by Amy Sparling
“I’m um,” I stutter. “I only came to Theo’s room because I can see the driveway better and I wanted to know when he got home.”
“You’re fine, sweetheart.” Alexo doesn’t seem concerned with my being in the wrong side of the mansion. “Theo made you his beneficiary my dear, so you’re welcome in his room any time you’d like.”
“Beneficiary?” Tears spring to my eyes and all of the air seems to suck out of the room. Alexo’s eyes widen and then he laughs.
“Oh, sweetheart, no. Theo is fine.” His eyes crinkle at the corners and I take a deep breath as I try to come back down from the horror of thinking he had died. “I just wanted to let you know he’s at Methodist Hospital recovering nicely.”
“What happened to him?” I ask, knowing I probably won’t get the real answer.
“Rare blood disorder,” Alexo lies with a skill I’ve never seen before. “Poor thing needed a transfusion. But he got it, and he’ll be fine so don’t you worry. It might be a day or two until he gets home, though.”
“Oh,” I say, my heart sinking. I’m so sick of Theo being gone. “Can I come see him?”
“I’m afraid not, dear. He’s isolated.” Alexo shrugs like what can you do. “Some hospital procedure. They won’t let anyone back there, but they said he’ll be back to normal soon. He might need to leave for more transfusions in the future, so you can be warned of that. If you ever see him get pale again like that, you just give us a call and we’ll get him to the hospital, okay?”
I nod, the lump in my throat making it hard to talk. “Okay.”
Alexo’s narrow eyes and pointed nose reminds me of a fox. “Rest easy, dear. We’ll see you soon.”
When the call ends, Riley touches my shoulder. “Well…that’s good.”
“It’s also freaky that he called right after you were talking about it,” I say, giving her a look that I hope she understands. We are not alone here. We’re given anything we want, but we’re probably being watched the whole time. My stomach churns.
The wall screen lights up with another call, this time from a number that’s not saved into the contacts list. That’s because it’s Theo’s number, calling his own bedroom.
I answer the call, anxious to see him, but his face isn’t in the screen. His hands are, and they’re holding a piece of paper.
don’t say anything
I keep quiet, and a second later, Theo lowers the paper. He’s holding his phone up with one hand, and the paper in the other. He looks like shit, all pale with sunken eyes and dark circles under them. He motions for me to wait a second and then he turns the paper over and holds it up to me.
My lifeblood died. Kyle is helping me find a new one.
I motion for Riley to get me the dry erase board and I write out a message to him.
Alexo said you’re in the hospital
He smiles and instead of it lighting up his face, he looks like the living dead.
I am, he mouths, turning the camera to show the empty waiting room of a hospital. He scribbles something on a paper and holds it back up to me.
looking for a new lifeblood
hurry up I write on the board.
He nods and then he holds his fingers to his lips and blows me a kiss.
When the silent call is over Riley says, “Holy shit.”
he looked like shit, she writes on the board.
“I can’t sit around here worrying anymore,” I say aloud. “I’m going to go crazy. Alexo said he’s fine, so I believe him.” I add that last part just to suck up to the guy who might be listening to me.
“Well, let’s do something to take our mind off of it,” Riley suggests.
“I have an idea,” I say. “Want to go for a ride on the Ninja?”
Chapter 10
I’m pretty sure I didn’t sleep all night. Theo texted me that he’d tell me when they’re heading home, so I left his room for my own. It felt like I was kind of a weirdo stalker being in his room even though he didn’t seem to mind. Honestly, the urge to snoop was a little overwhelming and I didn’t want to be that girl who goes through her boyfriend’s things.
So I spent most of the night in my own bed, staring at my bracelet. It’s weird how it works. The silver bangle fits snuggly but not too tight. Just like any other bracelet, it shifts up and down if I jiggle my arm, and I can twist it all the way around on my wrist. I just can’t remove it. To any bystander, it looks like a normal bracelet. Beautiful and intricate, with a stunningly blue stone in the middle. Its beauty only makes me hate it more.
When there’s a knock at my door, I know it’s Riley. It’s around nine in the morning, and I yell for her to come in.
“You want some breakfast?” she says, poking her head inside my door. “There’s pastries and donuts in the kitchen. I’ll bring us some.”
“Apple popover,” I say, sitting up in bed. “And coffee.”
“Coming up!” she says cheerfully before leaving me alone again. I go to get out of bed, and the door opens again. “By the way,” Riley says, “What did Theo say about that book we found?”
“Shit.” I press my palm to my forehead. “I totally forgot to ask him.”
She tisks. “Love birds. You are completely worthless around him.”
She leaves again, and this time she doesn’t come back immediately after closing the door. I stand up and stretch, feeling like a zombie from lack of sleep. I really hope the kitchen has some strong coffee this morning. I can’t believe I forgot to ask Theo about the freaking book. We were even talking about his trip to Greece, and it totally slipped my mind. Maybe Riley is right—I’m worthless around him.
Even I think it’s a little sad how quickly and completely I fell for Theo. I barely knew anything about him and I was already mentally wrapping up my heart to present to him on a silver platter. I know it sounds crazy, but I don’t care.
