by Amy Sparling
I stop drinking my orange juice mid-sip. Theo doesn’t talk about his past, like, ever. “Yeah?” I say. Now I’m incredibly curious.
He nods. “Pancakes were a thing. We had little diners and soda shops like this everywhere in the forties and fifties.”
I gaze around the café. Where I see a retro and quirky diner holding onto the past, Theo must see what life was like for him all those years ago. “Is it weird getting used to modern society?” I ask, keeping my voice low. Just because we’re out of earshot from the clan doesn’t mean we’re safe from nosy strangers.
He shakes his head. “I’ve been here the whole time, so I saw the world grow and change. I guess I grew and changed with it.”
“What was your favorite decade?” I ask.
He doesn’t even take the time to think about it. “This one.”
I feel my cheeks get hot. “Why’s that?”
“Because I met you.” His finger reaches out and taps my hand from across the table. “Plus, cell phones are amazing. And the special effects in movies?” His puts his finger and thumb together. “Perfection.”
I laugh and bury down the questions I’m dying to ask him. It would take way too long to discuss all the things I think about when I’m lying awake in bed, plus Theo has never talked like this with me before. I don’t want to rush him into it. I’ll just let him take his time.
When the waitress comes, we order the same thing and I ask her for a cup of coffee to go with my orange juice. Theo watches her walk away and then he turns to me. “You’re a very polite person,” he says, his head tilting. “I like how you speak to everyone with respect.”
I rip the top off two sugar packets and pour it into my coffee. “What do you mean?”
“Our waitress. You’re kind to her. You’re kind to everyone. You’d be surprised how many people treat servants like shit.”
I shrug while I think it over. He seems so genuinely interested in this subject. “I try to be nice to everyone. And just because someone’s serving me doesn’t mean they’re below me. Hell, she’s got a job. She’s contributing to society. All I’m doing is…”
I fade off because it’s better than talking about the truth.
Theo seems unaffected. “You’re beautiful inside and out,” he says. “I really like that.”
I’m probably making a really goofy grin right now, so I try to cover it up with small talk. “So, what’s up this week? Any good movies we could go see?”
His lips press together. “Actually…”
My bottom lip curls out. “Please tell me you’re not leaving!” I whine. “I just got you back!”
“Sorry, love.”
Our waitress brings our food so we’re forced to sit here quietly as if we’re not discussing an immortal clan of assholes who steal life from innocent people. When she’s gone, Theo leans forward.
“I have a friend in Greece. He’s a member of my old clan and I reached out to him a few weeks ago. He finally got back to me and he might have some knowledge that will help me save you.”
“He’s from your old clan?” I ask while I cut my waffle into pieces. “Is that allowed?”
He shrugs. “Technically maybe not. The clans keep together and avoid other clans, but he and I are close. We’ve always been close.” When he sees the look of concern on my face he covers his hand over mine. “I promise I’ll be fine. I trust him.”
I nod but I can’t seem to take the frown off my face. “So, he might be able to help us…” I say carefully. I’m not like Riley, so I can’t get all excited easily like she does. “How old is he?”
“He was twenty one when the constitution was signed.”
“The American constitution?” I ask. He nods. I frown. “That’s not very old.”
In any other circumstance, I’d think being two hundred and fifty years old is old as hell. But after Theo came back from his first trip a week ago, he’d taken me on a motorcycle ride out to the boonies and told me about the trip. It was a total bust because his sources were too young. Immortality has been around since the middle ages. It seems like all of the pertinent information about the stones died out over the years.
Theo puts on a positive attitude and I can see in his eyes that he’s trying to make me feel better. “He’s spent the last century in Greece. Greece is ancient, love. There are libraries dating back hundreds of years and a few immortal historians who are even older than that. My friend thinks he can get me a meeting with them.”
A flicker of hope dances in my chest. “That would be good,” I say, still trying to keep my excitement to a minimum.
