“Sometimes he was great. The perfect dad—like how my real father should have been. But then sometimes ... and I never knew what set him off. But I’d hear through the walls. I’d hear him hitting her. He would scream and yell. And then he’d leave for a few hours, come back drunk and when he woke up in the morning it was like it never happened. My mom covered the bruises with makeup and nobody ever spoke about it. It went on like that for years until one day . . .” I blew out a puff of air, releasing the anger with it. “He took it to the next level. He attacked us both. I think that was the final straw for my mom. She could handle him hitting her, but when he hurt me . . . she finally fought back. She’s a lawyer and after the whole ... incident, she got him put in prison.
“But I loved my stepdad, as crazy as that sounds. I was young at the time. I didn’t understand what was happening. After everything, I was so confused—still am, I guess. I don’t understand how you can trust someone with your entire body and soul, like I did my stepdad, and then they just ... betray you. Without any warning or purpose. It’s why I have a hard time trusting anyone, especially men. Whenever I do, I get hurt.” Just like when Derek cheated on me. I’d thought he was the only guy on Earth I could trust, but even he’d let me down.
I looked over at Heather then, thinking maybe I’d revealed too much. I tried to cover. “I just ... when you said Pete did something and I saw that look on your face, I’d seen it before. I’d seen my mom wearing that expression after the incident and . . .” I didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry,” I blurted. “I didn’t mean to accuse Pete.”
Heather nodded slowly. “I understand now. It’s okay.”
“But what he did was still wrong. It wasn’t physical violence, but he tried to manipulate you into having sex. You were completely right to dump him.”
Heather turned away with this sad, unsure expression on her face. “I know, but I love him. I kind of want to go see him. Talk to him about what happened.”
“Are you serious?”
“I know you won’t understand,” she said. “And I don’t expect you to after what you just told me about your stepdad. But I just feel like if I don’t, I’ll regret it forever. He was really drunk last night ... part of me thinks he didn’t even know what he was saying.”
“He’ll lie to you,” I said. “He’ll lie to get you back.”
She didn’t say anything.
“And you’ll just forgive him?” I questioned, sounding a little harsher than I intended.
“Everybody makes mistakes,” she whispered.
I could have argued that, but I didn’t. There was no point. She was going to do this no matter what I said. Trying to force her would only drive a wedge through our relationship and I really liked Heather. I just had to be there for her and try to help her as best I could.
But I would never forgive Pete. And I would never forget it, either.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said finally.
Heather nodded again and got to her feet. I followed suit, and tried to lighten the mood as I surveyed myself in the mirror—still wearing the vampire costume.
“I think I’ll just be a sexy vampire tonight,” I said pensively. “Vincent might like having someone around who’s as pale as he is.”
After that ordeal, I was pretty much spent. My brain felt like smoldering ash. I didn’t feel like doing anything, let alone going on a date.
But I’d agreed to go and I had no way of canceling, since I didn’t have Vincent’s phone number. My only other option was to stand him up, which felt too mean. All I could hope was that by the time eight o’clock came, the pain of reliving my life’s most traumatic event would have ebbed some.
I still had a few hours to kill before I had to start getting ready and I decided to take care of the laundry that had been accumulating for the past two weeks. If I didn’t do it today, I’d be stuck wearing the vampire outfit to class, which was so not happening. I gathered the mountain of clothes spilling over my hamper and plodded off to the laundry room in the common area between the dorm buildings.
I was relieved to find it deserted. The bluish, flickering light of the fluorescents above me made everything look grainy, and I could smell a thousand different kinds of laundry detergent. The floor was sticky beneath my feet as I went to the washing machines.
I set my basket on one of the dented washers, rummaged around in my pocket for some bills and went to the change machine. As I turned around with my coins, I yelped and dropped it all. Quarters rolled across the linoleum.
