Vampire Crush(26)
Author: A.M. Robinson

"It worked," he says after a few moments. "Nothing but fuzz."

"Really?"

"Yep. Complete blank. What were you thinking about?"

"Er, nothing important," I say, staring up at him. When did he get so tall?

"Sophomore year," he says and then winces. The brief courage that came from my previous success starts to crumble.

"How am I supposed to do this?" I ask.

"Avoid Vlad. Period."

"But I have English with him! I mean, he sits in the front and I sit in the back, but – "

"It should still be fine," he says, sounding about as reassuring as a doctor who’s just dropped his keys in his patient’s open heart cavity. "Like I said before, Vlad’s old enough that he won’t be picking things up unless he’s actively trying. Just try not to let him get too close."

Realizing how close I am to James, I retreat to take a seat on the end of my bed. "What about Violet? She’s in my English class too."

"Violet doesn’t use her powers very often. It’s draining, and she thinks blood drinking isn’t very ladylike. Besides, she has enough problems in her own head to worry about anyone else’s."

"Harsh words for your girlfriend."

"Ex-girlfriend," he corrects quickly. "If that."

"Nice."

James blinks in a way that would be cute if he were not being a dirtbag. "I don’t understand why you’re angry."

"Maybe I just think you should be a little nicer to the girl who shared eternal life with you."

He runs his hands through his hair, which I am quickly learning is his I-am-exasperated with-your-craziness tell. "Eternal life that I don’t want," he stresses. "A girl that I don’t want. If we’re being completely honest, I want – "

I cut him off. "You should have thought of that before you let her give you an undead hickey. And while we’re at it, what’s so bad about eternal life? I mean, maybe it’s time to focus on the positives."

"Besides sun headaches and the blood drinking and the insane company?" he says, and for the first time since we began, James is getting angry, honestly angry.

"And the superstrength," I counter, "and the mind reading and the coolness factor and the – "

"I don’t want to talk about this anymore!" he interrupts, walking over to look out the window. "I don’t even know how we got here. Let’s talk about something else."

He’s right. Time to change the subject. "Okay," I say. "What is Vlad doing here?"

James studies me for a few moments. "Vlad is looking for a girl," he says finally.

"I got that much," I say with hard-won patience. "What does this girl do? Fly?"

"No."

"Does he vant to suck her blood?"

James shrugs. "He hasn’t really kept us in the loop."

Up until now, James has been nothing but an open book, keeping his gaze on me far more than my fluttery stomach can take. But now he’s deliberately turned away from me. As he pretends to peer out over his backyard, it strikes me that I recognize this pose from when we were kids; this is James keeping a secret.

"What don’t you want to tell me?" I ask.

Instead of answering, he walks across the room to the bulletin board that hangs over my dresser. Leaning forward, he points at the picture wedged in its corner. "Isn’t this that karate class they asked you to resign from? Are you the small, scowling one?"

This source is obviously tapped. "It’s late, and I am exhausted," I say, and it’s not a lie. A weight has settled between my eyes, and the pillow on my bed is growing larger and more appealing. Like a giant fluffy marshmallow filled with Marshmallow Fluff.

"You’re kicking me out?" James asks, surprised.

"You seem to be done talking."

A wave of irritation dims his features. "I didn’t know that I was just here for information."

"You’re not! It’s just that I’m tired and I was attacked by vampires in the woods today and their leader seems to want me dead when he’s not too busy being the most popular person in the world, and I would just like to go back to sleep and forget about it for a little bit," I finish, realizing that I’m not handling this well at all.

James watches me for a few moments. "Vlad’s not the most popular person in the world," he says.

"What?"

"In the vampire world he’s not popular at all. In fact, he’s an outcast. Persona non grata. If there were vampire restaurants, they would have signs that say, ‘No Stakes or Vlad.’"

If James had said that Vlad liked to wrap himself in cellophane and sing show tunes for fun, I couldn’t be more surprised. Considering his penchant for sticking his nose up in the air and acting better than everyone else, I assumed he was at the top of whatever food chain would take him.

"But why?" I ask.

James takes a seat in the desk chair, leans back, and looks at me with eyes that are too artificially wide to be innocent. "Do you still want me to leave?"

Well played, James, well played. For a brief second I wonder why he is so resistant to going home, although way back when, Marcie said that if he was over here more often they might as well adopt him.

"You can stay," I say.

"Good," he says, stretching and settling in. "The vampire world is built on hierarchy. Take the stupidity of high school, multiply it by eighteen, add a side of twisted, and you’ll end up with something close to what living in vampire society is like. There are hundreds of families, and every single one can tell you who ranks above and below them."

"Vampire families? Like brother and sister?" I ask, thinking of Marisabel. Maybe they were siblings, kind of.

"Sort of. When you are made into a vampire you are reborn with the name of your maker, and you’re pretty much stuck with it. You can marry out of it, but that hardly ever happens – apparently most vampires would set themselves on fire rather than marry down."

"Fifty dollars that Vlad’s name isn’t really ‘Smithson.’"

"Vlad doesn’t have a name. He was made by an Unnamed. They’re considered parasites in the vampire community, vampires that were made off the grid."

"So . . . then you’re all Unnamed."

"Pretty much. All of us that Vlad made."

"Okay. But what does that actually mean? You don’t get chosen first for dodgeball?"

"More like we have no rights at all. At best we’re ignored, and at worst we’re killed. That’s why most Unnamed lay low; they’re the ones hiding in empty houses and creeping out only at night."