“But if anyone asks, you don’t know where I went,” Theo says. “I’m sorry it has to be this way, but I can’t let the guys think I’ve gotten too close to you because they know I’d risk telling you the secret.”
“I get it,” I say, taking a bite of sugary delicious breakfast food. “I’m just a dumb bimbo you make out with.”
He frowns. “I don’t like that at all.”
I roll my eyes and reach over and steal a bite of his whipped cream. “It’s all an act. It keeps us safe.”
“You have a point,” he says with a sigh. “Every day I wish I could go back to that night on the pier and save you from taking that bracelet.” His eyes seem far away as he gazes out the window and into the parking lot.
“You can’t think like that,” I say. The waitress drops by and refills our coffees, so we fall into silence again. When she’s gone, I lean over and whisper, “Even if you’d stopped me, you’d still be immortal and I’d still be mortal.”
He peers at me through his thick eyelashes. “Maybe this trip to Greece will fix both of our problems.”
That’s so damn cryptic I don’t even want to ask what he means. Could Theo really give up immortality to be with me? Could I ask him to?
I stab my fork into the waffle and shrug the thoughts to the back of my mind. This new life I’ve fallen into keeps getting deeper and deeper. It’s easier not to think about it.
“So where does Alexo think you’re going?” I ask.
“He thinks I’m securing some old bank accounts.” Theo grins. “Actually, I am doing that, so it’s kind of a happy coincidence.”
“Securing bank accounts?”
He nods. “The clan members befriend wealthy people all over the globe. They use their powers of persuasion—usually with heavy glasses of gris—to bequeath these people’s fortune to the clan.” Theo turns his hand up. “It’s shady I guess, but we’ve all done it. I personally stick to men who’ve made themselves wealthy in an unethical way. They make me their beneficiary and when they die, it all goes to me.”
“That’s kind of evil and kind of genius,” I say.
He shrugs. “It takes a lot of money to live forever.”
Chapter 5
The month of May is always hot, humid, and gross in Sterling. The Texas heat sure knows how to ruin a perfectly good day by coating your skin and clothes in sweat and making it hard to do anything that’s not relaxing under a shade tree with an iced tea. Even on the beach in Sterling, it’s still always just too damn hot.
But here at the mansion, we’re hours away from the beach and there’s practically no humidity here. It’s hot—Texas hot—but it’s easier to handle when you’re living in a mansion. Theo left three days ago, and this time I followed him outside and kissed him and watched him get into the backseat of the car just before the chauffeur took him to the airport. Just like in every sappy movie ever, I stood there in the heat, my bare feet on the grass because the cobblestone driveway was searing hot, and I watched the black car fade away and around the corner, taking my love far away from here. It was pretty pathetic, but I stood there. I felt the pain of seeing him get further and further away. Theo called me when he landed in Greece and told me he was settled in at a hotel. Even with today’s cell phone technology, he still sounded like he was on the other side of the world. I can actually feel a pain in my chest, deep down and aching, when I think about
how far away he is from where I am now.
I am totally in love and I can’t tell him about it. At least not until we find out what the future holds for me and Riley. Either way, I don’t see how I could ever truly be happy here. If Theo saves me from the immortality bracelet, I’ll grow old and die and he won’t. If he can’t save me, I’ll die within a year. And he won’t.
Whatever happens, I don’t end up with Theo in the end.
It is because of this very real and very terrifying situation that I’ve spent the last three days trying to distract myself from thinking about it. Riley has been here with me the whole time, and I can tell she’s trying to stay cheerful for my sake. Together we’ve had a massage every day for the last three days. We got our toes done and then had our nails redone even though they were still pretty from last week’s manicure. I chose a deep purple shellac polish that has just a hint of sparkle. Riley’s nails are black.
We watched YouTube videos on how to ride a motorcycle but we were to chicken to test it out in real life without Theo here to teach us. Actually, I’m too chicken. Riley keeps saying she thinks I’ll do great, but I always back out just before we go down to the garage and try it out. The last thing I’d want to do is fall over in the driveway and scratch up my shiny beautiful bike.
