by Yvette Ford
Ronnie held up his hands and looked over his shoulder a few times toward the door. “Hold on, Tanesha. I’ll tell you if you shut up. But first we gotta get out of here before they catch us. Do you really want all your blood drained out to feed those creatures? Or do you want to trust me and let me get you out of here?”
I crossed my arms scowling at him. “Well it’s not trust I feel for you, you can believe that.”
He looked hurt. I turned away.
“Fine, get me out of here, but then you’re talking, Ronnie. Or whatever your name is. No more lies. And the minute I get my hands on my dad...no, never mind. I don’t ever want to see him again.”
For a minute, I thought Ronnie was going to change me into apple butter, but instead, he scrunched up his face and wiggled his fingers in the direction of the door. A white light came out of his fingers and raced over to the lock. My eyes bugged so hard it hurt. That was the same white light I had seen that night when Lorcan attacked me and Ronnie came to save me. Now I knew. He had used it then too, and Lorcan said we had to be careful of the grunts because they could use magic. This was a taste of it.
The lock clicked, and Ronnie hurried over to it, checked the hall, and then looked back with his hand out to me. In that moment, I remembered how I had kissed him when we were younger. He’d known then that he wasn’t human. Gross! Shaking my head to get that icky thought out of it, I took his hand, and we moved to the hallway. We tiptoed along with every muscle in my body tense and hurting. My throat was dry, and the palm in Ronnie’s was soaking wet.
Whispers started in my head the moment we left the room. Ronnie stopped walking and looked at me with fear in his eyes. “Don’t think.”
“What?” I frowned at him.
“Don’t think anything, but don’t try to block them out either. If they feel the barrier, someone will come. Right now they’re asleep, but they’re always aware of each other. They’re connected through their thoughts, and you are too, even more so here in this house. If you start thinking about escape or what we’re doing, they’ll know.”
I nodded. “I get it. And if I try to block them out, they’ll know that too. Crap, I hate this. I don’t want to be like them.”
Ronnie shook his head. “It was my longing to be like them that got me in this mess in the first place.” I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but he turned and started walking again. If he was so magic, why didn’t he just blink us out of there?
“Because he can’t.”
I gasped. Ronnie and I turned around, and there was Lorcan. He tapped his head. “You’re thinking, Tanesha.”
Ronnie gave me an accusing look.
“Sorry.”
Lorcan reached his hand out to me. “Come here.”
A feeling like I can’t describe, like I had to be close to him, came over me. I took a step in Lorcan’s direction, but Ronnie jumped ahead of me and blocked the way. “You don’t care about her. You just want to use her so you can walk in the daylight.”
Lorcan’s eyes turned coal black, and his nostrils flared while his fangs lowered. “Get out of the way, slave.”
I gasped at the evil in his voice. “Lorcan!”
He didn’t even look at me. “Do you think you’re any better than I am? You who have lied to her all this time? You who made a deal with a vampire to become like us? Fool! You can’t be like us. Only a human can become the undead, not grunts. You learned that when? Four hundred years ago?”
I stumbled over to the wall and held on. “Four hundred years?”
Shame on Ronnie’s face let me know it was true. “Tanesha, let me take you somewhere safe, and I’ll explain everything.”
“I don’t believe you!”
He took a step in my direction, but a whiff of air blew between us. I was slammed against a hard chest and assumed that Lorcan had got tired of waiting for me to come to him. I clung to him and closed my eyes, my mind in a whirl. I wanted to sleep because I’d been up all night. I wanted to cry because every single person I knew had betrayed me except my mother, and I would not have been surprised at that point if she didn’t have her own secrets.
Not until we had moved straight through the house, down to the garage where I had come in the limo, and he had busted the lock on the door leading outside into the sunshine, did I realize whoever had me could not be Lorcan. I looked up and saw my dad. He appeared just the same, his dark sunglasses in place, his tailored suit fitting him to a tee. Just one problem. The world whizzed by us at lightning speed. Jett hadn’t lied. My dad was a full blown day walking vampire.
Chapter Ten
“Tanesha, come here to me.”
I jumped up and screamed. A hand fell on my arm, and I jerked away until I realized I was in a house I didn’t recognize, and the person touching me was my dad. “Where am I?”
“A safe house,” he told me. “Here, drink this.”
I took the cup he held out and smelled it. The scent reminded me of grape juice, one of my favorite drinks, but I didn’t trust my him. “What did you add to it, Dad?”
He glared at me and looked like he was about to lecture me on obeying him but seemed to change his mind. The bunched eyebrows he had lowered over his nose went back in place, and he sighed and sat down on the bed beside me. “There’s a red pill in there.”
“So the others can’t get in my head.”
