Kneeling just a few feet away from me was Rick. It looked like he felt a bit differently about the whole thing—about-to-pee-his-pants frightened, in fact. I was betting he’d say … or not say … whatever it took to save his bacon. I wondered what that would be, and whether this was about to become some lame he-said/she-said session, ’cause I wasn’t exactly Melli’s golden child.
Bobby was still in the office, held back from coming to me by one of Melli’s perfectly manicured talons. On Melli’s other side stood Connor, looking like maybe things had just gotten interesting.
My eyes narrowed. “Get your hands off my boyfriend,” I told the witch. Crap, this mouth was going to get me into trouble. How hard could it be to play nice?
But Mellisande ignored me, just as her thugs had. “You’ve caused quite a bit of trouble already,” she began, now stroking Bobby’s arm instead of merely gripping it. He shook, oddly, but didn’t draw back. I shot him a look. If that was the way the cookie crumbled, maybe I should have run off with Rick. The very thought made my lip curl. “Make no mistake. Regardless of how attached this one is to you,” she gave Bobby’s arm a final squeeze, and I wondered why he didn’t snarl at being treated like a piece of meat, “I will kill you if you give me any more cause. But first,” she turned on Rick, “I want to hear why you were where you weren’t supposed to be.”
Rick’s eyes rolled like he was looking for rescue. “I was just … just … checking on a former classmate. That’s all. And she jumped me.” The not-making-eye-contact thing screamed “fishy” to me, but of course, I’d been there.
“Rick, look at me.” Apparently, Melli thought so too. There was some serious extra weight to her words, and Rick’s gaze snapped up to hers in the blink of an eye. “Tell me,” she continued, with that same strange emphasis. My skin pricked with goose bumps. My dripping hair chilling my skin, maybe? But I didn’t think so.
“I offered her a deal,” he said, all creepy monotone. “Her freedom for my transformation. She said no.”
All eyes in the room turned on me. I could even feel the thugs behind me staring in disbelief.
“What?” I asked. “Like I was really going to bite him? As if.” I thought fast. No way was I bringing Bobby into this after he’d let the witch paw him. “Plus, I’m kind of interested in the setup you’ve got here. It has certain perks.” I gave Connor a wink, just to give Bobby some of his own back.
Mellisande eyed me like a brightly colored bug, pretty but best pinned to a board under glass. “So you think I’ll make you a better offer?”
I crossed my arms. “I don’t think the competition’s very fierce.”
“Let me … ungh … talk to her,” Bobby said through clenched teeth. I wondered if Melli somehow had him frozen, and that’s why he was letting her play around. I instantly felt badly about giving Connor that wink, and my blood began to boil.
Melli smiled, and it wasn’t a nice one. She looked from Bobby to me, those pearly whites flashing like she was some kind of toothpaste ad with a brilliant punch line.
“You’ve got five minutes. In return, I expect full cooperation. I can enforce it, as Bobby has just found out, but it’ll be so much easier on all of us if I don’t have to. If I grow weary, I’ll simply take it out on you,” she said, spearing me with her gaze, which might have been intimidating if I was, like, six, or if her eyes glowed red—but they stayed that same cornflower blue, which was hard to take seriously.
So I just stared her down. With a snap, she summoned Connor to come with her as she walked toward the door of her office. I saw resentment flare on his face.
“Bring the boy,” she called over her shoulder. Rick’s guards grabbed him, one on each arm, and hauled him kicking and screaming toward the door.
“What’s going to happen to him?” Bobby called suddenly, free of his paralysis and stumbling forward with the unexpected release.
“Not your concern,” she answered.
Given the whole looming-threat thing, it wasn’t the reunion it could have been, but I still rushed into Bobby’s arms. He held me so tightly it was a good thing I didn’t need to breathe. After a second, though, he pulled back.
“What was with that wink?”
I winced. “I was just trying to get even because you were letting the dragon lady claw you.”
