I tried not to smirk but failed. She pointed at me. “You. Principal’s office. Now.”
I put down my empty cup, pulled my copy of Jane Eyre from the back pocket of my jeans, where I’d kept it safe from soda spills, and nodded politely. “Yes, Mrs. Copperfield.”
Lucy was in the hall on the other side of the glass, grinning wildly and bouncing on her toes like a little kid.
I grinned back.
The stern lectures, disapproving head shakes, and threats of spoiled school records were way more brutal than detention could ever be. And they were nothing compared to what my pacifist aunt and uncle would do when I got home. They didn’t believe in violence, ever, for any reason. But then, they’d never met Peter. I had a feeling that fact wouldn’t be worth much to them.
I managed, barely, to talk myself out of anger management classes and Peter into a tolerance seminar. I planned to use that later to diffuse any mention of being grounded. Not that I could go out after dark anyway. I mean, look at last night. We’d finally been allowed out and then Lucy and her friends got weird.
Also, the principal was impressed with my obviously beloved copy of Jane Eyre and my straight As. No one tells you that if you get really good grades, adults are sometimes willing to overlook a little badly placed attitude.
“Are we clear, Ms. Llewellyn?” The principal drummed his fingers on his desk. I wanted to tell him his tie clashed horribly with his shirt. Instead, I just nodded.
“Yes, Mr. Ainsley.”
“I don’t want to see you in here again.”
“Yes, Mr. Ainsley.”
“You’re a bright girl, Christabel. I know moving to a new school in your last year can’t be easy, but I’d hate for you to sabotage your future.”
Oh God, the “future” speech. “Yes, Mr. Ainsley.”
I think I said that about six more times before he finally let me go. Lucy was waiting for me at my locker. “That was so cool,” she gushed.
I tossed my extra binders into my locker. “That guy just really bugs me.”
“Last year he gave Nathan a black eye.” Lucy scowled. “But Nathan’s all ‘ignore them’ or ‘kill them with kindness.’ ” She huffed out an impatient breath. “That just takes way too long.”
“Dude,” an eighth grader interrupted us, eyes wide. “Is it true you busted Peter’s legs?”
“No.”
Lucy grinned. “But it’ll hurt for him to pee for the rest of the day.”
“Cool,” he returned. “He once held my head in the toilet.” He looked at me adoringly, as if he had cartoon hearts for eyeballs. Awkward. I stared back.
“Go away,” I finally had to tell him. He fled.
“He’s totally crushing on you now.” Lucy chuckled.
“Lucky me.”
“And you’re, like, the school hero.” She was entirely too happy about it.
“Hero with detention.” I shut my locker door. “Starting tonight.”
“Already?”
“Yeah, there’s some parent-teacher thing for the ninth grade. I have to help set up chairs or something.” I wrinkled my nose. “Think your mom will freak?”
“About detention, no. About using physical violence to solve your problems? Definitely,” she confirmed. “Oh, and there’ll be a poster of Gandhi on the back of your door by tomorrow. The man, not the dog.”
I blinked. “Um, why?”
“It’s Mom’s very unsubtle reminder that nonviolence can change the world, blah, blah, blah. You’re supposed to imagine Gandhi looking at you the next time you lose your temper.”
“Creepy.”
“Yeah. I’ve had my poster since second grade. I used to have nightmares that he was so hungry he’d try to eat my head like an apple,” she said, shuddering. “But you can talk her down some if you mention Nathan. She loves him.”
“Cool.”
She paused. “Oh, but I’m going to Solange’s tonight.”
“Okay.” I wasn’t following the abrupt topic change.
“So it’ll be dark when you finally get out of here. These parent-teacher things don’t usually start until seven thirty.”
I rolled my eyes. “This curfew thing is stupid, Lucy. I’m from the city. You know, where there’s actual crime and stuff?”
