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“Wait,” Olympia said. “Let’s observe for a moment first.” I assume her high level of caution is how she’s managed to survive seven hundred years, but it drives me bats. (Ha ha ha! More vampire puns! OK, OK, I’ll stop.)
Well, I don’t know what she was observing, but I kept my “observational” eyes on Mr Hot. Could he be a vampire? He seemed a lot more tan than me, but maybe he was just born with darker skin.
The problem is that vampires don’t look particularly unusual most of the time. I think my canine teeth are maybe a teeny bit longer, but they only get really long and pointy and obvious right before I bite someone. Zach’s normal smile, for instance, is toothy and obnoxious, but not in a Look out! he’s going to bite! kind of way. It’s more like Look out, he’s going to hit on you, and then you’ll discover that he never flosses! And if you ask me, dental hygiene should rank pretty high on a vampire’s to-do list. Sure, we can’t get cavities, but Zach proves that bad breath can be eternal.
Other than his meaty breath, I don’t think there are any clues about Zach that would make someone think he’s a vampire. He looks like any other doofy seventeen-year-old jock, all muscles and shiny, sandy-blond hair and stupid jokes about body parts. None of that dark, pale, brooding vampire stuff that you read about. He’s tall, but that’s where the resemblance to Dracula ends.
My new best friend Vivi thinks Zach is dreamy, which I find faintly horrifying. (Despite the fact that I once felt the same – which is even more horrifying.) But I can’t convince her of how wrong she is, because she thinks I’m just like, “Ew, that’s my brother,” when of course the truth is that he’s not my brother at all. And I am definitely an expert on his long-term dateability potential.
Zach has no problem with the blood-drinking part of being a vampire, by the way. He mixes it into his morning health shakes with raw eggs and protein powder and all kinds of other unmentionable goop that he says will make him more buff. No one’s had the heart to tell him that vampires pretty much stay the same shape they were in when they died. Crystal will never lose that last five pounds; Bert will always look like a teeny-weeny accountant, despite being in reality stronger than any of the men in town. That growth spurt I was sort of hoping for in my senior year is never going to happen – but on the other hand, I can eat as much ice cream and as many cheeseburgers as I want, which I’ll admit almost makes up for the fact that I still have to drink blood to survive.
Anyway, if I can’t even tell by looking at Zach that he’s a vampire, I don’t see how I’m supposed to spot a vampire who’s a total stranger. I can’t exactly walk down the halls of my high school peering at everybody’s teeth.
Even with super-sight, I couldn’t see anything special about my hot guy’s canines, although he did smile helpfully – and very cutely, I might add – at a couple of people who went past him. But once his friends had passed by, he went back to staring at the body in that intense, thoughtful, totally hot way.
“That one,” Olympia said suddenly. But she wasn’t pointing at my guy. She was pointing at a tall, thin, pale guy in a hooded sweatshirt who was slouching up the sidewalk towards the school. I couldn’t figure out why she found him suspicious. He hadn’t even noticed the body yet. His blue eyes were focused on the ground.
I squinted at him. OK, sure. He was kind of cute too. In a brooding-poet kind of way. Or – I glanced at Olympia – in a vampire way. Surely not all pale, brooding guys were secretly vampires though. Right? I mean, before I died, I’d known a couple of those quiet, soulful guys in my old school – the ones who never leave the house or cut their hair or speak in class. And they weren’t vampires. At least, not that I knew of. But Olympia’s vampire radar was probably better than mine.
Olympia rolled down her window and pointed at one of the policemen, putting a finger over her lips. I was going to say, “Um, I don’t think they can hear us from here,” when I realised that now we could hear them…so if anyone out there was a vampire, they’d probably be able to hear us too. I kept quiet.
The policeman spotted Poet Guy, hurried over to him and grabbed his elbow.
Poet Guy blinked, finally looking up. “Dad?” His voice was soft, like if moss could talk. He stared around at the crowded parking lot and spotted the body. His expression barely shifted. “Oh. I see.”
“Go home, Rowan,” his dad said in a low voice.
Rowan shrugged. “Why? It doesn’t bother me.”
“It should,” his dad snapped. “I don’t want you near this kind of thing. Go home.”
Rowan’s eyes narrowed. “Is this because…Do you think I did this?”