“Yes.” He ran a hand over his face and scratched at the slight beard on his face. His facial hair had always grown fast, and he had to shave twice a day if he wanted to be clean-shaven. I had always liked the scraggly look on him. It made him look less like he was perfect because I wasn’t. “I should have protected you better,” he muttered. “Or sent you away.”
“Protect me how?” I sipped at the drink. “With Ronnie?”
He nodded. “Yeah, and Nita Knowles.”
“Mrs. Knowles!” The juice slipped from my fingers and would have hit the floor, but my dad was fast. He caught the cup, even the sloshes that had gone over the edges. He pressed it back in my hand and guided it to my lips. I had no choice but to chug it down. Soon Lorcan’s voice, which I still heard in the back of my mind, would fade away. I wanted to cry because everything inside me wanted to go to him, and not because I was glamoured. “What do you mean Mrs. Knowles? She’s an old lady, isn’t she? Plus, she went back in her house when Lorcan attacked me that first night. She didn’t even try to help.”
I started to cover my mouth because I forgot I hadn’t shared everything with my dad, but he didn’t look surprised. Then I realized that Ronnie, or even Mrs. Knowles, must have already reported what had happened that night.
He stood up and paced over to the window. I noticed when he opened the curtain that it was starting to get dark. The vampires would get up for the night and be hungry. Maybe they would all go down to that room ready to feast on my blood. I shivered.
“Don’t think like that,” my dad told me.
I blinked. “Say what? You read my mind? But the pill...”
He grinned. “First of all, you’re my daughter. We share a connection, no matter what. And second, the red pill is partly an extract from my blood.” He waved his hand. “I won’t go into details.”
I crossed my hands over my chest and stood up to face him. “Thanks for that.”
“Suffice it to say, the pill does not block me, or any other advanced day walker, if there were any.”
My eyes widened. “You’re the last?”
He shook his head and smiled. “No, you are.”
“I’m not! I’m nothing like...” I stopped and looked away. “What does Mrs. Knowles have to do with it? Is she a grunt too?”
I didn’t think he was going to answer at first, but then he focused on the street below the window. “Yes, she’s also a grunt, Ronnie’s sister actually.” Spots danced in front of my eyes. He went on not even knowing I was about to pass out flat on my face. “She’s not an old lady. She changed herself to look like that and has been living next door to your mothe
r for many years. I influenced your mother to buy that house because I knew I had already set things in place to be sure you were protected.”
“Influenced. That’s a good word for it, Dad.”
“Watch your attitude, Tanesha.”
“Why should I? For all I know I might not even be your daughter. And if you were so worried about me, why did you leave? Why did you divorce my mother? Was she too human for you?”
He was across the room in a heartbeat and took me by my arms. I thought he was going to throw me or hit me. He didn’t do either one. “Little girl, you don’t know anything about it. You’re still brand new. You don’t know what it’s like to be an immortal. Divorce? Try marrying over and over because your wife grows old and dies. The one time I turned my wife, it was disastrous. You know why?”
I felt ill. “Dad, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry.”
“The same reason I did not have any children or turn a wife for hundreds of years is because of what’s happening now. My wife, my children, become day walkers, and then they become fair game to all the others who want what we have.” He let me down, and I moved away from him, rubbing my arms. “You can’t know the loneliness, Tanesha. I’m not going to let you know it. They want warmth. They want families, children. They collect teenagers and turn them, pretending they are their children. You’ve seen Gardene.”
I frowned. “Gardene?”
He nodded. “The red-headed female vampire. She turned Adrienne because she looked like her, but Adrienne hates her. They want to be able to have children and go out in the day. They want to eat regular food like humans do. They think it will ward off the cold loneliness of what they are.”
“Wow, can’t get darker than that. Why don’t they walk into the sun or something?” I asked.
He smirked. “Would you?”
“Heck no. I’m not crazy.”
“Neither are they.”
I sucked my teeth. “Says you.” I tried to process all that he said, and I wanted to ask questions, but before I could, something popped, and the next thing I knew, a knock came at the door. I stiffened, but my dad acted like he’d been expecting it. He opened the door, and Ronnie walked in. I glared. “What no oozing this time?”
“Tanesha,” my dad warned. I didn’t say anything. “I’m going out for a little while. I’ll be back in a couple hours.”
I ran up to him and grabbed his arm. “So what, I’m supposed to be a prisoner here now? I have a life, Dad. And school’s starting in a couple weeks. What am I going to do then?”
“We’ll talk about that later.”
He slammed the door closed and was gone. I spun to face Ronnie. “What are you, my babysitter? What about your sister?”
His eyes widened. “You know about her?”
“Yeah. My dad didn’t say much, but he told me Mrs. Knowles is your sister. So you knew that too when we went to her house that first night. Tell me something, you didn’t call the police at all, did you?”
He stared at the floor. “No.”
