The Bonding Ritual (Girls Wearing Black: Book Four) (13 page)

Thirty minutes later, Nicky sat at the breakfast table with Helena.

“I’ve been thinking about our plan,” Helena said. “Thinking about it a lot, actually. I may have even dreamed about it.”

“You’re not as excited about leaving anymore, are you?” Nicky said.

A surprised look came over Helena’s face. “That’s precisely what I’ve been thinking about!” she said. “You’re thinking it too? Oh, that just makes me all the more certain we need to reconsider our exit. It just seems like a mistake to get out of here so suddenly, don’t you think?”

Nicky didn’t get to answer, because Phillip came into the kitchen at that moment and immediately started speaking. “I want to say something, and it might sound crazy,” was how he began. Then he launched into a painful bit of circular logic, where he argued that it was precisely because Bernadette and Renata were dead and the mission was in shambles that they needed to stay. “The vampires will be on edge, looking for the culprit,” he said. “What if we stayed here and pointed them in the wrong direction? What if we used the chaos of the past few days as an opportunity to inject a bit of paranoia into the clan?”

“I think it sounds brilliant,” said Helena.

The two of them started riffing off each other, making ever-wilder arguments in favor of staying in Potomac and continuing the mission. They had worked themselves into a near-frenzy by the time Jill came into the kitchen.

“What’s everyone so excited about?” Jill asked.

“We’re staying in town,” said Helena. “We’ve got the clan on its heels and we’re finishing the mission.”

“We are?” said Jill. She looked to Nicky for help.

“I’m going to go check on Ryan,” Nicky said.

“Wait. Nicky, did you convince them to do this, because last night Helena--”

“Last night I wasn’t thinking clearly,” Helena said. “This morning I am.”

“Me too!” said Phillip. “We’ve got a chance to really do something special here. We can’t turn tail now.”

Jill was still looking at Nicky. “I thought you and I were in agreement about what we had to do.”

Things have changed
, Nicky thought.

“I’ll be right back,” she said. “I really just…I’ll be right back.”

She pushed her way out of the kitchen and went straight for Ryan’s cot at the back of the house. She couldn’t talk to the others until she saw him. She had to know what Sergio had done to him. She had to know how bad it was.

She made it to the utility closet and found the cot empty. There was a blanket on the floor. Ryan’s shoes, which had been under the cot, were gone.

“Ryan?” she said.

She went down the hall to the nearest bathroom and pushed the door open.

“Ryan?”

She checked the bedrooms.
Then the living room. She went to the window in the laundry room and looked into the back yard.

There were footprints in the snow.

She ran out the back door and through the yard, following the footprints that went from behind the house and out to the sidewalk, where the snow came to an end and the footprints disappeared.

She ran back to the house, where she found Jill, Phillip, and Helena still arguing in the kitchen.

“I would love to stay and finish the job,” Jill was saying, “but I just don’t see it happening. Do you? Samantha’s going to win Coronation now. There’s no stopping it.”

“You guys,” Nicky said.

“Samantha’s lead is not insurmountable,” said Phillip. “Second semester is when the big money starts to flow. You know that. And we’ve got Ryan Jenson on our side now. Wasn’t that the game plan from the beginning?”

“You guys I can’t find Ryan,” Nicky said.

“No one at school is going to trust me,” Jill said, not even hearing Nicky’s words. “I got everyone to support Nicky, then I turned around and gave the Ransom money to Samantha. I can’t just flip flop and support Nicky again! How’s that gonna look?”

“You guys, I think Ryan is gone!”

“What?” said Jill.

“I think he got out of bed, went out the back door, and left.”

“Why would he do that?” said Phillip.

Because Sergio messed with his mind, just like he messed with yours
, Nicky thought, but didn’t say.

“He’s not well,” Helena said. “He might be delirious. We should have strapped him down.”

“I’m sure he didn’t go far,” said Phillip. “Come on. We’ll take two cars and canvas the neighborhood.”

*****

It happened after his second dance with Nicky at the Masquerade. In a way, he knew it even then.

He knew Nicky could never be his.

Four months ago, but he remembered it like it was yesterday. Ryan was dancing with Nicky. Sergio arrived. The vampire cut in, as was his right, and stole Nicky away. Ryan remembered how they looked when they danced, how Nicky and Sergio’s bodies seemed to meld together as one while they spun across the floor, how Nicky radiated an almost supernatural energy when the song was finished.

He had been so jealous of whatever it was they had between them.
So angry. And it wasn’t until he and Nicky were imprisoned together on Renata’s plane that he was able to let it go. It wasn’t until Nicky told him the truth about who she was and why she was here that he allowed himself to believe she was his, that Nicky Bloom’s heart belonged to him and not Sergio Alonzo.

Then he and Nicky got caught up in a firefight in Renata’s mansion. Ryan crashed to the floor headfirst. When he stood up, he was in a fog, a fog he couldn’t shake. It seemed to stay with him hour after hour, through the night, into the next
day, the next night—how strange it was to be trapped in the fog! Words didn’t come out right when he spoke them. Sleep took over his body in lengthy intervals, and he had nonsensical, colorful dreams.

But then the fog lifted, all at once, and he saw the world more clearly than ever before.

Maybe the fog had given his mind a much-needed rest, or shook loose those parts of the brain the scientists say everyone has but never uses. He didn’t know exactly what process of mind and body allowed him to finally see the world for what it was, but he was thankful for it. As hard as it was to accept the truth about Nicky Bloom, it was better to live in the real world than to chase some fantasy that was never meant to be.

