Vampire's Kiss

I gave a casual shrug, but inside I was bristling. Was it jealousy that made my insides feel so jangly? Whatever it was, it was weird, and I didn’t like it.

Yas scowled. “Who’s attractive? That vampire, you mean?”

Emma nodded.

“Dude,” Yas exclaimed with a smirk. “The guy walks around wearing a black skirt.”

“It’s a kilt,” I corrected, my face straight.

He leaned toward me on his elbows. “It’s a skirt.”

I was on the defensive now, my feelings inexplicably intense and out of control, as if I were PMS-ing or something. I folded my napkin into tiny squares, feigning indifference. “Whatever it is, it’s hot.”

Emma nodded again, but the playful gleam in her eyes told me all she really cared about was sassing her Trainee boyfriend.

“Whatever,” he said, trying his hardest to look indifferent.

It snapped me out it, and I laughed, mimicking him. “Whatever.”

The moment had passed, but it left me unsettled. Ronan once warned how taking too much of the blood made someone volatile—what happened when a girl drank directly from the source? Because I knew a little bit of Carden slipped into that kiss he gave me.

I changed the subject, making a conscious effort to pull out of this moodiness. “Hey, you should thank me. This island was getting boring, and here I am spicing things up a bit.”

“We’re still waiting to hear where you went,” said Yasuo.

“And what you did,” Emma added.

“Mysterious, exciting things,” I said, trying to sound aloof, and added with a tease in my voice, “But I bet nothing even happened here.”

They exchanged a meaningful glance, and it lurched me back into reality. I knew that look.

I took a deep breath. “What?” When neither answered me, I demanded again, “What?”

Yas gave Emma a pleading look. “If you don’t tell her, I will.”

“I’m telling, I’m telling.” She met my eyes with a disturbingly sympathetic expression. “It’s Josh.”

Gooseflesh rippled my skin, and the chill reached deep inside. Had Josh been forced to pay the price for siding with me? I sank my head in my hand. “Oh God.”

“Don’t worry,” Emma said quickly. “He’s okay.”

“What do you mean he’s okay? Okay from what? What happened?”

Yas nodded toward the front door. “He can tell you himself.”

Josh was limping our way, and relief rushed like a hot wave through me, so strong it gave me a little shudder.

But when he got closer, I saw how he was covered in cuts. Covered.

That easygoing, seemingly ever-tanned face was riddled with scabs in angry shades of red and brown and pink. They reached all the way to the neckline of his sweater, and I knew with chilling clarity that what I saw represented only the tiniest fraction of his injuries.

“The fabled Drew, back among us. I’d say gidday, but I don’t think my body could handle another hit.” He gave me a smile, which the thick gash on his upper lip twisted. He eased into the seat across from me, obviously in pain.

“What the hell happened?” My voice came out breathier than I’d intended.

“Good to see you, too.” His smile wavered, and he held my eyes for a long moment before morphing into cool-boy once more. “I thought Yas here should get a turn at being the pretty one.”

It made me laugh and frown at the same time. “Seriously. Who did this?”

“Random people.” He shrugged, and pain made a muscle in his cheek twitch. “Someone decided I’d make a prime demo dummy for Draug-staking techniques.”

“They practiced on you? The Guidons?” I sat up straight, scanning the room. “Which ones? I’ll kill them.”

He reached across the table, putting a hand on my arm. “Stand down, D.”

Yasuo tossed his sandwich down, pushing away his tray with a decisive shove. “Don’t worry about my man Josh. He’ll be the last one standing.”

The last one standing. It was a long-term game we were playing here on Eyja næturinnar—like one extended Directorate Challenge. The realization gave me a chill. “Stand down? How can I stand down? This is my fault. Oh my God, I am so sorry.”

“Not,” Josh said in a sharp tone. “So not your fault, so don’t even go there. It’s just the order of things.”

“As much as I appreciate the brave act”—I leaned closer, lowering my voice—“you know things would’ve been ordered differently if you hadn’t inserted yourself between me and Masha’s hazing.”

“It was my choice,” he said in an uncharacteristically heavy voice.

I flopped back in my chair, unable to process it all. “Holy crap. I leave for, what—thirty-six hours?—and everything falls apart.”

“All is entropy and chaos in your absence,” he said with that swollen half smile.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated.

