* * *
After
I'd made it over the river, I didn't have much trouble tracking Lucas on my
own. It was dark, and I didn't have the extrasensitive sight or hearing of true
vampires. However, it was obvious that he was going into Riverton, and at this
point, there were only so many routes he could take that weren't far out of his
way. Lucas would know that he didn't have much time to waste, and he'd want to
get away as fast as possible.
I'd spent a while at the bus station with Raquel before she left for Christmas,
after Lucas was already gone. Although she'd been eager to get out of
Evernight, her family wouldn't be home until late, so we'd waited for a later
bus—one that left for the Boston area at 8:08. It was almost 8 now. I felt
certain that Lucas was going to try to be on that next bus. The one after that
one probably wasn't for another couple of hours, and that was too much leeway.
Mrs. Bethany and the others would have him for sure by then. The Boston bus was
Lucas's only real chance at escape.
The downtown area was almost entirely deserted. No cars sped down the streets,
and the few businesses that had bothered staying open appeared to be empty.
Nobody wanted to be out on a night like this. With my hair plastered to my
scalp with rain, I couldn't blame them. I looked in a couple of the open
businesses, including the shop where we'd found the brooch. Lucas wasn't there.
No,
I realized.
He knows that's where they'd look first.
I knew then that I had an advantage over Mrs. Bethany and my parents, something
that even their centuries of experience and supernatural senses couldn't give
them. I knew Lucas; that meant I knew what he'd do.
They, too, would probably guess that Lucas wouldn't try to hide in public. They
might even make the next inference I made, which was that Lucas would hide as
close to the bus station as possible, so he wouldn't be exposed in town for
long before he could jump on the bus and make his getaway. However, the bus
station was in the dead center of town. A dozen shops surrounded it, and as far
as they knew, Lucas might be in any one of them.
Lucas had gone with me to see an old movie and bought me the brooch at the vintage
clothing shop. And he had said that he loved me.
Which meant that maybe, just maybe, he would have chosen the same place to hide
that I would have.
I walked toward the antiques store on the southeastern corner of the square,
jumping over puddles as I went. Any doubts I might've had about my hunch
vanished as soon as I reached the store's back door and saw that it had been
left slightly ajar.
Slowly I pushed it open. The hinges didn't squeak, and I trod carefully upon
the wooden floorboards. With the lights out, the darkness was nearly complete
inside. I could barely discern the shapes of the strange items that surrounded
me. At first I didn't trust my eyes: a suit of armor, a stuffed fox, a cricket
bat. I realized that the jumble wasn't meaningless. These objects were the
antique store's spare inventory, the things fewer people would want to buy. It
felt completely surreal, as if I'd somehow fallen into a bad dream while wide
awake.
At first I tried to keep quiet, but as I stepped farther inside, I realized
that could be dangerous. Lucas might hurt anyone else who was coming after him,
but I still believed that he wouldn't hurt me.
"Lucas?"
No answer.
"Lucas, I know that you're here." Still no reply, but I could tell
now that I was being watched. "I'm alone. They aren't far behind. If you
have anything to say to me, you'd better say it now."
"Bianca."
Lucas said it as a sigh, like he was too tired to hold it back any longer. I peered
through the darkness but couldn't see him; I knew only that his voice came from
someplace ahead.
"Is it true? What they're saying about you?"
"Depends on what they're saying." I heard footsteps now, coming
slowly toward me.
I laid one shaking hand on the nearest thing I could use to steady myself, a
chair slipcovered in threadbare velvet. "They said that you're a member of
some group called Black Cross. Vampire hunters. That you've been lying to
m—lying to us all along."
"All true." Lucas sounded wearier than I'd ever heard him. "Were
you telling the truth when you said you were alone? Won't blame you if you
weren't."
"I only ever lied to you once. I'm not doing that again now."
"Once? I can think of a lot of times you just 'neglected' to mention you
were a vampire."
"Like you didn't say you were a vampire hunter!" I could've slapped
him.
My fury didn't seem to move him at all. "I guess so. I guess it's the same
kind of thing, in the end."