The truth was that Nicky’s heart did belong to Sergio, and because it did, she couldn’t leave.

The truth could be summed up in two sentences that were so right, so spot-on, Ryan couldn’t deny them, no matter what the implications were.
Nicky must stay at Thorndike and win Coronation. Her work here isn’t done.

The words made him think of Nicky and Sergio, dancing at the Masquerade. In fact, if he thought on the words hard enough, he half-remembered a dream where he was
watching Nicky and Sergio talk. He was present in the room for this dream, waiting for Nicky to walk away from the vampire, longing for her
to choose me instead,
and then Sergio looked at him and set him straight.

Nicky must stay at Thorndike and win Coronation.

Ryan loved Nicky. And because he loved her, he had to let her go. He had to help her find her true purpose. She was meant to be with Sergio. If she didn’t understand that, he would make her. He would convince her to stay. It was what she needed. She deserved happiness beyond what any human could give her.

She deserved to be immortal.

Sure, he knew that wasn’t her plan at the moment, but things would change. In her heart, Nicky understood that she and Sergio belonged together—Ryan knew she did. Ryan would help bring Nicky and Sergio together. There was no greater gift he could give to the woman he loved.

That’s why he got up and walked out of the house. He couldn’t let them leave town. Going missing would delay their departure. There was no way they would leave without him.

He knew what they thought about him and his condition. He heard them talking while he slept.

Ryan has a bad concussion
, they said.
It may be weeks, maybe months before he is himself again,
they said.
He needs to rest.

At the time he heard them talking, they were right. He wanted nothing more than to sleep.

But then the truth came to him, and the fog cleared. The truth was so powerful it brought him back to life. His mind, which had been so dark and gloomy after the fight with Renata, was clear as snowmelt now. His body, so full of aches from smashing into a glass case and falling to the floor, was energetic and refreshed with the certainty of his purpose. With his mind clear, he began to see the obstacles to his purpose lining themselves up in front of him. One by one, he had to figure them out.

His parents, who would be angry that he had disappeared after Renata’s party.
They were an obstacle. He had to get home and set their minds at ease.

But he was far away from home. He had to find a way to get there. That was another obstacle.

And once he got there, he would have to tell his parents a story to cover himself. A story to explain why no one knew where he was after Renata’s party. A story to cover up the truth of what really happened.

The truth might be the biggest obstacle of all.

Ryan walked north through the unfamiliar neighborhood in the pre-dawn morning. He cut between two houses then made a diagonal across the block, emerging on Princess Street. He crossed the road and stepped into the next block, walking around an apartment building, through a parking lot, and around a set of townhomes. Oronoco was the next street, and that’s where he found a cab. It was stopped at the light. Ryan ran up to the driver’s side and knocked on the window.

“Not in service,” the driver said, pointing at the unlit sign on his rooftop.

“I need to go to Potomac!” Ryan yelled. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

The driver rolled his window down.

“Potomac’s an expensive trip for me,” he said. “I’m on the airport loop today.”

“How much?” Ryan said.

“I’d need to charge you at least a hundred to go that far out of my way.”

“Done,” said Ryan.

“Paid up front,” said the driver. “In cash. We’ll do this one off the meter.”

“I don’t have it, but I’ll give you two hundred when we get there.”

The driver shook his head. “Sorry man. I’m doing the airport today.”

The traffic light turned green.

“Wait,” said Ryan. “Three hundred! I’m good for it!”

The driver looked him over. Ryan was a tattered and torn mess, walking around in the freezing cold without a jacket.

“My name is Ryan Jenson,” he said. “I need a ride home. Do you know who my parents are? You ever heard of Jenson Medical Devices?”

A car pulled up behind them and honked its horn.

“Are you for real?” the driver said. “What the hell are you doing way out here?”

“This weekend got a little crazy,” Ryan said. “It was the end of semester party at Thorndike. I need to get home.”

“Five hundred,” the driver said. “And if you’re lying to me--”

“Five hundred,” said Ryan as he opened the back door and stepped into the cab. “River and Chapel’s where we’re going,” he said. “Take the Parkway please.”

In early morning traffic, the drive wouldn’t be long. Maybe thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes to figure out how to get Nicky Bloom back in school and on track to win the Coronation contest.

*****

They drove around the immediate neighborhood first. Helena and Phillip turned left out of the driveway. Nicky and Jill turned right.

They met back at the house, neither car having spotted Ryan.

They widened the search, driving up Route 1 and taking it all the way to the river. There was no sign of him there either. They came back into town via the Parkway, wondering if they’d spot him on the median.

They didn’t.

Helena called Network Headquarters and asked for help. By mid-morning they had a crew of volunteers, largely the same people who emptied out Renata’s house two nights prior, combing the neighborhoods between the river and the Interstate. Nobody saw him.

Phillip suggested they drive the neighborhood again, this time with Helena in the front and Nicky and Jill in the back, everyone’s eyes looking down the sides of the road. As Jill sat in the back seat of Phillip’s car, gazing down side streets, her phone rang.

Ryan Jenson. Home.

“He’s calling me from his house!” she said.

“His house?” said Helena. “It would have taken him all day to walk there.”

“Hello, Ryan?” Jill answered

“No, Sweetie, this is Suzette. Ryan’s taking a shower at the moment.”

Suzette?

Aware that everyone in the car was watching her, Jill silently mouthed the words, “It’s his mother.”

“Oh, he’s in the shower?” Jill said for the benefit of her audience. “How is he?”