Vamplayers (10 page)

That’s why our job as Sisters isn’t merely to spot the Vamplayer but to identify his likely victim. If we can get to her, make her see what’s going on, even keep her out of harm’s way, then the Vamplayer usually gives up, calls it a draw, and moves on.

I just hope we’ll be able to stop him in time.

Alice sprays more perfume than should be humanly possible onto her radiant throat.

“So,” I say like the older sister who’s already in her nightgown at eight and looking forward to a hot cup of tea and a good book by the fire while the younger one races around getting ready to use her fake ID at some bar downtown, “what are you two doing tonight?”

Bianca looks at Alice and then Cara. “Not much,” she answers without looking at me, apparently admiring Cara’s mocha skin and long, black braids. “But we were hoping
you
could join us.”

The sudden attention seems to both embarrass and flatter Cara.

It’s such a small room, and so much is going on. I can see it all in slow motion, like with the dodge balls earlier, gelling together in this prep-school-rich-witch-mean-girls-bad-eighties-movie way. I’m being left behind even as I’m compelled to watch the train departing from the station without me.

Cara in particular seems caught up in a whirlwind of emotions. I can see them cross her face. She’s obviously thinking about what’s best for the Academy, for Dr. Haskins, for the mission, then pouting and thinking about what’s best for her— even for me.

She’s not answering, so I answer for us. “Well, that all depends. There’s that term paper due tomorrow and—”

“I meant Cara,” Bianca snaps, interrupting me.

No, not just interrupting me. Silencing me.

I stand stock still.

Cara avoids looking at me. “M-m-me?” she stammers like the fat kid on the softball field who can’t believe he’s been picked first instead of last for a team.

“Of course.” Bianca draws closer to my Second Sister. “I’ve been admiring you since you got here. And I couldn’t help but notice how the cheerleaders have cozied up to you. Nice going, by the way. They’re a pretty frosty bunch. And, of course, that’s fine. Better to hang with the cheerleaders than the losers some of you have fallen in with.” Here, with her emerald-green eyes, she chews me up and spits me out. “But Tristan and I were talking, and Alice agrees it might be time for an upgrade in the friends department for you, Cara. What do you say?”

There is no time for me to argue, intercede, or even breathe.

“I-i-if you think it’s a good idea, Bianca.”

“Oh, she does, she does.” Alice scoots them both out the door before I can protest too loudly—or at all.

Cara moves hastily, decision made, her long, straight back to me. She grabs her purse off her doorknob and rushes to Bianca’s side as if she thinks this one-time offer might quickly expire.

Alice swings the door almost shut, stopping short to look at me. Smiling—no, sneering—she says, “Don’t wait up. This could be another all-nighter.”

Chapter 13

A
lice’s words prove prophetic. Cara doesn’t come back to the dorm that night. But then, neither does Alice.

I get some rest, just enough to be vital in case anything shakes loose the next day. The small, metal bed squeaks every time I move. I wake myself out of a finicky sleep, look at the clock on my bare wooden nightstand, and know there’s no use even trying anymore.

My running shoes are on the floor, under the window, beckoning me to join Tristan for another early morning run. I stand, stretch, reach for them, then think better of it.

Do I really want to go there?

Today?

Instead, I pace the floors in the dark, hearing them creak beneath me, roaming in and out of my Sister’s empty rooms, imagining them walking in at that very moment, seeing me, hugging me, explaining to me, making me understand, reassuring me. Isn’t that what Sisters are for?

It’s lonely here in these four silent rooms, this grim building groaning, shivering around me.

Light from a streetlamp four stories down filters through the cheap, drawn curtains. I’m tempted to peer out, searching for Alice, for Cara, but know I won’t find them. Not that way. And certainly not down there.

I pause in the center of the room, restless, tired, frustrated, and fearful, and think of the mission, of how it’s going.

Of how it’s going wrong.

Yes, it’s our job to infiltrate the in-crowd, to go undercover, to win their hearts and minds, all so the Vamplayer can’t get to them first.

But this is all moving a little too fast. It’s going a little too well.

I know I shouldn’t complain, but I can’t help it. Something feels off. Anyone who’s ever shown up at a new school, especially a cloistered one like Nightshade, knows you’re not going to get accepted, let alone embraced, overnight.

It usually takes time for the new girls to be accepted, especially when those girls aren’t really girls at all. A week for us to feel the place out, another to find our niches, one more to make our moves, another to prove ourselves, a final one for the popular crowd to accept us, and then we’re in.

The longest it’s ever taken is two months.

The shortest was two weeks.

But two days?

I dunno, something smells fishy here at Nightshade, and the thought of exchanging barbs with Tristan all morning as we try to outdo each other on the track literally turns my stomach.

That’s the hardest part about being a Sister. Yes, the drama sucks major, but it’s something I’m used to. What really rubs me the wrong way is being so close to a Vamplayer and wanting to rip his fangs out but having to play nice.

“Oh, you look so good today, Tristan. Did you get a haircut? Have you been working out?” When all I really want to say is, “Hey, Tristan, how do you want your stake this morning? From the front through the rib cage or from behind through the spine?”

I mean, it’s enough to turn a girl schizo if she’s not careful.

Okay, Lily.
I quietly count to ten.
Go to your happy place!

Suddenly I picture Zander’s face when I bumped into him yesterday morning, so confused, so hurt. I picture his apron, slung casually over his bony shoulder for another long day at work.

I look at the clock and get a better idea.

Chapter 14

T
he cafeteria is empty, dreary, and smells faintly of bleach, but the kitchen is already humming when I arrive at the red double doors dressed in my loose jeans, sneakers, and long-sleeved gray T-shirt tight enough to impress but loose enough to move around in.