"I told you the whole truth in that e-mail! I didn't hold anything
back!"
"Because you got caught. Doesn't count, and you know it."
Why did he keep pretending we were the same? "I didn't choose to be what I
am. You—you people plot to hunt down my family, my friends—"
"I didn't choose this either, Bianca." His voice was rough, as if he
were choking up, and my anger dissolved into another emotion, one I couldn't
name. Lucas took another couple of steps forward. When I squinted into the
dark, I glimpsed his outline several feet away. "Not who or what I am, not
even coming to Evernight."
"You chose to be with me." Though he'd tried to talk me out of it,
hadn't he? Only now did I understand why.
"Yeah, I did. And I know I've hurt you. I'm sorry for that. You're the
last person in the world I ever wanted to hurt."
He sounded completely sincere. I wanted to believe him as badly as I'd ever
wanted anything in my life. After the night's revelations, though, I was done
taking anything on faith. "Can you just tell me why?"
"It would take a long time to explain, and we don't have much time
left."
The 8:08 bus to Boston. I glanced down at my watch; the hands, phosphorescent,
told me we had no more than five minutes left.
I walked toward Lucas, my hands in front of me to feel my way. My fingers
brushed against ostrich feathers, dusty with age, and something slender, hard
and cool, perhaps a brass bed frame. Lucas dodged to the left, behind a
panel—but no, I could see through that a little. As I got closer to him, I realized
that the panel was a stained glass window.
This was the front room of the antiques store, and it was both less crowded and
slightly brighter. Greenish watery light from the streetlamps trickled through
to us. Lucas remained behind the stained glass window. Was he afraid of me?
Ashamed to face me? Instead of circling around the panel, I walked to the
opposite side of it, so that we saw each other through the tinted panes of
glass. Lucas's face was cut into four squares of color, and his eyes were dark
and haunted.
For a moment, neither of us knew what to say. Then Lucas gave me a sad smile.
"Hey."
"Hey." I smiled, too, then nearly started to cry.
"Please, don't."
"I won't." One sob escaped me, but then I swallowed hard and bit down
on the side of my tongue. As always, the taste of blood gave me strength.
"Am I in danger?"
Lucas shook his head. Through the glass his face was the color of jewels—topaz,
sapphire, and amethyst. "Not from me. Never from me."
"Tell it to Erich."
"So you found him." Lucas didn't sound even slightly sorry.
"Erich was stalking Raquel. Remember? When I heard her talking about her
lost bracelet, I knew she'd run out of time. Stealing possessions is a classic
sign of a vampire stalker getting ready to strike. Erich wanted to kill her,
and, given a chance, he would have done it. Deep down, I think you realize
that."
It scared me that I believed him. If I hadn't tasted Erich's blood and felt his
malevolence for myself, maybe I wouldn't have. But I had seen the evil in
Erich's mind, and I suspected that Lucas was telling the truth, at least about
this. "It's still hard to think about."
"I realize that. I know it's got to be tough for you to understand."
"Tell me what I need to know."
Lucas was quiet for a while, and I wasn't sure that he would answer me. At the
moment when I was ready to give up, though, he began to speak. "At the
start I lied to you for the same reason you lied to me. Black Cross is a secret
I've kept all my life, something my mother signed me up for when I was
born." Lucas's voice was distant now, lost in his own memories. "They
taught me to fight. Taught me discipline. Sent me on missions as soon as I was
old enough to hold a stake."
I remembered what Lucas had told me in the past about his mother being hard
core, and about how he sometimes felt he didn't get to make decisions for
himself. At long last, I understood what he'd really meant. Even when he was
five years old, running away from home, he had brought a weapon.
"At first I thought you were one of the other human students at the
school. When you told me about your parents, I thought that they'd killed your
real parents and adopted you. I figured you didn't know what they really
were." His eyes met mine through the stained glass, and his smile was sad.
