He looked at me in amusement, eyes blazing red now like Melli’s never had, and that crazy laughter bounced around in my brain. “Why, when I could have you both?”
“Over my dead body.”
“Eventually,” he agreed.
I launched the skull at him, aiming it like a dodgeball at my arch-nemesis. Tina had just lost her title. She’d be sooo crushed.
The skull bounced off his chest. His eyes flared, but that was the only reaction. Not a flinch, not so much as a wince.
“I may cease to find you amusing,” he threatened.
“That’s a shame, ’cause I live for your amusement … Oh wait, I don’t.”
“Gina?” Marcy’s voice quavered, but this time I ignored her, not wanting to switch my attention and possibly the freakshow’s toward my friend.
“Gina!” she said more urgently, the edge of hysteria creeping into her voice. I realized that the floor was moving … skittering … at the edges of my vision. Mice. Plural. Marcy would be freaking and scaling the walls any time now. Which I could handle, but her shrieking … Maybe the freakshow would have over-sensitive ears.
I couldn’t count on that, though.
“Yo, dude, catch!” And I launched myself at him, yanking the hair spray from my waistband as I went. I did a duck and roll as his talons swept at me, grabbing up the lantern as I rolled past. The candle inside flickered and sloshed hot wax but didn’t go out, and I used my momentum to hurl the lantern at the creep as hard as I could, unleashing a stream of superhold as the lantern flew by. The very air caught fire.
“Run, Marcy, now!” I yelled, hoping I’d foiled the creep’s night vision, hoping that this was enough of a distraction. The flames didn’t last long, though, and as he fought his way through them, Marcy shot past me to the door. Freakshow lurched, and I shot the hair spray again, right into his blazing red eyes.
His howl split my head in two. I dove for the door while he thrashed blindly, trying to grab me up or rip me to shreds. Either way, I wasn’t waiting around to find out.
Rend, tear, taste, shred, kill. The thoughts burst in my head like a blood vessel. The boogeyman had murder in his heart, and I had been marked for death.
I ran. The death of the flames meant momentary blindness while my eyes readjusted, and I tripped and stumbled over things that rolled beneath my feet. Something nipped at my heels, feeling like the hounds of hell, though it was probably only the mice, spurring me on.
I burst out into the night, suddenly able to see, and raced for Rick and the car. Marcy was nowhere in sight.
“Marcy!” I yelled as I ran, but there was no answer. It was like the night had swallowed her whole.
She hadn’t waited around, and I couldn’t afford to either. That thing wouldn’t be too far behind. At least she was alive. That was enough for now.
14
I slammed myself into the car and shut the door behind me yelling, “Go, go, go!”
Rick looked at me, startled, but was already shifting into reverse before the words were fully out of my mouth.
“Your friend?” he asked.
“Got away,” I said, sucking in a quick breath to speak.
“The prophecy?”
“Got it,” was my answer. No need to give him the time stamp on my information, which of course dated back to me hiding behind the curtains in Melli’s office.
“Good.”
I let my head fall back on the headrest, unable to hold it up any longer. Adrenaline had gotten me this far, but I needed blood. Stat. And not from Rick, who looked like a mosquito bite would push him over the edge.
“Rick, we’ve got a stop to make before you take me back.”
“No way. Someone’s going to notice you missing any time now.”
“I doubt it,” I muttered. “Either we stop for a drink or you’re it,” I said more loudly, reaching a hand over to squeeze his leg … hard. “Got it?”
He swallowed and turned, if possible, even paler, almost like a year-old vamp, all faded without the sun. “Where?” he asked.
“The mall. Where else?”
Back to my element. The mall was safe and sane, with all kinds of bright lights and sparklies and retail therapy. Lucky me, it would be on summer hours, open late, since we were past Memorial Day. It could even be that Marcy was headed there. It was instinctive, like salmon swimming upstream or knowing what skirt to pair with what blouse.
I watched out the window as Rick drove, thinking again about my old life. Would it really be so hard to return to it? Pull a big-screen entrance back at school in bitchin’ heels and a skirt slit so high no one would be able to talk about anything else, including the fact that I was supposed to be dead? Why on earth should I go back to the compound?
Marcy was gone, and she wouldn’t dare return to Melli’s. No one else there would even speak to me. Well, okay, I’d felt the first chink in everyone’s good-little-soldier armor tonight when they helped me escape to save Marcy. Chaz had even tossed me my boots. And then, of course, there was Bobby. I flashed on those baby blues of his, which could focus on me with that ego-boosting total attention, like I was the only thing in the world. Plus, the boy could kiss. I didn’t even want to think about what kind of practice he’d had before me or the fact that Melli-noma was part of that.
On this side, there were mochachinos and malt balls—not that I could eat them anymore—Becca, Mom, and Dad …
“Turn here,” I instructed.
“But this isn’t the way to the mall. You said one stop,” he protested.
“This isn’t a stop. It’s a drive-by.” I didn’t expect Mom and Dad to be home, and I wouldn’t know what to say to them if they were, but I couldn’t be this close and not check. Besides, Marcy’s house was right down the road, on the corner of Jacoby and Pine, so I had a perfectly good excuse for passing by. She might have come this way, following the same homing instinct I hadn’t known I had.
