* * *
I hadn't been to Boston since I was very small. Dimly I remembered
what it was like to be in a city rather than the countryside—noise and trash,
asphalt and traffic signs instead of earth and trees, and lights everywhere,
bright enough to hide the stars forever. Though I braced myself for a seemingly
inevitable panic attack, by the time we got to our destination—an area on the
outskirts of town, and so far as I could tell one of the skeevy
neighborhoods—it was late, and we were exhausted. I wasn't scared; I was only
numb.
"We should figure out what we're going to do tonight." Those were the
first words Lucas had spoken to me since we got off the bus. Our hands still
tightly clasped, we wove our way through the shifty-looking characters. They
wore clothes that were too large, laughed too loud, and stared sharply at every
car that rounded the street corners. "It's going to be morning before
anybody picks us up."
"Picks us up? Who's picking us up?"
"Somebody from Black Cross will come. Once I broke in the antique store, I
used their phone, left a message that I was headed here. I'll call back and
tell them where to pick us up, once we know ourselves."
"I don't want to walk around this neighborhood for too long." I cast
a suspicious glance at a broken-out window.
"Bianca, think." Lucas stopped in his tracks and, for the first time
all night, looked like his old snarky self. "Who should be afraid here? Us
or them?"
Why would these people be scared of me?
Then it hit me, the punch line
to the joke of my life:
I'm a vampire.
I started to giggle, and Lucas joined in. When I lost control, tears welling in
my eyes, he wrapped his arms around me and hugged me tight.
I'm a vampire. Everybody's scared of me. ME. And Lucas? He's the only guy
who can scare vampires. All these rough-looking people—if they knew—they'd run
for their lives.
When I could breathe again, I stepped back from Lucas and tried to examine our
situation calmly. It was hard to think about anything besides him, though, and
how lost we were. The fluorescent streetlight drained all the brightness from
Lucas's bronze hair, so that it looked simply brown. Maybe it was exhaustion
that made his face so pale and drawn; I could only imagine how tired I looked.
"It's nearly midnight. Where are we going to stay?" My cheeks flushed
with heat as I realized what I'd said—which sounded a lot like an invitation
for Lucas and me to spend the night together. Then again, hadn't we run off
together? Maybe it was natural for him to assume that we'd go to bed. Maybe it
would've been natural for
me
to assume that, and there had been times
I'd wanted to be with him too desperately to sleep. Tonight, though, on top of
everything that had just happened, the prospect only made me feel awkward and nervous.
Lucas seemed to have realized our predicament at the same moment I had. "I
haven't got my credit cards with me. Kinda left in a hurry. We just spent the
only cash I had in my pocket."
"The only thing I brought was a flashlight." Too-bright signs from
the few open stores made me squint. "We'd have been better off with a
slingshot and Oreos."
The rainstorm that had been raging in Riverton hadn't made it here, so we
didn't have to worry about getting soaked as we walked around, trying to think
of what to do. We were damp and exhausted and unsure of each other, and we did
a poor job of acting casual as we passed bail bondsmen and liquor stores.
Spending the night curled on different benches in some run-down park wasn't an
appealing prospect.
For reassurance, I lifted my hand to my sweater, the place just beneath my
collarbone where I'd pinned my brooch this morning. It seemed like a thousand
years ago. But the brooch was still there, the carved jet edges of each petal
cool against my fingertips.
At that moment, we walked past a pawnshop, three golden spheres outlined in
neon above its door, and I realized what I had to do.
"Bianca, don't," Lucas protested as I pulled him inside the seedy
little store. Shelves were piled with randomly stacked junk, all the things
people had to get rid of, like brightly colored leather coats, sunglasses with
metallic frames, and high-end electronics that were probably stolen. "We
can go back to the bus station."
"No, we can't." I unfastened the brooch from my sweater, trying hard
not to look at it. If I caught sight of the perfect black flowers, I'd lose my
nerve. "This isn't about being comfortable, Lucas. It's about being safe
and having a place to talk. And—"
And to say good-bye
, I thought
but could not say.