“I know.” She bit her lip for a moment and then brightened. “You can take my car home. Mom’s working today, so I’ll just go over there after school and get a lift home with her. Dad’s got the snowplow on the truck already, so no one’s allowed to drive it. But I can take Mom’s car to the Drakes’.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
She handed me her keys. “Are you kidding? I’ve been wanting to kick Peter since I was thirteen.”
“About last night,” I said. “What were you guys on?”
“Nothing!”
I knew she was hiding something. I could just tell. I’d had enough experience sorting through my mom’s lies. “Lucy.”
“I gotta go!” she practically yelled before turning on her heel and running down the hall. I sighed and went to math class. Peter wasn’t at his desk. I should probably have felt bad about that.
Oh well.
As it turns out, detention is boring.
I helped the janitor set out rows and rows of chairs, fetched plastic cups, and made punch, and when they’d exhausted the normal errands, I had to clean the whiteboards in all the classrooms. Even detention was wholesome in this backwoods town. On the plus side, by the time the parents started to arrive, I was allowed to go home.
The parking lot was filled with cars and parents in sensible shoes and sweaty, nervous-looking students. The sky was dark, with a thin line of lilac in the west. The mountains were already black, but I still felt them there, tall and stately. Most of Main Street was closed up except for the cafes and a bookstore. I would have stopped if I wasn’t in enough trouble already. I rolled down the windows and the cool evening air was full of smoke and pine needles and apple trees. I loved October.
I did not love Lucy’s car.
At a stop sign just outside town, it stalled. It didn’t even have the decency to stop under a streetlight or by a restaurant where I could drink cappuccinos and wait for a tow truck. I got out of the car, turning up the collar of my jacket as a light rain began to fall.
“Perfect,” I muttered. I popped the hood and peered inside. I had no idea what I was looking at. If the engine had been a haiku, I’d have been perfectly able to fix it. I slammed the hood shut again as the wind picked up. It smelled worse out here, like mud and rotting vegetation. Deserted roads and crumbling, abandoned farmhouses were creepy, way creepier than biker bars and that homeless guy downtown who threw soda cans at you when you walked by.
“I hate this town,” I grumbled to myself, slipping back into the warm car. I reached for my bag to get my cell phone.
Just as someone reached for me.
“Lucky,” a gravelly voice said.
I jerked back, my heart leaping into my throat and taking up all available space so that it was impossible to open my mouth and scream. I swallowed. “I’m not—”
“Sleep now.” A puff of white powder wafted toward me. I coughed frantically. Was it anthrax? Some kind of drug? Who the hell did that? I struggled to let anger and fear burn through the fog settling like sticky spiderwebs over my eyes and my legs and my mouth.
And I could have sworn that the man was blue.
Chapter 10
Lucy
I left a little early just to avoid more of my mom’s well-meaning lectures and fretting. She knew I’d be safe on the Drake compound; it was nearly a thousand acres of protected lands and I’d been going there since I was a kid. I’d driven by two guards already. But everything was different now.
No one knew that better than me.
I assumed I’d be there first and would have to wait for Solange. She sometimes needed an hour or two after sunset to fill up on blood so the thirst didn’t hurt so much. I had my iPod, homework I had no intention o
f doing, and Gandhi in the passenger seat—smearing the window with his big wet nose. I’d climb into the old oak tree and enjoy a rare, safe moment to myself at night, able to count the stars and make up my own constellations.
The main trunk of the tree was gnarled and thick enough to support three main branches. It looked as if the oak had split in three. One of those branches dipped all the way down to the ground, like a swing made of bark and green leaves and littering acorns all around. If you painted it with glitter, it wouldn’t look out of place in a Tim Burton movie.
Solange was already perched in it like an exhausted cheetah. She was on a higher branch we’d never yet managed to climb, lying on her stomach, her long hair drifting down like a crow’s broken wing. She was pale enough to look like starlight. And she was wearing sunglasses.
“What, are you a rock star now?” I teased, trying to keep the conversation light. “Wearing sunglasses at night?” I felt a new tension between us and I didn’t like it. It was unrecognizable and hung oddly, like a dress that didn’t fit.
