Shiver (Night Roamers) (9 page)

“Don’t forget, you’
re grounded!” called my mom, who was also leaving for work.

I
rolled my eyes and grabbed my car keys. “Right.”

Like she would
even be home to check on me
, I thought. She was spending more time at Caleb’s than at home.

School was as
boring and uneventful as usual. Everyone asked me about my wrist and I gave them some lame excuse about falling out of a tree after trying to rescue a cat. It was better than the truth, which would have made me the laughing stock of school.

During lunch, I sat down with a couple of girls from history class and they started talking about Duncan. App
arently, they’d heard Sonny was starting a search party to look for him since he was still missing. I decided to join when school was out.

“I’m coming, too,” said Nathan in the parking lot
at the end of the day. “Sonny’s closed the marina and needs all the help he can get.”

“I’d better let mom know,” I said, sending her a text. I seriously doubted she’d
be mad about me skipping out of being grounded when it came to finding Duncan. Fortunately, I was right.

Be home at a reasonable hour
, she texted back.
Good Luck
.

I met Nathan at the marina, where we met some volunteers who were organizing the different
search teams. We ended up getting assigned to an area near our cabin, which was good because that’s where he’d disappeared. As we were leaving, Sonny showed up, looking distraught.

“Any news?” asked Nathan.

He shook his head. He had bags under his eyes and his face was etched with worry lines. He seemed to have aged overnight. “No, nothing.”

“We’re going back towards our
cabin to see if there are any clues or anything. Nikki claims she saw him there the night he disappeared.”

Sonny raised his eyebrows and turned to me. “Really?”

I wanted to tell him everything, but from the distraught look in his eyes, I just couldn’t add to his stress. For one, it wouldn’t help matters, and for another, he’d probably think I was completely insane.

“
Yeah,” I said. “He left the cabin pretty late and that was the last time I saw him.”

Nathan’s eyebrows went up but he didn’t say anything.

“Did he mention where he was going when he left your place?”

I bit the side of my lip.
“I think he was heading home.” I felt horrible for lying but I didn’t know what else to say.

Sonny took out a cigarette.
“I should probably have you speak to the sheriff. He said he’d be here sometime around six.”

“Yeah, I’d
actually like to talk to him, too,” I said. Both Caleb
and
Celeste.

It was almost four by the time we left the marina. Nathan and I had actually decided to leave our vehicles at home and begin our own search, starting with the woods around our ho
use. He grabbed a flashlight so we could continue our search even when the sun went down.

“Let me show you the spot
where I think we flipped over in the truck,” I said.

He was
unusually quiet as we walked through the yard and towards the dirt road. It took us about ten minutes to reach the area where I thought the accident occurred.

“This is it,” I said, pointing towards the tire marks on the side leading into the grass. “Look
at those tire tracks.”

“
Yeah, and look over here,” he said, motioning towards an area of grass that was flattened. “This must have been where it rolled. There’s even some debris left over.”

Sure enough, there were
some broken pieces of glass and metal that had been forgotten by whoever had cleared the accident.

“So, do you believe me now?” I asked
, picking up a piece of a broken taillight.

He turned to me, his face grim
. “To be honest, I don’t really know what to believe. Either I’m almost as nuts as you, or there’s something very sinister going on here.”

“Nathan,” I said, standing up. “
I need to tell you this…last night I was with Ethan.”

His jaw clenched
. “What the hell, Nikki? That guy’s nothing but trouble. He’s a deviant, and the last person in the world you should be associating with. What in the hell were you thinking?”

I raised my chin and glared at him
. “Well, I didn’t go with him on my own free will. He grabbed me and flew me to some abandoned building.”

He shook his head and smirked
. “Right, he flew you.”

“Yeah, like I said
, he’s a vampire. If you don’t start removing your head from your ass, you’re going to find out the hard way that we are not alone out here. There are vampires or ‘Roamers’ as they prefer to be called.”

“Roamers?”

I nodded. “Yes, Celeste is also a vampire, and she told me they prefer to be called Roamers or Travelers.”

He started laug
hing. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

I raised my sprained wrist. “Does this look like I’m kidding? Does the fact that Duncan is missing and more people are being murdered really sound like a joke to you?”

He raised his hands. “Okay, let’s say that you’re right, which I’m not saying you are, but hypothetically, if there are ‘Roamers’, which one of them is responsible for Duncan?”

I sighed. “That’s
the part I’m not really sure of. The night he went missing, I could have sworn it was Ethan who attacked us, but now, after talking to him, I’m not so sure.”