“I can’t stand you.” I didn’t look at him but climbed back on the bed and folded my legs up so I could rest my knees on my chin. “Did you report to him that you left me plenty of times when you were all caught up in Adrienne and Butterfly’s face?”
“I wasn’t.”
I didn’t bother looking up.
“All of that was part of my cover. I had to be the typical human boy, crazy over girls. Your dad said I couldn’t be the popular kind because then you would want me.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Please, don’t fool yourself.”
“I had to be a nerd and get close to you. Be your friend.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks. “How did he know it would work?”
“He didn’t. I would be whoever you needed to be your friend. If Ronnie didn’t work, Rochelle would, or Rhonda.”
I wasn’t even going there with all the R names. Maybe his real name was Rodkzzk, and he wanted to stick with that letter. I had no idea if grunts had regular names like we did. I mean like humans did. I wasn’t even a full one. I cried harder. No matter how much I did, no matter how many tears fell, I couldn’t go back to my innocent life where it was just me and my friend, hanging out, doing nothing, making fun of other people or going to the movies. All that was gone, shot out the water, and it was my dad’s fault. Because of who he was. Right at that moment, I hated his guts. I wanted to be normal, but it was impossible. I almost wished the vampires had gotten me. Then I wouldn’t have to sit here and feel sorry for myself, getting on my own nerves.
“Why did Mrs...I mean, your sister, why did she leave me?”
Anger filled Ronnie’s eyes. “She was bribed. Jett convinced her that the secret to making her a vampire was in your blood, and after years of research, he found out how to do it. He said if she let them take you, he would make sure she was the first grunt to be turned.”
“I don’t have an endless supply, for crap sake,” I screamed. “Didn’t anybody show up in biology or even health class?”
Ronnie looked like he pitied me. “If you were a full vampire, whenever you take blood into you, it would be like making an antidote for them. That blood would become your blood. Then just like that, they could draw it out and use it. I don’t know how they use it or if whatever changes they can make happen to them would last, but I know they would use you over and over.”
I was only half listening. My brain couldn’t hear anymore, or I’d go out of my damn mind. “Did you care even a little bit about me? Was I your friend a little?”
He came over and pulled my hand off my leg. I tried to get away, but he held on and looked into my eyes with these big old fake brown eyes. They might have been fake, but I got the feeling the emotion was real. “You are still my best friend, Tanesha. I’ve been around for a long time, and I haven’t met anyone who could put up with me like you.”
I grinned. “Okay, loser. Fine. But how do I know the spell or the hex or whatever my dad did to you isn’t making you say that?”
“You don’t.” He shrugged. “I don’t either for that matter. Everybody says grunts are just evil, and they say that about vampires too, but do you think your dad doesn’t love you?”
“Bad example.”
“Okay.” He glanced at me through eyes that were suddenly dark and curious. “What about Lorcan? Is he all evil?”
I leaned back on the bed and closed my eyes. “Don’t even go there, Ronnie. Now leave me alone. I didn’t sleep enough.”
* * * *
He was calling me, Lorcan was. I couldn’t hear him in my head, but I knew just as surely he was calling me. I sensed it somehow, but there was no sound in my mind except my own thoughts. I woke and sat up in bed, glancing around the room. No light shown through the window, and I figured Ronnie had closed the shade to block out the moon. When I listened hard, I picked up his quiet breathing. He was sleeping. For a minute, I wondered if he slept in his shifted form, or if he went back to his natural state.
Aside from that, what about his older brother? I shivered. Eww, I had been lusting over his brother. Gross! Probably another grunt. His cover story had been that his brother was raising him because his mother died. Did he even have a dad? Was that guy his brother? I had asked the questions, but Ronnie acted like he didn’t want to tell me anything. Grunts were secretive, like shadows in dark alleys. You never knew how much was hidden in them.
I stood up and crept over to the door. With my hand on the knob, I waited to see if he would wake up, but he continued to snore softly. I slipped out and was soon on the street. Okay, I know what you’re thinking. Scary movie, the idiot goes out alone, and all that? Yes, that was me. But I couldn’t stay away from Lorcan. I couldn’t help myself. Maybe he had done something to my head, or it could be I really did love him. But I had to find out if his feelings were real.
I knew while I strolled down the city street, crowded even at this time of night, that I was risking getting caught by the other vampires, but I was will
ing to take that chance. Maybe if they couldn’t get in my head, they wouldn’t be able to track me. Everybody had kept talking about how I had some kind of protection, and I realized it was the two grunts on me, plus my dad’s protection. Not one of the others, no matter how old they were, was as powerful as he was, and I had begun to think they resented him for it and the walking in the daylight thing.
I considered going back to the lake but thought that would be too obvious to the others, so I went to the park instead. We’d only met there once, and there wasn’t much to the place, not like we had jumped each other there. I shivered thinking that way and laughed nervously.