"I told myself to stay away for your sake, but I couldn't. It was like you
were a part of me almost from the second we met. Black Cross would've told me
to push you away, but I was tired of pushing everyone away. Once in my life I wanted
to be with someone without worrying about what it meant for Black Cross. To
live like a regular person for a little while. After that first conversation we
had—would you believe I thought you were such a nice, normal girl?"
That was both the funniest and the saddest thing I'd ever heard. "You know
better now."
"What you are—it doesn't matter to me. I told you that already, and I was
telling the truth when I said it." He turned toward the window, so that I could
see his profile and the worry deeply etched there. "There's more to say,
but the bus is about to go—Dammit, maybe I can catch a later one—"
"No!" I pressed one of my hands against the stained glass. Although I
still didn't know if I could ever trust Lucas again, I knew now that I could
never hurt him, much less stand by while Mrs. Bethany and my parents tried to
kill him. "Lucas, the others aren't far behind me. Don't wait. Go quickly."
Lucas should've run out of there that instant. Instead he stared at me through
the glass and slowly unfolded his hand opposite mine so that our hands were
pressed against the same pane of glass, finger to finger, palm to palm. We each
moved closer, so that our faces were only a few inches apart. Even with the
stained glass window between us, it felt as intimate as any kiss we'd shared.
Quietly he said, "Come with me."
"What?" I blinked, unable to grasp what he was asking me to do.
"You mean—run away from home? For real? Like you told me to do on that
first day?"
"Just so I can talk to you about everything that's happened and—and so we
can say good-bye like we should instead of—" Lucas swallowed, and I realized
for the first time that he was just as upset and scared as I was. "I've
got enough money to buy us both tickets out of town. Later I can get more money
to send you home again if you want. We can go right this second. Run across the
street, hop on the bus. We'll get out of here together."
"Are you going to turn me over to Black Cross?"
"What? No!" Lucas honestly sounded like he'd never considered that.
"As far as any human can tell, you're human. I'll take care of you if
you'll just come with me."
Slowly I said, "Tell me one thing before I answer."
Lucas looked wary. "Okay. Ask."
"You said you loved me. Were you telling the truth?"
If he'd lied about everything else, even his name, I thought I could handle it,
as long as I knew this.
He breathed out, not quite a laugh or a sob. "God, yes. Bianca, I love you
so much. Even if I never see you again, even if we walk out of here into an
ambush you set up with your parents, I am always going to love you."
In the midst of all the lies, at last I had one thing that was true.
"I love you, too," I said. "We have to run."
As I sank onto the seat of the bus, trembling with
exhaustion, I said, "We made it."
Lucas shook his head. "Not yet."
The bus jerked into motion, rolling slowly onto the road. We had been the last
passengers to board; another three minutes, and we would have lost our chance
to escape. "I know my parents are fast, but I don't think they can catch a
bus on the highway."
An older lady a few rows ahead of us glanced backward, obviously wondering what
the hell we were talking about. Lucas gave her his most charming smile, which
made her dimple up and turn back to her novel. Then he took my hand and led me
to the very back of the near-empty bus, where we could speak freely without any
of the other passengers overhearing talk about vampires.
Lucas slid into the seat next to the window. I thought he might take me in his
arms, but he remained tense, staring at the water-blurred glass. "We
haven't made it out of here until we make it past that overpass. The one three
miles out of town."
I didn't know what he was talking about. Obviously Lucas had made a more
thorough tactical survey of the area than I had. "What do you think they
would do? Stand in the middle of the road and make the bus stop?"
"Mrs. Bethany's not stupid." He never took his eyes from the window.
Passing streetlights illuminated him in soft blue, then dimmed as we passed
them, casting us back into shadow. "Yeah, they might've followed me into
town. But she might've figured out that I was going to take the bus. If she
did, her hunting party is going be to waiting on that overpass. They'll jump
down on the bus, snatch me out, let the cops try to explain it to the
passengers later."
"They wouldn't!"
"To stop a Black Cross hunter? You bet your ass they would."
"If you're with this Black Cross, why did you come to Evernight
Academy?"
"I was sent to infiltrate the school. It was my assignment. You don't
refuse Black Cross assignments. You get them done or die trying."
