The Keep

He stared at me for a moment, silently processing. His features softened, and hope filled my chest like a balloon.

But then he said, “You’re right. I should just kill you now.”

CHAPTER THREE

I couldn’t bear to see if Yasuo would be true to his word. A tide of students appeared, and I turned from him and merged with the others heading to the dining hall. When I got there, I didn’t wait to sit down. I just grabbed my drink and pounded it, standing right there at the fridge, black lunch tray dangling empty in my hand.

I swallowed, and a pleasant shiver rolled up my body. It sounded disgusting, consuming the blood of another, but how quickly we got used to it. Who could resist the rush of courage and power that came from consuming the lifeblood of a vampire? It was cumulative, too—the more we drank, the stronger we grew.

I peered into the glass-fronted refrigerator. Vampire blood glimmered in preposterously formal, cut-crystal tumblers, all lined up in neat rows. For one crazy moment, I contemplated stealing an extra.

I shook off the feeling. As with all good things, just enough was just right. But too much? Too much could make a girl powerful beyond imagining…or it might just make her nuts. Too much of a good thing could drive a weak mind mad.

And me, I had to be extra careful, bonded as I was to Carden. Already I got to drink straight from the source, from Carden’s own powerfully beating heart, and that was infinitely more reckless than simply filching an extra shot glass at dinner.

An explosion of sound startled me from my thoughts. A cluster of guys coming into the dining hall. I tensed, hearing Yasuo’s voice rise above the rest.

I stole a peek over my shoulder. His eyes were waiting for me, glaring so intensely, I wouldn’t have been surprised if there were a couple of red laser-beam dots wavering on my forehead. I had to look away.

It was hopeless. Emma was well and truly dead. I wanted revenge, and apparently Yas did, too. Only he wanted revenge on me.

The rush of strength I’d felt from the drink evaporated. My bravery faded into bravado, leaving me feeling like a wispy paper-doll cutout of myself.

My head was buzzing. I needed to sit.

Despair and the ghosts of friends past scratched at a door in the back of my mind. Because I needed to sit…but where? Less than a year ago, I’d have been settling in at a table with Emma. Yasuo would’ve been there, too, cracking stupid jokes, goofing off. I’d watched as the two of them slowly began to crush on each other. Watched as it’d developed into more. My old Proctor, Amanda, would’ve been there, too, with her Cockney accent, calling her fries chips and her chips crisps. Tracer Judge might’ve stopped by, his friendly puppy-dog eyes meeting everyone’s gaze but Amanda’s. They’d been a couple, and their failed escape had been the death of them.

So few people in my life had gained my regard, and now most of them were dead.

I swayed. Get to a chair.

I made my feet walk to the first empty table, which was thankfully out of the fray, along the wall near the door. I just needed to eat. Not talk to anyone. Get in and get out. I didn’t want to be there, but I needed my calories—proper nourishment could mean the difference between life and death on this island.

I wolfed down bread and soup. An awareness of my surroundings was even more critical than those calories, and I pretended to keep to myself while really I was reading the room. I could no longer see Yasuo, but still I felt his eyes boring into me. He was across the room, sitting with his fellow Trainees.

Emotion clenched my throat, making it hard to swallow. I hadn’t known many friends in my life. Losing one hurt worse than any injury, and I’d had a lot of bad injuries.

I tried to focus on my breathing instead. I chewed and swallowed and chewed and swallowed. Chewed, swallowed, and tried to consider the fact that I did still have people in my corner.

Carden…Just the thought of him unspooled something in my chest. I tried to picture him, to remember his scent, his eyes. The taste of him. To recall the touch of his hand and the sound of his voice. Though I couldn’t summon a complete snapshot, I clung to every thread of every memory as though I could weave it all together into a lifeline.

I longed to see him and consoled myself with the knowledge that I’d see him later. He would come for me—there was no question of it. It was something I knew in my bones. He always sensed when I needed him.

And there were other people I could rely on to cheer me up. Ronan was, well, Ronan—and oddly, he usually managed to make me feel not entirely alone. There was Josh—he always made me laugh, which was nice. And thinking of my old roommate Mei-Ling was always good for a smile, too. Even though she’d escaped and I’d probably never see her again, I liked to think of her out there somewhere, sending positive thoughts my way.

I tried to think of more.

I couldn’t.

Grief seized my throat, and the fresh-baked bread stuck there, my mouth suddenly too dry. I dunked the last crusty heel of it into my soup, but that released a potato smell into the air, a bland, tepid, creamy sort of smell, like the puddle of milk leftover in my school thermos at the end of the day. My stomach turned.