He pulled back even farther so he could see my face. “You were jealous!”
I blushed. “We have five minutes and this is what you want to talk about?” I asked.
He had a smug guy-grin on his face. “Well … yeah. That and if you want any freedom around here you’re going to have to play nice.”
“That was me playing nice.”
“Oh … um, then I’ve got to say, you kind of suck at it.”
“Thanks.”
“Well, I mean—”
“Relax. I know. Meanwhile, do you know that your sugar mama has a buttload of our recently deceased classmates hiding out in the basement?”
“Yeah, she sort of said something about that in between crap about party-crashing bimbos and how prophecies ought to come with time stamps. She called it an orientation, but it sounded more like ranting to me.”
“Did she say anything about why she’s collecting kids?”
“Let me think. Blah blah blah … honored guest … blah blah blah … use my talents … No, I don’t think so.”
I’m sure my eyes flashed. “Is that how you hear women— blah blah blah?”
I could actually see the white all around his eyes. “No, no, just her. You I listen to.”
“Riiight.”
“I do. Remember in tenth grade when you and Tanya and that other girl did the Su Surrus song ‘Bite Me’ for the spring talent show?”
“The one where Tanya forgot half the moves?”
He nodded. “I bought the video tape. Watched it, listened to it, probably every week for a year.”
That was so totally sweet … in a kinda geeky, desperate sort of way.
“And hey, I did all right on those clothes I brought you, right?” he added.
I softened; I mean, I had to throw the poor guy a bone. “Okay, maybe, but if I find out you’re glossing me—”
“Hell to pay, right?”
“Totally.” I let that sink in before asking, “So, why is Melli-noma giving you the royal treatment? Does it have anything to do with that glowy stone?” I asked.
“Maybe, that and the prophecy.”
“You mean the one that ought to come with a time stamp? That’s about you?”
“Um, yeah, I think so. Haven’t I mentioned it?”
“No, I would have remembered.”
A bang on the door made me jump, and I figured it was a warning that our time was running out.
“I know it’s hard,” he continued, “but maybe we should give this thing a shot.”
“What about Rick?” I asked, not liking the guy but not loving the idea of what Mellisande might do to him. I remembered Rick saying, “If you’re not one of hers, you’re no one.”
Bobby shrugged. “He got himself into trouble. I guess he can get himself out. Anyway, I don’t see what we can do right now but watch and learn. Maybe we can figure out how to use our powers for good.”
It was such a Bobby thing to say. And it was what I’d been thinking … more or less, anyway. But despite my resolve, I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to hold my tongue or delay settling up with Hawkman over the little matter of my death.
The office door slammed open and the two beefcake thugs from earlier stood in its place. Behind them was Connor, who seemed to be Melli’s right-hand man.
“Time’s up,” Connor announced. “Bobby’s needed in training.”
“What about me?” I asked, hand automatically going to a hip.
“What about
you?” he asked back.
I wasn’t used to being the one ignored, and it was a crappy, crappy feeling. At school, half the girls had wanted to be me, and the guys mostly wanted my digits. I flung my hair, but nearly dry it was no longer the weapon it had been. “I was in the middle of something anyway.”
“Take her,” Connor ordered.
But before they could, I stretched up to give Bobby a kiss. His tongue darted between my lips, sending tingles all over, and then I was peeled away.
Thing One and Thing Two dragged me right back down to general population and tossed me in.
“Keep an eye on her,” Thing One ordered the room at large. “Team Alpha, you’re with us.”
Half the room cleared out, pouring around me but not too close, like I might be contagious. Weirdly, they headed not toward the door but toward the back wall. The other kids cleared to the edges of the room, like someone had dripped soap into a greasy pot. I watched in disbelief as Things One and Two rapped out a little ditty on the floor, and the panel under their hands peeled back.
