Vamped (10 page)

That made sense, but I still didn’t like it. Patience just seemed like such a waste of time. There were more of us than there were of smelly Melli and her cabal, and maybe after what they’d seen with Rick they’d be fired up to escape … or maybe they’d be scared spitless and someone would tattle to the dragon lady, ruining our chances. No, Bobby was right, darn it. I had to learn the
P
word.

“Fine,” I said, maybe not as graciously as I could have. “What have you learned so far? I get that we’re comatose with the dawn, but do we really burn up in sunlight? What about stakes and crosses and holy water and … ”

“Whoa, slow down.” He got that totally hot glint in his eyes, like I’d done something sexy just spouting off at the mouth. “I had no idea you were into vamp lore.”

I rolled my eyes. “Please. I wouldn’t know a thing if Hollywood didn’t make the vampires so smokin’.”

“You think vampires are smokin’?” he asked.

“Well, one in particular.”

His eyes were totally smoldering now and he licked his lips, but he didn’t let that divert him. “Well, crosses, holy water, stars of David and all that won’t do anything unless they’re blessed or have real faith behind them. They don’t work if they’re just decoration. I’m trying not to think about what that means for our souls. Larry said even going past an Italian place now makes him choke, so I’m guessing garlic works. But I think the whole thing about vampires not being able to cross running water is just to lull prey—”

“Bobby,” I cut in.

“Yeah?”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

Somewhere during his speech I’d decided I was way more interested in him than what he was saying. He took a step closer and I slid my hands beneath his sweater, wanting to feel his skin, the tautness of his muscles. I stroked my nails down his back and he gasped and bent his head down to kiss me.

All thoughts of mortality and escape fled my brain

13

I
was still waiting my turn in line for one of the bathrooms, rubbing sleep out of my eyes—the sandman still came, even if the dreams didn’t—when the dormitory doors opened. Dread rose up in me. It totally reinforced the fact that something had to be done. I was not going to live my life in fear of an opening door.

Sparky and Chickzilla stood there, scanning the crowd.

“Marcy Soleas,” Chick said, raising her voice so that it bounced ominously around the room.

Marcy, who was right in front of me in line doing her standing stomach exercises while she waited (even though I was pretty sure blood was a low-carb diet and that the transformation would let her keep her abs of steel), whirled around at the sound of her name, took in Melli’s minions and got a death grip on my arm.

All eyes turned toward Marcy. Chickzilla and Sparky followed their lead.

“Come with us,” Chick continued. She tried to make her voice neutral, maybe even upbeat, but she failed.

Marcy’s nails were like talons digging into my arm. “I
knew
it. I suck at the war games. I’m, like, the worst of the worst.
I’m next
.”

I didn’t want to believe it, but being singled out by this gang hadn’t exactly been good for Rick … or me. So not comforting. Around us everyone watched with wide-eyed attention. Pam Raines and Vanessa Barrett even stopped their incessant whispering. Chaz and one of his wingmen looked like they might almost consider stepping up if there was undisputed proof that Marcy was in danger … or if there was something in it for them. It seemed that the attack on Rick had scratched everyone’s rose-colored glasses.

“Why?” I challenged the Chick.

“Because the lady said so,” Sparky answered for her.

“I want to go too.” A hand went to my hip as I said it, and I heard Chaz take a breath as if he recognized the danger sign.

“No. There, that was easy.
Marcy
,” Sparky said, like maybe his summons carried more weight than the Chick’s.

Marcy took a step forward, still with the death grip on my arm, which pulled me out of line. I gave her hand a squeeze, then gently pried her nails from my flesh.

“Nothing’s going to happen. Promise,” I told her.

“Pinky swear?” she whispered back.

“Absolutely.”

Chickzilla rolled her eyes skyward. “Lord, pinky swear? Where are we, grade school?”

I turned on her. “Speaking of which, the ’80s called. They want their clothing back.” Her outfit today was a baby blue unitard with a silver sheen. She looked like she belonged in some ancient video where the men wore more makeup than the women.

She actually grinned. “Nice face. Get it out of a Crackerjack box?”

“All right,” Sparky snarled. “We’re on a time table, so if you two are done with your hissy fit … ”

The Chick glared at him and started across the room to grab Marcy, since she wasn’t moving quickly enough on her own. They marched her out into the hall, the door swinging shut behind them.

No way in hell was I letting anyone I cared about end up like Rick. I had a sudden really deep suspicion about where they were taking Marcy and why, and I had a feeling she wouldn’t be coming back. I was going to get my boots on and then I was going to kick some ass.

I looked around my cot. “Who the
hell
has my boots?” I asked, glaring straight at Tina. “If none of you have the cojones to follow them, surrender my spikes and get out of my way.”

The boots flew across the room to land at my feet—hurled by, of all people, Chaz, who must have swiped them for Tina, because the alternative, some kind of fetish, was just too freaky to think about.

“Hair spray,” I added.

“Gina, now isn’t the time—” Tina started, and I growled.

No one else even asked. A can of superhold flew out of nowhere and I caught it one-handed. Pretty cool. I tucked it into my waistband like a pistol. Not quite pepper spray, but it would do.

“Now, where’s that trap door?” I was already cursing myself for not paying better attention.

Cassandra, the cheerleader, blew out a breath so strong it lifted her blond hair right off her face. “
I’ll
show you.” She glared around the room. “Any of you say a word, you’re dead meat. Get me?”

A few people nodded, but mostly no one moved at all.

“This way,” she continued.

I followed her to the very area where all the beds were stacked. She turned again to the room at large. “A little help here?”

