Thicker Than Water (24 page)

She looked up at her tear-stained reflection in the mirror.
No.

She wouldn't let her father do this to her. She had control. She'd show him.

Kia dropped the razor and went to the computer on her desk. She logged on to the court site and posted a message under a brand-new screen name. She wanted to be careful, didn't want Damon—or anyone else—to know the post came from her.

I've had a secret for a long time,
she wrote.
I cut myself Well, I used to. I stopped, but tonight I almost did it again. My life seriously sucks and I don't know what to do about it.

 

She hit send and shut her eyes.

It felt good to get it out. To state it plainly—even if anonymously.

Several posts popped up.

 

 

 

Kia found herself calming down. A new post came in.

 

 

Ewww.
Kia was glad she used a fake name.

The next post was from NOMAD:

 

 

She stared at the screen, thinking again how NOMAD's words reminded her so much of Damon, and suddenly it hit her—NOMAD was Damon spelled backward. It had to be him. But how could she be sure?

Then she remembered the flyer—Damon had written his e-mail address on it.

It was in her purse. But the purse was in the living room.

She quietly cracked open her door and listened. The light in the living room was out. Good sign. She tiptoed to the room, hoping her dad was firmly ensconced in his bedroom watching TV.

She picked up her purse and scurried back to her room. She pulled out the flyer. There it was—Damon's e-mail address.

She was right—Damon was NOMAD.

She sat hard on her bed.

Should she tell him this message came from her? No. She wasn't ready for him to learn her secret. Not yet.

But she was ready to learn his. She just had to figure out how.

T
wo weeks of unendurable hell. Two weeks of living in a police state, with Maggie coming over in the afternoons and her dad around all weekend. Staring at her. Trying to
relate.

School was even more awful than usual. Virgil steered clear of her. Aaron and Carol eyed her warily.

She hoped that if she put up a good front and visited her mom a lot, Maggie and her dad would relent and let her at least go out on the weekends. She was going through serious scene withdrawal. So far, though, they hadn't changed their minds. Not even over the pitiful, depressing, painfully forced togetherness of the four-day Thanksgiving break. Dismal and phony, the so-called celebration Kia had been forced to withstand consisted of Maggie's traditional turkey, which no one really ate, while the ghost of Thanksgivings past hovered over everything—made all the weirder by the unaccustomed presence of Kia's dad for the day. It was the first time Kia's parents had been together in one room in she didn't know how long, but between her dad's typical awkward aloofness and her mom being so out of it, it didn't really seem like any of them were actually in the same place.

Hecate kept Kia company over e-mail, but Kia was only interested in news of Damon—and Hecate didn't have a lot of info there. Kia spent most of her time catching up on schoolwork, lurking on the court web site, and thinking about Damon.

How much longer can I stand this?
Kia wondered for the twenty-thousandth time. She sat at her desk working on her long-neglected art portfolio. The centerpiece was an angelic demon drawn in charcoal. It only made her miss him more.

Her computer made a small ding, and she turned right away to see the new message. She'd gotten up the nerve to e-mail Damon the day after she got jailed. Just a “hello” and to let him know she was going to be busy with stuff so she wasn't able to see him or go to the party. He e-mailed back that he'd miss her. That sustained her for a while. Then she'd e-mailed again today:

 

 

She'd been waiting anxiously for a reply for about an hour now, and so far there'd been two false hopes. But this time ... her heart jumped when she saw NOMAD in her in box, and she quickly scanned the message.

 

She was trying to come up with a reply when there was a knock on her door. “Yeah?” she said, quickly logging off.

Her dad stepped into her room; Maggie followed right behind him.
Great. Now they're going to gang up on me.

Maggie sat on Kia's bed. Her face looked saggy, like a basset hound's. Her dad's had a similar weighed-down look to it.

Did I do that to them?
Kia wondered. The school thing was that big a deal?

Her dad cleared his throat. “Kia, we have something to tell you. It's difficult.”

Warning bells clanged in Kia's head. She hoped they would be loud enough to drown out whatever they might have to say. She could tell from their expressions that she didn't want to hear it.

Maggie patted the bed. “Come over here.”

Kia shook her head. She didn't think she could stand being that close to her, to anyone in this moment. If she shattered, it would be best for everyone if she kept her distance.

Maggie glanced at Kia's dad, worry creasing her forehead.

“Your mother,” he said, then stopped. He looked out the window.

Okay, he had given Kia the title of the conversation. Now did he want her to read his mind? She looked to Maggie for help. Maggie looked away.

While her father seemed uncomfortable, Maggie was on the verge of tears. Looking at her more closely, Kia realized that Maggie had already been crying. Her eyes looked puffy and her nose was sort of red.

Kia's foot began tapping a rhythm on the floor. Maggie's eyes returned, but now Kia was the one to avoid eye contact.

“Kia,” Maggie said, her voice frighteningly gentle.

Kia fought hard to keep her hands in her lap, to not cover her ears and start screaming to drown out the words she knew were coming.

“Is she going back into the hospital?” Kia asked. Her voice sounded harsh, in stark contrast to Maggie's soft tones.