I shivered and clenched my teeth against sudden chattering. I’d never warmed up after the run-in with Yasuo, and not even the dry blast of ancient, pinging radiators could touch the chill that cut to my bones.

The screech of a chair leg against the floor brought my head up. Three girls were settling in at the end of the table. They were Acari, new Acari, clearly green enough not to know that my blue catsuit was code for stay away. One nodded at me, but I only stared back, my face an even blank.

My training had been good for something, and in that brief instant, I managed to assess reams about them. One was petite—she looked about my height—with hair that would’ve been a boring shade of brown were it not for her mesmerizingly perfect ringlets. Another had dark hair and olive skin in a tone that suggested an uncommon lineage, the sort of thing involving an Irish grandfather and a Lebanese grandmother. The third was tall and lean, and her prettiness had an unremarkable quality to it, that brand of conventional uniformity that made a girl instantly popular in high school.

I had a surreal flashback. Me, sitting at a table almost exactly one year ago. I’d have looked short, just like Curly over there, sitting next to Miss Pretty, whose legginess summoned the ghost of my nemesis, Lilac.

Curly nodded at me like her friend had. I looked down, suddenly focused on my soup. It was early days for them, when the culling of new girls was fierce and daily, and I found it best not to be friendly with anybody who might disappear at any moment. Besides, I just didn’t have the energy to enlighten new Acari about things like friendly nods and how they could get a girl’s butt whipped.

My old Proctor, Amanda, would’ve nodded back. She probably would’ve had a kind word, too. But I wasn’t Amanda. The realization bummed me out—though, in a weird way, it should’ve bolstered me, considering Amanda’s behavior had gotten her killed. Besides, I might not have been friendly, but neither was I flashing around my throwing stars like any good Initiate should. So there was that.

“Yo. Curly.” Yasuo had showed up to assess the new blood, and his words were a knife in my chest. He’d voiced a nickname—Curly—that I’d been thinking myself, and it crushed me to remember how things had been between us. All the old secret looks and private jokes, the stuff that two like-minded people—two friends—shared. All of that was gone. Then the knife twisted as I remembered how his first words to me hadn’t been much different. Hey. Blondie. We’d sat next to each other in Phenomena class. He’d been my first real friend on this island.

No longer. Now he just studiously avoided eye contact with me.

Curly might’ve given me a nod, but the appearance of the boys had her intent on her bowl of soup. Was she right to be scared? Was Yasuo being friendly as he had been with me so long ago, or had his warmth all died with Emma? He had a little gang now, unlike when we’d first met. Sitting there, I’d dismissed them—all the guys blurred together as a mass of cocky attitudes and half-grown fangs—but when the skin on my neck prickled, I reassessed.

Scanning the group, I saw there was a pair of eyes trained on me. While the others were studying the fresh blood, Rob had been studying me.

Rob. He was the jerky Trainee who’d once made a move on me—if you could call attempted assault a move—and when I responded by slicing a giant hole in his pants with my throwing star, I’d made an enemy forever.

He’d sworn revenge, but at the time, my reaction had been a resounding what-ever. I knew I should’ve taken threats like that seriously, but I mean, really. We were surrounded by threats, and I had enough on my plate trying to make sure there weren’t any real vampires trying to kill me. Teenagers like Rob tended to pale in comparison when someone like Master Alcántara had you in his sights.

And besides, I had an ancient and powerful vampire on my side to protect me. I wasn’t sure whether or not I could call Carden McCloud something so mundane as “boyfriend,” but he was my bonded vampire, and that seemed infinitely more powerful. So, I had Carden looking out for me, and though it was probably a false sense of security, it was security.

“Is she deaf?” one of the guys asked.

Curly hadn’t responded to Yasuo’s little greeting, and these were the sorts of guys who weren’t used to being ignored. Yas leaned down to speak in her ear. “Hey, Shirley Temple. I’m talking to you.”

The leggy, pretty girl went wide-eyed, making her look like a panicked woodland creature. Her gaze skittered over the Trainees. They’d closed in, standing behind the girls in a half circle, looming. Pretty Girl looked like she wanted to bolt, but then a redheaded Trainee named Danny came up from behind and planted his hands on her shoulders. I’d misread her. Unlike Lilac, this girl was scared. Easily intimidated.

She wouldn’t last a day.

I had to look away. I tried to dismiss her from my mind.

It was past time for me to leave. I piled my cutlery neatly in my bowl. And yet…I didn’t budge.