Her cheeks grew warm. She thanked him inwardly for not saying "who we love". Not that she loved anyone in particular. Certainly not.
"I'm not even into vampire books or movies or anything like that. But that song..."
"Don't try to explain it," he said. "Keep it close to your heart. You will find more songs to love."
"I love your songs," she said sheepishly.
"Not the same way," he said. "I'm so mad at you. I can feel you holding back, even after all this time, and I don't know why."
She remained silent, not sure if she could explain. Not sure if she knew herself.
"It's just a game, Vy," Carter said, "but winning is so sweet."
Chapter 11
Vy
Carter had left the room a few minutes ago, and she was still sitting on the floor, hugging her knees. She shook herself.
She bounded out of the room when she noticed how hungry she was. These practices were draining her. TC was such an emotional vampire. She should get a crystal or something. She took a tray and started to pile food on it Sebastian-style.
With only sixteen people still in competition, the common room seemed deserted. She headed towards Marvin's table.
"You look so blue," she said. "And for once, it's not the hair. What's up, buttercup?"
"Nothing," he said.
"Don't give me that. Something's eating you. Spill the beans."
"You're so invasive!"
"Ha! I am cute. And caring. If you want to see invasive, have a training session with TC."
"Still going bad?"
"Not bad as much as... worse."
"Your fault this time."
"You have King mollycoddling you and I don't see you walking on clouds."
"It's not the practice."
"Theeeeen?"
"Can't you let it go? For once."
"Dude, if I let this go it means I have to think about TC and that's not a cool option right now. You would do me a personal favor if you share your tale of woe."
"It's my mother's birthday tomorrow and I wanted to send her a gift. It takes about three days for a package to get from here to Larissa. The carrier who was supposed to pick up the package got here when I was in rehearsal, and they didn't wait. Yesterday I tried finding another service that would do it, but they could only arrange pick up times when I had rehearsals scheduled, and I couldn't find King to ask for a change of schedule."
"That sucks."
He shrugged.
"I'll just call her and say happy birthday like that. But I had such a great gift for her. She loves Lauren and I wanted to send her Lauren's autograph."
"So, it's just a letter?"
"Don't be a jerk," Marvin said. "It's special."
"Chill, dude. It wasn't an insult," she said. "I meant that if it's a letter, I know a carrier who specializes in delivering urgent documents and they can be here at any time. Delivery guaranteed tomorrow morning. I'll make a call."
"Vy, if you do this for me, I'll never forget it."
She tapped her temple with her fingertips.
"That goes in the vault of promises."
She fished out her phone and walked out on the terrace. Doing something for someone else always made her feel better. She even managed to smile at TC who was sitting with King at one of the tables. TC missed her electric smile because he was staring into his coffee. King saw her and she nearly missed a step under his dark and somber gaze. What was it with everyone that day? He looked almost as miserable as Marvin earlier. Whatever was eating Andrew King, she did not want to know. Even if it wasn't his fault, he made her hair stand on end. The smartest thing was to keep her distance from him as much as she could.
Despite that, she couldn't help wondering if she could do anything to wipe that dark sadness off his face.
Andrew
He waited for her to leave the room, a few minutes after Carter, and he snuck of his hiding place. Into the common room, Carter was sitting alone at the Captains' table. He joined him, curious what he was going to tell Ford about the bet.
"How did it go?" Ford asked, sitting at their table. "You don't look happy."
Carter looked up from his coffee mug for the first time.
"It was... interesting."
"That's you admitting you failed?"
Andrew let the conversation continue, extremely curious what was Carter going to say. If he'd be the one judging the bet, he'd say Carter won. Vy's performance had left him deeply troubled. Carter had broken down her defenses and made her sing with longing. Vy believed herself to be a happy, lucky girl. What had happened in practice probably shocked her.
"I didn't but I'm sure that tomorrow I'll have to do it all over again. I never met someone so stubborn."
"Are you calling the bet off?"
Carter hesitated, but eventually his shoulders slumped. "Yes," he said. "I got what I wanted from her, but I don't think she will be able to do it in public. Not for a while."
"I wish I were a fly on the wall today," Ford said looking at Andrew. "I've never seen him look so exhausted."
"He's right, you look terrible," Andrew said. "What happened today?"
He was curious what would Carter say. What version would he share with them? They were competitors, but at the same time they were the only people who could understand him.
"She... I..." Carter said, then shook himself. "I made her show me what she can do. Now she knows I can do it, and she hates me for it. So, she will fight even harder against me."
Ryann looked from Carter to Andrew and back. He seemed intrigued.
"That sounds scary as hell. Why do you take such an interest in her? It can't be just her voice."
"It's not. It's what I can do with that voice."
"She's your pick for the final then?" Ryann asked.
"She's my pick for winning Sing this year."
Ford shrugged. "A lot can still happen."
Chapter 12
Vy
Her days of being a not-so-lowly intern in her father's law firm paid off. She called Mercury Courier and she arranged a pick up for that evening.
"Your wish was my command, oh, mighty Marvin."
"Really? When will they be here? I can run over to King right now and tell him I need time off."
