa snort across the room. Okay, so our conversation is getting a little loud, and she can hear it all, and now I'm embarrassed. And to think, none of this would have happened if I hadn't decided I cared enough about Jess that I wanted to stick around for a while. I was selfish, and I almost got her killed twice now, and I put the Sloans in horrible danger, and I indentured myself to the Venator Inmortuorum. I should have just moved on, like always.
“Do you want to take off for a while?” Marissa asked. She stood and moved toward us. “I need to get a hair cut, and then maybe we could check a couple of stores? I broke my iPod, so I need to find a replacement.”
“Um...” I said. Celeste was fuming. “Sounds good.”
“What about Jessica?” Celeste asked.
“You'll be here, right? And I don't think that guy even knows where we live, anyway.”
Celeste looked pissed at me. Even pissed, she is beautiful. I wish I could hug her and tell her it's okay, I'll stick around. But I can't ever be with her, and at least Marissa is nice. Maybe she's not the one, but she's someone I find interesting. And cute.
The One was Teresa. I miss her so much. I wonder if she's having a good day. Her parents probably have dragged her to church today, so she's probably sitting there in a pew right now. Maybe quietly texting her new girlfriend while nobody is watching her. I want to rip the new girl's throat out. Only that would hurt Teresa, and I wouldn't do that for
anything. Life sucks.
“What do you think?” Marissa asked. We're in Jessica's car again.
“About what?” I asked.
“What should I do to my hair? I'm considering going really short, but I don't know. Do you think it would look okay?”
“How short?” I asked. “On you, maybe shoulder length. Kind of jagged layers, maybe?”
I wonder what Celeste would look like with shorter hair. She's thin and athletic, a short cut would suit her. On the other hand, her hair is gorgeous. I wish she was more interested in me. Of course then I wouldn't be here with Marissa, and I like Marissa. Ugh.
“How did you and Jessica wind up here.”
“We came to find the striga.” I said.
“But why were you looking for it in the first place? I mean why you?”
“It's complicated.”
“Well can't you just kind of explain it. If I don't understand, that's okay, but maybe I will.”
“I don't really want to talk about it.”
“Oh. Sure.” she said. She gave me a beautiful smile and her eyes twinkled. “Didn't mean to be nosy. Just trying to find out more about my girl.”
She reached over and gave my hand a squeeze. So I'm her girl? I don't know, something isn't right here. This is really, really fast. I mean Teresa and I hung out as friends for a few days before we decided to date, and even that was fast. I knew from the day I met her that she was going to be special to me, though. I didn't get that same feeling with Marissa. I mean she's nice, I like her, but it's not the same.
I really have got to stop comparing people to Teresa.
After watching Marissa get her hair cut, we headed out to find a new iPod. She stopped and bought me an ice-cream, and then when I mentioned how much I loved the smell of the popcorn at the theater we walked past, she went inside and bought me a big bucket full. She was being so sweet to me.
“We need to commemorate this.” she said, nodding toward the photo booth across from us.
“I don't know if I like having my picture taken too much.” I told her.
“Why? Don't be shy,” she tugged on my hand. “You're a ten, you have a perfect face.” She kissed my hand. “And now it's almost the same shade as you're hair.” She laughed.
“Sto-op.”
“Don't be embarrassed, you're beautiful. You should know this. You should be told this every day, many times a day, until it no longer embarrasses you.”
“Well thank you, but I just... but that's not why I didn't want to do it.”
“Well what is?”
“I don't know,” I shrugged.
I do know, actually. The less tracks I leave behind the easier it is for me to disappear. After just a little while people forget the weird red headed girl when she is no longer there. But with a picture... pictures get out. It makes it easier to find someone. It makes it harder to hide. Self preservation is a big deal when you're like me.
“Please?” she asked softly.
I gave in and we had our picture taken together. At first she leaned over like she was going to kiss me, but I pulled away. We wound up with just basic pictures of us sitting there and smiling. No goofy faces, no awkward kisses, just us smiling. She kept half the pictures and gave me the other half.
“This one is going in my purse,” she said. “And this one is going in a frame on my dresser.”
“Marissa, I... it's like this; I really am not quite over my ex yet.”
“I understand that.”
“I just... I need, like, some time for this... I mean... I mean I like you,” This isn't working quite right. Be blunt, Brynne. “I don't know if I'm ready to date. I mean... I mean we can do like today,” This is awful. I'm dying here. “But I don't want to, um, like kiss or anything.”
“Oh.” she said, nodding.
