Sixteen Going on Undead (12 page)

You would have thought I told him he was fat and ugly the way his face fell. The depression in his eyes was clear. “Can’t turn back, Tanesha.”

His jagged teeth came down.

“No.” I shook my head. “No, Lorcan. I can’t do it.”

“You have to.”

He raised his wrist to his mouth and bit down. Thick red blood oozed around his lips. It should have been gross, but it wasn’t. In my head, I went over what I had read in that book at the library. I could make an excuse to him to let me go down to the kitchen. I could get a knife and...No, I couldn’t. Not him. Not Lorcan of all people.

Lorcan held out his wrist, and I took hold of it ready to slurp it up. A knock on the door, a twist of the knob, and I was holding air in front of my mouth. Lorcan was gone. I glanced from my mother now standing in my doorway to the window where the curtains were billowing.

“Are you okay, baby?” my mother asked. “I came in earlier, and you were knocked out. I couldn’t wake you for anything.”

“Sorry, Ma, I wasn’t feeling well. Something I ate I guess.” Or something I didn’t eat, I thought, remembering the sight of the blood on
Lorcan’s
wrist. Even as I sat there all calm as you please in front of my mother, I was greedy to find Lorcan. I actually wanted to jump out the window after him. The only thing about that is I wasn’t sure if it was the blood calling me or Lorcan himself. I was in so much trouble, and how could I tell my mother that? She would be making me an appointment to see a head doctor inside two seconds.

I grabbed my stomach and hunched forward, not meeting my mother’s eyes. “I’m still not feeling that well. I think I should just go back to sleep since it’s getting late, and try again tomorrow.”

She nodded. “Yeah, might as well. Your chores will wait.”

I sighed. “Thanks a lot, Ma.”

Her laugh irritated me as she strolled across to my bed and sat down a saucer I had noticed in her hand. “Here, eat this sandwich I made for you.
It’s
sliced turnkey and cheese on rye with mayo. The way you like it.” She pushed the plate toward me, and I resisted shrinking from it like it was filled with poison. “You need your strength because I can see you’re still shaking. If you’re not better tomorrow, I’m calling your doctor.”

To cover, I snatched the plate up like I was starving and lifted a half of the sandwich to my mouth. “Dang, Ma, don’t worry. I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

“Don’t dang me. Next thing I know you’ll be cussing me out. You’re not grown yet.”

I grumbled. “Sorry.”

She walked over to the door and shot a dark look at me over her shoulder. “Finish all of that food and go back to sleep. I’ll check on you in the morning.” It was almost like she expected me to try sneaking out of the house and she was locking me down. I made my face as innocent as possible and smiled back as I bit into the heavy bread. Nothing could have tasted more like sawdust.

Chapter Seven

When my mother shut the door, I spit the bite of sandwich out and ran over to the window. I searched the back yard, but Lorcan wasn’t there. By that time, I was seriously desperate. I tiptoed to my door, listened at it, and then opened it, but the sound of the TV in the living room let me know my mother was down there. Probably folding clothes and watching the news. I couldn’t get out the back door or the front because one of the steps creaked, and before I could get out, she’d see me.

Feeling defeated but still crazy enough to try anything, I ran back to my window, shoved it open wider, and threw a leg out. We didn’t even have a fire escape like some people did, and in other houses around the city, some people had second story porches on the back of the house. Ours was a straight drop down to a broken leg or a snapped neck.

I swallowed, took in a shaky breath and put a second leg over the sill. Maybe if I twisted around and let myself drop from my hands, there would be less chance of breaking my neck. I was about to go for it when something stopped me. I couldn’t see anything, but there was a force around me, keeping me from going beyond the window. I actually leaned way out, or tried to. Four or five inches from my house, an invisible shield kept me in place.

Was that why Lorcan hadn’t come back? That weird protection thing he had mentioned went up? Was it because I didn’t want him here? While I sat there, I tried to project my thoughts to him wherever he was.
“Lorcan, you out there? Come in, good buddy.”

I laughed at the CB talk. This time, no one laughed with me. At least Blake wasn’t around. Come to think of it, I hoped he was okay. I was sure he was. The men in his coven, the older ones, probably patched him right up. I was another story.

“Lorcan!”

Still no answer. I climbed back inside and stumbled across the room to stand over the plate of food. All the energy I had left had been used climbing out the window. I was in worse condition. After sinking to my knees, I laid my head on my bed and reached for the sandwich. Downstairs, the doorbell rang. I let my gaze drift to the clock at my bedside. Who would be coming here at eleven thirty at night?

A deep voice I recognized rumbled on the stairs. “I’ll see if she’s still awake.”

“Dad!” My yell of excitement was weak, and I didn’t get up, but I was so glad to see him. It had been forever. And while I loved my mother a lot, as great as she was, she couldn’t compare to my dad. He was seriously—my hero.

My mother had to be whack to have left him. He had money, he was over six feet tall, and he was obviously good-looking because everywhere we went when I was younger, women were trying to talk to him. That pissed off my mother. I had thought it was funny at the time, but Lorcan would no doubt get the same reaction from girls at my school or the mall, and I would hate it. Not that he was my boyfriend or that I was hoping he would be, but still. I’m just saying.