Lucas thought that over for a second before he nodded.
We probably both looked completely dejected as we walked to the pawnbroker, but
he didn't seem to care. A skinny man in a polyester shirt, he hardly paid any
attention to us. "What's this? Plastic or something?"
I quickly said, "It's genuine Whitby jet."
"I don't know from Whitby." The pawnbroker tapped his fingernails
against the carved leaves. "This thing is pretty old-fashioned."
"That's because it's antique," Lucas said.
"I hear that a lot," the pawnbroker sighed. "Hundred dollars.
Take it or leave it."
"A hundred dollars! That's only half what it cost!" I protested. And
it was worth so much more than money. I'd worn it virtually every day for
months, the visible symbol of the love I felt for Lucas. How could this man
look at it so coldly?
"People don't come here for the best return on their investment, sweetie.
They come here to get some cash in their hands. You want the cash? You've got
my offer. Otherwise, get outta here and stop wasting my time."
Lucas wanted to take the brooch back rather than let it go for so much less
than it was worth. I could tell that much by the stubborn set of his jaw. I was
learning that Lucas would often do something he felt strongly about, even if it
wasn't the right move—and for us, keeping the brooch wasn't the right move.
Resolutely, I held out my hand, palm up. "A hundred dollars, then."
For our sacrifice, we received five twenty-dollar bills and a paper ticket that
promised us we could reclaim the brooch later, if we somehow came into a
fortune in the next couple of days. "I'll get the money," Lucas
insisted as we walked outside and turned toward the one motel we could see.
"I'll get it back for you."
"You said you were rich, when you bought the brooch for me. Was that
true?"
"Uh—"
I raised an eyebrow. "Not exactly?"
"I have access to Black Cross money, and there's a decent amount of that.
But I'm supposed to spend it on supplies. Necessary stuff." He shrugged.
"Not jewelry."
"You got into trouble, for buying that for me."
Lucas shoved his fists into his pockets, his mood black. "I told them that
I work for them, basically. But I don't get a salary or hazard pay, so as far
as I'm concerned, they owe me. That's exactly what I'm going to tell them when
I explain that I'm buying the brooch back. Because it's yours, Bianca. It
belongs to you, period."
"I believe you." I put my hands on either side of his face. "But
it's not the most important thing, okay? The most important thing is that we're
safe, we're together, and we get a chance to figure this all out."
"Yeah." Lucas's damp, rumpled hair was warm against my fingers, and
he closed his eyes as I brushed it backward. "Now let's find a place to
stay."
We had to walk only a couple more blocks before we found a cheap hotel. At the
front office, a small room that smelled like beer and cigarettes, Lucas made
sure to get us a room with two beds, which made the clerk look at us funny from
behind her wall of bulletproof glass. I tried not to think about the precious
brooch being sold to pay for one night in a small room with rickety twin beds
and dark blue woolen covers, with only the light from one small porcelain lamp
to see by. We didn't touch each other as we walked in, not even to hold hands,
but I was incredibly aware of the fact that we were alone together in a
bedroom. He turned on the lamp between our beds, but that didn't put me at
ease. Instead, I found myself noticing how Lucas's white shirt was slightly
stuck to his body because of the rain. The near-transparent cotton outlined the
muscles of his back.
"You want to get undressed in the bathroom?" Lucas asked gently.
"I'll slide under the covers. Turn off the lamp. By the time you come out,
I won't be able to see a thing."
I laughed, both relieved and nervous. "You have some of our powers now.
And some of us can see in the dark."
"Not me. I swear." He gave me a lopsided grin.
So I went into the tiny bathroom and peeled off my waterlogged clothes, piece
by piece. At least my T-shirt and underwear were fairly dry. I washed my face
and braided back my damp, curling hair; on the other side of the door, I could
hear Lucas speaking briefly, then hanging up the phone. No doubt he had just
left the message that would tell Black Cross where to find us.
