The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner (3 page)

This felt strange because it was familiar in a haunting, uncomfortable way. I had sat like this before—across a table from
someone. I’d chatted casually with that person, thinking about things that were not life and death or thirst and blood. But
that had been in a different, blurry lifetime.

The last time I’d sat at a table with someone, that someone had been Riley. It was hard to remember that night for a lot of
reasons.

“So how come I never notice you around the house?” Diego asked abruptly. “Where do you hide?”

I laughed and grimaced at the same time. “I usually kick it behind wherever Freaky Fred is hanging out.”

His nose wrinkled. “Seriously? How do you stand that?”

“You get used to it. It’s not so bad behind him as it is in front. Anyway, it’s the best hiding place I’ve found. Nobody gets
close to Fred.”

Diego nodded, still looking kind of grossed out. “That’s true. It’s a way to stay alive.”

I shrugged.

“Did you know that Fred is one of Riley’s favorites?” Diego asked.

“Really?
How?
” No one could stand Freaky Fred. I was the only one who tried, and that was solely out of self-preservation.

Diego leaned toward me conspiratorially. I was already so used to his strange way that I didn’t even flinch.

“I heard him on the phone with
her.
”

I shuddered.

“I know,” he said, sounding sympathetic again. Of course, it wasn’t weird that we could sympathize with each other when it
came to
her
. “This was a few months back. Anyway, Riley was talking about Fred, all excited. From what they were saying, I guess that
some vampires can do things. More than what normal vampires can do, I mean. And that’s good—something
she
’s looking for. Vampires with skill
zzz
.”

He pulled the
Z
sound out, so I could hear how he was spelling it in his head.

“What kinds of skills?”

“All kinds of stuff, it sounds like. Mind reading and tracking and even seeing the future.”

“Get out.”

“I’m not kidding. I guess Fred can sort of repel people on purpose. It’s all in our heads, though. He makes us repulsed at
the thought of being near him.”

I frowned. “How is that a good thing?”

“Keeps him alive, doesn’t it? Guess it keeps you alive, too.”

I nodded. “Guess so. Did he say anything about anyone else?” I tried to think of anything strange I’d seen or felt, but Fred
was one of a kind. The clowns in the alley tonight pretending to be superheroes hadn’t been doing anything the rest of us
couldn’t do.

“He talked about Raoul,” Diego said, the corner of his mouth twisting down.

“What skill does Raoul have? Super-stupidity?”

Diego snorted. “Definitely that. But Riley thinks he’s got some kind of magnetism—people are drawn to him, they follow him.”

“Only the mentally challenged.”

“Yeah, Riley mentioned that. Didn’t seem to be effective on the”—he broke out a decent impression of Riley’s voice—“‘
tamer
kids.’”

“Tame?”

“I inferred that he meant people like us, who are able to think occasionally.”

I didn’t like being called tame. It didn’t sound like a good thing when you put it that way. Diego’s way sounded better.

“It was like there was a reason Riley needed Raoul to lead—something’s coming, I think.”

A weird tingle spasmed along my spine when he said that, and I sat up straighter. “Like what?”

“Do you ever think about why Riley is always after us to keep a low profile?”

I hesitated for half a second before answering. This wasn’t the line of inquiry I would have expected from Riley’s right-hand
man. Almost like he was questioning what Riley had told us. Unless Diego was asking this
for
Riley, like a spy. Finding out what the “kids” thought of him. But it didn’t feel like that. Diego’s dark red eyes were open
and confiding. And why would Riley care? Maybe the way the others talked about Diego wasn’t based on anything real. Just gossip.

I answered him truthfully. “Yeah, actually I was
just
thinking about that.”

“We aren’t the only vampires in the world,” Diego said solemnly.

“I know. Riley says stuff sometimes. But there can’t be
too
many. I mean, wouldn’t we have noticed, before?”

Diego nodded. “That’s what I think, too. Which is why it’s pretty weird that
she
keeps making more of us, don’t you think?”

