Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side (39 page)

Faith was still glaring up at me when I reached the top of the stairs and looked down on her. "He'll pay," she called to me.

I believed her.

Everything I'd set in motion with that one cup of spilled blood ... It was spinning out of control even faster than I'd ever imagined it could.

I had never really believed that Frank Dormand would actually manage to link Lucius to the word
vampire.
But he had. And now Faith was furious at Lucius.

Frank, stupid as he was, had stumbled upon the damning knowledge. And Faith was just the person to use it, ruthlessly.

I had underestimated my enemies.

Lucius would have called it a rookie mistake on my part. The error of a girl not ready to rule vampire legions. I had so much to learn and not enough time to learn it.

Chapter 51

"LUCIUS?" MY VOICE echoed in the near-empty gym, sounding small.

The cavernous room was practically dark, with only one bank of lights turned on. At the far end of the court, Lucius practiced layups alone in that repetitive, ritualistic way Id seen before: dribble, slam, retrieve . . . again and again and again, never missing a shot. Never faltering. He didn't turn at the sound of my voice, and uncertain if he'd heard me, I walked toward him across the long expanse of hardwood.

"Lucius?" I tried again when I reached the top of the key.

He crashed the ball through the hoop and let it bounce away, turning to face me, puzzled. Not pleased. "Jessica . . . how did you find me?"

"I saw you leave with the ball, and it's too cold to play outside." I glanced around the empty gym. "I decided to see if you were here."

"How did you get in? The school is locked."

"The same way you did. I knocked on the window where the custodian was working. He told me where to find you."

"He usually just leaves the door nearest the gymnasium propped open for me," Lucius said. "I have made it worth his while, of course, to break the rules."

Some of the anger seemed to have faded from Lucius, as if it had healed along with his bruises. And yet the old Lucius wasn't back, either. The vampire before me seemed like a brand-new incarnation.

"Are you okay?" I asked. "I heard about Faith. That you broke up with her."

"Yes. That had run its course, as such things must."

I realized that Lucius and I were standing very close to where we'd danced, back at the Christmas formal, which seemed a lifetime away, although it had only been a few weeks. As close as we'd briefly been that night—our blood nearly commingling—that's how far apart we seemed in the empty gymnasium. I might as well have been standing at the other end of the massive room. I might as well have been standing on another planet.

"I made a mistake, Lucius. Drinking the blood. Letting Faith see it."

"I have made worse errors, Jessica. Don't worry yourself unnecessarily."

"But now Frank is talking about you being a vampire, and Faith is furious, and everyone is gossiping. Even Mindy is pulling away from me, scared by the rumors."

"Yes, quite a few things seem to be converging, do they not?" Lucius didn't smile wryly, as I'd expected. He was strangely quiet. Almost preternaturally calm.

"What are you going to do, Lucius?"

He turned his back on me and scooped up the ball, palming it easily. "Play basketball, Jessica. And wait."

“Lucius—“

"Good night, Jessica," he said, drowning out any reply I could have offered with the sound of the basketball smacking the hardwood, the squeak of his shoes on the court, and the swoosh of the shot through the rim. Again and again and again.

Chapter 52

"HEY." RESTING MY BACK against the tiled gym wall, I sank down next to Mindy, who had been eliminated right before me. "That looked like it hurt."

Mindy avoided my eyes. She kept staring at the dodgeball game like she had a million-dollar bet riding on the outcome.

"It's just a ball."

"But that idiot, Dane, aimed right for your head . . ."

Mindy edged away, just a little, on the gym floor. She still didn't look at me. "It didn't hurt so bad."

"Are you still mad at me? Or just freaked out?" I finally asked.

Mindy shrugged. "A little of both, I guess."

"Oh. Because at first it was like you always had an excuse for why we couldn't eat lunch, and then you got really bad about returning phone calls . . . You've been avoiding me for
two weeks,
Min."

Mindy fiddled with her shoelaces, retying them with the sort of focus usually associated with five-year-olds. "I'm just busy, that's all."

"You're not
that
busy."

Mindy finally looked at me. "I'm sorry, Jess, but. . ."

"But what?"

"It just got too weird for me."

"So you believe the rumors."

She stared back out at the dodgeball game. "I don't know what to believe. And you won't tell me."

"It's complicated," I said. "But if you can just trust me for a while until I sort it out—"

Mindy turned to me again, and this time there was fear in her eyes. "It's not just about you, Jess."

"Then what?"