Then I stared at myself in the mirror. It wasn't as if I'd never paid attention
to my body before, but I'd never looked at myself and wondered how somebody
else would see me. Lucas would see me, any second. Would he think I was
beautiful? I realized that I felt beautiful, that I wanted him to see me. I brushed
my hands over my stomach, then down the sides of my hips, newly sensitive to my
own touch. The whole time, Lucas was just on the other side of the door.
Getting undressed. Waiting for me.
The sliver of light beneath the bathroom door went dark. I took a deep breath,
snapped off the light, and opened the door. Only the dim glow of city lights,
filtered by the curtain, illuminated our room. Peering into the dark, I could
see Lucas in the shadows; he'd taken the bed farther from the bathroom. He was
already beneath the covers, one bare arm and shoulder visible.
I took a couple of breaths, then walked to Lucas's bed. He looked up at me,
disbelieving, but lifted up the cover to invite me in.
"Just to sleep." My words came out as a whisper. My pulse pounded in
my veins, and my voice sounded thin and strange even to me. I felt warm all
over, even between my fingers and my toes.
"Just to sleep," he promised. I wasn't sure I believed either of us.
So I slipped into the bed, and Lucas drew the blanket over us both. I lay my
head upon the pillow, only inches away from his. The twin bed was so narrow
that we couldn't help but touch each other—my bare legs brushing against his,
his boxer shorts rough against my thighs, my breasts close enough to feel the
body heat of his bare chest.
Lucas's eyes never left mine. "I need to know that you believe I'm doing
the right thing."
I considered that. "I believe that you're doing what you think is
right."
"Close enough," he said wearily.
"I love you."
"And I love you."
At that moment, I wanted to pull him against me so we could get lost in each
other and forget about everything else. I didn't care if we were safe, if we
would ever see each other again, even that it would have been my first time.
But before I could make a move, Lucas simply folded my hands between his, as
reverently as someone about to pray. "We can't get carried away," he
murmured. His eyes burned into mine, as if there was nothing in the world he
wanted more than to get carried away.
My voice shaky, I ventured, "Maybe we could."
His hands tightened around mine, and something inside me leaped in response.
Still, Lucas didn't move to kiss me. "We can't." He said it like he
was trying to convince himself as well as me. "We're both too close to
changing into vampires as it is. If either of us lost control—if we both
did—You know it could happen, Bianca."
"Would that be the worst thing?"
"Yeah, I think it would." Before we could start arguing again about
what vampires were and weren't, who was good and who was bad, Lucas added,
"Besides, we're meeting up with a group of vampire hunters tomorrow. Maybe
it's a bad time to be a vampire."
Okay, that made sense. It didn't mean I had to like it. "All right,"
I murmured. "But, Lucas—"
"Yeah?"
"Someday."
His voice rough, Lucas repeated, "Someday."
I closed my eyes and lowered my face so that his fingertips touched my cheek. I
could sleep now. I could believe that everything would be all right. Maybe it
was only another dream, but we were in the place for dreaming.
* * *
"Lucas?"
I heard the woman's voice through a haze. At first I wondered why Patrice was
talking about Lucas, then realized it wasn't Patrice speaking.
Startled, I sat upright. The events of the night before flooded my memory,
dazing me, even as I blinked in the sudden light. Instead of waking up in my
dorm room, I was lying in bed next to Lucas, who was pushing himself up and
running one hand through his rumpled hair—and a woman in her forties was
standing in the doorway of our motel room, staring at us.
Lucas swallowed hard, then grinned. "Hi, Mom."
"Okay,
it's the twenty-first century, so I never thought you'd wait until you were
married." Lucas's mother leaned against the doorjamb and folded her arms
across her chest. "But honestly, Lucas. You knew I was coming. Do you
really have to throw it in my face?"
"It's not what it looks like," Lucas said. How could he be so calm?
Instead of stammering out apologies and explanations like I would've done, he
simply put one hand on my shoulder and smiled. "Bianca and I shared a room
because we're broke. We had to hock something even to get this. And nobody made
you pick that lock either. So take it easy, all right?"
She shrugged. "You're almost twenty. You make your own choices."
