Sixteen Going on Undead (9 page)

I decided if he couldn’t tell me his name, then I didn’t have to listen to him. I started creeping toward the edge of the park. At least there would be
more light
, and if I needed to scream, houses were nearby for someone to hear me.

The thought of more light reminded me of something. The park didn’t have street lights, which was why it closed at night. Only the circle had old fashioned lamps around its edges, not here in the trees. So how the heck was I getting around? My heart felt like it was stuck in my throat, and I glanced about. In the sky, the moon had gone behind thick clouds, plunging the park into total darkness, yet I could see in that darkness like it was twilight. Another side effect to a vampire’s bite, I thought. I touched my neck but felt no marks. Like before, Lorcan had done something to heal me.

Instead of moving like a normal person would, stumbling with hands slung out to keep from bumping into something, I just walked. When voices up ahead reached my ears, I paused and crept to an opening. Mrs. Knowles was just turning away from Ronnie, and she darted into the trees so fast, I felt sick. That was not an old lady, and Ronnie knew it. From my distance, he looked worried and a little annoyed, but he did not look shocked at how Mrs. Knowles had moved.

My best buddy knew more than he claimed to know about everything that was going on. I stood there leaning against a tree and biting my thumbnail. Behind me the area was clear, and I could no longer pick up Lorcan and that other guy arguing, but that didn’t mean I was out of danger. I turned back to Ronnie. He still hadn’t spotted me.

After a few minutes, he put his hands out in front of him and moved like a bumbling idiot through the darkness. So he wasn’t a member of the undead society. That was good to know. When he stumbled over an untied shoelace that I zoomed in on with no problem, I laughed. Yeah his dumb behind was human.

I stepped out. “Ronnie, what are you doing out here?”

He spun to face me and then ran forward to hug me, knocking us both on her butts. I shoved him off.

“Stupid, are you crazy?”

He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. “Are you? What are you doing out here?” He hesitated and then continued. “I had this horrible dream a little while ago, and I called your cell. You didn’t answer. I started to get worried.”

I stood up, brushing dirt off my shorts and noticing for the first time that I was still barefoot. My flip-flops were back at the circle. I didn’t look at Ronnie as I headed toward the street with him falling into step beside me. He was lying. Just as sure as I knew my own name, Ronnie was
lying
his head off.

All of a sudden, an intense sadness came over me. I felt alone and scared. I had no one I could trust. I expected not to trust people I didn’t know. Now that I knew vampires existed, I expected not to trust them. But of all the people in the world, I did expect to trust me best friend, and I couldn’t.

That fact brought tears to my eyes, and I had to swallow over and over to keep them from falling. I wasn’t the crying type, not even when I had been teased and called Grimace by half the girls in my class in seventh grade. But this was worse than that, much worse. The more I found out, the less I knew, and nobody wanted to own up to anything.

We stopped outside my house, and Ronnie waited for me to go up to my door. I hesitated. “Ronnie, what’s going on? I saw Mrs. Knowles out there in the park. She was talking to you. What about?”

He was quick with his answer. “I don’t know why she was out there. You know that crazy old lady. I did ask her if she’d seen you though. She said she didn’t but she’d let you know I was looking for you.”

I found the nerve to look him in the eye but didn’t feel any
glamouring
happening to me, nothing to indicate he was trying to control me. He just blinked back with his big brown eyes behind his glasses. He looked innocent enough.

“She talked to you? I can’t believe it. She acts all anti-social and everything. I don’t remember anyone actually carrying on a conversation with her.”

“Asking if she’s seen you was hardly a conversation.” He crossed his arms and looked down at my feet. “Why would you leave the house this time and not wear any clothes or shoes? Your mom would kill you if she found out.”

I didn’t feel like telling him I had something on my feet when I left, as if that would make up for the fact that I was in the shorts and T-shirt I wore to bed each night. What I did struggle with is how to tell him I couldn’t get back in the house. “I pulled the door shut not realizing I didn’t bring my key. I’m stuck out here. I guess I’m in trouble either way.”

“How?”

I played dumb. “Huh?”

“How did you come out? Front door or back?”

“Um.”

He waved his hand. “Never mind. I know a way to climb up to your window. You left it open as usual, didn’t you? No matter how many times I’ve told you not to.”

“It’s hot, and the central air doesn’t mean squat in my room. I told you that. Besides, I broke my fan last week, remember?”

“Stay here, I’ll climb up and come open the front door for you.” He started to walk away and then turned back, worry on his face. He looked up and down the street and pushed me toward the steps. “Get up on the porch. You know some of these old people in this block don’t sleep. They sit by the window to watch what’s going on outside.”

I let out a squeak. “Oh my goodness, you’re right.” I darted up on the porch, praying no one had seen me. That was all I needed, for one of them to tell my mother I’d been out here this time of night. I wouldn’t have to be undead to miss daylight for a month. “Hurry up, Ronnie.”

He ran down the street to circle the block and go up the alley. I dropped into the chair my mother kept on the porch and winced from the hard metal under my butt. She took in the cushion for the chair every night to keep strays from making a comfy home on it when we weren’t looking.