Lucas Whelan lounged in the corner of the room. He was sitting on a plastic chair, bent and wilting from his weight. His sandaled feet were propped up on a washing machine. He was wearing a thin, white tank top and cargo shorts. All he needed was a Mai Tai and some sunglasses and he’d fit right in on Del Mar beach. Except that his vibe was more befitting of a pro-wrestling champ—enraged and violent.
He stared at me for a moment, eyebrows cocked. Then his deep, grating voice filled the silence.
“Nice to see you alive,” he grumbled.
His sarcasm ignited my indignation immediately—I still hadn’t forgiven him for last night’s rudeness.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I snapped.
“I tell you to stay away from Stone and you get into a car with him?” He eyed me beadily. “Pretty dumb, Faith.”
“How do you even know what I did last night? You left Zydeco’s.”
He just stared at me baldly and I realized I already knew the answer. He’d been watching me. The thought made my knees weak, both because it was scary and tantalizing at the same time. But I couldn’t let him see that.
“What I do with my life is none of your business,” I said crisply and bent to pick up my fallen quarters. “Besides, I thought you wanted me to leave you alone? Why do you even care?”
“I don’t.”
“Well, good.”
I walked to my washing machine in a huff and focused fully on separating my whites from my colors and not looking at Lucas. Not thinking about his gorgeous dark eyes watching me. Not imagining them changing colors. Not picturing his big tan hands on my . . .
“You got a date tonight?” Lucas asked.
I jumped, my heart racing stupidly. It didn’t make sense that I should feel nervous around him—I practically hated him. But his presence made me jittery, almost giddy. I couldn’t stop it. I took a deep breath and tossed my clothes into the washer next to me. “Yeah, actually. How’d you know?”
“It’s Halloween. Everyone’s doing something and I just figured someone like you—you’d have a date.”
Someone like me . . . I tried to decide if that was a compliment or an insult. I decided to go with compliment to avoid another fight. But that didn’t mean I was about to reveal that I had a date with Vincent in a few hours. I decided to try and divert.
“So are you?” I asked. “Doing anything, I mean?” I looked up with a shy smile on my face to show I was trying to be friendly— not snarky—but he wasn’t looking. He was staring at his clothes in the dryer, spinning around frantically.
“Nah. I don’t much like Halloween. Too many freaks wandering around.” Lucas paused and I watched from the corner of my eye as his lips pressed together as if trying to stop himself from speaking. “You going with that Derek guy?”
I stared at him, amazed. “How do you know about Derek?”
“I got eyes.” He shrugged his monstrous shoulders.
Oh yes . . . he had eyes all right. Deep, brown, beautiful eyes that happened to turn silver whenever he looked at me.
Not that he ever looked at me.
“No,” I said. “Not Derek.”
“New guy?”
I untwisted the cap of my detergent. “Kind of.”
I saw Lucas lift his head and look at the ceiling. “Jeez, how many different ways do I gotta ask you to tell me this guy’s name?”
I laughed nervously, getting the feeling that he already knew I was going out with Vin
cent and he was just trying to get me to admit it. I tried to stall.
“I just ... I don’t think you’d like it,” I said. “Not that it matters if you do or you don’t. I don’t know.” I concentrated on pouring the Tide into the cap, but I slopped it on my hands anyway. I wiped it off, feeling fidgety and clumsy.
“Faith,” Lucas said and I looked up. My heart all but stopped when he said my name. He stood and came closer to me. He was actually looking me in the eyes, but his face was rigid, like he was silently enduring some extreme measure of pain. “Please don’t tell me you’re going on a date with Vincent tonight.”
I could feel my face set into a defiant expression. “It’s none of your business,” I said stiffly. “Butt out.”
Lucas’s jaw muscles jumped and I saw his fist clench around the top of one of the washing machines. I could swear his fingers were making impressions in the metal.
“You can’t go out with him,” he said. His voice was low and threatening and I felt my heart start to pound harder. He was so close to me. He’d never come this close. His muscled form took up all of my vision, like there was nothing in the world except for him. Nothing but Lucas.