"No need, my worried friend. They'll be outside the gates at nine."
"Outside the gates?" Marvin asked. "That's about a mile away."
"How's your cardio?" she asked, but he didn't reply, busily calculating.
"Officially rehearsal should finish at eight, to be in time for dinner. If I leave at eight, I'll be at the gates in by eight thirty, just in case they're early. I should be back with plenty of time to spare before the curfew."
"I can come with you," Vy said. "I'm pretty sure Mark won't keep me past eight."
"Meet you at the front door, at 8.01," Marvin said.
She saluted military style, and pretended to synchronize her watch.
As she had guesses, Mark dismissed her around seven thirty. She went to her room, changed her clothes and put on another pair of sneakers. She was in front of the main entrance a few minutes before eight. People walked through the main hall, congregating toward the mess hall from various parts of the house. She looked longingly toward the cafeteria. Why had she promised she'd go with Marvin? She hadn't expected to be so hungry. Maybe she could send him a text to tell him that she was going to dinner.
She turned on her phone, considering the cop out when she saw the message from Marvin.
"Practice long. Don't know when finish."
Brilliant! Was it too late to call Mercury to call off the pick-up? Her father would probably not be pleased when he found out that she used his name, so at least she should make sure that Marvin's mom got the gift.
Her eyes were drawn to the left staircase. Nikki was watching her as she climbed down. Vy flashed her a smile, and got none in return. Her gaze fell on Nikki's shoes. The elegant and almost comfortable pumps had been the pride and joy of Leoni
e's summer two years earlier. Her eyebrows twitched at the memory of her godmother. Vy never managed to understand some people's obsession with high fashion.
Back to Marvin. He probably had the envelope with him. She bolted toward the Eastern wing before she realized that she decided what to do. She was already knocking on the door of Music Room 4 when she thought it wasn't polite to interrupt. Oh well, scheduled practice ended at eight, so King would have no right to be pissed off for the interruption. Carter would fume if anyone dared to do anything like that even it happened outside official schedule, but King didn't strike her as the same flavor of insane as her mentor.
No answer from the other side.
Soundproof! Of course she wouldn't hear if anyone told her to come in. She had to just go ahead and open it. Her hand was on the doorknob when the door was yanked open from the inside, and she was almost nose to nose with Andrew King. More like nose to chin. Eyes to lips.
"Sorry," she said in a squeaky voice. "Umm, Marvin, can I talk to h-"
Her voice broke when he pulled the door all the way open and stepped aside. She walked in and Marvin hurried toward her, darting worried glances to Andrew King.
"Didn't you get the text?" Marvin asked in a whisper.
"Why do you think I'm here? Just give me the envelope."
He hesitated for a moment, then his face lit up. He ran to the table and pulled out an envelope from his notebook.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you."
"You owe me so much, dude."
She tucked the envelope on the inside of her jacket, and went back to the door. She didn't even dare to look into King's eyes as she apologized.
"I'm sorry, sir. It really is important. Thank you."
She backed out of the room and before the door was all the way closed, she was already running. The clock in the main hall said it was a quarter past eight. She'd have plenty of time to be at the pick-up point, but she could hope that, if they were early enough, she could be back in time to have dinner with everyone else instead of raiding the kitchen after the staff left the house, around midnight.
She stopped just before getting out of the house to lace up her trainers again. She had to run all the way there, and she didn't need to risk tripping over her shoelaces. She felt a chill on the back of her neck and when she looked up she saw Nikki was watching her again. She was coming out of the cafeteria already. She'd been there for less than ten minutes. Who could finish dinner in that time? She shook her head, wishing she'd been in her place.
A mile shouldn't have felt so long. It was the lack of food, for sure. She slowed down again. It wouldn't do to sweat all over Mrs. Stark's present. She felt a few light drops on her cheeks.
"Rain? Really?"
She picked up the pace again. Doing people favors was going to bite her in the ass one day. But not that day, because by the time she got to the gate, the drizzle had stopped completely. She checked her phone. A new message from Mercury Couriers confirmed the pick-up time and place. At the gates, at nine pm. She nodded to the guy in the security booth and started pacing back and forth outside the big iron gates.
People working on various IBC programs were leaving. She played a game of trying to recognize as many people as possible, but other than Clark Kent and his wife, and Ryann Ford, she didn't come up with any other names before nine o'clock. She was already freaking out that the carrier was late when she spotted Lauren DeSalle leaving. She wondered if Carter had left after finishing the session with her or he was torturing someone else on the team. The lack of messages from Marvin told her that Andrew King was still inside. It was a quarter past nine when the first text from Marvin came.
"Practice is over. Where are you?"
"At the gate. Sit tight."
"The carrier didn't show up yet?"
She was about to press send to 'Not yet' when she saw the Mercury Courier car approaching. Cars kept filing out the gates, but she was no longer looking at the people inside them. She went toward the white car bearing the image of winged shoes, and waited for the guy to get out.
"Miss Cesara?" he asked.
"Hello. Yes. Here is the envelope. This is covered by the contract with our law firm, right?"
