“That’s not true,” he said, though he sounded uncertain. “I do want a job . . . just not these jobs.”
“You’re in no position to pick and choose. You want out of Clarence’s? These were your tickets. You should’ve been able to get any of them if you’d just put in a little effort. You’re charming when you want to be. You could’ve talked yourself into a job.” I started the car. “I’m done with this.”
“You don’t understand,” he said.
“I understand that you’re going through a tough time. I understand that you’re hurting.” I refused to look at him and gave all my attention to the road. “But that doesn’t give you the right to play around with other people’s lives. Try taking care of your own for a change.”
He made no response until we were back at Clarence’s, and even then, I didn’t want to hear it.
“Sage—” he began.
“Get out,” I said.
He hesitated like he might disagree but finally conceded with a swift nod. He left the car and strode toward the house, lighting a cigarette as he went. Fury and frustration burned within me. How could one person continually send me on such emotional highs and lows? Whenever I was starting to like him and feel like we were actually connecting, he would go and do something like this. I was a fool to ever start letting myself feel friendly toward him. Had I really thought he was a work of art earlier? More like a piece of work.
My feelings were still churning when I arrived back at Amberwood. I particularly cringed at the thought of running into Jill in our room. I had no doubt she’d know everything that had happened with Adrian, and I had no desire to hear her defend him.
But when I walked into my dorm, I never made it past the front desk. Mrs. Weathers was in the lobby, along with Eddie and a campus security officer. Micah hovered nearby, face pale. My heart stopped. Eddie sprinted toward me, panic written all over him.
“There you are! I couldn’t get ahold of you or Keith.”
“M-my phone was off.” I looked over at Mrs. Weathers and the officer and saw the same worry on their faces as his. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Jill,” said Eddie grimly. “She’s missing.”
CHAPTER 18
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘MISSING’?” I asked.
“She was supposed to meet us a couple hours ago,” Eddie said, exchanging glances with Micah. “I thought maybe she was with you.”
“I haven’t seen her since PE.” I was trying hard not to kick into panic mode yet. There were too many variables at play and not enough evidence to start thinking crazy Moroi dissidents had kidnapped her. “This is a really big place—I mean, three campuses. Are you sure she isn’t just holed up studying somewhere?”
“We’ve done a pretty exhaustive search,” said the security officer. “And teachers and workers are on alert looking for her. No sightings yet.”
“And she isn’t answering her cell phone,” added Eddie.
I finally let true fear overtake me, and my face must have shown it. The officer’s expression softened. “Don’t worry. I’m sure she’ll turn up.” It was the kind of conciliatory thing people in his profession had to say to family members. “But do you have any other ideas of where she might be?”
“What about your other brothers?” asked Micah.
I’d been afraid it would come to that. I was almost one hundred percent sure she wasn’t with Keith, but he should still probably be notified about her disappearance. It wasn’t something I looked forward to because I knew there’d be a lecture in it for me. It would also be a sign of my failure in the eyes of other Alchemists. I should have stayed by Jill’s side. That was my job, right? Instead, I’d—foolishly—been helping someone run errands. Not just anyone—a vampire. That’s how the Alchemists would see it. Vamp lover.
“I was just with Adrian,” I said slowly. “I suppose she could’ve somehow gotten to Clarence’s and waited for him. I didn’t actually go inside.”
“I tried Adrian too,” said Eddie. “No answer.”
“Sorry,” I said. “We were doing his interviews, so he must have turned his phone off. Do you want to try him again?” I certainly didn’t want to.
Eddie stepped aside to call Adrian while I talked with Mrs. Weathers and the officer. Micah paced around, looking worried, and I felt guilty for always wanting to keep him from Jill. The race thing was a problem, but he really did care about her. I told the officer all the places Jill liked to frequent on campus. They confirmed that they’d already checked them all.
“You got ahold of him?” I asked when Eddie returned.