“Why not?” I managed to ask, amidst my inner turmoil. “What’s your problem with Vincent?”
“You don’t know anything about him, but you’re willing to be alone with him—”
“He never said we’d be alone,” I interrupted. Well, there was the car ride, but I’d been fine with him last night.
Lucas’s perfectly shaped lips curled up in a snarl. “Damn it, Faith! Why won’t you just listen to me?” His eyes were molten silver, scalding my skin wherever they touched.
I felt my legs back up all by themselves.
Lucas seemed to realize he was scaring me. He closed his eyes and his face smoothed; it was stone again. Hard, emotionless stone. He unclenched his hand from the washing machine and huffed through his nose.
“Never mind,” he said. “Go ahead and go out with him if you want to so badly. Lord knows it’ll make things a whole hell of a lot easier for me.”
He whipped around and returned to his plastic chair, throwing his feet up onto the washer, just as I first found him. I stared, a touch unsettled now.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked from across the room.
“Nothin’. It doesn’t mean anything.” His eyes flew to mine and they were silver again. I gasped as he took a long blink. “You don’t mean anything,” he said so low, I could barely hear him. He opened his eyes again, but he wasn’t looking at me. Then the dryer buzzed loudly, making me jump. Lucas shoved out of his chair, swiped his clothes into a black laundry basket and strode out of the room, leaving me standing alone, clutching my dirty towels as if they were the only things in the world that made sense anymore.
8
ALL HALLOWS’ EVE
Ten minutes after eight and I was still fussing with my reflection in the mirror, regretting choosing the sexy vampire costume. The skirt was too short, the collar too high, and my hair—this was a disaster. I applied a layer of red lipstick to try and make myself look less peaked since I’d gone overboard with the white powder. But it was no use. I looked more like a rotting corpse than delicately dead, as I’d been aiming for. But I had no more time to fret.
I threw my cell phone into my purse, slid on a pair of spiky heels, and launched myself through the door. As I hit the main floor, I hoped Vincent hadn’t already left without me. Or thought I’d stood him up, which I almost did.
My conversation with Lucas that afternoon had unnerved me. Why would Lucas—a near stranger who seemed to hate me—care if I went out with Vincent Stone? Did these two have some kind of bad blood between them?
I didn’t know. But I did know that my date with Vincent was the only thing keeping me from crawling under my sheets and wallowing over my conversation with Heather earlier—not to mention discovering that my ex-best friend was dating Courtney. It was a distraction. That’s all.
I raced toward the driveway in front of my building, realizing quickly that I’d forgotten my jacket in my room. Cursing myself, and shivering uncontrollably, I turned the corner and saw Vincent standing under a street lamp next to his shiny black car. He was wearing a very peculiar costume. He looked to be some sort of warrior. His chest was bare and draped with argyle cloth that hung over his shoulder. At his side was a rusty scabbard and a fake sword. He wore leather bracers and high leather boots, scuffed with what looked like years and years of use. He looked handsome, to say the least—like a character out of Braveheart.
I walked up to him, shaking, and not just from the cold. His odd, callous vibe touched me once I was close enough, but I could also feel that he was in good spirits.
“Hello,” he said pleasantly. “Happy Halloween.” His dark eyes raked over my body appraisingly, lingering more than was totally necessary on my chest. “What are you?”
“A sexy vampire,” I said. I made a little hissing noise, trying to make a joke.
Vincent obviously thought it was hilarious because he burst out with this wild, maniacal laughter. I stared, thinking it wasn’t that funny. His mirth abated and he stroked my cheek with a gloved hand, still chuckling.
“An ironically ... appropriate choice,” Vincent approved. “But we don’t exactly match, do we?”
I shrugged. “What are you?”
“A barbarian.”
My eyes found his slim chest, perfectly sculpted and glowing underneath the moonlight. I made myself take a step away from him. I was worried I might do something impulsive. Like touch his abs.