It looked like something out of Tomb Raider or Indiana Jones. I’d never suspected for even a second there was a trap door in here. It was totally cool. I made a note to pay more attention to the ditty next time, just in case the walls ever started closing in on me and I needed to make a quick getaway.
One by one, “Team Alpha” disappeared down the rabbit hole (Tina and Chaz thankfully among them), and I was left behind with a roomful of kids who were treating me like I had body odor or the plague or, like, terminally bad breath—Marcy among them. That was the one that twisted my gut.
There was no one for me to ask what the whole “Team Alpha” business was about. Maybe they were getting fed. Maybe it was some kind of training, like Bobby was getting.
Whatever, Thing One’s announcement had guaranteed that I’d be an outcast. I’d found some fragment of my old life, then lost it, all in one night.
10
An hour past sunset the next night I was ready to climb the walls. Everyone was avoiding looking at me, except when they thought I wasn’t looking. I identified about ten seniors in all, including another of Chaz’s wingmen (a forward or backward or whatever for the Mozulla Lemurs), Pam Raines and Vanessa Barrett (who had to have been taken together because I’d never seen them apart), Cassandra-the-cheerleader-Stiles (recovered from the hot-tubbing incident), and Trevor Larraby (an ROTC guy from his spit-shined shoes to his military bearing). There were probably twice that many underclassmen.
No one seemed inclined to talk as I passed by in my quest for a Cosmo or a People magazine that wasn’t six months out of date. Not only had I totally skimmed all those issues already, but even if I wanted to go back and actually read, all the pictures of hotties, male and female, had been ripped out so that people could decorate the spaces around their cots. There wasn’t a single story left intact.
I hadn’t been assigned to either one of their stupid teams, so I couldn’t get out for some exercise or just some fresh air—which would have been nice, because all those guys in one place trying to impress all those girls … well, you could practically smell the testosterone in the air. Only about half the time were the bathrooms used for their intended purpose. And they didn’t lock. I’d already been scarred for life when I walked in on a couple of underclassmen playing topless tonsil hockey. There just wasn’t enough mental floss to wipe out that image.
Whatever Melli was up to had to be big, for her to feed and house so many kids—a vamp army, as Rick had put it. If I didn’t want to get left in the dust, I needed to gather some intel. I was pretty pleased with the super-spy sound of that, I must say. I could totally get into the glam international-woman-of-mystery wardrobe. I wondered if spy work came with a clothing allowance.
The first step in gathering intel had to be to get someone to talk to me. Marcy’d been avoiding me like I had the fashion flu, but I noticed a girl tucked away on a cot in the corner reading a book, completely oblivious to everything going on around her. She’d never see me coming. I stalked across the room like a lioness after prey. The girl didn’t look up, even when my shadow fell across her book.
I reached down and plucked it away from her, at which she squeaked.
“Hi!” I said disarmingly.
Her eyes widened at the sight of me.
“Hi,” she answered back, so tentatively it made me laugh.
“Hey, I don’t bite … well, I do. But then, so do you.”
Her lips twisted in what might have been a smile. She had baby-fine blond hair held back by two kid barrettes with duckies on them, one pink and one purple. I tried not to stare.
“Can I have my book back?” she asked.
“In a sec,” I agreed. “But I have a few questions first.”
“Uh, okay.”
I plunked myself down on the edge of her bed. “Why is everyone afraid of me?”
She looked at me in confusion. “Are they?” She glanced around, and half a dozen kids suddenly took extreme interest in the ceiling tiles. “Well, you did cause kind of a stir,” she admitted.
“So?”
“So?” She looked longingly at her book, as if she might find the words she wanted within it. “Well, for some of us, getting vamped was the best thing that could have happened. I mean, sure, the biting bit was kind of a shock, and then the waking up dead … but aside from that.”
I gave her the same look of horror I might give ruffles and spandex. “Ooh-kay. Let me get this straight—Melli sends her minions out to maul and murder and you’re all grateful to her?”