He sighed
. “Why not? Because he’s a good kisser?”

Ethan was
; I had to give him that
.

“Because he
said he was out of town and believes that someone is setting him up.”

Nathan stared at me for a minute and
then began laughing. “I…this is just too hard to accept. I was willing to try, but Jesus, Nikki.”

I stepped towards him. “Just keep an open mind, please. That’s all I ask.”

Just then we both spotted Celeste’s truck moving towards us. When she reached the spot where we were standing, she rolled down her window and smiled sweetly at Nathan. “Hey there, handsome! You weren’t answering your phone so I thought I’d take a trip out here; I was just wondering if you were free tonight?”

“Well, I don’t know
, Celeste, we’re kind of busy. You heard Duncan’s missing, right?”

She tossed her red hair. “
I heard, but I know he’s just skipping town for a while.”

I raised my eyebrows. “
Oh, is that so?”

She nodded. “Yeah, he left me a message on my cell phone earlier today.”

We both stared at her in shock. “You’re kidding? Did you tell Sonny?”

She nodded. “I just got back from talking to him. I
even had him listen to the voicemail, too.”

“Sonny must be pissed,” muttered Nathan.
“Setting up this big search party and now finding out he just skipped out of town for a while.”

“You could say he was a little pissed
,” she answered.

“What did he say?” I asked.
I was hurt and confused. I’d left him several messages and he’d called
Celeste
?

“Duncan said he was confused about you,” she said, staring at me with amusement. “Th
at Ethan was still trying to come between you two and even went so far as to attack him the other night, just to get to you. He said he hit a tree and blacked out, when he woke up the next morning, you were gone and he assumed you’d left with Ethan, just like last time. He said it pissed him off so much that he drove to Minnesota where his mom lives. He needed time to think.”

The story didn’t make any sense at all.
It didn’t sound at all like Duncan, either. He wouldn’t have left town that easily, especially without checking to make sure that I was okay. “We didn’t hit a tree,” I said. “We flipped, right here, as a matter of fact.”

“Where’s the truck then?” asked Nathan.

Great, now he was questioning me again. Like always.

I glared at him.
“I don’t know but we definitely flipped. I was there.”

“So was Duncan,” said Celeste. “Anyway, you c
an talk to him about it when he gets back.”

I nodded. “
Oh, I certainly will.”

If he ever came back.

“So, what kind of plans did you have in mind for tonight?” smiled Nathan, all thoughts of Duncan replaced by his raging hormones.

She removed her sunglasses and gave him a sultry look. “
I was thinking about checking out that new club. You in?”

“I thought you were waiting until Saturday?” I asked
.

She nodded. “
I was. But then my friend, Julian – he’s a bouncer there – said they’re having a private party tonight and I should invite some friends. Julian says this party is going to be off the charts!”

“
You’re just lucky you graduated last year, Celeste,” said Nathan. “We aren’t allowed to go clubbing on a school night.”

She gave him a pouty look. “Oh, come on. Your mom’s probably staying at my dad’s tonight
, anyway; she won’t even know.”

He sighed. “Nikki’s grounded an
d I have to work tomorrow night. I’d be wiped out by then.”

Something changed in her expression and I
watched as Nathan’s eyes seemed to dilate as he stared at her in wonder.

“Meet me there at ten o’clock,” she murmured, running her nails over the hand he’d planted near her window. “I promise you won’t regret it, Nathan.” 

“I wouldn’t miss it
,” he answered, his eyes his face flushed.

“What the hell, Celeste?” I snapped.

She looked at me wide-eyed. “You’re free to tag along.
” She smiled, giving me a hint of fang. “I won’t bite.”

I was so angry that I wanted to punch her
, but I knew she’d kill me, literally. Instead, I just gave her a murderous look. “No, we’re both skipping tonight’s club invite. Sorry.”

Nathan turned to me. “That’s rude, Nikki. You don’t have to come if you don’
t want to, but don’t be such a bitch to Celeste!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mumbled, shaking my head
.

“Don’t worry, Celeste,” he said turning back to her. “I’ll be there.”

She gave me a triumphant smirk and then restarted the engine.
Batting her eyes at my clueless brother, she said, “See you later, Nathan.” Then she took off, kicking up rocks and dust in her wake.

“What was that all about?” he asked
, turning back to me. “You don’t have to be so damn rude to her all the time.”

I shook my head. “She just put you in some kind of trance. Don’t you
even realize that?”

He scowled
. “You’re completely nuts.”

I grabbed his arm.
“Don’t go out tonight. Mom will kill you if she finds out, Nathan.”