He seemed confused, his brow knitting together. “You and I have gotten off on the wrong foot.”
“Wrong foot?” I retorted. “There was never a right foot with us.”
“Hm.” He held up his hands placidly. “Well. I hope you’ll accept my apology.”
Where on earth was this coming from? It didn’t fit at all with his character that I had seen up until this point. He was resigned, almost like he was on a leash.
Who was holding that leash?
“I could have been a lot different when we first met. I could have sold this whole thing differently to you. I mean … I really like you—have since the moment I laid eyes on you.”
Liked me for me? Or liked me for my blood?
“But … you really don’t know what you’re missing.”
His voice had become silky, almost lilting.
“And you’re going to try and sell it to me now? You gotta be joking.”
“Hear me out,” he said, and he smiled a low, smoldering smile at me.
Despite the adrenaline pumping through my brain, I felt my heart skip a beat too. I had never had a boy look at me like that before. It was almost like he actually found me attractive.
Maybe he actually did.
He stood, and crossed slowly, cautiously to me. “What I can give you is something that no other man in the world could give you.”
“An early burial?”
Byron laughed softly, his gaze drawing me in. “No. We could live together … forever.”
“The idea of spending forever with you is pretty much at the bottom of my bucket list,” I said. He flinched and the familiar flare of anger rose up in his eyes.
But he gained control of himself quickly, steadying himself with a deep breath.
“Just think of all you could do with that,” he tried again. “You would never age; you would always be as beautiful as you are right now. Though, I find it hard to believe it would be possible for you to not be beautiful at any point in your life.”
“Oh, gag me,” I said.
His teeth ground against each other. “Don’t believe me? Then how about this? Immortality would allow you to go anywhere, become anything, be anyone you wanted to be … as many times as you would want.
Vampires do everything better, you see,” he said quietly, leaning closer. His lips almost grazed my cheeks—and I stood, frozen, caught in conflict with my fear, my desire to stake him through the heart and be done with it—and the silky way he spoke, the way he looked at me, worshipping, so good-looking …
“We see better, hear better …” He smiled. “And we love better, because we can love forever.”
Goosebumps rippled up the skin on my arms.
He’s a monster, I reminded myself—and saw, again, the room full of vampires, lifting champagne flutes filled with blood, human blood, high and draining them.
Byron was one of them—another Theo.
That snapped me into action. I shoved him away from me as hard as I could, catching him off guard, and he stumbled backward.
He looked at me with a wounded expression, as if that push had been an act of ultimate betrayal.
“I would give you the entire world … and this is how you repay me?” Malice glinted in his eyes, welling up and over his hurt. He stepped toward me again.
I was aware of the vial digging into my side as I bent over, ready to fight back.
As Byron approached, his eyes on mine, I slipped it from my pocket, and flicked the stopper off with my fingernail.
“I’ve given you nothing but my affections, and you still resist me.”
“Death threats are classified as ‘affections’ now, are they?”
He growled, deep in his throat, like a threatened dog—and at the same time, I tossed the opened vial into his face.
His hands flew to his face, and an anguished sob escaped him. He sounded as if he was being strangled. He doubled over, bumping into the dresser, my bedside table.
“You … will be mine!” he snarled through his hands. “You can’t resist me in the end. You will be mine!” That was my chance. I reached up into my hair and pulled the stake free.
But as soon as I positioned myself to strike, he leapt across the short distance to the window and slipped outside into the black of the night.
Chapter 25
It took me a few minutes to gather my thoughts and energy to assess what had just happened.
Byron had been the polar opposite of how he had been before—almost civil, rather than total creeper jerk. If not for the fact I knew I had Xandra to confirm it for me, plus the dent he’d made in the bunker door, I would seriously be doubting my sanity right now.
He was gaslighting me. Now, in addition to all the worries on already my mind, he was playing psychological games, too.
I collapsed onto my bed, and stared at the vial on my hands, now empty. I lifted it to my face and sniffed. I couldn’t smell anything.
Was it holy water?
It was the only thing that I had read about online that would be remotely effective. But where had Mill gotten it? And why in the world did he give it to me? My first thought was that it was to fend off Byron—but he’d only know about him if the mystery texter passed the information on, and I was dubious about how everything connected. To deal with more Theos?
My head swam, and I had to close my eyes. Not that it helped much. The glow from my light bulb shone through my eyelids, too bright. Sulkily, I threw myself up to switch it off. Then I threw myself back down, eyes closed, trying to calm myself …
And then snatched up my phone to send a text.
Xandra, Byron was just here. No reply; and scrolling through Twitter didn’t summon one. Probably had gone to bed after all. But if she hadn’t …
He was super weird, like calm and restrained. Then I threw holy water in his face. Yeah, I’ll explain that later. That should get her attention. Facebook next … and ten minutes of newsfeed scrolling, which started mundane and grew increasingly dull, I still had no response.
I groaned into my pillow.
There was one other person that I could trust with all of this stuff going on: my mystery texter.
He just tried to get me again, I sent.