She didn’t move and didn’t take them off. “My eyes hurt.”
I knew she was lying. I hated that most of all. I dropped my bag and leaned back against the branch, looking up at her. I didn’t smile. “Wow, you’re a really bad liar.”
She sighed, looking faintly pained and more like herself, before the cool mask settled back onto her features. “I’m fine.”
“I didn’t ask,” I shot back drily.
She half smiled. “You’re the only one not to ask me that every five minutes.”
I folded my arms, feeling slightly vindicated. “Remember that.”
“I’m sorry, Luce,” she whispered, so softly I almost didn’t hear her over the dry rattle of leaves and the tall grass as a light rain pattered around us. We stayed dry in our oak throne.
“I just don’t get why you’re shutting me out.” I sounded hurt even to my own ears.
“Because I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Hello? You already have,” I snapped. “So get over it and tell me what’s going on.”
She looked at me for a long, weird moment before rolling off the branch, dangling from her fingertips, and landing gracefully next to me. The branch barely swayed. She’d always been graceful, but since she’d turned into a vampire, it was like she was made of porcelain, hard and perfect. She’d have hated that comparison, but it was apt.
At least until she slipped off her glasses.
Even Nicholas didn’t look that bad after we’d made out a little too long.
Her eyes were the same pale blue, but the whites were traced with red, like the veins of a leaf before it falls off the tree in autumn. It was strangely beautiful, in a menacing way. Christabel would have turned it into poetry. I just winced. “Oh, Sol. Does it hurt?”
“Not really. Not anymore.”
“Do your teeth hurt?”
“A little.”
She had three sets of fangs now, more than when I’d last seen her. Only the Hel-Blar were feral enough to have multiple sets of fangs; even most of the Hounds had only two pairs. Certainly none of the Drakes I knew of had any more than the usual single pair—including Solange’s cousin London, and she was really beastly.
“Oh!” I exclaimed suddenly. “Did Kieran talk to you?” Because that was way more important than extra teeth.
“The Scotland thing, right?”
“Yeah, that.” She didn’t sound nearly as upset as I’d thought she would. “I mean, that’s really far. For, like, two years.”
Not that I wanted her to cry or anything, but some kind of reaction would have been nice.
She lifted her chin. Her eyes glinted like an animal’s, like a wolf’s. “I could make him stay.”
Not that reaction.
I went cold in a way I’d never felt before. “Sol?”
She shrugged one shoulder and slipped her sunglasses on. “I’m just saying.”
“Yeah, and it’s kind of creepy.”
“I can’t help my pheromones. And I’m kind of tired of trying.”
“Dude, if you start wearing a tiara and make everyone call you Your Highness, I will mock you.”
She snorted out a surprised and entirely unprincesslike chuckle.
“Thank God,” I said fervently. “You’re back.”
“Oh, Luce.” Her shoulders slumped. “It’s all so messed up.”
“I know.” I poked her, hard. “And you’re not making it any better by being all secretive and emo. It’s pissing me off.”
“You know, there are some people who are afraid of me,” she pointed out loftily, but she was smiling.
“Yeah, well, they never saw you laugh so hard spaghetti came out of your nose.” I grinned back. “I own you, Drake.”
We leaned against the trunk, watching a couple of bats weave and drop as they caught mosquitoes. The rain felt far away.
Solange made a face. “I hate those things.”
“What, bats?”
“They’re everywhere. It’s like they’re following me.”
“Ew.”
“Yeah.” She was as pale as an opal, with thin, translucent veins like blue fire inside her wrists. She rubbed at them. “I don’t want to turn blue,” she said. “And I don’t want Uncle Geoffrey taking more blood from me or running experiments and frowning the way he does when he’s puzzled. I don’t want to be a puzzle,” she said hotly. “And I really don’t want to smell like mushrooms.”
I sniffed. “You smell like wood smoke and roses,” I assured her. “Same as always.”