“Shut up,” the policeman growled, glancing around. He steered Rowan forcefully in a circle and shoved him along the sidewalk until the body was out of sight.
“All right, all right,” Rowan said, jerking free. “Not like I care.”
“See you at home, son,” the policeman said. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve, looking nervous as he watched Rowan slink away.
I used to like policemen until they totally failed to save my life. Now every time I see one handing out a parking ticket, I’m like, Really? You don’t have a dying girl to save somewhere? This seems like a better use of your time? OK, then.
Olympia rolled up the window again and started the car. It was pretty clear that school was going to be cancelled for the day.
“Well spotted,” Zach said. “I guess that guy’s totally a vampire.”
“Perhaps,” Olympia said. “Perhaps not. You should keep an eye on him, Kira.”
“Me?” I said. “Why me? Can’t I keep my eye on—” I was going to say “that guy instead,” but when I turned to point, I realised that my smiley Mr Hot had vanished. Sigh.
“You’re on thin ice, Kira,” Olympia said. “I suggest you follow the rules as closely as you can until we figure out what happened here.”
“I know what happened here,” I said. “Some vampire killed Tex Harrison. To be more specific, some vampire who isn’t me. A not-me vampire who has nothing to do with me.”
“Kira!” Olympia said sharply.
“All right, all right,” I grumbled, sitting back in my seat and folding my arms mutinously.
Well, fine. It could be worse; at least Rowan was cute in his own way. And after all, I do have two eyes. Nobody said I couldn’t also watch Mr Hot.
Wilhelm had already seen the news on TV by the time we got home. For all that he hates the last thirteen centuries so much, he sure doesn’t seem to have a problem with modern technology, most especially TVs. And microwaves to heat your coffee-laced blood. And lights that you can clap on and clap off from the comfort of your own coffin.
“KIRA NOVEMBER!” he hollered from the den as soon as he heard the front door open.
“I DIDN’T DO IT!” I bellowed back.
“YOU GET IN HERE RIGHT NOW!” he shouted. Yeah, in case you were wondering, it turns out that dads are pretty much the same whether they’re fifty or fourteen hundred years old.
Olympia put a firm hand on my shoulder before I could dart upstairs. “Let’s discuss this,” she said meaningfully. Ugh. I suppose I should be grateful that I get to be in on these “discussions”. My real mom used to just ground me, without an explanation or anything, which kind of sucked. But man, Olympia and Wilhelm can talk forever about my misbehaviour and all the punishments in store for me. I mean, they literally have all the time in the world. I think most teenagers should count themselves lucky that their parents aren’t immortal like mine.
“But I swear I didn’t do it,” I said, trying to fidget away. No luck; Olympia’s grip has seven hundred years of vampire strength in it. “What happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’?”
“Doesn’t apply to repeat offenders,” Zach smirked.
“Shut up, Zach,” I said. “Shouldn’t Zach have to join us for this? I mean, I don’t see why he isn’t as suspicious as I am.”
“Hello? Alibi?” Zach said, tossing his head annoyingly so his hair resettled in that shiny, perfect way it always does.
“Don’t you worry about Zach,” Olympia said. She steered me towards the den and Zach gave me a smug salute as he sauntered up the stairs. “Zach is not your problem, Kira.”
But she’s wrong about that. Zach is most definitely my problem, and with my luck, he always will be.
Because I’m the one who made him a vampire.
Chapter Three (#ulink_23dc4462-e483-5964-be81-ab3c0e52c3f0)
IMET ZACH ON the first day at my first new school. My previous school, not Luna. It was my first day as a vampire high school student. That was a year ago. Obviously we’d had to move away from my hometown in Michigan; I couldn’t exactly keep flitting around Ann Arbor after I’d supposedly died in a car accident. So Olympia relocated us all down South – apparently vampires are used to moving a lot, so no one in the family complained – and signed me up to redo junior year at a new school.
I’d never moved before. I’d lived my whole life in Ann Arbor and always known the same people. Plus I’d never had to deal with hiding a part of my identity before. But I tried to be like, OK, so we’re in Georgia. I can do this. I’m not just the new girl. I’m a vampire. I don’t have to be afraid of mean girls and gossip any more. I could snap their necks in half – er, not that I will or anything – but it’s nice to know that I can. Plus I’m going to live forever. I might as well start acting like it.