“Yes, we should get going,” Vincent said. He bent and swung the door open for me in one fluid movement.
I got in and watched as he walked slowly around the front of the car, as though giving me time to admire the perfect gait of his step. He slipped into the driver’s seat, pushed the shifter into first gear, and sped off down the road, heading toward the highway. I wondered where we were going.
“I have to admit,” Vincent said after a moment’s tense silence, “I did not think you would show.”
I immediately thought of Lucas’s warning and admitted, “I almost didn’t.”
“Hmm, yes . . . well”—Vincent said and his lips drew up into a dry smile—“I’m certainly glad you did. It would have been most embarrassing to show up at my own party without a date.”
I turned to look at Vincent’s profile, surprised. “I didn’t know it was your party.” I didn’t even know we were going to a party, but I didn’t want to seem dense.
“Indeed. I have always been a fan of Halloween.”
Vincent exited onto a long, desolate road suffocated with countless pines on both sides. There were very few other cars.
“Are we . . . going to your house?” I asked.
“No, no, not at all. I wouldn’t subject my home to that kind of trauma,” he said with a chuckle, giving me a genial smile. “I’ve discovered the hard way that partygoers tend to leave their host with quite a bit of mess in the morning. No, I’ve rented a barn in one of the more remote areas outside of Old Town. Don’t want to wake the neighbors.” He winked at me. I usually didn’t like boys that winked—it just seemed forced or lame—but on Vincent it worked. I found myself glad I’d put on so much white powder so he couldn’t see me blush.
Twenty minutes later, Vincent turned down an unmarked dirt road. I spotted several other couples and big groups of college kids walking down the lane toward an old barn. In the light of the headlights I watched the various costumes—zombies sporting oozing wounds, petite pixies shimmering with neon glitter, pirates, sexy policewomen, and a guy who looked completely naked except for a pizza box strapped around his waist.
Vincent and I snickered at that last one.
“I always enjoy seeing how creative young minds can be,” he commented.
I giggled as Vincent pulled up amongst a gathering of parked cars lining the road. We got out and I heard the deep pounding of music from inside the
barn mingled with the occasional girl shrieking with fear. I looked up at Vincent nervously.
“Just a little entertainment for the crowds,” he explained. He put his arm around my waist as we began walking toward the barn and his vibe hit me harder than ever—anticipation.
I was starting to grow more and more nervous about what was to come. What kind of entertainment did he mean? I’d had a fear of haunted houses since middle school when one of the guys with knives lurking around grabbed me and pretended to stab me until I cried. I’d gotten him in big trouble, of course, because you’re not supposed to grab people, but the event had traumatized me.
As we drew closer, I saw a crowd of people in front of the big double doors angling to get inside. Vincent took my hand and drifted straight to the front of the crowd where a pair of gigantic men dressed as trolls stood, one of whom held a clipboard. Vincent whispered smoothly to the troll and he bent to undo the chains crisscrossing the doorway.
A high-pitched squeal from inside made my knees buckle. Vincent had to tug hard to get me to move through the doorway and away from the annoyed grumbles of the crowd.
At first, I couldn’t see much. Smoke machines fogged the place and black lights inverted all of the colors, making everything trippy and distorted. But as we went further in, the smoke dissipated. People were everywhere, sweaty and sticky with glitter glue or fake blood. Rock music blared, glowing drinks drifted around for the taking, and bodies gyrated to the grinding beat of the music. Poofy wigs, protruding costumes, spider webs, someone’s amputated arm—it was all a blur.
But I loved it.
My fear of haunted houses was obliterated by the madness. Everything was so completely abnormal that it did exactly what I’d hoped—it took away every bad feeling I’d had up until then. The ordeal with Heather—gone. The squabble with Lucas—nonexistent. Jealousy over Derek—Derek who? What did it matter when I could spend one glorious night dancing with Vincent, this indecently perfect barbarian? I could finally crawl out from my tortured thoughts, stop obsessing over what I couldn’t change, and have some fun!
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