“Yet, anyway. I need to work this out in my head.”
“Sure, I understand. I totally get it, Brynne, don't worry.”
“Sorry.” I told her. “I mean if... if you, like, wanted to do something like that, or whatever.”
“No, it's fine.” Her smile came back out. “Don't worry, we'll just keep going out and having fun until we're both ready for that.”
“Um... thanks.”
We walked around for a while, and she told me about her family and how they all got along so well. I wish I had a family like that. I mean I did have, back a hundred and fifty years ago. But I don't think we had time to be quite like that, we were always moving around.
“Do you eat human food?” she asked me. She smiled. “I guess based on the evidence from all the snacking that should be obvious.”
“I have to eat.” I said, eyes darting around to make sure nobody heard her weird question about human food.
“Let's grab some tacos, then.” she suggested.
She ate five tacos. I've never seen anyone eat five tacos before. It was kind of disgusting and kind of interesting at the same time. Where could she put that much food? She's thinner than I am. I was only able to eat two. She ate five!
Marissa called her sister and asked her to meet us at the apartment to pick her up. Miranda was waiting for us when we pulled into the parking space.
“I better head home.” Marissa told me. She smiled and leaned toward me. “I'll call to say goodnight later on, okay?” she said.
“Yeah,”
She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed. The girl has some muscles for her size, I'll give her that. When she let go she backed away about a dozen steps before she turned and headed toward Miranda's car.
“Where have you been?!” Celeste shouted at me the second I entered the apartment. “We have a mission here, and it is not you going out with some skanky...”
“What?” I snapped. “Skanky?” She seriously just called Marissa skanky? “Marissa is a nice...”
“I don't care who she is, I don't care how nice she is, you're letting her divert your attention from the goal.”
“Exactly what is the goal?”
“To find whoever has been killing children around here.”
“It was Roderick. Can we go home now?”
“We don't know it was him yet. And we still have to stop him.”
“You said we wouldn't have to do...”
“We still need you to track him.” she said, sighing. “It's getting more complicated. When my father quit, he also took the biggest authority on striga we had with him. Joseph knew more about them than the rest of us combined, but he is loyal to my dad and he left when Dad did.”
“Sorry.” I said. “About your father. You guys will get past this disagreement soon. Maybe when we get the striga. Then everything can go back to normal.”
“I don't know about that. Paolo said my father cleaned out his office and said he wasn't coming back to a place that protected killers.”
“Oh, well, um...”
“I know you're not a killer, Brynne.” she said. “Don't let what he thinks bother you.”
“I am a killer. I have killed. I mean I try not to, and I try to make up for all the stuff I've done wrong, but...”
“You've saved far more lives than you've ever taken.”
“That still doesn't atone for the ones I took.”
I sat on the sofa and tried not to think of the face of the man I killed in the alley. The one with the knife. I was so scared someone would find out about me if I stuck around. Maybe he would have lived if I had gotten him help. Or just ran away when he recognized me as the monster I am. Instead, when he came at me with the knife, I fought him. He was no match. I could have avoided all that, and I didn't.
“You're a good person.” Celeste told me. Her hands came down on my shoulders and kneaded. “You were in a couple of impossible situations, but you did the best you could.”
“Tell that to the dead people. Or all the ones I drank from who didn't die. I hurt them. Even if the stuff in my saliva made them forget later on, I attacked them. I violate
d them.”
“Brynne,”
“I will never be like that again. And if I had my way, nobody would.”
“This is why we have to find the striga.”
“Yeah, we do. And we need to make sure we stop him.” Even if it costs me my life, I will stop him. “Soon.”
I went in to our bedroom and sat on the edge of Jessica's bed. Her hand was cold to the touch when I grabbed it. Her fingers wrapped around mine, but there was no strength there. She opened her eyes and they wandered around before settling on me.
“Hey,” she said.
“Feel any better?”
“Maybe a tiny bit.” she said. Her eyes closed. “How did things go with Marissa today?”
“Don't worry about that, just concentrate on getting...”
“Come on.” she said. She moaned a little. “I'm so bored. I need details.”
“Um,”
Okay, so she's obviously not feeling so awful that she can't worry about my love life. I don't know why she insists on setting me up all the time. I guess it kind of worked this time, at least. And with Teresa.
“We had a lot of fun.”
“Doing what?” she asked.
“Not really anything, just hanging out.”
“Are you going out again?” she asked.
Betrayal: Book 2 of the Non-Vampire Series Page 7
