Vampire's Kiss (18 page)

“Actually”—I snagged her arm, pulling her back out and down the hallway—“come on. Let’s hang in the common area instead.”

She hesitated. “But…”

“But the Guidons? We can’t hide, Em.
You
can’t hide. Your turn is coming. This situation is going to come to a head, and the sooner we face it, the better.” I plopped onto one of the couches, a cozy beast of a thing upholstered in dark red wide-wale corduroy. “We need to show them we’re not afraid.”

“We?” She gave me a tremulous smile.

“Naturally,
we
.” I chose to ignore my instincts and all Alcántara had warned about friends—these tentative relationships had come to mean too much. “We’re in it together, right?”

“Right,” she agreed, and I had to give her credit, because, though her expression was uncertain, her voice was her usual solid, calm, farm girl self. She settled next to me on the couch. “So…Alcántara?”

“Yeah. He’s got a thing for bruises.”

Even though we were alone, she looked around. Seeing the coast was clear, she hissed, “That’s disgusting.”

“Tell me about it.” I leaned in. “It gets weirder.”

She gave me a flat look. “Of course it does.” After a pause, she prompted, “Well?”

I hedged, uncomfortable with how I’d handled it. “I was scared he was going to be angry about Josh and the hazing thing. So I tried to change the subject. In a dramatic way.”

Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Dramatic, how?”

“Okay, okay. I panicked,” I said, on the defensive already. “Dramatic, as in I—I think I was flirting with him.”

“You
think
?”

I flopped back, idly picking at the plush corduroy. Her stoic farm girl expressions really could feel accusatory sometimes. “Well, I don’t exactly have loads of practice.”

“Did he flirt back?”

“Yeah.” I gave a rueful laugh. “I was in over my head in, like, three seconds.” I glanced away, weighing my words, then confessed, “I think he was going to kiss me.”

That woke her up. Her face came alive. “Did you
want
him to kiss you?”

“No way. At least…I don’t think so.” I waffled, not really sure
how
I felt about any of it. For the first time in my life, a guy wanted me—my luck it was a dead one. “I don’t want a vampire to be my first kiss.”

She marveled at the concept. “I wonder if it’d be cold.”

“Gross. You mean, like his tongue, too?” We both shuddered. “I guess it might be.”

She nodded gravely. “They are dead, aren’t they?”

“Technically speaking.”

That silenced us for a moment, until Emma quivered, stifling an unexpected giggle.

I stared at her, amazed. “What?”

“There’s always the dance,” she said, with an uncharacteristic smirk. “Maybe he’ll ask you to be his date.”

I glared. “The
dance
. Don’t remind me. I wonder if they’ll issue uniform prom dresses.”

“Black, floor-length.”

“Yeah, like Morticia.” I joined her giggling. “And black capes with super-high, velvety collars. We can hobble around like the brides of Frankenstein.”

“I hear you even learned some
smooth moves
for the dance floor.”

“You sound like—” I froze, gaping, then elbowed her. “
Yasuo
told you that.” I scrunched lower into my seat, frowning. “I can’t believe he told you about dance class. I’m sure he’s out there right now trying to devise ways to blackmail me.”

A bunch of Initiates came into the lounge, buzzing with conversation and bursting our bubble. Emma darted a nervous glance my way.

I sat up and put a steadying hand on her arm, whispering, “Not afraid, remember? We’re just hanging out. We have as much right to be here as they do.”

They were across the room, studiously ignoring us and draping their taut, catsuited bodies across couches, over armrests, on the edges of coffee tables. Their yammering drowned out our voices.

Emma’s face turned pleading. “Can’t we just go to your room to hang out? What if Masha comes?”

“I’ll face Masha any day of the week.” I sounded braver
than I felt, but I knew I spoke the truth. “Listen, Em. We can’t act scared. These girls can smell fear. We go into hiding, and I swear it’ll trip some sort of animal-instinct urge to hunt or something.”

I felt someone staring; I turned. Trinity loomed at the end of the hall, arms crossed over her chest and her gaze zeroed in on us. She curled her lip in disgust before joining her friends.

Her eyes didn’t leave us, though. She sat on an armchair, staring, legs crossed severely and hands clawed on the armrests. Slowly, she pulled a weapon from her boot. It was a long, thin, steel thing, like a cross between a file and a dagger. With a pretty tilt to her head, she began to stab robotically at the arm of the chair, over and over. She made it look like an idle gesture, but we knew better.

I felt Emma freaking, and I tried to ease the tension, murmuring from the corner of my mouth, “Guess she doesn’t like the furniture.”

She began to gather her stuff. “Seriously. Let’s just go.”

I squeezed my hand where I’d rested it on her arm, then gave her an encouraging look. “If we leave now, we’ll just look weak. We need to stay. Now, take out your knife.”

“My what?”

“Your knife. You know, that big-ass Buck knife you have. I know you carry it around.” It was thick and serrated, and the last time I saw it, she’d been stabbing a Draug in the back, saving me. “Come on, farm girl.” I gave her a small smile. “You’ve faced worse than this.”

She furrowed her brows but, with a sharp nod, obeyed.

“Now do something with it.”

“What?”

“Do something with it,” I repeated.

She looked around as if she might find the answer inscribed on the worn upholstery of the student lounge couch. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. Clean your nails or something.”