Maggie's sad eyes glanced at Kia's dad again.
She keeps thinking he's going to help out here,
Kia realized, a sneer stretching her mouth.

Maggie must have realized her dad was a lost cause and looked at Kia again. “No.”

That answer surprised Kia. Then why were they so upset? Why was her dad afraid to talk to her. “Dad?”

“Your mother is going into a hospice instead,” he replied.

“Okay,” Kia said.

“Do you know what a hospice is?” Maggie asked.

Kia shrugged. “Some kind of small hospital.” She tried to remember if she'd seen any ads on TV for hospices. “But more... homey?”

“Well, yes,” her dad said. He swallowed. “But they are special because their staff is trained to deal specifically with people who aren't going to get better. So that their final days are comfortable.”

Kia's ears burned; she heard a strange sound and realized it was her own blood, pounding in her head. Rushing through her.

She discovered she couldn't stop blinking. It was as if her eyes were trying to make the scene come into better focus. As if everything were blurry.

“I'm so sorry,” Maggie said.

Kia nodded.
There are probably things I'm supposed to ask. I'll try this:
“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“We're going with her,” her dad said. “But we don't think you should. Not tomorrow. She'll need to get settled.”

“If you'd like to see her and spend time with her, that's fine. These places are designed for long visits,” Maggie said. “I'll be happy to go with you.”

“Me too,” her father said firmly.

“If I don't go tomorrow, will I—will she... ?” Kia couldn't finish the question.

“They're not sure. But they think in the next month. So you have time.”

Where are my tears?
Kia wondered. Wasn't she supposed to be crying? She felt hollow inside, as if her tears had been annihilated.

Maggie stood. “I need to get back,” she said. “I'll call you tomorrow.”

“I'll walk you out,” Kia's dad said. They left the room.

Kia stared at the doorknob for a little while. It was brass, with inset consecutive circles.

She swiveled in her desk chair and logged back on, clicked into the court bulletin board.

Chatter chatter chatter. About upcoming events. About bands. About what had happened at the Court of Draconia with Osiris and Dark Star.

Was NOMAD online? She didn't see his name.

She scanned the postings. A lot of the people who wrote in had standard signatures that appeared at the bottom of every post:
In the name of blood
or
Darkness reigns
or
Death into everlasting life.

Kia looked at that last one a long time. She opened her Write Mail file and sent Damon a private message.

 

Damon
—
I've been ready longer than you know. Don't be afraid
—
your secrets won't surprise or frighten me. I want to know all. Let me come downtown tomorrow night and I'll prove it to you.

 

She hit send and leaned back against her chair.

Her mother might have to die. But that didn't mean she couldn't live on in another form.

Now all Kia had to do was get Damon to agree to sire her mother.

K
ia paced under the streetlight on the corner where she was supposed to meet Damon. She was shivering with cold and anticipation. She wished she smoked because it would have given her something to do with her nervous hands.

It had been easv to sneak out of the house. After her dad came back from checking her mom into the hospice, he had a hefty scotch or two, then took a sleeping pill.
And he was worried
I
was into drugs,
she thought.

How should she ask? Should she just come right out and tell Damon that she knew that he was a vampire? Or should she lead up to it by telling him about her mother? About what she wanted to have happen?

Cold wind stung her skin, made her eyes tear. She angrily brushed away the tears that streaked her face, ruining her makeup. She wore the dress she had on that first day he had spoken to her in NightTimes. The one he told her she looked great in, the one that looked better on her than on Kali.

She shivered again. Where was he?

No, that wouldn't be like him. He was just late.

She turned, and he was right there in front of her.

“Hello,” he said, his breath visible in the cold brittle air.

“Hi,” she said. She had to get this started quickly before she lost her nerve or got distracted by how much she wanted to kiss him, to feel his body pressing against hers, to cry and have him comfort her, to have his intense presence obliterate everything else. She couldn't let herself get carried away; she was here to accomplish something.

“I'm cold. Take me somewhere warm. Where we can get warm together,” she said.

He brushed her hair out of her face. “Like a club?” he asked. She could feel him testing her.

“No.” She slipped her fingers into the waistband of his leather pants. “Somewhere private.”

He took a step back, not so far that she had to let go of him, just far enough for him to look at her better. He smiled and licked his lips. “I guess we could do that.”

She stepped into him and laid her head on his chest. “Good,” she murmured.

“I live upstairs,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and steering her toward a nearby building.

He arranged this,
she realized as he unlocked the door and led her up a flight of uneven stairs. Damon set it up so they'd meet right in front of his place. He wanted this too.

Damon unlocked his front door and she followed him in. “Welcome to the inner sanctum,” he said, flicking on a small lamp. “I don't usually let anyone come up here.”

Kia stood in a room painted deep maroon. A large mattress was on the floor, and plastic milk crates served as bookcases. Massive piles of CDs towered near a complex sound system. Leather jackets, black clothing, and candles dotted the floor. There was no sofa, no chairs. Damon shrugged off his coat, lit a candle, and stretched out on the bed.