“Promise you’ll tell me if that changes.”
“I will if you stop avoiding me. And I think the gagging would probably give me away.”
“You’re such a comfort to me, yakbreath.”
“Right back at you, snotface.”
We grinned at each other the way we had since we were four years old. Another bat dipped into view, a little closer than I liked. I leaned farther into the tree.
“Okay, one’s cute. But that’s my limit.” The sound of leathery wings surrounded us. I pulled the collar of my shirt up. Even Gandhi looked disconcerted.
“Um, Solange?”
“Yeah?”
“Let’s get the hell out of here!” I ran, ducking my head down. The tall grass feathered around my knees and the rain rattled in the dry oak leaves. The bats were like a dark thundercloud, about to release teeth and rabies and God only knew what else.
“If one of those things gets in my hair, I’m going to freak right the hell out.” Gandhi was at my heels. Solange was a blur behind me, trying to keep pace, slowing down and speeding back up. She would have been waiting for me at the car already if she let herself go. And her lungs weren’t burning like mine.
She stopped so fast, the grass flattened around her. I was on the other side of the car, my hand on the door. Solange turned so that she was facing the approaching bats, the way she’d have faced an opponent with a rapier. She was slender and standing sideways, to make a smaller target. I paused.
“What are you doing?” I asked frantically. “Get in the car!” I opened the back door for Gandhi. He at least, was smart enough to jump in.
“Wait,” she murmured softly. The moon was a pearl behind the clouds, the light faintly blue and glinting off the embroidery on Solange’s black tank top. The rain was cold in my hair.
And the bats were still coming straight for us.
I had no idea if bats attacked and I really, really didn’t want to wait around and find out.
“I kind of hate you right now,” I muttered at her. I couldn’t just get in the car and leave her to fend for herself. I had to stand there and wait for my face to be gnawed on by tiny bats. Standard BFF rules.
Solange lifted her hand, palm out. She looked like a ballerina directing traffic.
The bats paused, hovered. The sound of so many wings made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The bats were still aloft but they didn’t come any closer.
&nbs
p; “How are you doing that?”
“I have no idea,” she answered between her teeth.
She flicked her wrist and the bats whirled as one and flew away in the direction she’d pointed, toward the mountain. When she finally turned around to look at me, her eyes were huge. “Okay, that was weird.”
I stared. “We could totally hire you to do special effects on Halloween.” I shuddered. “Can we get in the car now?”
I didn’t wait for an answer and launched myself into the front seat. I ducked down to look at her through the window. “Are you getting in or what?”
She looked uncertain. She bit her lower lip, the way she used to when she was nervous, forgetting she had fangs now. One of them nicked through her skin. Blood smeared like ghoulish lipstick. She licked it away.
“I don’t think I should, Lucy.”
“I have nose plugs.” I kept a stash of them in my glove compartment for Nicholas. I reached over and flipped it open. I stopped. “In my car,” I amended. “I forgot I’m driving Mom’s. And—oh my God,” I muttered when a condom fell out onto the floor mat. “My mother is out of control.”
“Is that a condom?”
“Don’t even ask.” I slammed the glove compartment shut again. “And watch your stuff the next time you come over. She’ll totally sneak them into your coat and your bag.”
She blinked. “She’s doing with condoms what my mom does with stakes?”
“Definitely. Okay, back to the matter at hand.” I grinned. “You could stick your head out the window like the dog.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Come on, Sol. Don’t wimp out on me now—it’s still early. And you owe me.”
“Okay, okay.” She climbed onto the roof of the car and smirked at me through the sunroof. “But I’ll ride up here.”
I shrugged. “You’ll get wet.”
“Better that than bugs up my nose.”
“I doubt the cops will think so. And you’re so paying any reckless driving ticket I get.”
“We’ll stay on the property. Head to the end of the lane by the marshes. We can walk from there. It’s only half an hour or so.”
Bleeding Hearts Page 8