We never got as far as Pine. The lights at my house were blazing. My heart sank at the thought that it had only taken my folks a few days to forget about me and take back their lives. But then I noticed a police car parked half a block down the street, right in front of Bobby’s abandoned POS that I’d forgotten all about.
I jumped at the idea that something else had called my parents back—like maybe the cops. Had Bobby and I left the side door open when we were ambushed? Had the place been robbed? Had someone been hurt?
I had the car door open and one foot out before Rick launched himself over me to grab the door handle and keep me from bolting. The car sped up and swerved wildly, and I had a flashback to the night of my death. Terrified, I jerked myself back and Rick slammed the door after me, regaining control.
“What was that all about?” he asked, still speeding so I wouldn’t be tempted to throw myself out.
“That was my place.”
“So?”
“There were police inside. I’m sure of it.”
“And you were going to … what? Let everyone see you? You don’t think your parents would freak?”
I thought of Mom, who practically barricaded herself in the house when Mercury was in retrograde. She’d probably wig out at the sight of me. The thought hurt. Sure, I hadn’t paid that much attention when I’d had them, when it wasn’t like they were going anywhere, but now … I thumped myself back in the seat, arms crossed. “Fine, the mall then. They have that stupid little sports café tucked back in a corner. Maybe I can preempt one of the TVs and tune it to local news.”
“Are you kidding? The game’ll be on. You’ll start a riot.”
I growled.
“Department store electronics department. That’s my final offer,” he said.
I shrugged. “Whatever, but make it upscale. I need some new duds. This shirt reeks of blood.” His, actually.
>
Rick gave me a look, which after the boogeyman just seemed laughable. “Your wish is my command, princess.”
“So glad you’ve finally figured that out,” I answered.
Rick found a shadowed section of underground parking garage and, with a little sprint, I caught a girl just getting into her Jetta. Rick watched the whole scene a bit too avidly, like he expected to see some girl-on-girl action, but all he witnessed was my donor turning to putty in my hands and sinking down into the driver’s seat. Hot blood rushed into my mouth as I bit into her neck. I barely tasted it. I was all about the tingle, the fire rushing through my limbs, the heady strength and vitality flooding through me. My knees went weak with relief.
I let go when her head lolled to the side, suddenly afraid I’d taken too much. Fear goosed my heart. I reached down to feel her pulse, and she moaned, nearly scaring the bejeebers out of me. As gently as I could, I tucked her the rest of the way into the car and set her locks so no one could disturb her while she was out.
I waved Rick to me, like a valet who would carry the many bags I’d soon have. Even worried about my parents, the fresh blood and the sight of the mall put a little swing into my step.
“You can’t just go in looking like yourself,” Rick protested.
I looked down at myself … at the dusty, wrinkled clothes I’d been wearing for days, the stiff spot where Rick’s lifeblood had gushed at me, my boots scuffed by running for my life. “Excuse me? I look like the fashionista of the damned. No one’s going to recognize me. And if they do, just tell them I’m really my evil twin.”
“Well, given this new look, I’m also worried about mall security.”
“You can play lookout if you’re so concerned. You see anyone, you cover me.”
“How?”
“Strike up a conversation, head them off, something. Jeez, how did you ever get through junior high?”
Rick looked as if he’d like to throttle me, but I scooted inside where there were too many witnesses and led my way toward one of the superstores for both news and couture. I meant to hit the TVs first, I swear I did, but savvy store designers brought us in near the clothes and oooh … shiny. Satin called to me. And silk. And a teeny, tiny little kilt complete with buckles and matching knee socks that might just leave Bobby speechless.
Rick’s comment about mall security had gotten to me, and I snuck into a dressing room as soon as I could with an armful of clothes, ordering Rick off to get me some shoes. “Size seven. No pastels.”
He growled but he obeyed, rightly figuring, I guess, that it was the fastest way to get me out of the place.
Then he was gone, and I was surrounded by mirrors with no reflection to show for it. How was I ever going to know what looked good?
“Did you hear that?” asked a voice in the stall right next to me, and I froze halfway out of my bloody shirt.
“What?” A girl responded, a few dressing rooms down.
“That totally sounded like Gina!”
Becca … the ache that had started in my chest with the lights at my parents’ place went critical.
“But she’s dead.”
“I know that, dork.” Was the other voice Cindy McCallan? “But if she was going to, like, haunt someplace, don’t you think it would be the mall?”
Cindy, if that’s who it was, snorted. I’d always hated that about her. “You totally need to get over that already. She’s gone, okay? You don’t have to follow her lead anymore.”
“I am over it,” Becca said peevishly. “And she was always following my lead anyway.”
I couldn’t have breathed right then if I’d needed to. Mom and Dad back in less than a week … even maybe with good reason … Becca hanging with silly Cindy, famous for wearing Crocs with socks. Becca totally revising our entire history, already over my death. Was I that forgettable?
It cost me a huge effort to finish changing, but I was hell-bent on escaping that changing room before the others. I didn’t want to come face-to-face with my old life after all, if all I had left to love me was a Creamsicle-colored stuffed cat.