That was the pep talk running through my head for the thousandth time when I finally found my locker that morning, which took a while because there was a guy leaning on it and blocking the number. He grinned down at me. He smelled like testosterone and basketballs.
“Move,” I said.
“Ooo, feisty and gorgeous,” he said, not moving. “Just how I like ’em.”
“Ooo, beefy and stupid,” I said. “Add sweaty and we’ll have a trifecta.”
“I’ll have a trifecta with you any time,” he said, leering. I rolled my eyes. The equally thick-headed guy he was waiting for snickered and closed his locker, which was two over from mine.
“Good one,” the thick-headed guy said. “Let’s go.”
“You go on,” Zach said. “I think I’m about to get lucky.”
“Yeah, you are,” I said. His eyebrows waggled. “Lucky that I don’t want to get kicked out, so I’m not going to kill you today.”
“Oooooo,” Zach said, which maybe should have tipped me off that we’d hit the outer limits of his witty repartee. But just then the bell rang and the hall started to empty, which distracted me.
“Move. Now.” I gave him my best steely-eyed vampire glare.
“Or what?” he said, crossing his arms as the last couple of kids hurried into their classrooms.
“I’m glad you asked,” I said. In my head I was like, You know what, I’m a freaking vampire. I have super-strength, hardly anything can kill me, and if I get in trouble we’ll just move again. Why hold back?
So I threw him into a janitor’s closet and locked him in while I went to Chemistry.
He was sitting on an overturned bucket when I got back, listening to his iPod. He grinned like a pirate when I opened the door and slipped inside.
“I knew you’d come back,” he said.
“You’d have looked pretty silly if I didn’t,” I said.
“You needed another piece of this pie, didn’t you?” Zach pointed to himself with an oh, yeah expression.
“You’re much cuter when you don’t talk,” I said, and kissed him in the dark.
I didn’t really mean to encourage his alpha-male obnoxiousness. I mainly wanted to shut him up. And also I wanted to see what would happen. I’d never dated a guy like this. My one and only boyfriend back when I was alive was the sweet, sensitive type who took, like, three years just to ask me out.
Plus, when dealing with a guy like Zach, it was nice to have super-strength. Like, for instance, when I found his hands instantaneously roaming to my butt.
“OW!” he yelped as I flung him into a shelf of toilet paper.
“I make the rules,” I said. “Got it? You touch only what I want you to touch.”
“Can I have a list?” he said, recovering quickly. “With descriptive details, please?”
“Seriously, shut up,” I said. I pushed him into the wall, twisted his hands behind his back and held them there while I kissed him again. His kisses were very enthusiastic. And he didn’t try to free himself, so I figured he’d be easy to train.
He was really warm, and he tasted kind of salty and sweet at the same time. Before I knew what I was doing, my mouth went to his neck. I licked his skin lightly and he shuddered. I could feel my canine teeth sliding out. The blood in his veins pulsed under my tongue.
I realised I wasn’t in lust at all. I was hungry.
“You,” Zach whispered in my ear, “are the hottest, most psycho girl I’ve ever met.”
His voice stopped me just before my teeth grazed his skin. What was I doing?
I dropped his hands and jumped away from him as if he had holy water running through his veins. Olympia had warned me that it would be hard once I was around mortals all day long, especially attractive, young mortals. But it didn’t even occur to me that kissing could lead so quickly to wanting to bite someone. Especially someone whom I did not by any means want to turn into a vampire.
That was one of the rules Olympia had lectured me about over and over again: “You bite it, you bought it.” We were responsible for anyone we turned into a vampire. That’s how we survive. If we let new vampires wander loose with no idea of the rules, they’d be staked in no time and the rest of the world would soon catch on that we exist.
It is possible to bite someone and leave them alive, but it’s dangerous and hard to do – Olympia says once you start to drink, it’s almost impossible to stop yourself before your prey is dead. And even if you do stop, the victim probably will have figured out what you are, and that’s not great for us either.
I was lucky that Zach couldn’t see my teeth in the darkness of the closet. I covered my face and tried to force them back down to normal. Don’t think about feeding. Don’t think about feeding.