This much they could do. The room unfroze; kids came to unstack their beds, move them away until the space was cleared. It was a good job. If I didn’t know there was a door, I’d never have seen it. For the first time, I wondered if Melli had had it installed or if it had started as some old bomb shelter or something—not that Ohio was, like, a hotbed of strategic targets.

“Anyone know the code?” I asked.

“That’s the trick, isn’t it?” ROTC-guy, Trevor, asked, stepping forward. “It’s a little complicated; it takes two.” He looked at Cassandra, who blushed.

I felt distinctly like a third wheel.

“But I don’t know it,” she admitted.

Looking into her eyes, he took her hand and then played a beat on her palm with his other hand. “It’s like dum de-adda, dum de-adda, dum de-adda, dum de-adda.”

“‘Chopsticks’?” I asked incredulously, but also quietly, because I didn’t want to be a buzzkill when they were helping me out. His part would then have to be “Heart and Soul,” the first thing any kid learned to play on the piano … even me, though the piano teacher my parents foisted on me and I mutually agreed to part ways before someone got hurt.

Cassandra nodded to Trevor that she had it, and they squatted next to the slab to play their duet. The trap door recessed into the floor and slid back.

I sat down on the edge of the opening to slide my boots on, because if I were jumping into the unknown I didn’t want it to squish between my toes. Something in the toe of one boot went crinkle-crunch. It beat ooze or squish, but not when my brain suggested bugs, or their carcasses, that could have taken up residence while I was away. I tried to tell myself it was just someone’s Corbin Bleu picture or something, and that time was awastin’. I knew Marcy was getting farther and farther away—and that was enough of a motivation to make me jump down into that hole.

Because if I was right, Marcy was Melli’s “payment” to creepy psychic guy.

He seemed like the type who enjoyed playing with his food, which should at least give me some time. I only hoped Marcy could stick it out, and that I’d come up with some kind of plan between here and there—once I figured out where “there” was.

“Wish me luck,” I said to Cassandra and Trevor.

I was surprised to hear more than two voices come back to me. It made my heart swell as I pushed off from the edge and landed hard below.

“You know, there’s a ladder,” Trevor called down … too late.

“Yeah, thanks,” I answered wryly.

I straightened up, trusting the super vamp healing to take care of the pain in my knee.

“Got a flashlight?” I asked. But nobody did, and I was on my own in the near-total dark. Once that trap door closed above me, it would be like a solar eclipse. Good thing I’d never been scared of the dark, just the creatures that skittered around in it.

I tried to focus on a plan and not thoughts of mice or cockroaches or millipedes. Definitely not millipedes. All those legs … I shuddered.

Several steps into the tunnel, something brushed my shoulder and I yipped before realizing it was just a string dangling from a light fixture in the ceiling. I pulled, and above me the trap door started to close. They’d waited until I had light. If I passed by a Starbucks on my way back from rescuing Marcy, the lattes were on me.

Meanwhile, I blinked against the sudden light. I was in a bunker-type area, all industrial shelves stocked with enough stuff to weather an apocalypse—if I was still baseline human, that is. I wondered how well blood would keep and whether Melli planned to stock her own donors if she was ever forced down here. But the tunnel continued on past this room, and I didn’t have time to explore. I jogged into the tunnel, hoping there was another light in it somewhere.

My knee wasn’t recovering as quickly as it should, and very nearly buckled a few strides in, which was freakish. But not as worrying as the wave of dizziness that followed. Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t eaten in days—not since I’d first risen. People, I thought, could go three days without food. Was it better or worse for vamps?

Through sheer force of will I put on a burst of speed, running flat-out in spiky-heeled boots not meant for it, until I reached the end of the tunnel. I didn’t have anyone to help me with the musical code here, so I just had to hope that it was (a) the same at this end and (b) acceptable for me to do one part with each hand.

It took me a few tries, because the left hand kept wanting to do what the right hand was doing, but I finally got it and the door above slid open, showering me with a fine spray of dirt. I emerged in the woods, but a streetlight off to my right was like a beacon back to civilization. I ran toward it—and was startled to break into the school parking lot, near the gym and athletic fields. I was even more startled to see a car there waiting for me, and the door pop open at my approach.

And inside … Rick … looking halfway to dead, but still Rick. For the second time in an hour my heart felt like someone had goosed it with, like, a thousand volts and it might as well just explode as restart.

Rick was
alive
. Sort of, anyway. I mean, he looked terrible: circles under the eyes, a grayish complexion, gaunt like he’d lost mass overnight, and just barely keeping himself upright by hanging onto the steering wheel of a cream-colored T-bird, a far cry from Bobby’s POS.

“Rick!” I said stupidly.

“Get in!” he answered.

I just stared. “But what … how?”

He rolled his eyes to the sky. “Didn’t you get the note?”

Note? Right, the crunchy thing in my boot, maybe. “Uh, no.”

“Whatever. Come on. Connor said to grab you.”

That, at least, made sense. Connor could have faked Rick’s death and set Rick up as his eyes on the outside. But how had he known I’d be here? Unless his note instructed me to do exactly what I was doing anyway, which had an eerie kind of inevitability to it, like the bottom falling out of the Beanie Baby market.

I shivered like someone had walked over my grave, but I got in the car. What else was I going to do? Someone had to save Marcy.

Rick peeled out before my door was even fully closed, which was when I realized I was taking for granted that we were thinking along the same lines.

“Off to save Marcy, right?” I asked.

“Who? Whatever. I’m just here to play chauffeur.”

I hoped the note in my boot was more enlightening. I reached down to unzip and Rick said, “Oh, by all means, make yourself comfortable.”

“You wish,” I sneered, shaking out the crumpled paper that had molded to my big toe. “This is all that’s coming off.”

“Pity.”

My nose kind of crinkled with
ick
as I unfolded the note.