He nodded. “She’s not there. I feel kind of bad, though. He’s pretty worried now. Maybe we should’ve waited to tell him.”
“No . . . actually, it might be a good thing.” I met Eddie’s eyes and saw a spark of understanding. Adrian’s emotions seemed to intrude on Jill when they were running strong. If he was panicked enough, she’d hopefully realize people were concerned and show back up. That was assuming she was just hiding out or had gone somewhere we couldn’t find. I tried not to consider the alternative: that something had happened where she couldn’t contact us.
“Sometimes students just sneak off,” said the officer. “It’s inevitable. Usually they try to sneak back in before curfew. Hopefully that’s just the case now. If she doesn’t show up then—well, then we’ll call the police.”
He walked off to radio the rest of security for a status check, and we thanked him for his help. Mrs. Weathers returned to the front desk, but it was clear she was worried and agitated. She came across as gruff sometimes, but I had the feeling she actually cared about her students. Micah left us to find a few friends of his who worked on campus, in case they’d seen anything.
That left Eddie and me. Without conferring, we turned toward some chairs in the lobby. Like me, I think he wanted to stake out the door in order to see Jill the instant she showed up.
“I shouldn’t have left her,” he said.
“You had to,” I said reasonably. “You can’t be with her in classes or her room.”
“This place was a bad idea. It’s too big. Too hard to secure.” He sighed. “I can’t believe this.”
“No . . . it was a good idea. Jill needs some semblance of a normal life. You could’ve locked her in a room somewhere and cut her off from all interaction, but what good would that do? She needs to go to school and be with people.”
“She hasn’t done much of that, though.”
“No,” I admitted. “She’s had a rough time with it. I kept hoping it’d get better.”
“I just wanted her to be happy.”
“Me too.” I straightened up as something alarming hit me. “You don’t think . . . you don’t think she would’ve run away and gone back to her mom, do you? Or Court or somewhere?”
His face grew even more bleak. “I hope not. Do you think things have been that bad?”
I thought about our fight after the shower incident. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
Eddie buried his face in his hands. “I can’t believe this,” he repeated. “I failed.”
When it came to Jill, Eddie was usually all fierceness and anger. I’d never seen him so close to depression. I’d been living with the fear of my own failure since coming to Palm Springs but only now realized that Eddie had just as much on the line. I recalled Adrian’s words about Eddie and his friend Mason, how Eddie felt responsible. If Jill didn’t come back, would this be history repeating itself? Would she be someone else he’d lost? I’d thought this mission might be redemption for him. Instead, it could turn into Mason all over again.
“You didn’t fail,” I said. “You’ve been in charge of protecting her, and you’ve done that. You can’t control her happiness. If anything, I’m to blame. I gave her a lecture for the shower incident.”
“Yeah, but I destroyed her hopes when I told her the modeling idea Lee had wouldn’t work.”
“But you were right about—Lee!” I gasped. “That’s it. That’s wher
e she is. She’s with Lee, I’m certain of it. Do you have his number?”
Eddie groaned. “I’m such an idiot,” he said, taking out his cell phone and scanning for the number. “I should’ve thought of that.”
I touched the cross around my neck, saying a silent prayer that this would all be solved easily. As long as it meant Jill was alive and well, I could’ve handled her and Lee eloping.
“Hey, Lee? It’s Eddie. Is Jill with you?”
There was a pause as Lee responded. Eddie’s body language answered the question before I heard another word. His posture relaxed, and relief flooded his features.
“Okay,” said Eddie a few moments later. “Well, get her back here. Now. Everyone’s looking for her.” Another pause. Eddie’s face hardened. “We can talk about that later.” He disconnected and turned to me. “She’s okay.”
“Thank God,” I breathed. I stood up, only then realizing how tense I’d been. “I’ll be right back.”