I frowned. “Huh. Because it’s not like Riley actually
likes
us or anything….” I paused again, waiting to see if he would contradict me. He didn’t. He just waited, nodding slightly in
agreement, so I continued. “And
she
hasn’t even introduced herself.
You’re right. I hadn’t looked at it that way. Well, I hadn’t really thought about it at all. But then, what do they want
us
for
?”

Diego raised one eyebrow. “Wanna hear what I think?”

I nodded warily. But my anxiety had nothing to do with him now.

“Like I said, something is coming. I think
she
wants protection, and she put Riley in charge of creating the front line.”

I thought this through, my spine prickling again. “Why wouldn’t they tell us? Shouldn’t we be, like, on the lookout or something?”

“That would make sense,” he agreed.

We looked at each other in silence for a few long-seeming seconds. I had nothing more, and it didn’t look like he did, either.

Finally I grimaced and said, “I don’t know if I buy it—the part about Raoul being good for
anything
, that is.”

Diego laughed. “Hard to argue that one.” Then he glanced out the windows at the dark early morning. “Out of time. Better head
back before we turn into crispies.”

“Ashes, ashes, we all fall down,” I sang under my breath as I got to my feet and collected my pile.

Diego chuckled.

We made one more quick stop on our way—hit the empty Target next door for big ziplocks and two backpacks. I double-bagged
all my books. Water-damaged pages annoyed me.

Then we mostly roof-topped it back to the water. The sky was just faintly starting to gray up in the east. We slipped into
the sound right under the noses of two oblivious night watchmen by the big ferry—good thing for them I was full or they would
have been too close for my self-control—and then raced through the murky water back toward Riley’s place.

At first I didn’t know it was a race. I was just swimming fast because the sky was getting lighter. I didn’t usually push
the time like this. If I were being honest with myself, I’d pretty much turned into a huge vampire nerd. I followed the rules,
I didn’t cause trouble, I hung out with the most unpopular kid in the group, and I always got home early.

But then Diego really kicked it into gear. He got a few lengths ahead of me, turned back with a smile that said,
what, can’t you keep up?
and then started booking it again.

Well, I wasn’t taking that. I couldn’t really remember if I’d been the competitive type before—it all seemed so far away and
unimportant—but
maybe I was, because I responded right away to the challenge. Diego was a good swimmer, but I was way stronger, especially
after just feeding.

See ya
, I mouthed as I passed him, but I wasn’t sure he saw.

I lost him back in the dark water, and I didn’t waste time looking to see by how much I was winning. I just jetted through
the sound till I hit the edge of the island where the most recent of our homes was located. The last one had been a big cabin
in the middle of Snowville-Nowhere on the side of some mountain in the Cascades. Like the last one, this house was remote,
had a big basement, and had recently deceased owners.

I raced up onto the shallow stony beach and then dug my fingers into the sandstone bluff and flew up. I heard Diego come out
of the water just as I gripped the trunk of an overhanging pine and flipped myself over the cliff edge.

Two things caught my attention as I landed gently on the balls of my feet. One: it was really light out. Two: the house was
gone.

Well, not entirely gone. Some of it was still visible, but the space the house had once occupied was empty. The roof had collapsed
into ragged, angular wooden lace, charred black, sagging lower than the front door had been.

The sun was rising fast. The black pine trees were showing hints of evergreen. Soon the paler tips would stand out against
the dark, and at about that point I would be dead.

Or
really
dead, or whatever. This second thirsty, superhero life would go up in a sudden burst of flames. And I could only imagine
that the burst would be very, very painful.

This wasn’t the first time I’d seen our house destroyed—with all the fights and fires in the basements, most of them lasted
only a few weeks—but it was the first time I’d come across the scene of destruction with the first faint rays of sunlight
threatening.

I sucked in a gasp of shock as Diego landed beside me.

“Maybe burrow under the roof?” I whispered. “Would that be safe enough or—?”

“Don’t freak out, Bree,” Diego said, sounding too calm. “I know a place. C’mon.”

He did a very graceful backflip off the bluff edge.