“Wait,” Zach said, groping for me with his hands outstretched. “Don’t stop. What happened?”
“I lost interest,” I said, stepping out of his reach. My fingers were trembling, but I kept my voice level. “Too bad for you. Now stay away from my locker.” And I got out of there as quickly as I could.
I probably should have guessed that this wouldn’t shut down Zach. If anything, it made him even more interested. I started finding him at my locker every morning when I got there, usually with chocolate. My guess is, he read in some men’s magazine that girls like chocolate, because he really stuck with that theory.
I ignored him for the first week. He loved it when I shoved him out of my way; he went on and on about how freakishly strong I was “for such a tiny thing” until it started making me nervous. I was sure Olympia didn’t want to hear gossip about the new freakishly strong teenager while she was buying up all the raw meat in the supermarket.
So at first I started talking to Zach just to distract him. I told him if he really wanted to bring me something before class, he should try hot chocolate and a croissant. That fit his theory just fine, so the next morning, there was my order, exactly as I’d requested. Like I said – the early signs pointed to “easily trainable”.
“Hmm,” I said, letting the hot chocolate scald away the taste of blood on my tongue.
“So you’ll go out with me this weekend, right?” Zach asked. “I figured we could start with dinner at Los Espejos.” He pronounced it “ezz-PAY-joe’s”, but I still recognised it as the Spanish word for mirrors. Olympia and Wilhelm had scouted out all the more dangerous places in town and this Spanish restaurant was at the top of the list. It was lovely and expensive, but the walls and the ceiling were completely covered in mirrors. Too risky, no matter how besotted my date might be. Our little “family” tried to avoid even walking past it.
“Meh,” I said with a shrug. “I’d rather have a hamburger at Big Burgers and Bowling.”
He clutched his heart. “You are my dream girl.”
So that’s how it started. And I’ll admit it: I kind of fell for him. Dating Zach fit the new take-no-prisoners attitude I was trying to develop. I figured if I could be a badass vampire, I wouldn’t miss my old life so much. It was nice having someone to distract me from wishing I could call my mom or kiss Jasper one last time.
Plus it was sort of exciting to have someone be that into me. He couldn’t keep his hands off me, no matter how many times I threw him into a wall or nearly broke his fingers. I admired his persistence.
On the other hand, it got harder and harder not to bite him. You have to understand, the blood we drink every day to stay alive comes out of a jar in the refrigerator. It is the very definition of gross. Vampires are designed to drink from living (or very recently dead) people; that’s what we’re hungry for. Olympia was trying to teach me to exercise self-control, but I wasn’t learning nearly fast enough to keep up with my relationship with Zach.
After three months, I started thinking about the future. By that point, I thought Zach was pretty hot. I figured it was almost definitely true love forever. And wouldn’t it suck (ha ha!) if I stayed sixteen and he got older and older? Wouldn’t it make more sense to turn him into a vampire while he was still my own age? Then we could really be together forever. Awesome, right?
But I still don’t think I would have done anything on my own. I would have waited at least another three months to be sure that I liked him that much. I mean, I’m not totally crazy.
Unfortunately it was only a month later when Zach spotted my teeth sliding out during one of our make-out sessions – this time in a closet that was apparently not dim enough.
“Whoa,” he said, stepping back. “What’s wrong with your teeth?”
“Uh – nothing,” I said, covering my mouth with one hand. I turned away from him, but he grabbed my arm and pulled me around.
“That is so weird,” he said, which was a much calmer reaction than I would have had. He reached out and touched one of my teeth with his index finger. A drop of blood immediately appeared on his skin, and I panicked. Was that enough to turn him into a vampire? That wouldn’t be fair! I hadn’t intentionally bitten him!
At the same time, I couldn’t stop myself from licking it off. He took his hand back and we stared at each other for a minute.
“OK, yes,” I said. “I’m a vampire.”
Zach let out a bark of laughter. “That’s impossible,” he said.
I let my teeth slide all the way out and held back my hair so he could see the marks on my neck. “It’s not impossible; it’s just lame. Here, check for a pulse, you’ll see.” I grabbed his hand and wrapped his fingers around my wrist.
I knew he wouldn’t find a heartbeat on me, but we were close enough to each other that I could hear his own heart speeding up as he held my wrist and stared at me some more.