"It's . . . him. He's the one who changed you. He did something to you. And he did something to Faith. She showed people the scratches..."

Mindy didn't have to clarify who "him" was: Lucius.

"Everything was normal until he came here, and he changed you," Mindy said, misery in her voice, as if Lucius had actually stolen something from her. And I suppose, in her view, he had.

"It's not Lucius's fault," I said. "I mean, it's nobody's fault, because everything's fine."

"It's not fine, Jess." Mindy's composure was cracking. "You know I like Lukey—I
liked
Lukey. But people are saying he's not right. People are
scared."

"There's nothing to be scared of."

Mindy tried to smile but couldn't quite manage it. "If you say so, Jess."

"You're still coming over for my birthday, right?" I asked. "For dinner?"

My eighteenth birthday was a few weeks away. Mindy and I had always celebrated our birthdays together. We had exchanged presents and eaten cake and made wishes, side-by-side since we'd been four years old. I gave her hand a shake. "You'll be there, right?"

But the force with which Mindy pulled away and the way she glanced around to see if anyone had noticed me touching her told me that the tradition was over.

"I'm sorry, Jess," she said. It sounded like her throat was tight. "I just can't. Not if
he's
there."

"Please, Mindy . . ."

But I didn't get a chance to finish convincing her, because an errant dodgeball smacked the wall right above my head. My inadvertent yelp alerted Coach Larson to the fact that Mindy and I were just sitting around, and she blew her whistle. "Get your butts back in here or do some laps," she hollered, clapping fiercely. "Don't just sit there getting fat and lazy!"

I slid slowly up the wall with my usual goal of wasting as much gym time as possible, but Mindy was on her feet like a shot, tearing into the fray, grabbing up a ball and hurling it at our classmates with a vengeance that astonished me. I'd never seen Mindy Stankowicz actually participate in gym class. She always did her best either to be the first person retired from any game or to fake an injury. And she was the most believable actress I'd ever known when it came to cramps. One month she'd managed to have her period for three straight weeks. But now. . . now Mindy was rocketing around the gym floor, scooping up every stray ball she could get her hands on, firing like a Gatling
gun in a gangster movie. Maybe she was imagining me out there, cowering against the wall.

"Get in here, too, Packwood." Coach Larson blew her whistle again. "Now!"

But I ignored her. I just watched Mindy for a few moments, then walked to the locker room, excusing myself with a resolute dignity that my gym teacher seemed powerless to counter, because she didn't even attempt to order me again.

Chapter
53

"MRS. WILHELM?"

I glanced up from an elaborate doodle I'd been sketching in my notebook to see Frank Dormand waving his fat hand around, trying to get our teacher's attention. I'd never seen Frank raise his hand for anything, so I figured he either had diarrhea and needed a hall pass or . .. actually, I couldn't think of any other reason a moron like Frank would call attention to himself in an academic setting. Therefore, what he said next greatly surprised me.

"Yes, Frank?" Mrs. Wilhelm seemed puzzled, too.

"I did a book report."

What?

"Oh. Dear." Mrs. Wilhelm clearly didn't know whether to be delighted, terrified, or both. "You did? Because you weren't assigned ..."

"I know," Frank said. "But I was so interested in the books that I read ahead ..."

I could see Mrs. Wilhelm getting a little intrigued in spite of her obvious misgivings. To hear that a student—especially a dismal scholar like Frank—had read ahead . . . well, it must have seemed like she'd won the lottery and found true love all on the same day. "You did?" she repeated, eyes getting a little starry.

Something about the whole situation struck me as very, very wrong. I glanced back at Lucius, slightly alarmed, but he was merely watching, eyes neutral with that new strange calm he'd cultivated.

"And what did you read?" Mrs. Wilhelm inquired.

"Dracula,"
Frank announced. "And I'm ready to talk about it."

Oh, no. Oh, please, no.
I swung back around in my seat. We were on some sort of dangerous ground now. Frank and Faith had cooked up something.
Please, Mrs. Wilhelm. Tell him just to shut up.

"Well, Frank, we are still weeks away from reading Bram Stoker," Mrs. Wilhelm mused.

"I know, but I really got excited about this great book," Frank said. "It gave me lots to think about. I really want to tell the class about it."

Mrs. Wilhelm wavered for one more second, but the idea that a lackluster student was actually excited about a book— had found things to
think about
... it was just too much for her. "Please, then, Franklin. Do share your report." She took a seat as Frank squeezed out from behind his desk and lumbered to the front of the class.