The Vampire Book of the Month Club (9 page)

“Oh my God.” He looks me deep in the eyes. “How did you know?”

I take one of my complimentary copies of Better off Bled #4 from the top shelf of my locker (I always like to keep a few handy, you know, for the freshmen), shove it into the middle of his chest, and snap, “Are you kidding me? This is what I do!”

By the time he's grabbing my arm and pulling me out to the student parking lot, Bianca is gone, but the commons aren't entirely empty.

Standing in a corner, hidden from even Bianca herself, I see a very familiar shape. Looming, dark.

Just after Wyatt enters the hallway leading from the commons, and just before I follow him, the shape emerges from the shadows and smiles.

Reece is watching; Reece
was
watching.

And now he knows that we know.

I think he's smiling, but I'm wrong. It's just his fangs poking out from his upper jaw, puffing his lips out, curling them upward.

It only looks like a smile.

His dead, dark eyes say something completely different.

And it's not good.

For either of us.

“S
o tell me this,” Wyatt says after his fourth chocolate-covered biscotti at Hallowed Grounds an hour later. “Was there anything
not
manipulative about you kissing me just so Bianca wouldn't suspect you were trying to catch her in the act of being a . . . a . . . whatever she is?” He leans in close so as not to be overheard, his eyes alive and bright, his throat still flush. Whether that's from my kiss or Bianca's vampire status remains to be seen.

“Yes, I mean, no, I mean . . . It's complicated, Wyatt, OK?” I say, looking over his shoulder to the front door, half expecting Bianca and Reece to storm in—maybe even fly in—any minute.

“Do you have somewhere to go?” he says, reaching for his second hot chocolate. “I think, considering the fact you tricked me into meeting you after school today, lured me into a false kiss, and used me like a piece of meat, you at least owe me a thoughtful and careful explanation.”

I laugh for the first time since, well, since Bianca disappeared. No, no, earlier than that: since Reece appeared. “You're right, of course. So let me be brutally honest here because this day is a game changer. Wouldn't you agree?”

“Game changer? It's a life changer! An, an . . .
afterlife
changer.” His voice is low. The café is crowded this time of day, and even as insensitive a lout as he can be, Wyatt knows this is deadly serious business.

I mean, it's not every day you find out the hottest chick in school is actually a desk-scratching, raw-hamburger-eating, no-reflection-giving-off, bloodsucking vampire!

“I mean, there's no use in hiding it anymore. I like you, Wyatt, a lot. Have I imagined kissing you in the heat of passion before? Sure, OK, yeah. Only about five
bazillion
times! Was today one of them? No, not really. Did I use you? Absolutely, but seriously . . . do you care?”

He smiles, blushes, avoids my gaze, and reaches for another sip of hot chocolate, but a quick peek tells me the cup's empty. “No,” he finally admits, a little sheepishly. “I mean, if that's what getting used feels like, well, use me whenever you want.” He fiddles with the to-go lid on his brown-and-green, eco-friendly Hallowed Grounds cup and asks, “So, you feel like using me anymore today? Like . . . right now . . . for instance?”

I look at his arms, golden brown in the late-afternoon sunlight, his one-size-smaller-than-it-probably-should-be gray T-shirt hugging every one of his masculine curves.

Suddenly I ask, “Well, I mean, did you feel
anything
?”

“When?” he asks, playing dumb. “Where?”

“Back there, doofus, when I . . . I . . . attacked you.”

He leans forward, looking around before pinning me with those deep-blue eyes. “Of course I did. You think I stop by your dorm suite night after night hoping to get another look at Abby in her stupid zombie makeup or to grab a free cola? I can afford my own cola. I don't even really like cola. Of
course
I feel something for you. It's just, I dunno, you seem like you'd rather just be . . . friends.”

“I do, kind of,” I confess, although it kills me to say it.

He leans back, a pout pulling down those beautiful puffy lips and instantly making me regret my words.