My dad stepped inside the room and shut the door behind him. He rushed around the bed and pulled me up from the floor. His frown at the plate of food as he set it aside told me it was just as much a turn off to him as me, but then he had always been a picky eater. He lifted my chin and looked into my eyes. The dark expression on his face made me shiver.

“What’s been going on around here?”

I pulled out of his hold and glanced away. “Nothing. I don’t know what you mean. Same old, same old.”

I wasn’t going to tell him about the vampires after me or about Lorcan in particular. He’d flip. Well, he wouldn’t believe me, and I’d find my butt down at the nearest hospital in the psych ward. No thanks. I would keep my secrets to myself.

“Don’t give me that, Tanesha.” He was starting to sound like my mother. “You’re pale, you’re shaking, and your mother said you’ve been sleeping for almost twenty-four hours.”

I waved an arm that proved his words by the way it
wibble
-wobbled around, and I dropped it in my lap, hoping he didn’t notice. “Ever heard of a cold or the flu?”

“Tanesha!”

“Sorry, Dad.” You could get away with smarting off to your mother sometimes, but you didn’t try that crap with your dad unless you wanted to land on the floor blinking and wondering how you got down there. “You know how she is. She exaggerates. I have not been sleeping for twenty-four hours.” I pretended to cough. “Just a little bug. No big deal.”

I don’t know who I thought I was fooling, but it was not Evan Johnson, that’s for sure. “I feel like you’re not being taken care of, and if that’s the case, someone will have to answer to me.”

“Dad, Ma’s doing her best. For real, just let it go, please.”

He didn’t respond for a few minutes, and I started twitching. A weird feeling came over me, and I glanced out the window. I could have sworn a shadow flitted past, too big to be a bird. The gentle pressure came over me, the one I’d experienced before when a vampire was probing my mind. I shut my eyes tight and thought of fruit—watermelon, apples, oranges. That turned my upset stomach, so I thought of the color yellow and associated it with the sun. I pictured the sun in my mind, great, big, and hot. I remembered that our sun was so big you could get millions of Earths inside it. When I learned that, it blew me away. That must mean the sun was ridiculously far away from our planet. Yet we felt the heat from it.

After a while, the pressure in my mind eased, and I hoped whoever had been nosing around in there didn’t find what they were looking for. I wanted to learn how to close my mind so everybody and his brother couldn’t invade it. What I was thinking was my business and nobody else’s.

My dad stood up and paced with his arms folded across his chest and a finger tapping his chin. His eyebrows were low, and his deep brown eyes seemed to be even darker. He was angry, but I hoped he wasn’t going to take it out on my mother and blame her for letting me get sick. The man was hard on me when it came to grades, but I guess he did spoil me and half expected my mother to do the same. “Pack some clothes, Tanesha. You’re staying with me a few days.”

“What!” I forced myself to stand and then wished I didn’t considering I was about to smash my nose on the floor. “Why do I have to go with you? This isn’t the right time. I have things I have to do, to find out and...”

“What things?”

I looked at the floor.

“You’re keeping something from me, Tanesha. Do you think I’m stupid?” Heck no. He knew me better than I knew myself. “When I asked you what is going on, you looked guilty. So, you can either explain it all to me now, or you can come and stay at my apartment until I feel comfortable letting you come back here, or until school starts. Your choice.”

He could not be serious. Wait, what was I worried about? My mother wasn’t going for it. A couple days
tops,
and I’d be back home. No problem. “Can Ronnie come?”

“Absolutely not!”

“Come on, Dad. He’s my best friend. You met him. He lives down the street.”

“Not going to happen. You’ll be fine at my house without Ronnie.” He strolled to the door. “I’m going to discuss this with your mother. Be ready in fifteen minutes.”

And just like that my dad was rearranging my life, making me have to put off finding out what was going on with me. Then again staying at his house might give me a break from being chased, and he also had a top of the line computer, unlike my mother and me living in the dark ages. I could do some Internet research on vampires.

I don’t know what my dad said to my mother, but I was shocked that she didn’t argue at all. In fact, when I walked past her and gave her a kiss on the cheek, she told me to have a good time while I was gone, which was weird because normally she would have said something like “you better act like you know while you’re over there” which meant she’d kill me if I did anything she didn’t like.

By the time we made it to the car, I was ready to nod off in the passenger seat. My father pressed something into my hand. “Take this.”

I looked down to find a tiny red pill. Fear gripped me. “Dad, you’re not giving me drugs, are you?”

He chuckled. “Of course not. It’s a vitamin. You look like you can use some nutrients.”

“If you only knew.” He offered me a warm bottle of water, and I used it to swallow the pill. Glancing outside my window, I saw something on the roof of my house and blinked. I couldn’t believe it. Lorcan had come back, or he never left. He crouched up there with a breeze stirring his silky black hair, lifting it off his forehead. My fingers started itching to play in that hair. I sighed.

I waited for him to say something in my head. Good-bye or I’m never letting you go. I
kinda
wanted the drama, the excitement. I know
,
I was what they called a glutton for punishment. Lorcan didn’t say a word, and my head remained quiet. What a lonely place.