The dull certainty with which Lucas said this frightened me as much as anything
about vampires ever had. "Did you guys just now learn about the
school?"
"Black Cross has known what Evernight was almost since it was founded.
Those places, where the vampires stay—"
"Where
we
stay."
"Whatever. That's where vampires do the least damage. Nobody wants to
create a scene or make people nearby suspicious; vampires always control
themselves in those areas. They don't hunt, don't cause trouble. If vampires
acted like that all the time, there would be no need for Black Cross."
"Most vampires don't hunt," I insisted.
The bus hit a pothole, jarring us all, and fear made me gasp out loud. Lucas
put one hand on my knee to steady me, but he turned his eyes back toward the
window. We were almost out of Riverton at this point, getting closer to the
overpass every second. "Remember what you said to me at the antique
shop?" he muttered. "Tell it to Erich. He was damn sure hunting
Raquel."
How could I make him understand? I cast around for an example I could use.
"You like hamburgers, right?"
"We have seriously got to go over the right and wrong times for small
talk. Dinner party, yes. Five minutes from a vampire ambush, no."
"Hear me out. Would you eat a hamburger if there was any chance it could
punch you in the face?"
"How is a hamburger supposed to punch me in the face?"
"Just say that it can." This was no time to bicker about metaphors.
"Would you bother? Or would you eat something else?"
Lucas considered this for a couple of seconds. "Leaving aside the
weirdness of a hamburger that can attack—which is a lot of weirdness to leave
aside—no, I guess I wouldn't."
"And this is why most vampires don't attack humans. Humans hit back. They
scream. They throw up. They call nine-one-one on their cell phones. One way or
another, humans cause more trouble than they're worth. It's a lot easier to buy
blood from butcher shops or eat small animals. Most people always take the easy
way, Lucas. I know you're cynical enough to understand that much at
least."
"Nice and practical. I bet you told me just the way your parents told you.
But you never said that killing people is wrong."
I hated that he'd recognized the explanation as my parents' and not my own. I hated
that I only had their word to go on. "That goes without saying."
"Not for a lot of vampires, no, it doesn't. What you say makes sense, but
it's not as reassuring as you think. One of us is wrong about how many vampires
kill people, but I
know
that a lot of people get killed. I've seen it
happen. Have you?"
"No, never. My parents—they're not like that. They'd never hurt
anyone."
"Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it's not real."
"Have you seen it?" I challenged him.
My stomach sank as he nodded. Then he said the worst thing he could've said.
"They got my father."
"Oh, my God."
Lucas stared at the window, even more tense than he had been before. We had to
be very close to the overpass now. "I wasn't there for that. I was just a
little kid. Hardly even remember him. But I've seen vampires attack other
people, and I've seen the bodies they've left behind. It's horrible, Bianca.
More horrible than I think you realize, maybe even more than you can imagine.
Your parents only ever showed you the pretty side. There's an ugly side, too."
"Maybe you've only seen the ugly side. Maybe you're the one who doesn't
understand the real balance." My stomach was churning, and my fingers
tightened on the back of the empty bus seat in front of me. Were we about to
have to fight for our lives? "If my parents hid the full truth from me,
maybe your mother hid the full truth from you."
"Mom doesn't pretty things up. Trust me on this." Lucas breathed out.
"Get ready."
The bus took a sharp turn, shaking the few passengers from side to side.
Through the blur of rain, I could see the overpass lights coming up. I squinted
at the darkness, trying to make out shapes or movement, some hint that Mrs.
Bethany might be waiting there for us.
Lucas took a deep breath. "Love you."
"Love you, too."
Two more seconds, and the bus rumbled beneath the overpass. Nothing happened.
Mrs. Bethany had led the group into town after all.
"We made it," I whispered.
He folded me in his embrace. As Lucas sagged against my shoulder, I realized
for the first time how exhausted he was and how frightened he had really been.
I combed through his wet hair with my fingers to soothe him. There was time to
have arguments later, to talk about Evernight and Black Cross and everything
else that divided us. For now, all that mattered was that we were safe.