Every afternoon, we order dinner from the kitchen and then settle into the movie theater room and watch movies. It’s only been three days but we’ve seen every film that’s currently in theaters, except for two horror films because I hate horror films, and this one drama film about a med student that has a lot of graphic depictions of surgeries.
In the mornings, we hit the gym and play on the rock climbing wall. Even with a harness and fancy climbing shoes and gloves, I still can’t get to the top of the stupid wall. Climbing is hard and the stupid wall has shown me just how weak my upper body strength is. Riley actually gets a little higher than I do, but we still suck at it.
We’ve also taken advantage of the bright summer days and swam in the pool. That’s really the only place we socialize because Jayla, Nia, and Olivia are in there pretty much every day. Even Olivia, who used to be a pasty pale, is now a golden sunshine princess in her purple bikini. I don’t know what Bethany does in the day time, but she’s never at the pool. I’ve considered asking Riley if we should invite her to hang out with us, but then I always chicken out. Not only am I kind of anti-social in general, preferring to stick with Riley who’s been my best friend forever, but being around the other girls makes me really nervous right now. We know a secret they don’t, and it’s simply too hard to hope that I won’t accidently say anything. We’re not exactly friends with them, but their lives are being stolen as well. It’s hard to keep a secret like that.
On the fourth morning of Theo’s trip, I wake up to the sunshine sparkling through my wall of windows. I throw back the sheer curtains so I can see the hillside in all its beauty, with the sparkling blue lake below.
I get dressed in a pair of blue and black plaid shorts and a white T-shirt and slide my feet into my flipflops. After I’ve brushed my teeth and pulled my hair back, I’m about to go get Riley, but she beats me to it.
“Hey,” she says as she lets herself into my room. “I love those shorts.”
“Thanks,” I say, doing a little curtsey. She’s the one who bought them for me from some online store. Riley cares a lot more about shopping than I do, so I just let her get whatever she wants for me. Riley has always been the wild spirit out of the two of us, yet when it comes to this immortality thing, she’s actually the calm one. She’s gone all wise and enlightened on me, and she doesn’t even seem worried about our predicament. Riley thinks we’ll be just fine. For once, I really wish I could be more like her.
“So, what should we do today?” she asks as she plops on my bed. I’m not as good at making my bed as the housekeepers are, but I’ve tried making it look nice so they won’t have so much work to do when they come by later.
“We’ve seen every movie,” I say as I check the time on my phone. “And the girls are having a pool party with some of the guys today.” I make a face.
Riley laughs. “Yeah I got the e-invite from Nia on my tablet. I mean seriously? Who sends out invitations for a pool party at the house you live in when the only guests will be the people you live with?”
I shrug and try fitting my phone in my pocket only to realize the pockets are stitched closed and are merely for decoration. With a frown, I put my phone on the nightstand. It’s not like I’ll be hearing from Theo anyway because he’d told me this morning that he’d call me tonight.
“I think Nia is just trying to be like some Hollywood starlet or something. I don’t know.” I’m surprised it’s not Jayla throwing the party. She’s little miss attention whore around here. Maybe Nia is trying to one-up her or something.
“Kyle said I should go, but I told him I’d rather hang with you.” Riley sits up on my bed. “So what kind of things are we doing today to take your mind off loverboy?”
I roll my eyes. “Shut up.”
“I’m just playing,” she says, emphasizing the last word. “But I’m kind of bored of all our usual things.”
“Where haven’t we been yet?” I ask. There’s beautiful flower and butterfly gardens outside on the property, but that involves walking in the heat and Riley and I are pretty much over anything involving sweating. Also, the irony of suddenly having too many things to do is not lost on me. Even glamourous lives can get boring.
“There’s a library, right?” Riley says, her brows squishing together skeptically.