"You're twenty?" I muttered.
"Nineteen and change. Is it important?"
"I guess not." Compared to everything else I'd learned about Lucas in
the past day, what did it matter that he was three years older than me?
Lucas smoothly pushed himself out of bed. Just my luck: The first time I saw
him wearing only boxer shorts, and I couldn't even relax to enjoy the view.
"Bianca, this is my mother, Kate Ross. Mom, this is the girl I've told you
about, Bianca."
She gave me a friendly nod. "Call me Kate."
Now that I was awake enough to focus, I could see how strongly she resembled
Lucas. She was tall—even taller than Lucas, maybe—with chin-length golden-brown
hair only a shade lighter than his and the same dark green eyes. Like Lucas,
her face was angular: square jawed and sharp chinned. She wore faded blue jeans
and a maroon Henley shirt tight enough to outline the sculpted muscles in her
arms. I didn't think I'd ever met anyone who seemed less like a mom. I mean,
what kind of mother found her son in bed with his teenage girlfriend and just
smiled?
Then again, it beat having her flip out. I held up one hand in an awkward wave.
"Hi there."
"Hey yourself. You guys must've had a rough night. Let's pour some coffee
into you and figure out how to help Bianca." Kate nodded toward the
street. Lucas was already running his hands through his hair and grabbing his
jeans, unembarrassed in front of his mother. I wanted to wrap myself in the
bedspread or something, but that would have been even more humiliating; instead
I bounded out of bed and into the bathroom in about two steps.
Once inside, I recovered a little of my dignity by getting dressed again. My
clothes were now dry, if rumpled. I loosened the braid I'd slept in, and my
hair fell down around my face in soft waves. Not much of a hairstyling trick,
but that was what they'd relied on in the seventeenth century. With a pang, I remembered
my mom showing me. "Let's go."
Lucas shot me a look as we went out the door, perhaps trying to evaluate how I was
holding up. Kate might be fooled by my false bravado, but he knew me better
than that. I lifted my chin proudly, so that he'd know I was determined to make
the best of our increasingly odd situation.
Kate led us to a battered old pickup truck from the 1950s, one with faded aqua
paint and headlights shaped like the engines of the starship
Enterprise.
The whole time we got in, she kept looking around us, scanning every single
passerby. "Do you guys think you were followed? The teachers can't look
kindly on runaways."
"They didn't get as far as Riverton, not before we left," I said
hastily as I scooted into the center and Lucas got in beside me. "The
running water stopped them."
She froze that second, with one hand on the keys in the ignition. She stared at
Lucas, not the usual upset-mom stare, the one that clearly says you're two
seconds from being grounded. This was harder—the way I imagined army leaders
looked when they sent traitors to firing squads. "You told her?"
"Mom, you need to listen for a sec." Lucas took a deep, steadying
breath and held his hands out, as if he could actually hold her back. "Bianca
knew the truth about Evernight already. I only explained Black Cross because I had
to. It's not like she didn't realize vampires existed before. Okay?"
"No, it's not okay. Your mistake might be understandable, but it's still a
mistake. You should know that by now." She shoved her bangs back and
studied me more intently than she had at first. Kate's casual attitude had
dissolved. "How did you find out about them?"
I thought she meant Black Cross at first. It took a second for me to understand
that "them" meant "vampires" to her. Lucas hadn't told her
what I truly was—and I realized, as he shifted in his seat next to me, that he
was hiding the truth for my protection. Undoubtedly he also hadn't mentioned
the fact that he now had some measure of vampiric power himself.
So I did what Lucas and I were apparently best at: I lied. "There were all
kinds of clues. The fact that the school never served food for its students, so
everyone ate in private—the dead squirrels all around—the way that so many
people had attitudes and ideas that came from other centuries. It wasn't that
hard to figure it out."
"Doesn't sound like much evidence." Kate, unconvinced, gunned the
motor and sped out down a frontage road that led us out of the city area.
"You never ran into the supernatural before, and you put it together from
no more than that?"