I found Mrs. Weathers and the security officer and relayed the news. The officer immediately spread the word to his colleagues and soon left. To my surprise, Mrs. Weathers almost looked like she was on the verge of tears.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yes, yes.” She turned flustered, embarrassed at being so emotional. “I was just so worried. I—I didn’t want to say anything and scare you all, but every time a student’s missing . . . well, a few years ago, another girl disappeared. We thought she’d just sneaked off—like Matt said, it happens. But it turned out . . .” Mrs. Weathers grimaced and looked away. “I shouldn’t be telling you this.”
As if she could stop with that kind of intro. “No, please. Tell me.”
She sighed. “The police found her a couple days later—dead. She’d been abducted and killed. It was terrible, and they never caught her killer. Now I just think of that whenever someone disappears. It’s never happened again, of course. But something like that scars you.”
I could imagine so. And as I returned to Eddie, I thought about him and Mason again. It seemed like everyone was carrying baggage from past events. I certainly was. Now that Jill’s safety wasn’t a concern, all I kept thinking was: What will the Alchemists say? What will my father say? Eddie was just hanging up his phone again when I approached.
“I called Micah to tell him everything’s okay,” he explained. “He was really worried.”
All signs of Mrs. Weathers’s past trauma vanished the instant that Jill and Lee walked through the door. Jill actually looked upbeat until she saw all of our faces. She came to a halt. Beside her, Lee already looked grim. I think he knew what was coming.
Eddie and I hurried forward but didn’t have a chance to speak right away. Mrs. Weathers immediately demanded to know where they’d been. Rather than cover it up, Jill confessed and told the truth: she and Lee had gone off campus, into Palm Springs. She was careful to make sure Lee didn’t get accused of any kidnapping charges, swearing he didn’t know she could only leave with approved family members. I confirmed this—though Lee was hardly off the hook in my opinion.
“Will you wait outside?” I asked him politely. “I’d like to speak to you privately later.”
Lee started to obey, flashing Jill a look of apology. He lightly brushed her hand in farewell and turned away. It was Mrs. Weathers who stopped him.
“Wait,” she said, peering at him curiously. “Do I know you?”
Lee looked startled. “I don’t think so. I’ve never been here before.”
“There’s something familiar about you,” she insisted. Her frown deepened a few moments more. At last, she shrugged. “It can’t be. I must be mistaken.”
Lee nodded, met Jill’s eyes in sympathy again, and left.
Mrs. Weathers wasn’t done with Jill. She launched into a lecture about how dangerous and irresponsible they’d been. “If you were going to sneak off and break rules, you could’ve at least confided in your siblings. They’ve been scared to death for you.” It was almost funny, her advising on “responsible” rule-breaking. Considering how panicked I’d been, I couldn’t find anything amusing just then. She also told Jill that she’d be written up and punished.
“For now,” said Mrs. Weathers, “you are confined to your room for the rest of the night. Come see me after breakfast, and we’ll find out if the principal thinks this warrants suspension.”
“Excuse me,” said Eddie. “Can we have a few minutes alone here with her before she goes upstairs? I’d like to talk to her.”
Mrs. Weathers hesitated, apparently wanting Jill’s punishment immediately enforced. Then she gave Eddie a double take. The look on his face was hard and angry, and I think Mrs. Weathers knew there was punishment of a different sort coming from Jill’s big brother.
“Five minutes,” said Mrs. Weathers, tapping her watch. “Then up you go.”
“Don’t,” said Jill, the instant we were alone. Her face was a mixture of fear and defiance. “I know what I did was wrong. I don’t need a lecture from you guys.”
“Don’t you?” I asked. “Because if you knew it was wrong, you wouldn’t have done it!”
Jill crossed her arms over her chest. “I had to get out of here. On my own terms. And not with you guys.”
The comment rolled right off of me. It sounded young and petty. But to my surprise, Eddie actually looked hurt.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.
“It means that I just wanted to be away from this place without you always telling me what I’m doing wrong.” That was directed to me. “And you jumping at every shadow.” That, of course, was to Eddie.
