Vamped (19 page)

“Get in the back,” I told her, practically pushing her in on top of Rick.

She screamed again as Bobby and I got into the front. I’d left the car running, and now I floored it. Pedal all the way to the metal. The T-bird leapt forward, kicking up gravel, and we were off.

Bobby craned his neck to look back, apparently not trusting the rearview mirror.

“Are they following?” I asked.

“No.” He sounded surprised.

“Why not?” It was a stupid question, like I
wanted
them to follow, but it just popped out.

“If I had to guess—not enough time left in the night for another battle. They have no plans, not even a headcount of who they’ve got standing. Plus, they’ve still got to deal with Mellisande and her people.”

“But tomorrow?”

“Maybe. We’re new at this, but if I were the council, I wouldn’t give us time to figure out what we’re doing.”

“You don’t think your whammy will hold?”

“Is that what we’re calling it these days?”

I gave him a cheeky smile. “You have a better word?”

He smiled back at me, and for a minute I forgot what we were talking about. It was totally killer to have him to myself again.

“Watch out for that tree!” Marcy yelled from the back.

I’d been drifting over to the side of the road, which on the outskirts of Mozulla either meant guard rails or trees. I yanked the car back toward center. The spell was broken.

“You okay?” I asked her finally. Bad friend, no cookie.

She looked at me in disbelief from her perch atop Rick’s legs. “Sure. J. Lo wig and a shower, I’ll be good as new.”

“That’s my girl.”

“So, you in charge now?” she asked.

I looked at Bobby. “Partially, I guess.”

“Wicked.”

21

S
o here we were, a whole houseful of vamps with no human minions to guard us when we fell into a dead, vulnerable sleep for the day. Our enemies, whether Melli or the council, weren’t so handicapped … and Melli’s people had a key and passcodes.

Since Bobby had been separated out and hadn’t lived with everyone the way I had, it was to me—
me
—that everyone looked to for a defense strategy. It was totally weird. I thought of what I’d do if I was like a queen or a crown princess or a pop diva, and delegated.

“Trev, the basement is yours. You figure out what to do about that trap door and all. When you finish, come back and see about the windows up here.”

“Trev?”
Cassandra muttered dangerously, like I’d stumbled onto her nickname for him.

“Like I have time for two whole syllables. Go!”

Trevor tagged a couple more kids and headed with Cassandra toward the basement.

“Bobby, any ideas about the front and back doors?”

“Pennies.”

“Pennies?”
I repeated stupidly.

“Sure, it’s an old trick. You jam a mess of pennies between the door and its frame and there’s
nothing
getting in or out—unless you bust through the door itself.”

I just kind of looked at him. “Um, great. Except we don’t know where Melli keeps her change jar. Maybe you can seal the doors like you did back at the council compound?”

“We saw how well that worked,” he answered. “I think I’d better save my strength.”

“Right.” I thought for a second, then fell back on a classic. “Okay, gang, we’re doing an old-fashioned barricade. If it moves, I want it in front of doors and windows.”

It would have been so much easier to just string garlic and crosses up in the windows, but it was kind of hard to fight an enemy when you had the same weaknesses. Anyway, I kinda doubted somehow that Melli kept a supply of religious stuff on hand.

“Chop chop!” I said, realizing everyone was still looking at me. “Double time.” They flew into a flurry of activity.

I grabbed Bobby as he was about to run off. This power thing was kind of
wow
, but if anything went wrong it would be totally my fault.

“What am I forgetting?” I asked him.

His eyes were shining. Some guys would have been royally pissed at taking directions from a girl, but not mine. “I think you’re doing great.”

“Well, snap out of it,” I said. “I need you to be totally critical. Lay it on me.”

He thought about it, eyes on my lips like ideas weren’t the only things he was thinking of laying on me. I let myself imagine a moment of peace and a private room for all of one second. “Later,” I told him, my voice gone all strangely husky.

“Promise?” he asked.

“If it’s in my power. Now, how do we keep the peace?”

“Peace I don’t know about, but sanctuary … The windows are too vulnerable. Even if we could find enough junk to pile up to them, it would be precarious, easily toppled. Besides, defense isn’t going to win this. Much as I hate to say it, we need to go on the offensive.” He bit the lip that
I
wanted to be biting. Well, nipping anyway. “I’ve got it. A punji stake pit!”

“A what?”

“It’s like a prehistoric hunting technique. Drive prey toward a pit lined with stakes, and the butchering is done for you.”

I shuddered. “So we should dig pits under the windows and let our enemies fall in?”

“No, no, no.” He waved his hands around to banish that image. “We nail the stakes into the window panes on all sides, pointed toward center, and do what we can to angle them outward so that anyone coming through the windows is, if not impaled, at least seriously shredded by the spikes.”

I scrunched up my face in horror, imagining bursting victoriously through a window only to get impaled on a pointy stick. My chest ached just thinking about it. But I had to protect my peeps. Misguided as it was, they were looking to me.

“Do it,” I told him, steeling my spine.