"Yes, miss. Please sign here," he said handing her a clipboard. "It will be in Larisa tomorrow before lunch."
"Thank you. Drive safe!"
The man smiled and nodded. She stepped back behind the gates and looked through the iron bars as the courier sped away into the north.
9.31. Awesome. Dinner finished at 9.30. She slowed down and walked the rest of the way to the House. The alarm would go up 10pm, and she had plenty of time to get inside before that time. She'd have to wait in her room at least another couple of hours until people left the main hall and she could sneak into the kitchen. She should have told Helen to get some food from dinner.
The parking lot in front of the House was deserted. She dragged her feet up the stairs. She was tired enough to fall asleep. She should set an alarm on her phone to wake up when it was time to get into the kitchen. Or maybe just sleep through the hunger. Although a big breakfast before practice with Carter might not be a safe choice.
She snapped out of her hunger related pondering when the door to the House didn't open. She giggled the door handle a few times, but nothing happened. That couldn't be right. Her phone said 9.48. Why would they lock the door early? And why lock it without setting the alarm? The House rules were very clear.
The staircase that led to the front door narrowed toward the door, so she couldn't look through the large windows on either side of the entrance. The windows where a good 10 feet above ground level. She cursed the turn of the century architecture. She knocked loudly on the door, but no one came to open the door.
The pool door!
There was a way to get into the backyard if she went around the eastern wing. She would ruin her beautiful white sneakers, but it was a small price to pay for getting back to the house. Her clothes caught on the vines, but she didn't care. She ignored the feel of the soft earth under her soles. Tiny cold drops started pelting her, and by the time she was in the backyard, she was soaked to the skin, but the only thing that mattered was to get into the house.
She rounded the corner and ran to the back door. She hit the floor hard when she skidded on the wet tiles. She hobbled as fast as she could to the door. Locked. She took out her phone to call Helen.
9.59
Too late.
The alarm would be up by the time Helen could get to the door. They'd both be disqualified if they were found breaking curfew. Or even if Helen wouldn't, she definitely would. She just had to hope that no one was watching the cameras at that time. She looked around trying to think where she might be safe.
The small cabin on the far side of the pool. They wouldn't put cameras in a place where people changed their clothes. Her banged up knee bothered her as she hurried along the swimming pool. She breathed a sigh of relief when the flimsy door opened.
"Third time lucky."
She shivered in her wet clothes. She didn't feel all that lucky.
She started to hum November Rain under her breath, hoping that the Guns were right and that November rain wasn't going to last forever.
The last words came up through chattering teeth.
"Towels, and bathrobes and slippers, oh my!"
She took off her wet clothes, towel dried her skin with the biggest, fluffiest towel she could find and she put on a huge, heavy bathrobe.
Her phone buzzed. Helen. She answered as she hanged her clothes on the towel rack, hoping that they might dry up by the morning.
"Where are you?" Helen asked.
"In the pool house."
"What? Why?"
"The door was locked when I got back. I'm so hungry."
"But Vy, it's past curfew."
She rolled her eyes. Well, d-oh!
"Don't worry. I won't get disqualified if they don't know I'm out past curfew. So, don't even think about unlocking the door or
anything."
"Aren't you cold?"
"Cold, wet, and did I mention hungry? So hungry."
"What can I do?"
"Nothing, of course. I'm fine. As long as no one notices I was out of the House, I'll be fine."
That was a problem. What if anyone saw her get into the House in the morning? Someone who wanted to start the day with some laps might come to the pool first thing in the morning, and they could see her there. So, she'd just pretend that she got out of the House earlier. How crazy would anyone have to be to want to swim as soon as the alarm was deactivated by the kitchen staff?
"Are you sure? I feel I should be doing something to help you."
"There might be something. You can ask Marvin to help, since this is sort of his fault. I need you to make sure that the coast is here when I come in. There's nothing you can do about the cameras, but I'm pretty sure they don't check those unless they have reason to do it. And... someone had to have locked the door on purpose."
Helen drew in a sharp breath. They didn't need to name names. There was at least one person who would do something so underhanded. Helen's voice didn't shake when she spoke next. Vy loved the girl for that inner steel that helped her overcome obstacles that would have crushed others.
"Ok," Helen said. "I'll talk to him. We'll come out by the pool first thing in the morning."
"Sounds good. We'll make it look like we all got out of the House then, and we're all coming back in."
"I'm calling Marvin right now. Stay warm, Vy."
Not much chance of that. The pool house did not have central heating, so the temperature was only mildly higher than the outside. But on the flip side, it wasn't raining, and she had dry clothes. She wrapped another towel around her head in the hope of drying her tangled mass of hair. It was going to frizz up like crazy once it was dry, but the important thing was to get it dry as fast as possible.
She padded a corner of the room with many towels and she curled in on herself there. Now that the adrenaline dissipated from her system, her knee began to hurt in earnest. She felt it gingerly without daring to look. The skin didn't appear broken. She relaxed a little. A bruise wouldn't be the end of the world.
Dark Dream (Love in Illyria Book 1) Page 9