Grover sees me first, his already mussed hair frizzy from the stifling kitchen heat.

I press one finger to my lips and point to Zander.

Grover smiles, nods, and returns to scrubbing dried egg off the biggest frying pan I’ve ever seen in my life.

The kitchen seems small and cramped to feed so many so fast, but right now it’s just the three of us and feels oddly intimate.

I tread quietly across the slippery rust-colored tiles, careful to avoid a big shiny steel table where knives and towering bowls threaten to topple at the lightest tap.

Zander is standing in the doorway of the chilly walk-in cooler opening up crates marked
lettuce
when I sneak up from behind and tap him lightly on the shoulder.

“Hi, Lily,” he says with an exaggerated yawn, his fingertips covered in lettuce juice.

“How did you know?” I’m glad Dr. Haskins isn’t around to see how quickly I’ve forgotten my sneaking-up-on-humans tactics.

He points to the shiny inside of the walk-in door, where even now I can see my pale reflection. (Vampires only deny their reflection when they’re in full-on vamp mode, you know, in case you’re keeping track of that kind of thing.)

I grin, slug his shoulder, and reach for an apron hanging off a nearby hook on the white-tiled wall. “So, I came to help. What can I do?”

Grover joins us, the bottom of his too-small Cookie Monster T-shirt peeking over his large, pale belly.

They look at each other and ask, “Why?”

I shrug. “I’m here. Does it really matter why?”

Grover shrugs, which draws his shirt up even more to expose a Lucky Charms belt buckle straining across the top of his dark blue cords.

Zander frowns. “What, your boy toy stand you up at the track this morning?” His voice is warm, but his gaze is cool.

“He’s not my boy toy.”

“Hmmm.” He snorts, bending back to his lettuce. “It sure looked like it when I surprised you both yesterday morning.”

“What? When? Why do I miss all the good stuff?” Grover asks good-naturedly.

“Well, if you’d gotten up when I tried to drag your big carcass out of bed yesterday morning, you would have been with me to see Lily and her new squeeze, Tristan, toweling each other off by the track.”

“What? I never—”

Zander smiles. “Okay, Grover, maybe they weren’t toweling each other off, but they still looked pretty darn cozy to me.”

Grover looks skeptical. “I didn’t know the track was where all the pretty people went to pick up all the other pretty people nowadays.” He sucks in his gut and pounds his chest, King Kong-style. “Maybe I’ll dust off the old Reeboks and give it a whirl tomorrow morning.”

“Well, why wait?” I say. “I bet Tristan’s out there right now, running by his lonesome since I stood him up to hang around the kitchen with you two. Suddenly I’m rethinking my decision.”

“Oh, playing hard to get, are we?” Zander says.

I purse my lips and try not to clench my fists. “It’s pretty hard to play hard to get when nothing’s going on in the first place.”

“If you say so.” He sighs, stretching his back.

Grover sees the fire between us and retreats to the dishwasher, which is noisy enough to drown out our major drama moment.

I wait until the hose is hissing away, turn to Zander with both hands on my hips, and say, “It didn’t look like anything
because nothing was going on”

His hands are on his hips, and beneath his apron he’s doing the snug jeans and tight white T-shirt thing. His high-tops are stained with lettuce drippings and ketchup. His curls are flatter than usual, and I instantly think bedhead but in a kind of good way. He smiles crookedly. “It sure looked like it to me.”

“Well, then you have a dirty mind. Is that my fault?”

He shoves me playfully. “Only when I picture you soaking wet in my bathroom.”

“What?”

“Oh, wait, that came out wrong.”

“Yeah.” I slug him. “Try
real
wrong.”

“What I meant was, well, it was a play on words, actually.” His face is red and getting redder. “Bathrooms are dirty, and yesterday when we soaked you with the hose, you were soaking wet and … oh, forget it. I guess I’m not as smooth as Tristan.”

I shake my head. “I came here to help, not to fight with you.”

He winks. “I’m just messing with you.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yeah, you’re right, but I don’t want to fight either.”

“Let’s work instead.”

Come to find out, Zander isn’t just stacking lettuce boxes after all. He’s peeling off the top, skuzzy layer of leaves so when the cooks come in later this morning to prep for lunch, they won’t have to.

He teaches me how to do it. I literally haven’t held a head of lettuce, let alone eaten one, since the eighties. He shows me where to toss the outer layer, and we settle into a steady groove.

“How much lettuce do the kids here eat?” I ask after my third box of three dozen heads of lettuce.

He snickers. “It’s not that the kids eat so much lettuce. It’s that there are so many kids. Now keep peeling!”

Meanwhile, from time to time, Grover taps out some random tune on the bottom of a pot he’s just cleaned before he hangs it up to dry. At the moment it’s the theme from
Halloween.

“Have you two always been friends?”

He winces at the constant pot battering. “Who says we’re friends?”

I give him some time, peel one more box of lettuce, and reach for another.

“He’s from Boston originally.” Zander looks at Grover, who’s deep into cleaning another pan, before continuing. “He showed up halfway through freshman year angry— and why not? He’d just gotten kicked out of another prep school, some dump down in Florida, showed up in our dorm suite huffing and puffing. It just so happened I was ditching class on account of a
Battlestar Galactica
marathon that was running all day, all night. He sat down, grabbed the popcorn, and I’ve been his nursemaid ever since.” He smiles in a bittersweet, almost wistful,
what my life might have been without Grover
way.

”So you tamed the savage beast, huh?” I smirk, if only to lighten the mood, and toss a lettuce leaf at him.