“I love it when you’re bossy,” he said, licking those killer kips.

“And I love it when you go all Alpha male.” The
L
word was hard to get out, but at least I wasn’t saying “I love you,” three little words that mean “now that you’ve got me, you can start taking me for granted.” That was not a road I wanted to walk. Not even in Ferragamos.

“Now go!” I ordered, since he liked it so much. “We’re burning moonlight.”

He gave me a quick hard kiss that spiked my temperature, and was off.

I went to help the others wrestle Melli’s desk to the front door. It occurred to me only as we were getting it into place that by sealing our entrances, we were also cutting off any exits. If trouble came calling, there would be no option for retreat.

22

I
t was totally luxurious to wake up in a room that didn’t hold thirty-plus other kids, and to stretch out and encounter the semi-warm body next to me. Bobby and I had collapsed with the dawn into a bed upstairs, although we hadn’t had any time to take advantage of it.

I lifted myself up on my elbow, and watched his eyes flicker open as my hand made contact with his ribs and stroked—there’d just been time for us to strip down to our skivvies, out of our action-marred clothes. I’d almost been hoping that Bobby went commando, but he was a boxers kind of guy. I was down to my Victoria’s Secret bikini briefs and demi-cup. A blazing hot smile spread across Bobby’s face when he saw me.

“Hey there, gorgeous,” he said, voice all husky with sleep.

“Hey yourself, stud.”

“I could get used to waking up like this.”

In that moment he was just so breathtaking that I forgot to guard myself. “Yeah.”

We spent another second on the smoldering look, to build up the tension, and then his lips locked with mine. One of his hands came up to caress my hair and lower my head down onto my pillow so that he hovered above me, supported on one arm. The blood that hadn’t wept out of my chest yesterday rushed around my body, putting it on high alert. Better than a mochachino any day, even with a fudge brownie chaser.

Then the hand stroking my hair gently slid down my neck and rested just above the lace of my bra to stroke my chest in a way that was far too respectful for my racing hormones.

A really distant part of me was trying to get my attention—something about not being out of danger yet and needing to be on guard, but far more immediate sensations were demanding my attention.

I slid a hand down Bobby’s back and teased my finger along the edge of his boxers, just to taunt him the way he was taunting me. He moaned and pulled back, which was
so
not the desired effect.

“We need to get up,” he said, looking deeply into my eyes so that I could see his reluctance. “I don’t think Melli or the council will let things go. They may even team up.”

“Well, I’m so glad one of us is in control of himself,” I answered, a little bitterly. I felt like I’d lost an important battle. I wasn’t enough to make him lose his control, and yet I’d been willing to surrender mine. I had to be way, way more careful with myself.

His arms caged me as I tried to roll away to pull some clothes on, and he waited until I looked at him. “I’m saying that I don’t want any distractions when I get you alone.” He kissed my locked jaw. “Because you’re worthy of my full attention.” He kissed my eyelids, and it didn’t seem remotely brotherly the way he did it. I softened just a bit.

“Fine. But they can’t launch an attack
this
quickly. You’re going to regret it if this turns out to be our only quiet moment.”

“I already do,” he said, giving me his most sincere look. Lord help me, I believed him.

“Okay,
fine
. Let’s get organized.”

“That’s the second
fine.
I really am in the doghouse, aren’t I? I’ll make it up to you.”

I looked him in the eye. “Damn straight.”

He smirked and my stupid lips betrayed me by creeping upwards as well. We shared a moment, almost as nice if not as intense as the one earlier.

“Now, get off me so I can get dressed,” I ordered, ruining it.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’d better take a mental picture of me in my skivvies, because if you call me ma’am again, this’ll be the last time you see them.”

He just grinned at me. I stuck my tongue out and rolled away, too full of confusing emotions to look at him any longer. If only he’d get mad when I said things like that, this whole situation would be a lot easier. But when I pushed, he
smiled
. Threw me off my game.

Whatever
. I had an entire closet to explore, and for the first time since I’d been vamped, I could meet my fate in style. The closet, I discovered, belonged to the blond vampire chick, which meant the room was hers as well. Of course, as she was totally a spring and I was totally a summer, the outfit options were limited, but I managed to find a wine-red dress and cute but sturdy wedges to go with it.

I took a quick moment to brush, fluff, and smooth before making an appearance out in the hall, which was already a flurry of activity. It seemed a lot of other kids had also fled the barracks, in favor of the private rooms on the second floor.

Cassandra practically jumped me as I emerged, which was a shock because I thought she’d be cuddled up with Trevor. “Tammy, the girl whose arm is … well, she’s in a bad way. We need to get her some blood soon. Even so, I don’t know—”

“What about the store they keep in the bunker?”

“We checked there last night. All out.”

“And the kitchen?”

“A few bottles. Not enough to go around. Either Mellisande was due a shipment or she’s got a secret stash somewhere.”

I suddenly felt badly about the couple of minutes spent fooling around with Bobby while the others were being all practical. I tried to think what to do. Melli would have said screw the ones who can’t fight and strengthen the others—which made my decision a piece of cake.