“I just want to protect you,” he said, looking hurt. “I’m not trying to smother you, but I can’t have anything happen to you. Not again.”
“I’m in more danger from Laurel than any assassins!” Jill exclaimed. “Do you know what she did today? We were working in the computer lab, and she ‘accidentally’ tripped over my power cord. I lost half my work and didn’t finish in time, so now I’m going to get a lower grade.”
A lesson on backing up work probably wouldn’t be useful just then. “Look, that’s really terrible,” I said. “But it’s not in the same category as getting yourself killed. Not by a long shot. Where exactly did you go?”
For a moment, she looked as though she wasn’t going to give up the info. Finally, she said, “Lee took me to Salton Sea.” Seeing our blank looks, she added, “It’s a lake outside of town. It was wonderful.” An almost-dreamy expression crossed her features. “I haven’t been around that much water in so long. Then we went downtown and just walked around, shopping and eating ice cream. He took me to that boutique, with the designer who’s looking for models and—”
“Jill,” I interrupted. “I don’t care how awesome your day was. You scared us. Don’t you get that?”
“Lee shouldn’t have done this,” growled Eddie.
“Don’t blame him,” said Jill. “I talked him into it—I made him think you guys wouldn’t mind. And he doesn’t know the real reason I’m here or the danger.”
“Maybe dating was a bad idea,” I muttered.
“Lee’s the best thing that’s happened to me here!” she said angrily. “I deserve to be able to go out and have fun like you guys.”
‘“Fun’? That’s kind of an exaggeration,” I said, recalling my afternoon with Adrian.
Jill needed a target for her frustration, and I won the honor. “Doesn’t seem like it to me. You’re always gone. And when you aren’t, you just tell me what I’m doing wrong. It’s like you’re my mom.”
I’d been wading through all of this calmly, but suddenly, something about that comment made me snap. My finely tuned control shattered.
“You know what? I kind of feel that way too. Because as far as I can tell, I am the only one in this group behaving like an adult. You think I’m out there having fun? All I’m doing is babysitting you guys and cleaning up your messes. I spent my afternoon—wasted my afternoon—driving Adrian around so
that he could blow off the interviews that I set up. Then I get here and have to deal with the aftermath of your ‘field trip.’ I get that Laurel’s a pain—although maybe if Micah had been warned off from the beginning, these problems with her never would’ve happened.” I directed that last comment at Eddie. “I don’t get why I’m the only one who sees how serious everything is. Vampire-human dating. Your lives on the line. These aren’t the kinds of things you can screw around with! And yet . . . somehow, you all still do. You leave me to do the hard stuff, to pick up after you . . . and all the while, I’ve got Keith and the other Alchemists breathing down my neck, waiting for me to screw up because no one trusts me since helping your pal Rose. You think this is fun? You want to live my life? Then do it. Step right up, and you start taking responsibility for a change.”
I hadn’t yelled, but my volume had certainly gone up. I’d pretty much delivered my speech without taking a breath and now paused for some oxygen. Eddie and Jill stared at me, wide-eyed, as though they didn’t recognize me.
Mrs. Weathers returned to us just then. “That’s enough for tonight. You need to go upstairs now,” she told Jill.
Jill nodded, still a little stunned, and hurried away without saying goodbye to any of us. Mrs. Weathers walked her to the stairs, and Eddie turned to me. His face was pale and solemn.
“You’re right,” he said. “I haven’t been pulling my share.”
I sighed, suddenly feeling exhausted. “You’re not as bad as they are.”
He shook his head. “Still. You might be right about Micah. Maybe he’ll keep some distance if I talk to him, and then Laurel will lay off Jill. I’ll ask him tonight. But . . .” He frowned, choosing his words carefully. “Try not to be too hard on Adrian and Jill. This is stressful for her, and sometimes I think a little of Adrian’s personality is leaking into her through the bond. I’m sure that’s why she ran off today. It’s something he’d do in her situation.”
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