I didn’t even pay much attention to what I put on—a glittery tank, some straight-legged jeans. I grabbed up everything else and bolted … straight into Rick and his shoe boxes.
“There’s something you need to see,” he said ominously.
I bit my lip. Mom … Dad …
He pulled me and I jogged over to the electronics section. We both stopped dead in front of a large screen TV that sported Bobby’s photo in the upper right hand corner.
“Turn up the sound!” I ordered Rick, and he did it without even an argument.
“—wanted for questioning in the disappearance of several bodies from local cemeteries. More bizarre, the suspect himself seems to have gone missing. Earlier this evening his car was discovered abandoned outside the home of the latest … Brad, can she be called a victim if she’s already dead?” the female anchor asked her co-host.
All the blood I’d just taken in drained to my stomach, forming a cold, hard lump. They couldn’t really think Bobby was involved in the disappearances!
“I’m not sure what to call her, Helen. Apparently, the night watchman at Shady Pines Cemetery swears to seeing the girl walk out under her own steam. She was identified from this photograph.” A photo of me replaced Bobby’s in the upper right corner. My school picture from junior year. The year of the zit from hell and the one time my parents had forgotten to check the airbrushing option. My life was well and truly over.
“Speaking of steam, I hear this week’s going to be a scorcher. Let’s go to … ”
I tuned them out. “We’ve got to get back,” I told Rick.
“Well, duh.”
I led the way, going as fast as my boots would carry me. Alarms jangled as I left with my armful of clothes, security tags still attached, but I kept right on going. Those things went off so often by mistake that hardly anyone paid attention anymore, and I was too upset to care. Bobby had to know he was wanted for questioning so that he could clear his name … or at least stay hidden away. I just hoped that if my parents had heard about the whole night-watchman thing they weren’t freaking out. But if the polyester patrolman described what I’d been wearing … well, they’d recognize it, right? There couldn’t be two dresses that ugly in the world. And if the news of my bizarre reanimation was what had brought them back, not a robbery … then maybe Fluffy wasn’t the only one to care after all.
Rick got to the car first, being without spiked heels, and drove around to collect me before peeling out of the parking lot like a bat outta hell. He nearly ran down a pair of gangsta wannabees whose pants were in danger of sliding off their butts, revealing oh-so-sexy striped boxers.
• • •
Rick let me off in the high school parking lot where he’d first picked me up.
“Sure you don’t want to bite me and blow this Popsicle stand?” he asked before I’d escaped entirely.
I rolled my eyes. “I’ve always liked Popsicles. Besides, I have unfinished business.” And besides again, while biting him didn’t sound so bad, the idea of opening my vein in return was just gross, like week-old sweat socks.
“Well, I’ll be here whenever Connor doesn’t need me elsewhere or security doesn’t chase me off. You know, just in case.”
I looked at Rick—really looked at him. Gaunt, haggard, the skin sunken around his eyes. My defenses were so battered with all of the blows I’d taken tonight that I actually allowed myself to care.
“You all right?” I asked.
He shrugged and looked away, but I was glad for a chance to focus on someone else’s issues.
“Rick?”
“Sure,” he answered, voice brittle and bitter, “nothing a new kidney wouldn’t fix. That’s how she gets us, you know, the ones who can’t afford to b
uck her and go running their mouths off. We have to take the crap she dishes out, hoping and praying to get vamped. Cured.” Cured like the blond book-girl had been? If Rick knew about that—if he’d in fact instigated it, as I suspected—his position had to be totally unbearable. How desperate was his need for a kidney? I could almost understand him coming on so strong back at Melli’s house of horrors. If his time was running out, subtlety might be a luxury he couldn’t afford.
“You know, if you’d just told me all this right at the beginning instead of coming on all smarmy, I would have helped you out.”
“How about now?”
Part of me really wanted to, but I didn’t trust it. Maybe after this spark of … emotion … died down I’d be able to think clearly. “Can’t right now. Until I know just what’s what, and who to trust, I’m not creating some rogue vamp. But I’ll tell you what. When this is all over and I get all our friends freed … and if you help with that … ” I left the rest unspoken. It was the best I could do.
Hope sparked in his eyes but his lips twisted, like he’d bitten into a rotten apple. “How do I know you’re not just stringing me along?”
I looked him dead in the eyes. “Ricardo Lopez, have you ever known me not to say exactly what was on my mind?”
He thought about that for a second. “No.”
“Why would I start now?”
“Convenience,” he answered, but not like he believed it. “Anyway, what have I got to lose? Like I said, I’ll be here when I can in case you need me. Tell Connor about the watchdogs. I don’t think they know about the trap door exit, but they’ve got eyes on all the others.”
I nodded and shut my door. I didn’t know what use I could make of Rick … yet. Part of me really wanted to call him back, to do the blood exchange thing just in case the damage Melli and her crew had done killed him before I could save him. But for all I knew he was putting me on. My moment of weakness had passed; he was going to have to prove himself before I gave him so much as a paper cut.
15
Vamped Page 9