“Anybody else in Tammy’s state?”

“Not that I know of. No one who made it back with us.”

There was a moment of silence at that.

“Give her a full bottle. Count how many people we have with us and divide the rest into cups, equal shares. Have Trevor or someone call everyone together downstairs. We need to get organized!”

She nodded, but then hesitated before moving to reach out a hand and squeeze my arm. “Don’t worry, you’re doing great.”

“And if I screw up?” I asked, letting her see the chink in my armor.
See
, I told myself.
You let Bobby in the door and it blows wide open.

“We’ll let you know,” she told me.

“Before or after?”

“Don’t worry,” she repeated. Then she flitted off before I could ask any more tough questions. Like who really cared exactly when a train leaving Boston at a hundred miles per hour and a train leaving New York an hour later at the same speed would meet in a head-on collision?

Yeah, I had train wrecks on the brain, but we’d come this far and now we had, like, the home-field advantage.

Bobby was right behind me, and I felt him press up against my back and slide an arm around my waist to stroke my belly.

He kissed my shoulder. “I’ll help round everybody up. Meet you downstairs?”

I nodded, my heart too full to speak.

I took a deep unneeded breath and went downstairs, checking out the doors and windows I passed. I was sure I was forgetting something.

Morsel
.

I cringed, wanting to claw my own eyes out just to get at the cancer spreading through my brain at his touch.

’Ware. They come.

It was the last thing I’d expected from him. “What are you up to? Why tell me?” I asked out loud, making a few kids going by look at me funny, like I’d lost my mind. Just what they wanted in a leader.

If
they
have you, I don’t
, he answered. No riddles, no double-speak. It probably meant there wasn’t a whole lot of time.

I gave up checking the windows to race down to the dorm, but I threw out one final question as I ran.
What
are
you?

He chuckled, and the sharp-tipped cancer of his touch spread throughout my mind.
The only way to cheat death is to embrace it.

So you’re death?
I asked.

You are chaos—and from where would chaos descend but death?

Ew ew ew—was he claiming to be some kind of relative, like the crazy uncle in the attic? It was almost too horrible to consider, but in some weird way, if he was Mellisande’s sire and she was Bobby’s, and Bobby’s was mine, then we
were
freakishly somehow related. The thought gave me the heebie jeebies, and I wasn’t sure what it meant, if anything, in the vamp world. When all this was over, if we lived through it, I was going to search Melli’s place for some kind of handbook. I was tired of feeling that everyone else knew the score but me, that there was some kind of play going on and no one had given me my lines. I didn’t even know the plot, or when the trap doors might open up under me.

Just about everyone had beaten me to the dorm. Cassandra was passing out glasses of blood like a flight attendant. There looked to be barely enough in each one to keep us focused.

If we didn’t die tonight, I was going to have to come up with a plan for keeping us fed. I’d probably have to do other fun stuff too, like find a way to pay electric bills. I could only hope smelly Melli owned her place outright.

I couldn’t even believe I was worrying about all this stuff.
This
was why I’d never run for student council or anything else. Too much pressure, not enough reward. It wasn’t like the head vamp got to walk the red carpet in Vera Wang, dripping in jewels with the paparazzi snapping pictures at every angle, but I guess that was the big diff between me and the dragon lady. I wanted the power to turn heads; she wanted to turn the minds in them.

Bobby came in with the last of the kids and put that supportive hand on my shoulder. “It’s time.”

I looked around the room, at all those fresh faces—some nicely framed with wispy bangs, others, like Marcy, in desperate need of a makeover—and my mouth went dry. As if she
knew,
Cassandra handed me the last little cup of blood, and I smiled gratefully while hoisting it up.

“To us and freedom!” I managed not to dribble any of it down my chin when I drank. They were a great audience. Those who had not already drunk raised their glasses and downed them with me. I had the spotlight; now I just had to figure out how to use it to best advantage.

“They’re coming,” I said simply, raising my voice enough to carry and bounce back at me threefold. No one asked how I knew. “If we let them in, there’s going to be hell to pay. Anyone who survives the punishment will end up answering to some bigger, badder vamp and will never be totally trusted. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of their little reindeer games. I like having my own room.”

Folks cheered.

“So I need you all to grab whatever you can. Trevor, you head Team Alpha. You’ve got the basement and back doors. Bobby, you’ve got Beta. Take the front door and the rooms with vulnerable windows. We can do this!”

People cheered again, but not quite as confidently.

Trevor skirted them to bump my shoulder. “
You’re
in Alpha. Are you with us?”

I shook my head. “There’s something else I have to do”—which sounded like a total cop-out. “I’m going to search the dragon lady’s office for blueprints or something,” I quickly explained. “Make sure there are no more hidden ways in, and see if there’s another blood or weapons stash somewhere.”

He nodded, and my shoulders, which I hadn’t even realized were tense, dropped to a comfier position. I didn’t have the faintest clue what I was doing. Right now, approval was the only guide I had.

“Alpha, to me,” Trevor called.