The blond bookworm gave me a pitying look. “You make it sound so … ug. It’s not like we’re dead-dead. Anyway, you’re not one of hers, so you can’t possibly understand. She chose us.”
“Each of you—personally?”
“We’re all direct descendants. Her children, in a way. Some of us she saved from sucky situations at home or from lack of prospects after graduation.”
“What about you?” I asked.
She looked away, and for a minute I thought she wouldn’t answer. “You have no idea”—I was beginning to get a little steamed with her slights to my imagination—“what it’s like to struggle for breath every day of your life and suddenly wake up to find it’s no longer an issue.”
“So you’re … ?”
“Asthmatic. Severely. In and out of hospitals since I was a baby, two kinds of inhalers on me at all times. Nebulizer for emergencies. EpiPen. The whole nine yards. Now I’m cured.”
“Now you’re in prison,” I said, looking around. “This place … it’s like a barracks.”
“I prefer to think of it as a dorm room,” she answered. From the chill in her voice, I don’t think I was making a new friend. “Anyway, it’s temporary. She doesn’t have any place else for us at the moment and she can’t just have us all running around loose, causing mass hysteria, right?”
It made a sort of twisted sense, I supposed. And maybe the reason Melli kept Rick human and in school was to scout out the vulnerable kids, those easily cut out of the herd or with some reason to be thankful for their transformation.
“Can I have my book back now?” the girl asked. Then she added “please,” like she’d only just remembered the magic word.
I couldn’t think of any more questions at that moment. My mind was still reeling from her responses.
“Sure,” I answered, glancing at the book before handing it back to her. You Suck by Christopher Moore. A vampire novel. Too funny.
Her smile was genuine this time, as she took the book and settled against the wall to read. I’d already ceased to exist for her.
So, smelly Melli commanded loyalty. There were probably as many reasons for that loyalty as there were kids, but I just couldn’t see her as some kind of Lady Liberty, asking for our tired and poor, our huddled
masses yearning to breathe free—although that’s exactly what this girl was now doing.
I needed to learn more, and not just from someone with a fairy-tale vision of the whole thing. I didn’t trust Melli as far as I could throw her, especially with my new vamp strength.
And so I waited for the moment when I could slip my cage. I thought about doing it during the change of teams—when one returned and the other was called out—but it seemed there’d be too many people milling around then. Someone would be bound to notice. I could set up some kind of distraction for getting out, like jamming a hairpin or something into a socket and short-circuiting things, but with everyone’s nifty new vamp-o-vision, I wasn’t sure that would really do me any good. And I didn’t see how it would help me slip back in unnoticed when my snooping was done … unless it somehow kicked up a real frenzy. But if that happened, chances were Melli’s thugs would come running and do a little investigation, and I’d be snagged. I needed something low key, where everyone would be distracted …
Like Chaz and Tina putting on a really embarrassing show of PDA right there in the dorm, not even bothering with bathrooms and closed doors.
“Get a room!” someone called.
Someone else wolf-whistled.
Tina and Chaz didn’t seem to notice. And no one seemed to notice me sliding off my boots so that I could slip silently into the hallway. There were no guards in the basement hallway, and the only sound was from the room I’d just left behind, where I could now hear some guy taking bets on which base they’d hit.
I crept toward the stairs up to the main floor, the cinderblock cool on my stockinged feet, and listened again. Nothing. Either the coast was clear, or smelly Melli’s guards were really quiet. I mean, she totally had guards, right? She couldn’t just keep her thugs for kidnapping people and ripping off sporting goods stores, could she?
I poked my head out of the staircase and looked around. Still nothing. Well, I was no stranger to risk. It was the hallmark of high fashion. That and originality. Well, that and originality and the attitude to carry it off. I was all about attitude. I marched into that upstairs hallway like I had reason to be there, figuring it gave me more improvisational options if I was caught than if I was obviously sneaking. Perhaps I was just out looking for more fashionable footwear.
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