"Bianca's hiding part of the truth because she's trying not to scare
you," Lucas said. "She was the one who helped me after this
happened." He then carefully pulled open the neck of his shirt. There,
still dark pink against his skin, were the scars left from my second bite.
"Oh, my God." Immediately Kate reached across me to touch Lucas's
arm. So she really was a mom after all, even if she didn't always show it.
"We knew this could happen—we knew it—but I told myself it wouldn't."
Lucas ducked away, abashed. "Mom. I'm fine."
"You got away. How did you manage it?"
"I killed one of them—a vampire called Erich, one who had been threatening
other human students. We got into an altercation. He had the worst of it.
That's really all there is to say."
Lucas's talent at lying was easier to admire when I wasn't the one he was lying
to. Of course, the genius of it was that Lucas wasn't actually making any of it
up. Every word he'd said to his mother was factually true. He'd simply unfolded
those facts in a way that led his mother to believe in an alternate sequence of
events, one in which Erich had bitten him and I was the sweet, savvy, totally
normal girl who had helped him recover afterward.
"You've seen what we're up against." Kate spoke to me more
respectfully than before. Anybody who had helped her son was apparently okay in
her eyes. She never looked away from the road as she sped over the badly paved
streets, steering us into a smaller suburb, one that looked older and fairly
run-down. "This is dangerous work, and you're not ready for it, but I realize
that we have a responsibility to keep you safe. If that demon Mrs. Bethany
realizes that you're helping a member of Black Cross, your life won't be worth
a dime."
I'd always known that Mrs. Bethany would do a lot to protect her secrets, but I
still couldn't quite believe that she would be willing to kill, much less kill
me
.
"All that time, all that risk, and what was it for? Because I don't guess
you managed to figure out the big secret after all," Kate said to Lucas.
"Seems like the kind of thing you would've mentioned in one of your
reports, if you had."
Wearily, Lucas shook his head. "I didn't get it. So cut me some slack,
okay?"
"Secret?" I wondered if maybe it was something my parents might have
mentioned. If I could help Lucas, if there was information I could reveal that
wouldn't hurt my parents or Balthazar, I would do it. "What were you
trying to find out at Evernight?"
"This is the first year they ever let humans in like regular students. The
Black Cross fighter who got in before, the handful of other humans over the
years—those were special cases, exceptions the Evernight vampires made to get
their hands on a lot of money and avoid attention. Whatever they're up to now
is different. They let in at least thirty humans. Why did it change?"
Mrs. Bethany had said that "new students" were allowed into Evernight
so that we could get a broader perspective upon the world. In reality, that was
the last thing she really wanted. Yes, the students were there to learn more
about the world, but Mrs. Bethany had another agenda—and for that agenda,
having human students at Evernight was a risk. Raquel understood that something
was wrong, if not exactly what, and Lucas's example spoke for itself. The
vampires were also forced to hide what they were in one of the few places on
earth where they could've expected to relax and be themselves. Only a powerful
motive could lead Mrs. Bethany to permit such a thing—but what? "I don't
know," I admitted.
"How could you?" Kate shrugged as she took us down a shady lane. The
houses on this street all looked shabby, and one or two of them appeared to be
abandoned. She pulled into what appeared to be the rear driveway of one of the
abandoned buildings, though I realized quickly it wasn't a home. It was an
old-fashioned meetinghouse, the kind nearly every town in New England
possessed, though nobody had held a meeting here for decades at least. The
white paint was chipped and water-stained, and at least half the windows were
broken. "Just the fact that you kept your head after you learned about the
bloodsuckers is more than most people could manage. Lucas is a pro. If he
couldn't figure it out, they buried that secret deep."
"A pro, huh?" Lucas grinned as we got out of the truck. I got the
sense that his mother didn't praise him much, but he ate it up when she did.
She nodded, and I saw for the first time that her smile and Lucas's looked a
lot alike. "A pro who's already back on the clock, I'm afraid. We've got
work to do."
I wondered what she meant by that. "On the clock?"