By the time I had made it back to my room and assured that dang Ronnie I was fine to be on my own and wouldn’t leave the room again before morning, I was yawning up a storm. My eyes burned, and my jaw ached from stretching it so hard. I needed to go take a shower and wash the dirt off, but I couldn’t make myself do it. Instead I flopped on my bed and was almost out in two seconds before I felt someone in the room with me.

I forced my eyes open and scanned the room. This time, he didn’t use a cloaking technique to hide. He just sat bold as you please in the chair across from my bed, watching me. I made myself sit up and wrap the sheet around me.

“Why are you here?”

He smirked. “Why did you leave me? I could have protected you.”

“But who would have protected me from you?” Getting bold, I slipped out of bed and strolled over closer to him. The scent of blood on him was strong. It tickled my nose and made me want to smack my lips together like an animal. Because that was shocking, I resisted doing it. I wasn’t about to examine myself right then to figure out what issues I had. Besides, Lorcan had issues of his own.

When I got right up on him, I noticed he had gashes in the side of his beautiful face, on both sides, and his eye was swollen. My heart almost stopped, looking at him. I reached out to touch the cut on his forehead, but before my fingertips could make the connection, the little slit was gone. Just like that. I blinked.

“What in the world?”

His eyes drifted closed, and he looked run down in energy beside the fact that he was beat up. “Oh, didn’t I tell you? We heal fast.”

“Vampires?”

“Yup.”

I tried not to cry, but it wasn’t easy. “It hurts though, doesn’t it?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” Before I knew what he was doing, he stood up and lifted me in his arms like I weighed five pounds. He carried me to the bed, laid me down, and slipped up there beside me, resting his back on the headboard. I hoped he wasn’t getting any funny ideas, because I wasn’t ready for
that
.

We sat side by side in silence for a while, staring out the window at the moon. My thoughts were alive with trying to figure out who I was and why he was after me, or rather why the others had sent him after me. Who would tell me? Blake?

I shut down that thought before it could fully form. If Lorcan was reading my mind, he’d know I was thinking about questioning Blake about myself, and he might not like it. As weird as that guy was, he seemed the most forthcoming about what was going on. I was going to milk that for all it was worth.

“Lorcan, how did you become a vampire? How long has it been?”

He sighed. “Twenty years. It was my birthday, and I’d just turned eighteen.” He leaned his head back, and I noticed how there was no emotion on his face as he spoke about it. Maybe twenty years was long enough for him to accept the curse of never dying, and being stuck in the dark. “My dad had taken me out that afternoon to get my first car. I was so excited. I thought I was the shit. He let me drive all that way to the next town which was like fifteen miles, to this restaurant we both liked. I had shrimp primavera—bell peppers, onions, mushrooms and this sauce over the penne called
arrabbiata
.”

“Dang, you remember all that?” I asked him.

He nodded. “It was the last meal I ever ate.”

My throat tightened. “If it’s too hard to talk about, you don’t have to.”

Lorcan pulled me closer to his side and kissed me. I could get used to that. I slipped my arms up around his neck and rested my cheek on his chest. If I couldn’t trust him, it was something I would deal with tomorrow. Tonight, I wanted to pretend that he was my boyfriend, even if it wouldn’t last.

“It was on the way back. Something swooped down from the sky and bumped the front of the car. My dad didn’t believe me. He thought I’d hit something in the road, maybe an animal.” He shrugged. “It all happened so fast, maybe I was wrong, but I doubt it. We were alongside the cliff by the water. You know the place.”

I nodded. Down past the lake, just outside of town, there was a hilly area where the road got windy. If you weren’t paying attention, you could go over. During heavy storms that route out of the city was closed because of mudslides. I was thinking a rock could have hit his car, but then there were no big rocks like that on that hill above the road. The place was trees, grass, and dirt—nice to look at but not good in bad weather.

“So what happened then?”

This time he did show emotion. Anger. Lorcan put me away from him at the same time I saw that all the bruises and cuts on his face were gone. He stood up and paced the room, his fists clenched and his lips pinched tight together. When he faced me, his eyes glowed, and it was like he didn’t recognize me or thought I was the enemy from back then, the one that had attacked him and his father.

I swallowed. “Lorcan?”

His glowing eyes were
creeping
me out. They seemed blinded, staring right through me. “He wanted me to stop. We should have kept going. He demanded to drive and yelled at me that I was not responsible. I pulled over, and the second he stepped out of the car, he was attacked. I couldn’t stop it. I punched and beat at the thing until my fists bled, but it was like hitting a wall.”

Don’t I know
that!
Lorcan
was built like a wall himself. Must be a vampire thing. My heart hurt for him, but I was scared to go over and try to hug him. I would wait until he calmed down some.

Without warning Lorcan blinked. His eyes went back to normal. The whites returned, and the blue-green drew me in. I drifted over to him, letting the sheet fall on the floor. I couldn’t move. He stood there above me staring into my eyes. As if in slow motion, his lips parted, and his fangs came down.