Beautiful Monster 2 (Beautiful Monster #2)(19)
Author: Bella Forrest

“Alright, what we’re going to need is a distraction,” I said. “In case something goes wrong, or we accidentally leave a gap and the audience is looking right at us.”

“Isabelle can dance,” Connor volunteered.

I saw Sarah twitch at him mentioning his wife’s name, and they exchanged a look, but nothing more happened.

“Can you?” I looked to Isabelle and Connor translated. She nodded, and I turned the music back on.

To my surprise, this girl was incredibly talented indeed. It was more than just a vampire’s grace and strength that she had; there was pure talent and training in her moves. In the hundreds of years that she had lived, she must have been a dancer at some point, and I questioned Connor. He smiled, sadly.

“In many lives, she was. As soon as women could be dancers then it became their profession. But since the age of cameras and digital files, it would be too hard to be in the public eye and immortal. And so, she stopped. I have not seen her dance in many years.”

“She’s very good,” I said, watching her. “Tell her that’d be perfect if she could do a small solo, enough to get the audience’s attention away from the mob.”

“I could do a solo,” Sarah volunteered, stepping forward.

I tried to smile, despite the fact that I realized this was a fit of jealousy. “Sarah, you’re our star, you have enough solos, don’t you think? Also, I need you in that mob, grabbing a hold of Selene’s wrist, remember?”

“Right.” She stepped back to Amy and the two of them whispered.

I raised a hand. “Let’s try it once more from the top and see how it goes!”

I thought that this time would go better than the last few times, and it seemed to, until all of a sudden, I heard Amy’s startled gasp from the crowd. Knowing her voice above all others, I rushed forward, pushing the others out of the way, my heart pounding. It wasn’t quite sunset, so her blood wasn’t appetizing at all, even when fully transformed, but she was in a group of vampires. What had I been thinking?

Getting to the middle of the crowd, I found it wasn’t Amy in distress, but Nina. Her small, birdlike body was crumpled into Amy’s arms. My girlfriend had sunk to the floor, looking panicked and frightened. Amy had been taught that the show must go on, no matter what, but this was something that was hard to ignore.

“Nina!” I folded down to my knees as well, reaching out to take her into my arms. It took me a moment to come to terms with the fact that she wasn’t dead, she was immortal. Still, pale and cold, she seemed as if the life had left her. “Nina!”

Connor was beside me in an instant and I looked to his experience.

“What’s happening to her?”

He shook his head. “She’s desecrating. You knew she wasn’t eating, Liam, and this is what happens to vampires who starve themselves. If she goes long enough like this, she won’t be able to wake up from it. Her body will be stuck in a coma-like state. Alive but dead, here, but not.”

“What do I do?” I asked, shifting her small weight.

Connor met my eyes. “She needs human blood.” He shifted to the side, where Amy was standing.

I felt my face darken. “No!” I growled, wrapping my arms around Nina’s face, as if she would sit up and bite Amy. ‘First of all, Amy, I will not allow you to go through any sort of pain. Second of all, your blood will make her sicker than she is now. And third of all, if Nina’s wishes are to not drink human blood, then we will abide by that! Sven.” I turned to the oldest human of the bunch, turned at 25 into a vampire and barely fitting in the classes. “Go to the cafeteria, tell them Liam sent you, and grab a pound of defrosted raw hamburger meat.”

He made a face.

“Chicks,” he said, shaking his head, but headed off nonetheless.

I looked up at the others, who were barely giving me room to breathe, and shooed them away, until it was just Amy and me left cradling Nina on the stage. I brushed a hair out of the face of the limp body.

“Poor girl.”

Amy, however, had her mind on the bigger picture. “She can’t do this on stage, Liam. She’s got to shape up or she’ll ruin everything.”

I nodded. “I know. But she so wants to help, Amy. I feel like vampirism hit her the worst of all.”

But Amy was shaking her head. “The show must go on.”

I smiled at her, reaching out to take her hand. “So you did learn something.”

“Let’s just get her better.”

“Aye.” I didn’t let go of Amy’s hand, dividing my life-force between the two of them.

As much as Nina probably wanted to help, Amy was right, the show had to go on. And if it had to be without this tiny vampire body, then so be it. As much as it pained me to do so, we would have to tell Nina she wouldn’t have a place in our plan. Because in the vampire world, only the strongest survive.

Chapter 9: Amy

“Do you know that in Phantom of the Opera 2: Love Never Dies, Meg Giry becomes a total slut, whored out by the Phantom, who I’m pretty sure is her real father by the way, and then grabs Christine and shoots her?”

“What?” I turned to Sarah, mouth agape.

It had been 3 weeks since Nina fainted on stage, and things had gotten more chaotic since then. The show, which was a disaster, was the least of my worries. Although vampires were generally stronger, faster and more flexible than humans, it didn’t replace the years of acting training the others had. And we weren’t just trying to put on a good show, we were trying to commit murder on stage and make it look like it was part of the show. We had probably rehearsed the scene at least one hundred times by now, and it was still as much of a mess as the first day. On top of that, classes were in full swing, which meant our workload as students was getting heavy. It would soon be pilot season in the city, which meant there would be hundreds of castings, both open and phoned into the school.

Even though Liam and I parted by sunset, I still felt exhausted, as if I pulled all-nighters. Usually, I finished my homework by ten and was asleep by eleven, but it never felt like enough. When the other seniors complained they were tired, I wanted to shake them. If only they knew what Sarah and I were keeping hidden in our world.

“It’s true. You should watch it. The entire thing is on YouTube. Here’s what I think happened,” Sarah said, as we took our trays to a free table. “Andrew Webber got lazy and decided to go off what the fans wrote in all their fan-fiction.”