“Drop it, Drew. Even if this is some Guidon’s idea of retribution, I was not about to watch some dickhead take a leak on you. Seriously. Nonissue.” He pointed to Yasuo’s tray. “You eating that?”

“Be my guest.” Yas handed him an untouched triangle from his sandwich. “Whoever came up with the idea of buttering roast beef should be shot.”

“Hey, here’s something that’ll cheer you up,” Josh said over a mouthful of food. “Did you hear? The dance is on.”

I swung my head to face him full on—all the better for him to appreciate my signature flat, dead-eyed look. “Thanks. Like I really needed to hear that.”

“Next week,” Emma said.

Yas added grandly, “To celebrate the end of the Dimming and a return to darkness.”

“Oh goodie.” So much for normalcy—lunch had been one big dose of irregularity, and I had to get out of there. I stood, cramming my rumpled napkin into my empty glass and snatching it up to clear it. “Look, guys, I can’t take any more news. I’m outta here before you tell me—I don’t know—that I’m going to have to sing karaoke at vampire prom or something.”

Josh snorted. “Fantastic idea. Really. You’d be sensational.”

With a roll of my eyes and a shake of my head, I walked away, not looking back as I raised my hand to wave.

Yas called at my back, “Sharpen those stiletto heels, Blondie.”

I was nestling my empty glass in the dish cart when I felt a person standing behind me. What now?

I turned to find Ronan and instantly forgot I was supposed to be mad at him. I’d thought we’d said good-bye forever, but seeing him next to me, in the flesh, relief swamped me, enough to bend my mind with a momentarily woozy feeling. I fought the urge to fling myself at him for a giant bear hug.

But then I noticed how very deathly pale he was. “Are you okay?”

“I must speak with you,” he said somberly.

As I followed him outside, I had to break the tension and joked, “I bet you didn’t think you’d see me again.”

But he didn’t take the bait. Instead, he told me in all earnestness, “On the contrary, Annelise. I am glad to see you’ve returned safely.”

Wow…okay. “Thanks,” I said, and my response was followed by an awkward silence.

He led us down the path back toward the Acari dorm, his face ashen. Finally he stopped, then turned. “Amanda’s dead.”

It was a total disconnect. “Amanda—what?”

“Your Proctor, Amanda. She was killed. Dismembered. Her body was found this morning.”

The grisly specificity was what slammed the truth home. Dismembered. Just the word was hideous, unthinkable. The ground dropped away from my feet, and I was falling, falling, although I stood right there, my flesh gone prickly and cold.

I stared at him, waiting for some fluke to correct itself. Waiting for the jarring words to take on meaning and sense. “How did it happen?”

“She tried to escape. And failed.”

I tried to armor myself, to muster indifference. After all, I was experienced; I’d seen girls die before. Alcántara had warned me not to have friends—Amanda was merely the first of many I’d lose. And really, she’d been more a kindly Proctor to me than a true bosom buddy.

But the armor didn’t work. Years could pass, I might one day get promoted to full-blown Watcher, and I was sure even then I’d still reel from this news.

A million thoughts dumped piecemeal into my head: how she’d taken me under her wing; the way she stirred her tea and ate only plain yogurt in the morning; how she called me dolly.

Most staggering of all, she’d seemed such a part of life here, but had she secretly been as unhappy as I was?

She’d been so preoccupied when I’d seen her last. We’d been so disconnected. And now I felt guilty, though I knew that was ridiculous. Still, I had the absurd notion that the fate she’d suffered had been meant for me. That I was the one who was supposed to have attempted escape. I was the one who would’ve failed. I was the one meant to have died.

I stared at Ronan, looking for answers, but his face remained a mask, frozen and unreadable. My mind raced, wondering what her plan had been, where it’d gone wrong. “How did she—?” But then it struck me: She would’ve needed help. “That key. This has something to do with that key you gave her, doesn’t it? You were going to help her.”

They’d wanted to escape together. Jealousy spiked my veins, burning away the guilt with acid. I felt more of an outsider than ever. Ronan never offered to help me escape. Hell, he was the whole reason I found myself in this situation in the first place.

“It unlocked a boat dock on the other side of the island,” he said. “Except Amanda didn’t make it. Her body was found at the base of one of the southwestern cliffs. She was tortured, then thrown from the side.”

The blood drained from my head. I knew a vampire with quite the taste for torture.