Hunted (33 page)

Somewhere along the way, Lanie had lost track of Chase, but eventually spotted she him off with Tawny Blakely, who should have been manning the tables with the other girls, but was instead up in the stands playing smooshy face with Chase Wylie.  She perhaps should have been peeved that her date had ditched her in favor of Tawny Blakely, but she hadn’t really wanted to attend the party with Chase, anyway, so she let it roll off her back.

As more kids and parents began to stream in and darkness began to fall, Lanie and the others readied for the start of the party.  The grills were fired up, the food was thrown on and in no time, the game field with thick with smoke and nice smells and people soon began lining up to get in on the stuff. 

However, with the influx of adults onto the scene, the football team gave up manning the grills for lost and they all huddled on the bleachers, along with most of the Spirit Squad, who’d been elbowed out by the mothers.

Lanie, Johnna, and Devyn joined them pretty quickly, also being rather unceremoniously forced away from their stations.  It actually made Lanie rather bitter!  They had spent weeks getting everything ready, getting things donated and set up, getting the flyers out, begging the Fire Chief for permission because it had been such a dry summer, hounding businesses for donations because the school budget was tight, and the parents just walked in and took over as if they’d planned it, as if it was their party and they were just letting the kids join! 

Lanie might have actually stormed off the field and headed for home if she and the other girls hadn’t worked their butts off for weeks on end!

It wasn’t long before the bonfire was set and blazed to life, lighting up the night and illuminating the swarm of kids and parents on the field.  Shortly after the bonfire was lit, music began blaring from the sound system, and not the music that had been chosen for the bonfire.  It was
supposed
to be the school fight song because this was
supposed
to be a party to rev up the kids and the team for the big game.  However, the song that was blaring from the speakers was instead a horrid country music thing that made Lanie want to tear her ears off. 

Clearly, the adults had jacked the party.  Which meant, the party was over. 

While the people on the field were having fun dancing to the hideous music—yes, the parents were actually
dancing
—and scarfing down all the food they had nothing to do with getting, most of the senior class, including the entire football team and the whole of The Spirit Squad, were gathered on the bleachers, watching it happen.

“Can you believe this!” Devyn hissed.  “
Ech
!  Look at them!  They’ve ruined everything!”

“I say we storm the field and take back the party,” Brady said sourly.  “We can take ‘em.”

“This blows!  I could have stayed home and washed my hair,” Heather Langley complained.

“We worked hard on this stinking bonfire!” Mia Hammonds grumped.  “I think they should pay us for the hours we spent!  My mom had to pay a party planner when we had our Fourth of July party!  And we
technically
planned this party!”

“Kholeryeh!” Devyn spat.  “This is
ferkockteh
!  This entire night is
gornisht helfen
!”

“Alright, alright,” Finn said, stepping in to stifle the grumping and groaning.  “Devyn, you’re drowning people.  And no one can understand a word you’re saying!”

“I
said
a plague on these people!  They’ve screwed up our night and there’s nothing we can do to save it!” Devyn snapped.

“We don’t have to let them ruin this,” Finn went on.  “You girls did spend hours planning this thing, so we should at least get to have a little fun.”

“How!” Heather demanded.  “Listen to that music!  Good lord!  And I saw Mia’s mom over there grinding with Mr. Samuels!”

“What!” Mia gasped, flushing scarlet.  “What!  You did not!”

“Uh, I did.  Look,” Heather said, pointing to the game field, but Mia refused to look in that direction.

“We
should
get have fun,” Chase put in from behind Lanie.  “Why don’t we nab some stuff and head out to the drive-in?  I’d rather face a homicidal maniac than sit here and watch Mia’s mom grind our Gym teacher.”

Lanie shivered and absolutely refused to let that image enter her mind.  She knew what was lurking out there and honestly, she’d rather take her chances with a crazed vampire than watch the parents
grinding
!

“Let’s go,” Lanie said, getting to her feet.

After a minute’s discussion to plot out their strategy, the group scattered, everyone going off to their designated spots and nabbing a bit of this or that and then they all scurried off the field, piled into the available cars, and got themselves as far away from the game field as they possibly could, hoping the parents were too…busy…to notice for a while.  Lanie, not wanting to risk her dad’s wrath, shot him a text telling him where they were all headed and why. 

The Drive-In was on the outskirts, and was partially surrounded by a thick stand of woods.  The movie screen had been taken down long ago, but the building that used to house the restaurant and concession stand remained, as did the massive paved parking lot.  The kids had taken down the boards covering the windows and broken the lock on the door long ago, allowing everyone access to the inside.  Since there was no electricity to light the inside of the building, some ingenious kids had snuck an old gas powered generator out to the place and rigged up some Christmas lights that hung down from the ceiling by the hundreds.  There were half a dozen old booths and just as many swivel stools at the stainless steel counter and plenty of space in the back, where the old supply room was located, to be used for purposes untoward.   Lanie wouldn’t have entered that space under the threat of death. 

Some of the girls that hung out there took it upon themselves to keep the place cleaned up and useable, including keeping the back disinfected and ready for use at a moment’s notice, otherwise it would have swiftly turned into a trash heap.  All in all, the drive-in was a nice place to get away from the parents and get into a little mischief. 