“What I mean is,” I blather, “I'd rather be friends than get my heart broken again. Look at you. Are you going to sit there and tell me you're ready to have a serious, committed relationship when every other day you're snapping pictures next to some half-naked supermodel? How can I compete with that?”

“By giving me a sign. Any sign,” he says, leaning even closer. His breath smells vaguely of gourmet hot chocolate and mini marshmallows.

“Well, I would consider making out with you in the commons for nearly three minutes a pretty big sign that I'm into you,
OK
? If you can't pick up on that big of a sign, well, I'm not sure what else to do.”

He smiles like a kid at Christmas and then reaches out across the table and holds my hand gently, like an old-school boyfriend.

No one has ever done that, ever, in all my life.

And it feels so funny, his gaze on mine, so familiar and suddenly so . . . different.

Is that what it was like for him and Abby when they crossed the threshold from friend to boyfriend and girlfriend for those two months last year?

Did he see her differently?

And she him?

I can still taste his coconut lip balm on my tongue, and the urge to taste it again is almost too strong to resist.

“So . . . now what?” He scratches the back of his head with his free hand.

“Now? Well, now I suppose we tell Abby and hope we don't hurt her feelings when she sees us together and—”

He squeezes my hand gently and says, “OK, yeah, that too but more importantly what are we going to do about Bianca being a . . . you know?”

“Oh.” I blush, instantly feeling fifty shades of stupid. “Well, there's not much we can do. I mean, the cops won't believe us. Principal Chalmers already bought her little song and dance about needing a mental-health day. I suppose we just have to keep an eye on her—and each other—until she makes some kind of a—”

Just then his phone skitters across the table, ending up in a pile of empty biscotti wrappers before he can pick it up and read the incoming text.

“Oh,” he says, getting up quickly and letting my hand go like a wet eel, “the shoot is back on. I need to be there in fifteen, and it's halfway across town.”

His satchel and jacket are on the back of his chair. He grabs them both and looks down. “Come with me,” he offers, his long fingers reaching for mine. “That way I know you'll be safe.”

“I'm fine,” I say a little defensively, ticked off that he could leave me so easily, especially considering what we've both just seen. “I'm here. It's the middle of the day. What can happen?”

“I just don't know how long the shoot will take, and I don't want you being alone.”

“That's sweet, but . . . I can take care of myself.”

He frowns. “Isn't that what Scarlet Stain always says . . . just before Count Victus traps her in some dastardly scheme and she secretly wishes she hadn't acted so brave and let her brand-new boyfriend run off to a photo shoot without her?”

I snort, relieved he can read me so well but still wishing he wouldn't put his work over me. What, like he's going to change his mind and give up a chance to make a few quick grand with one of fashion's hottest photographers just to sit around some coffee shop with nerdy old me?

“How's this?” I ask, shooing him off. “I'll leave before dark, rush back to the dorm, lock the door, and stay put until you come to save me, OK?”

“Be more specific,” he warns, slipping the jacket over his perfect chest and the satchel over his perfect shoulder. “Text me the minute you're leaving here and the minute you get inside the door of your dorm. If it takes longer than ten minutes, I'll be there, no matter what.”

I smile, thinking that was sweet, and watch his tight little rump exit the building—me and every other chick in the café, not to mention those two guys by the window. This shoot—and every shoot—is too important to cancel on account of some hysterical girlfriend.

Or BFF.

Or casual make-out groper in the halls.

Or whatever it is he thinks—or I think—I am.

R
eece catches me in the lobby, next to the chest of drawers by the staircase, the one with the chipped porcelain knobs and scratched claw feet.

It's 7:18 p.m., the sun has just set, and it takes exactly twenty-two seconds from the time I walk into the lobby to check my mail and get shoved into the stairwell nobody uses. Ever.

He has no rope, no gun, no knife, no dagger, no handcuffs, no chains. He has only his bare hands and his inhuman strength.

Suddenly I am pinned to the wall, arms at my side, Reece's face inches from my own, fangs trembling. “Hello, Nora,” he seethes, his fangs making his voice sound different, slightly feminine but no less spooky. “Enjoy your . . .
date
?”