I was shocked when a message came back in less than a minute.
We need to meet. Not likely. Grounded until hell froze over, there was no way I was going to be able go anywhere to meet anyone for probably the rest of my life. I can’t, I typed, then bit my lip. Call me?
As a safety precaution, I switched it to vibrate mode, and turned the volume down.
The blanket thrown over my head was an extra precaution.
Finally, a reply: Some things have to be done in person. I’ll be on your roof in a few minutes.
Excuse me? This person was joking, right?
Panic started to set in now—and with my mystery texter apparently on the way, I turned back to my original shoulder-to-cry-on.
XANDRA PLEASE WAKE UP
I leaned up on my bed and peered out of the window. Empty yard, so at least Byron had run off to whatever crypt he slept in.
The seconds ticked, piling into minutes.
My mind raced. My mystery texter, a weird kind of savior, about to be unmasked … yet in this quiet before the storm, so to speak, I reeled at the possibilities. Another vampire, surely—I was destined to run with them, apparently, the way the past few days had gone—but who? Again, I wondered how to trust them—because how had they known so much about me? My predicament?
Three minutes passed. Then five.
At ten, my grip on the window sill was so tight I was practically an inch from ripping it from the wall.
When fifteen minutes had gone by, I sat rocking, the stake gripped tight in sweat-oiled palms. I had only one question by then, a very familiar one: Why was all of this happening to me?
None of it made any sense. There was nothing special about me.
Whenever Mystery Texter arrived, like some kind of occult Santa, it
would wake my parents, I just knew it. If, that was, Dad wasn’t lying awake right this moment, just waiting for me to try sneaking out again.
“Calm yourself, Cassie,” I murmured.
Easier said than done.
Smearing sweat off against the bedcovers, I peered out the window again. Still the yard was empty.
Didn’t mean the roof was, though.
I got up from my bed to pull the shade down back over the window when I thought I saw a shadow pass over the glass of the window.
I blinked and looked out. Nothing.
That you can see, I told myself. And if I had learned anything these past few days, it was that you can’t underestimate how sneaky vampires can me.
I sagged back against the mattress—
There was a thud, and I jumped, clapping my hand over my mouth.
My entire window was blocked by the shadowed outline of someone crouching on the windowsill.
And then came a small tap of a fingernail on glass.
Chapter 26
Looking back in at me was—I couldn’t fathom it for a moment, but yes, it was—a young woman.
She was devastatingly beautiful, with a thin face, pale skin and straight, shining hair as blonde as platinum. It was long, easily to her waist, and in the moonlight, lifted slightly by the wind, it flowed like liquid silver. Wait...hadn't I seen her at the party? Her hair, I think, at least.
She was petite and crouched on the sill like a cat. She wore a black leather jacket over a white tank, and grey skinny jeans that were torn at the knees. She had a pair of black Converse on her feet.
The part of her that was most jarring was her eyes. I could not stop staring. They were like pools of amber, wide, and most of all, sad. The sorrow that exuded from her was almost overwhelming, as if looking at her was like looking into despair itself. A wave of sympathy overflowed me, unbidden. I moved to unlock the window—
The girl smacked her fist against the glass, freezing me in place. I hoped that my parents hadn’t heard.
“I won’t ask you if I can come in,” she said, muted by the glass. Her voice was throatier than I would have expected. Alluring, sure, but where I expected elf, I heard more siren. “You should be more careful. Even opening a window for one of my kind can be perceived as an invitation, which can then ruin the sanctity of your home.”
She gave me a pointed look. “As I’m sure that you’ve already learned with Byron.”
I swallowed hard.
“Who are you?” I asked, tightening my grip around the wooden stake.
A perfectly penciled eyebrow rose on a youthful face, no older than mine, snapshotted for eternity.
“I’m you,” she said, “if Byron gets what he wants.”
Another lump in my throat, not dislodged by my swallow.
I had to remember that this was the same person who had been texting me, trying to help me. She obviously knew all about Byron, and something had obviously caused her to reach out to me and offer a hand.
The girl tossed some hair over her shoulder. “I saw you at the party tonight.”
I racked my brains. “I saw...maybe your hair. But you said you wouldn’t be there.”
“I lied.” She shook her head. “I never had the chance to approach you because you were with Mill and Theo.”
“You know them?”
She nodded.
I glared. “You seem to know everything about me. Who are you?”
“Iona. I used to be in your shoes.” She looked at me sadly. “Byron … found me, too.”
My heart fluttered. Answers. “Explain,” I said.
Iona closed her eyes.
“I was a seventeen-year-old in high school. Byron … latched onto a weakness in my heart. He could see it, even when others around me couldn’t. He’d been watching me for some time and picked up on the tension between my parents and me at home. He … understood me in a way … no one else did at the time.”
The hair on my arms stood up straight. That sounded awfully familiar.
“Byron is the definition of a romantic,” she continued, her tone taking on a darker edge. “He longs for someone to rescue,” she made air quotes with her fingers, “from the struggles in her life. He looks for girls who have issues with their parents. He takes his time, slowly chipping away at them. It gives him control.”