Kate caught herself. "I don't mean you. Bianca. You've done enough, and
I'm always in your debt. Always. Helping Lucas in that slime pit—maybe saving
his life—" She smiled at me as we walked to the back door of the
meetinghouse. "I'm not going to repay that by sending you into danger.
You'll stay here. Stay safe. We'll take care of everything else."
"By 'we' you mean—"
"Black Cross."
With that, Kate turned the key in the lock and tugged the door open. We stepped
into darkness, and I felt a queasy shiver of unease, but my eyes adjusted
quickly, allowing me to glimpse the scene inside. Almost a dozen people were
gathered together in a long, narrow rectangular room with a wooden floor so old
the boards had shrunk enough to separate. A few old benches still lined the
walls, the wood so soft and old it peeled. Weapons were laid out upon each
bench, as if for an inventory: knives, stakes, and even hatchets. The people
inside were a motley crew, each as different from the other as they could be:
tall and short; fat, skinny, and muscular; dressed in a dozen different kinds
of everyday clothes. A tall black girl who looked no older than Lucas wore an oversized
hoodie, and she stood next to an old man with short silvery hair who wore a
baggy gray cardigan and reading glasses that dangled from a brown cord. The
only thing they all had in common was the way each sighed in relief when they
recognized Lucas.
Lucas took my hand in his as he said, "Hey, guys."
"You made it." This was the girl in the hoodie, who turned out to
have a big smile with one crooked tooth that somehow made her look a little bit
sweet. "Not quite finals time, though, unless they're having them in March
now."
"I get it, Dana. I didn't make it a whole year, which means you win the
bet." Lucas shrugged. "The vampires got my wallet, though, so I'm
afraid you'll have to be content with a moral victory."
"Looks like you brought the most important thing." Dana held one of
her hands out to me. I wasn't willing to let go of Lucas, but I shook with my
left hand. "I'm Dana. Me and Lucas go way back. You must be Bianca."
"How did you hear about me?"
"Like he could talk about anything else all Christmas." Dana laughed.
I glanced sideways at Lucas, whose bashful smile made me feel proud and—even in
the midst of strangers—sure of myself.
"Oh, is this your young lady?" The gray-haired man beamed at us.
"I'm Mr. Watanabe. I've known Lucas since he was—"
"Long enough to embarrass him," interrupted someone else, a tall man
with dark hair and a mustache. He unnerved me in some way I found hard to
pinpoint, and the twin scars on his right cheek made him look scary even when
he smiled. Kate put one arm around him as he stood before us. "I'm
Eduardo, Lucas's stepfather."
"Right. Hi. Pleasure to meet you." Lucas had never mentioned a
stepfather. Apparently Lucas wasn't eager to admit him as part of the family.
Lucas's smile was thin. "I had to get Bianca out. I know I broke protocol
by telling her about Black Cross, but I trust her."
"I hope Lucas's right about you, Bianca." His eyes narrowed, focusing
hard on me before darting over to Lucas. Clearly he meant that I better hope
Lucas was right. Giving away secrets wasn't something this group took
lightly—especially not Eduardo and Kate, who seemed to be the leaders. "We
don't have much time for explanations, not if we're about to move."
The others all started talking to Lucas about his narrow escape. I knew I ought
to talk to them, too, to help Lucas with the cover story if for no other
reason. Yet I remained distracted. My entire life was changing every second,
pulling me away so quickly from the world I'd known that I felt a kind of
psychological whiplash. And there was even more to it than that. I felt a sort
of buzzing so low I couldn't quite find the sound, like a subtle vibration in
the earth. Despite the fact that I hadn't eaten in almost a day, my stomach
churned. Something was wrong with this place, deeply wrong.
Then I glanced at the wall and saw a shape on the wall where the plaster was
brighter than everywhere else, where something had hung for years and blocked
the light. It was the shape of a cross.
Too late I realized that this wasn't just an abandoned meetinghouse. Back in
earlier centuries, a lot of meeting houses had served another function as well.
During the week, they were halls for debate or community functions or sometimes
even trials. Then, on Sundays, the meetinghouses became churches.