Theo is mine now and he’s all I’ve ever wanted. Especially in this messed up world where immortality exists and my life is at stake, Theo is all I want.
That’s why I need to make things right with that book. Still in my pajamas, I put on some socks because the library floor is wooden and no doubt cold. Plus, it’ll mask my footsteps. The pajamas are a decoy; no one ever does anything sneaky when they’re not properly dressed. No one will notice me steal that book.
I stroll through the hallway, happy that no one but a maid sees me. It’s still early enough for the girls to be asleep and the guys to be doing whatever business stuff they do on weekdays.
I slip into the library and look around casually, like maybe I’m just here to browse in case anyone is in here. But the room is empty and majestic just like the first time I came here. The ladder is still where I’d left it. I slide it over to the far right and then climb up quickly, not letting my fear of heights bother me this time.
The book is in my hands in no time. I grab a couple of inconspicuous books about the ocean and sandwich the book between them. Then I hold them close to my chest and book it back to my room.
Riley arrives a few minutes later with a tray of coffee and entirely too many donuts and pastries.
“What’s that?” She says as she sets the tray on the table in my sitting area.
I put a finger to my lips and then hold up the book. Her eyes widen. “I like where this is going,” she says, grabbing a pink iced donut and taking a bite. “Let’s enjoy some classic literature together.”
I sip from the piping hot cup of coffee and take a bite of my apple popover while Riley flips through the mysterious book. Our chef makes the popovers fresh in the mornings and they’re so good I always eat too many. Today Riley has brought me four of them, so she’s clearly not trying to help me stay healthy.
“We need a translator,” Riley says with a frown. We’ve officially flipped through every thick parchment page of this ancient book. Everything is in Greek and the drawings are impossible to decipher.
“Google has a translation page,” I say, getting up to get my computer.
> “Wait—” Riley holds up her hand to stop me. “This song is my jam.” She leans over and cranks the volume on her phone’s music player, blasting the room with the new Lady Gaga track.
“Our computers might be hacked,” she whispers against my ear. With the music going, there’s no way we’ll be overheard. “Like…maybe they’ll see what we look up.”
“You’re right,” I say. My heart sinks. I had been determined to decipher some of this book before Theo got back. Maybe I could have found something helpful for our situation. I pick up my phone and turn it over in my hand. The clan pays for our phone bill, so it’s probably being tracked as well. If not, I could take pictures of the pages and send them off to some language specialist to get it translated. But if it talks about immortality and other secretive things, that wouldn’t work either because I’d be sharing the secret.
“I feel like shopping,” Riley says. She flashes me a sneaky smile and then stands up, pulling out her ponytail and then redoing it. “I heard about those virtual reality things at the stores and I really want one, but if I order it, it’ll take two days to get here.”
I know she’s lying for the sake of keeping our secrets, but I’m not sure where she’s going with it. “We should see if we can get the driver to take us to an electronic store.”
Then I get it. Computers. We should get a new computer, one that isn’t potentially being watched by the clan. “Oooh, I want a new cell phone case,” I say excitedly to join in on the charade. “Best Buy has a lot of them. We should go.”
“Let’s eat breakfast first,” she says, reaching for a donut hole. “Then we’ll spend the rest of the day deeply involved in a virtual reality.”
She winks and I hold back a laugh. Now I finally feel one step closer to finding an answer to our problem. We’ll get this thing translated and we’ll find out the way to remove these bracelets.
Then I’ll only have about a dozen other problems to work out, like how I’m supposed to date an immortal when I’m finally mortal again.
One step at a time.
Chapter 11
Malina gives us some petty cash in the amount of two thousand dollars. All it took was a sweet look from Riley and the request of money for shopping. Some aspects of this life are so incredibly easy it contrasts with the hard parts, like not being able to speak freely in our own bedrooms. Our driver drops us off at Best Buy and says he’ll wait for us in the parking lot.
Theo texts me as we’re walking into the store. It’s a picture of himself, and although he looks adorable, it’s even cuter when I imagine him snapping a selfie like a modern day twenty-something. Selfies certainly weren’t a thing when he was my age.
His text reads: Do I look better?
I write back: You look much more alive
New blood, he replies. of the life variety.
It makes my stomach ache to think of the dying soul who agreed to be Theo’s lifeblood. Although, I guess it’s a much better deal to agree to die quicker in exchange for Theo giving his family money. The people he uses for his immortality were already dying anyway, which is much more ethical than what the Rosewater clan has done to me and the other girls. We were healthy before we were shackled with the bracelet. Sure, they give us free stuff and let us live a nice life, but the cost is far greater than a few months of fun. Plus, we didn’t agree to give our life to the clan. Theo’s lifebloods agree. My heart swells with pride for Theo, and his moral way of handling his situation. I’m glad he never let himself die in the past, because then I wouldn’t know him.
I miss you, I text him. I feel like I say that phrase too much, but I always mean it.
be back later tonight. midnight or so, he texts. Oh, and I miss you far more than you miss me!
I type: come see me as soon as you’re back! Don’t even knock on my door, just come in!