The room had quieted a bit. Chatter still came from across the room, but I felt how a handful of Initiates had begun to watch us.

Emma mouthed the words,
My nails?

I had to hand it to my friend—she really trusted me, and I loved her for it. I gave her an encouraging nod, and she began picking at her nails. I don’t know how she did it without drawing blood. It really was an ugly blade, looking more suitable for boar skinning than an impromptu manicure.

Trinity’s voice rang clear across the lounge. She was outraged. “Have you forgotten your place?”

I adopted an innocent tone. “So, cleaning your nails is forbidden now?”

One of the Initiates began to stand, and Trinity shot a brief look to stop her. She brought her attention back to me, stabbing her weapon deep into the arm of the chair. “Watch out, Acari. Because soon we’re going to finish what we started.”

Other weapons appeared in the Guidons’ hands—mostly blades, but some weird stuff, too. A needle-thin stiletto. Brass knuckles. One girl slid some arrow-tube-looking thing from her sleeve, and I made a mental note not to cross
her
.

I didn’t know where my guts—or stupidity—came from. All I knew was, I’d stood up to Guidons before and had been all but rewarded. Vampires appeared to be big fans of the whole survival-of-the-fittest thing.

“Promises, promises.” I eased my hand closer to the throwing stars I kept tucked in my boot.

Trinity didn’t like my bravado—I could tell by the way her porcelain cheeks flushed red. But her voice remained cold and even. “Maybe next time we’ll strip you completely naked. Unless the sight of you in your training bra scared the boys off for good.”

The other girls tittered.

“You’re seriously going that route again?” I pulled my shoulders back, sitting tall. I was
not
flat-chested. Not entirely. “At least
I’m
not a clench-jawed Connecticut poor little rich girl with the intellect of a Happy Meal and the heart of a virago.” I glanced at Emma. “It’s like if John Cheever had written horror.”

“The fuck?” Trinity was on her feet. “What
the fuck
does that mean?”

I bit my lips not to laugh. I’d known Trinity wasn’t the brightest bulb, and now more important, I’d just learned how much she hated it.

I sensed someone plop onto the arm of the couch. “Language, dollies.”

Amanda had appeared, but Trinity’s glower didn’t budge from me. “Whatever.”

Our Proctor scanned the room, taking in all the weaponry. The line between her brows told me she’d grokked what was going down. “Toys away.”

Emma complied, but the older girls only glared in challenge.

Amanda stiffened. “I said
weapons down
.”

One by one, all the sharp things were stowed away—however reluctantly.

“Brilliant.” She turned her attention to the Guidons, her attitude a sort of forced business casual. “I came for you third-years. Priti says class isn’t at the gym today. She wants us to meet her at the cove. Something about medium-range combatives. In the surf.”

There was grumbling as the girls dispersed. I was glad I was sitting, because I was sure a few of them would’ve shouldered me on their way out.

Amanda remained, standing over me and regarding me with a sort of stern appreciation. “Acari Drew, you have
got
to learn when to stand down.”

I nodded, but in my heart, I completely disagreed. All of this—the hazing, the posturing, even the flirting—was a part of some greater test. I was almost certain now.

Because there was only one group on this island who could demand total submission. And it wasn’t us girls.

“W
alk with me,” Amanda said, shooing us off the couch. It didn’t sound like a request, and I hopped up, relieved to be dealing with an Initiate who wasn’t such a raging bitch.

Emma was more hesitant. “Not me. I have to catch up on reading.” She hefted her bag up as evidence.

I hoped she was right—that she did have work to do and wasn’t just making excuses to hide in her room.

Amanda gave her a weighty look. “Fine, dolly. I’ll talk to
you
later.”

I dropped my bag off in my room, and Amanda and I headed toward the small cove where many of our training exercises were held. The winding trail was gorgeous in a bleak, miserable sort of way, all craggy and rocky, the faraway water shimmering an eerie silver in the Dimming’s half-light.

I caught my toe on a rock, cursing under my breath as I stumbled. “Why don’t they just give us cars or bikes or something?” The cove lay about a mile down the coast, and, aside from the few SUVs the Tracers were allowed to drive, the sole mode of transportation was our feet.

“They’re an old-fashioned bunch, our vampires.” Amanda smiled, and it struck me how pretty she was, all angular lines, flawless dark skin, and shoulder-length dreads. Lately, her expression had been tight, but now that we were away from everyone else, she was relaxed enough to let a little of her true self glimmer through. I wondered how much of her tension stemmed from her relationship with Ronan.

We rounded a bend, spotting Masha and her crew about a quarter mile down the path in the distance. “Oh, fabulous,” I said, slowing down. “Maybe I should join you at the cove. Masha and her crew can waterboard me in the surf.”

“Don’t give them any ideas.” But then her smirking expression grew serious. “Look,” she said, slowing her pace to match mine, “you have a knack for trouble. And now you’ve caught the fancy of some real aggros.”

“I’d hoped my relationship with Alcántara would protect me.”

She stopped in her tracks. “That right there. That’ll get you killed.”

“But he’s shown me attention.”

“We’re discussing
Alcántara
.” She enunciated each word slowly and clearly.

I bristled. “I know whom we’re discussing. I might be younger than you, but I’m not a total imbecile.”