“I think so.” I walk over to the tablet on my wall and touch the screen to wake it up. There’s a map of the house on here, because of course there is. This whole place is like a modern castle of luxury. I scroll around on the screen until I find the library. “It’s off the hallway near the large den with all those concrete statues,” I tell her.
She stands up and flattens my sheets to fix where she’d messed them up. “Sounds good. Maybe they’ll have some steamy vampire romances.”
I pull open my bedroom door, casting one last glance at my phone and wishing I could talk to Theo. “I’m pretty sure a house this nice isn’t going to have books like that.”
“You never know,” Riley says, pointing a finger at me. “You have to think positive.”
I laugh at her ridiculousness. After a long walk downstairs, we find a massive wooden door that’s at least fifteen feet tall. It’s always been closed when I’ve been down here, but according to the map, it’s a library. I push it open and the smell of books envelopes my lungs.
“Whoa,” Riley says as we enter the library which is filled with books but devoid of any other people.
The room is round and stretches up to the second floor. It’s definitely the part of the house that makes that round castle turret feature on the outside of the house. The whole perimeter of the room has bookshelves that go nearly to the ceiling, where the roof breaks away into skylights. There’s even one of those ladders on a rail that allow you to roll around the room, getting books off the high shelves. Riley goes straight to it.
The dark wooden floor is covered with a maroon plush rug and there are a few sitting chairs in the middle of the room. A fireplace near the wall isn’t lit, but I imagine sitting near it with a book in the winter time, cuddled next to the fire with a hot cup of cocoa.
Riley climbs to the top of the ladder and pushes herself around the room. “I feel like Belle from Beauty and the Beast!” she says, throwing her arm in the air. “Too bad I can’t sing, or I’d totally be singing right now.”
“Dork,” I say as I venture around the room, looking at the books on the lower shelves. There’s a mixture of leather bound books that look very old and new hardbacks in many different genres. I even find a young adult section near the fireplace and I realize that years of having girls my age come and go as lifebloods is probably the reason these books are here. No doubt, they’ve probably had a few bookworms succumb to the immorta
lity bracelet before Riley and I got here. My stomach tightens as I run my fingers down the book spines, stopping on a vampire book. I recognize it because it was turned into a movie a few years ago.
“I found your sexy vampires,” I say, pulling out the book and holding it up.
“Oooh!” Riley says. She climbs down the ladder and walks over. “I think I will actually read this thing. I’ve heard it’s got some good sex scenes in it.”
“Some things you don’t need to share with your best friend,” I say as I hand her the book.
“Just wait until I find the scenes,” she says, rushing over to one of the arm chairs and opening the book. “I’ll read it out loud to you!”
Now that the ladder is free, I can’t help but walk over to it. I may be a legal adult now, but who hasn’t wanted to play on a rolling library ladder before? I push it all the way over to the far right of the room, where the railing stops for the doorway. I climb up to the very top to where the books are old and look like they’ve been here forever.
The air smells musty up here, and I make the mistake of turning around to look at Riley. I’m at least twenty feet in the air, so it makes me dizzy. Luckily, Riley is now absorbed in her book and doesn’t see me freak out up here. I turn back around and grip the ladder with both hands.
I lower my foot one rung, and then bring the other foot next to it. When I look up, I’m facing a black leather book with a shiny spine that’s twice as thick as the other books. I don’t know why, but I can’t take my eyes off it. Something makes me want to touch it. So I do. I reach out and press my finger to the spine.
Nothing happens.
I exhale, feeling really stupid right about now. Why am I suddenly focusing on some stupid book? It’s not like touching a book will do anything. I’m about to make my way down the ladder, but I still can’t shake the feeling I got when I saw that book. I reach up and pull it out a little bit. Something shiny on the front cover catches my attention, so I pull the whole thing off the shelf.
My breath catches in my throat. There are no words on the cover of this book, just a shiny leather binding and a small blue stone set into the middle of the cover.