Just not too much in Lanie’s case.

Once the seniors hit the parking lot, everyone piled out of their cars and headed for the restaurant with their absconded goods.  The younger kids that usually hung out there were still at the game field, so they had the place all to themselves tonight.  Which was how Lanie liked it.  She didn’t need it so crowded that people were sitting on the floor and spilling out into the night.

Someone started the generator, which filled the air with a muffled, throaty hum, and flooded the building with the glow of hundreds of white Christmas lights. Everyone sat their bounty out on the stainless steel counter and then dug in.  It was nice, sitting beneath the glowing lights, eating cold burgers and drinking tepid sodas, and whining about the audacity of the adults in Fells Pointe, who
clearly
had no boundaries.

However, it wasn’t long before their serenity was shattered by some of the other kids beginning to filter in, complaining about the adults making them all go home early, where it was safe, so they could stay behind and do…whatever it was they thought they were doing.

Once the building became fairly crowded and most of the food had been scarfed, some of the team and the cheerleaders began to filter out into the parking lot to sit on their cars, or neck in the backseat of their cars, whichever they deemed more fun at the moment.

Lanie wound up with Devyn and Johnna sitting on the hood of Chase’s vehicle.  The night air was cool, cold almost, and smelled of fallen leaves and the frost that was on its way.  Here, away from the street lights, every single star in the endless night sky could be seen.  Lanie laid herself back on the windshield and stared up at all those twinkling little points of light prickling the velvet sky and tried to listen to her friends drone on about the trivial things they always talked about, but Lanie’s thoughts quickly ran to more…serious matters.

She’d been to this place so many times during her life she couldn’t even count them, and never once had she given a thought to being afraid.  And back at the game field, with all the lights and noise and people, it was easy to forget what was lurking in the darkness.  Now, with the darkness encroaching all around her, pushing in on her, it was very hard not to think about what might be watching her from the shadows.  In fact, she was starting to have that feeling of eyes boring into her again, which tightened her stomach and sent gooseflesh skittering along her arms. 

It was not a comfortable feeling; despite the fact that she was surrounded by practically the entire senior class and truly doubted that Frederik would come after her with so many kids around to witness it.  Still, she found herself hard pressed not to slide off the car and demand that Chase Wylie take her home.  She wasn’t going to do that, though.  She’d decided she didn’t want to live in fear and she wasn’t going to.

Besides, Kyle had promised he would be close, that he wouldn’t let Frederik take her and she was going to believe that.  She was going to believe the eyes she could feel boring into her were his, because he was watching her from someplace out in the darkness, making sure she was okay. 

If it was Kyle out there, and she was going to say it was, she wished he could come and be with her.  She wished he could come out of the shadows and join her and her friends, so that he could sit with them and talk about stupid, unimportant things, so that he could drink sodas and eat cold hotdogs and lay on the car with her and stare up at the stars. 

She wished that Kyle Vincent could just be normal for a while.

Thinking about Kyle, she could understand his need to hunt down the monster that had killed his sister and make that monster pay with his own life.  She could understand the need to try and save as many other people as possible.  She was glad he’d saved her.  Without him, she’d be with Stacy right now, or maybe someplace much worse.  But, how terrible and wasteful it was for a person to spend his entire life chasing after someone purely out of vengeance.  How sad and lonely an existence that must be.  Kyle was half of Frederik, so what if he lived even half as long?  Weren’t vampires supposed to live forever?  Would Kyle spend the next half of eternity chasing after a ghost he could never catch?  It was tragic.  And she thought that Kyle Vincent deserved something better.

He’d saved her life.   She believed that he deserved to get his life back, what there was left to get back.  She only wished she knew how to give that to him.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“What’s on your mind, Lanie?” Chase asked, his deep voice breaking into her thoughts.

Slightly startled, Lanie shook herself awake enough to answer.  “Nothing.  Nothing’s on my mind.”

“Bull.  She’s thinking about her mystery man,” Devyn pointed out.

“Devyn!” Lanie hissed.  Could the girl not keep a secret if her life depended on it?

“You have a boyfriend!” Chase accused, looking highly disappointed.

“No.  I
do not
have a boyfriend,” Lanie answered truthfully.

“Well, then you’re hooking up with some random guy,” Devyn pointed out.

Lanie found it difficult not to reach out and punch the girl.  “Devyn, stop talking,” she warned.

“Why?  I’m not lying,” Devyn said defensively.  “You are hanging out with a new guy and he was in your bedroom.”

Lanie felt her body readying itself to fly at Devyn and claw the girl’s eyes out.  “Devyn—“

“Devyn, shut up!” Johnna cut in, annoyed.  “It was
a secret
!  If she wanted her business blabbed all over town, she’d have told people herself!”

“Aw, I won’t tell anyone about your hookup,” Chase said easily.  “It’s none of my business what you do in your own bedroom.”

That made Lanie feel slightly skeezy somehow.  Sure, she wasn’t exactly innocent, but she didn’t like the thought of people thinking she was a slut, either.

“Why don’t we talk about something besides Lanie’s sex life,” Johnna suggested testily.