“I sure did,” I somehow manage, straining my wrists against his cold, deadly grip. “How about you?”

He smirks, stepping back slightly, releasing me. “Oh, that Bianca. She's quite the catch.”

“I bet.” I rub my wrists in front of my chest, looking at the door.

“Try it, and I'll snap your neck in six places by the time you take your second step.”

“Why?” I shout, hoping someone—anyone—will hear me. “Why me? Why are you
doing
this to me?” I hate the frantic tone in my voice, but what can I say? This kind of thing doesn't happen to me every day.

“I told you why. And lower your voice. You've delayed my plans long enough. I won't have you stall anymore by siccing your neighbors on me.”

“Why are you doing this?” I say, quieter this time, deliberately biting off each word to ensure I finally get an answer to my question.

“I already told you. I need your special skills. I need you, I need you now, and you will not deny me again.”

“What are you going to do? If I refuse, I mean? Are you going to turn me into a vampire, like you did Bianca?”

He looks vaguely surprised I'd make the suggestion.

“Of course not. You would be useless to me then.”

I smile, suddenly holding all the cards.

“Well, if you need me, and you can't turn me, then what's the big deal? Why should I care? You can't hurt me, so what power do you hold over me?”

Now he smiles. “You're right. I can't hurt
you
, per se, but I can hurt what's important to you. Or should I say,
who
's important to you.”

“Don't you dare,” I shout, pounding on his marble-hard chest with my soft, useless hands. “Don't you dare
touch
them.”

“Then do what I want.” He pushes me back against the wall, his face in mine now. We're so close, I can see the tips of his fangs are not as perfectly white as the rest of his teeth but instead are weathered and worn. “Do what I want, and nobody gets hurt. Hmm, I've always wanted to say that! It's so easy, Nora, to do what I require. So simple, for someone of your . . . talents. Why do you resist?”

“Because,” I say, inching for the door, surprised when he lets me get all the way there, put my hand on the knob, and open it without, as he'd promised, snapping my neck in six places, “I write
about
vampires, not
with
them.”

And with that I'm gone, out the door, around the corner to the elevator, through the doors, pushing the button, up to the sixth floor, and in sixteen steps I'm behind my own door, bolted shut, every light on, the biggest knife in the kitchen drawer resting in my hand as I sit in the love seat, facing the door.

And still his laughter echoes in my ears, as loud and as close as if he were in the room with me.

I
'm still right there, knife still in hand, head on my chest, when Abby gets home just past midnight. The slamming door wakes me, and I snap up.

Abby stands there, her eyes wide. “Hey, Nora, what's with the big-ass knife?”

I don't answer her. Instead I ask, “Has Wyatt texted you lately?”

She drops her script, keys, and greasy bag of goodness from the local vegetarian drive-through on the coffee table, then drags her pink phone from her jacket pocket. Scrolling through, she frowns and wrinkles her nose. “No.”

“Me neither.” I nudge my phone, where it rests on the coffee table, with my foot. “Don't you think that's odd?”

She shrugs, which I know from experience is one step away from an eye roll.

“Not if he got lucky working out at the gym or pumping gas or buying gum at the drugstore. You know that guy. All he has to do is step out the door, and chicks are all over him. Why do you think we finally broke up? It was like dating Bra—”

“No, this is different, Abs,” I say, interrupting her as much to quit hearing about other girls as to tell her what I need to say. “We, we . . . saw . . . something today, after school, after you left.”

“We, whom? You mean . . . you and
Wyatt
?”

Abby is no dope, and joke as she might about her and Wyatt breaking up, it's still a sore spot for her. Because, just like me and my fabled snowboarder, it wasn't quite as mutual as she'd have me believe. And all this time, though I'd never admit it to her, the reason I never tried harder to be with Wyatt was out of loyalty to her. All may be fair in love and war, but roomies have a code, right?

Now her eyes are alive, almost fiery, and I resist the temptation to correct her with a curt “We,
who
?”