“He likes the control for sure,” I murmured.
“You don’t even know the half of it,” Iona spat, and I recoiled from her.
She suddenly flinched and went rigid and looked over her shoulder down at the lawn. I couldn’t see past her, but I tried to.
Satisfied, she returned her gaze to me a moment later. “It’s not him, if that is what you were thinking. He shouldn’t bother us at all tonight. Not after the drink you gave him.” A smirk lifted the corners of her lips at that, a respectful sidelong look at me. She went on, “You and I are not the first that have gone through this with him. He’s left a long, bloody trail in his wake. An endless string of Juliets he’s tried to woo.”
“Juliets?” I asked, feeling a sense of dread creep into my bones.
She nodded. “He thinks he’s Romeo, of course. Looking for that star-crossed lover deal.”
I bit my lip. “So he does have feelings for me …”
Iona rapped a finger against the glass.
“This is exactly how he pulls you in. It always starts this way. And trust me, I’ve traced them back quite a ways. He drives all of them crazy, eventually, and one of two things happens.” She held up two fingers, then counted them off: “They either completely lose their grip on reality, or they come to see ‘reason’ and become his next ‘object of affection,’ as he would call it.”
My mouth was dry. So this was what was ahead of me. I could see it. I had already started trying to rationalize things, even when I could feel my own grip on the world starting to slip—had already started to see some twisted sweetness in the way he behaved, falling into the trap of his good looks …
“Some have actually gone insane,” Iona continued. “The whole nine yards; hospitalized, on meds. One girl took her own life.”
“So he just, what?” I asked, “Pries girls loose from their reality, from their sanity, and they either lose their minds or fall in love with him?”
Iona nodded her head solemnly.
“What happened to you?” I asked. I had to know—had to find out—because it was coming for me too if I couldn’t stop him.
“I joined him,” she said, and then laughed bitterly. “Too strong-willed to go nuts, I guess. We were together for a few years—and honestly, even though I hate myself for it—they were the best years of my life.”
I recoiled from the window. “How can you say that?”
Iona shrugged. “He knows how to treat a woman. I traveled all over the world with him, saw things I would never have thought possible. He made me promise after promise, many of which he kept. But those things never last …”
So she was a bitter ex … whatever Byron had in mind for me. “Does he do it on purpose?” I asked. “Charm a girl, knowing he’s going to eventually leave her?”
Iona shook her head. “No. He truly believes that every new one he drives mad is the one he’s supposed to spend the rest of his life with. Romeo and Juliet, remember?”
“Except the story ends in a double suicide,” I said. “Not exactly love-life goals … for most of us, anyway.”
“It is if you can’t die, and are always as young as he is,” she replied.
“Byron was violent and pretty dominating the last time he was here,” I said. “And the time before that was when I met him, when he chased my friend and me until we were cornered.” I shuddered. “What would have happened if he had caught us?”
Iona shrugged her shoulders, and casually replied, “Probably bled you both dry, without a care.”
“But then why—”
“You got away,” Iona finished for me. “Instantly, you turned yourself into a challenge. You got his atten
tion.”
“So this is my fault?” I asked. “What should I have done, let him kill me?”
“Of course not,” Iona said. “He’s fickle, but like many other idiot, immature men, he tends to fixate. He’s perpetually a teenage boy. Don’t forget that.”
“But tonight he was different,” I said, much more quietly. “He tried to persuade me—make me think he was the good guy, like he understood me or something.”
“Not surprised. That’s how he works,” she replied. “Mind games, he enjoys them. It’s all psychological to him. He may be a teen, but he is clever. You ever hear of the Joker?”
I snorted. “Who hasn’t?”
“Harley Quinn. She started off as a nice girl, right? And we all wonder why she fell in love with the Joker.”
“Stockholm syndrome,” I said. “Yeah, I’ve read about that.”
“He basically makes it so that whoever he chooses feels like it’s him or nothing in the end.”
This was exactly what was happening to me. It didn’t matter how I looked at it. Byron’s appearance in my life had done more to drive a wedge between my parents and me than anything I had ever done in New York. That simple truth was shocking, but also enlightening.
This is what Byron has done to me. I am sneaking out at night to find answers, and then getting caught, stuck in a cycle because I can’t tell them.
Distance, more lying, anger, desperation.
“There will be other things,” Iona said. “He’ll show up at places where you are with your parents. He’ll make it obvious that if you don’t come with him for a little while, he will kill them in front of you.”
The strength threatened to run out of my legs. “What?”
“Or he’ll send one of his minions to collect you from school. Push you. Pull you.”
This was way worse than I had thought.
“Until,” she continues, “he breaks you. One way or another.”
Sweat chilled my skin. This girl was telling me the truth. I could see it in her eyes.
“How do I stop it?” I asked, voice quavering—and I slammed my hands on the cool glass of the window. “What can I do? How long do I have?”
No One Will Believe You Page 14