I didn’t think the water would be enough of a filter to block the sun. But maybe we couldn’t burn if we were submerged? It
seemed like a really poor plan to me.

However, instead of tunneling under the burned-out hull of the wrecked house, I dove off the cliff
behind him. I wasn’t sure of my reasoning, which was a strange feeling. Usually I did what I always did—followed the routine,
did what made sense.

I caught up to Diego in the water. He was racing again, but with no nonsense this time. Racing the sun.

He whipped around a point on the little island and then dove deep. I was surprised he didn’t hit the rocky floor of the sound,
and more surprised when I could feel the blast of warmer current flowing from what I had thought was no more than an outcropping
of rock.

Smart of Diego to have a place like this. Sure, it wasn’t going to be fun to sit in an underwater cavern all day—not breathing
started to irritate after a few hours—but it was better than exploding into ashes. I should have been thinking like Diego
was. Thinking about something other than blood, that is. I should have been prepared for the unexpected.

Diego kept going through a narrow crevice in the rocks. It was black as ink in here. Safe. I couldn’t swim anymore—the space
was too tight—so I scrambled through like Diego, climbing through the twisting space. I kept waiting for him to stop, but
he didn’t. Suddenly I realized that we really
were
going up. And then I heard Diego hit the surface.

I was out a half second after he was.

The cave was no more than a small hole, a
burrow about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, though not as tall as that. A second crawl space led out the back, and I could
taste the fresh air coming from that direction. I could see the shape of Diego’s fingers repeated again and again in the texture
of the limestone walls.

“Nice place,” I said.

Diego smiled. “Better than Freaky Fred’s backside.”

“I can’t argue with that. Um. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

We looked at each other in the dark for a minute. His face was smooth and calm. With anyone else, Kevin or Kristie or any
of the others, this would have been terrifying—the constricted space, the forced closeness. The way I could smell his scent
on every side of me. That could have meant a quick and painful death at any second. But Diego was so composed. Not like anyone
else.

“How old are you?” he asked abruptly.

“Three months. I told you that.”

“That’s not what I meant. Um, how old
were
you? I guess that’s the right way to ask.”

I leaned away, uncomfortable, when I realized he was talking about
human
stuff. Nobody talked about that. Nobody wanted to think about it. But I didn’t want to end the conversation, either. Just
having a
conversation at all was something new and different. I hesitated, and he waited with a curious expression.

“I was, um, I guess fifteen. Almost sixteen. I can’t remember the day… was I past my birthday?” I tried to think about it,
but those last hungry weeks were a big blur, and it hurt my head in a weird way to try to clear them up. I shook my head,
let it go. “How about you?”

“I was just past my eighteenth,” Diego said. “So close.”

“Close to what?”

“Getting out,” he said, but he didn’t continue. There was an awkward silence for a minute, and then he changed the subject.

“You’ve done really well since you got here,” he said, his eyes sweeping across my crossed arms, my folded legs. “You’ve survived—avoided
the wrong kind of attention, kept intact.”

I shrugged and then yanked my left t-shirt sleeve up to my shoulder so he could see the thin, ragged line that circled my
arm.

“Got this ripped off once,” I admitted. “Got it back before Jen could toast it. Riley showed me how to put it back on.”

Diego smiled wryly and touched his right knee with one finger. His dark jeans covered the scar that must have been there.
“It happens to everybody.”

“Ouch,” I said.

He nodded. “Seriously. But like I was saying before, you’re a pretty decent vampire.”

“Am I supposed to say thanks?”

“I’m just thinking out loud, trying to make sense of things.”

“What things?”

He frowned a little. “What’s really going on. What Riley’s up to. Why he keeps bringing the most random kids to
her
. Why it doesn’t seem to matter to Riley if it’s someone like you or if it’s someone like that idiot Kevin.”

It sounded like he didn’t know Riley any better than I did.

“What do you mean, someone like me?” I asked.

“You’re the kind that Riley should be looking for—the smart ones—not just these stupid gang-bangers that Raoul keeps bringing
in. I bet you weren’t some junkie ho when you were human.”