He sends me a smiling emoji and I grin. When I look up, Riley is gone. I’m standing alone in the middle of the store. An employee in a blue polo shirt nods at me. “You need some help?”
“No, thank you,” I say. I put my phone away and search the store for my best friend. It feels awkward being around all of these normal people who are here doing normal things, like shopping and socializing and checking out new cell phones. A few months ago, that was me, just a regular person like everyone else. Now I feel like an outsider, someone from another planet where my alien life is not even remotely close to being like theirs.
Riley is in the computer section, leaning over a table of laptops and smiling flirtatiously with the guy who works here. He’s short and chubby, and his nametag says his name is Juan. Not to be mean, but he just looks like the kind of guy who would know a lot about computers. He has thick black framed glasses and he’s breaking a sweat just having to talk to Riley, probably because she’s adorable and it intimidates him.
“Did you get lost?” Riley asks me when I join them.
I don’t bother answering because getting lost in my own thoughts is not something I want to admit to right now.
“So, you need a laptop that can’t be tracked,” Juan says after giving me a polite smile. “But you have to use someone else’s internet connection? That’ll be a little impossible because you can control your computer but not the connection you’re using.”
Riley sighs. “I don’t know if this will work,” she tells me. She turns back to Juan. “What about if we just want to use Google translate. Is there a way to block anyone from seeing that we’re on that website? Or, like what we’re typing on it?”
Juan’s brows furrow. “What exactly are you trying to accomplish here?” He holds up his hands, “But don’t tell me if it’s something illegal because then I can’t help you or I’ll get fired.”
I explain to him that we just need to translate a foreign book, and Riley tacks on a lie that it’s a surprise for our dad who monitors our internet activity. I don’t know if Juan believes that or not, especially since Riley and I look nothing alike to be sisters, but he nods along as we tell the mostly fake story of needing to translate a book.
“If all you need is a translator, why not buy a translation software?” Juan steps back and runs his hand down his face. “That’ll work perfectly, actually. I can sell you a gutted laptop that has no internet connection at all, and you install a software that translates all known languages, and you can just use that instead of the internet.”
“They have software like that?” I ask, feeling a surge of hope again.
He nods and taps his fingers on the shiny tabletop in front of us. “We sure do. It’s like forty bucks. And a basic laptop with no internet connection runs around three hundred.”
“Money’s not an issue,” Riley says, beaming up at him. “How soon can we get this?”
***
At home, Riley works to install the translation software, which takes forever because our cheap basic laptop isn’t very fast, but Juan assured us it’d get the job done. I get on my own laptop and fill out the survey at the bottom of our sales receipt, giving Juan all five stars and praising him in the comment box. It makes me feel good to know that his manager might see it and give him a raise or something.
Now that Theo is on his way home and we have a solution to figure out the book, I’m feeling a thousand times better. Unfortunately, not sleeping last night has caught up with me, and I find myself drifting in and out while Riley and I work on the new computer.
“You should take a nap,” Riley says after my fifth yawn in a row.
I shake my head. “We have stuff to do.”
“I can do it,” she says, reaching over and turning up the music again. “We have to type in each letter of each sentence on each page,” she says, sounding oddly optimistic at the mammoth-sized work load ahead of us. “You take a nap and I’ll work.”
“Fine,” I say, scrunching up my face like a child. I hate to admit it, but I’m the one who discovered what the bracelet does, and I kind of want to be the one to translate the book and save the day. But Riley is right—t
his is going to take a while. We’ve decided to translate the entire thing and keep the English version on a document on our new computer, even though chances are the first part of the book is just explaining immortality and doesn’t get to the part we need until the very end. As much as I don’t want to admit it, I can probably sleep for an hour or two and I won’t miss anything.
Then I’ll be refreshed for when Theo gets here and we can tell him what we’re up to and maybe he can help us. I kick off my shoes and take down my hair and climb into my bed, leaving Riley on the floor near my window, working diligently.
As soon as my head hits the pillow, I’m asleep. When I wake up again, it’s to the sound of Theo’s voice.
Chapter 12
The bed sinks a little as Theo’s body forms a shadow next to me. It’s not bright enough in here to see him, but I smell his cologne so I know it’s him. Otherwise, I’d probably be screaming for help. “You awake?” he whispers.
I’m exhausted, and waking up now feels painful because I’d like to keep sleeping. But it’s Theo, and I want to see him more than I want to be refreshed. I sit up on my elbow, blinking away the last bits of sleep. Through the window in my room, moonlight sprinkles in, the sun having disappeared hours ago.
“Mmhmm,” I say, reaching out to him. I grab his shoulder and pull him toward me. He falls into my arms, then shifts to lay beside me. He’s on top of the sheets and I’m underneath them, but I hold him close to me while we share my pillow.
“What time is it?” I ask.
“Just after midnight,” he whispers. He smells a little different up close, like the leather interior of Kyle’s car that he keeps religiously clean. “Why’s Riley sleeping on the floor?”
I turn around and look toward the sitting area of my room. In the glow of the moonlight, I can see that Riley is passed out, her arms and legs tucked up in the fetal position. The open laptop is dark next to her. No telling how long she’s been asleep.
