Lucas didn't like leaving me behind, but mentioning my dad had done the trick. He kissed me quickly. "I'll see you tomorrow."
As the bus pulled away, my father and I began hurrying toward the outskirts of town. Dad said, "Do you really know where she might've gone?"
"Not a clue," I admitted. "But you need every searcher you can get. Besides, what if you need somebody to cross the river?" Vampires don't like running water. It didn't bother me at all—at least, not yet—but it drove my parents crazy to cross even a small stream or brook.
"My girl can take care of herself." Dad's pride caught me off guard, but in a good way. "You're really growing up here, Bianca. Your time at Evernight—it's changing you for the better."
I rolled my eyes, tired of the father-knows-best routine already. "That's what happens when you survive adversity."
"News flash: that's high school."
"You act like you actually went to high school."
"Trust me, adolescence was lousy in the eleventh century, too. Humanity changes all the time, but there are a few constants. People get stupid when they're in love; people want what they can't have; and the years between ages twelve and eighteen always, always suck." Dad became serious again as we left the main road. "We don't have anyone on the west side of the river. Stay close to the bank if you're worried about losing your way."
"I can't get lost." I pointed upward at the bright, starry sky, where all the constellations waited to guide me. "See you later."
Although we hadn't yet seen our first snowfall, winter had claimed the countryside. The earth beneath my feet was crisp with frost, and dead grasses and leafless shrubs scraped against my jeans legs as I made my way along the riverbank. Pale beech trunks stood out from the other trees like lightning bolts in a stormy sky. I ended up staying fairly close to the water, not because I was worried about getting lost but because Raquel might be—and if she'd wandered this way, she'd have wanted the river to give her some direction.
She wouldn't have wandered off. If Raquel came this way, it isn't as simple as her being lost.
My overactive imagination, always quick to supply worst-case scenarios, kept flashing terrible scenes in my mind: Raquel robbed by some townie who wanted to steal from one of the "rich kids" at that school. Raquel trying to run from the drunken construction workers I'd seen in the pizza place, transformed by my fear from protectors of women to predators. Raquel overcome by whatever sadness it was that haunted her, walking into the icy waters of the river and being sucked down by its powerful current.
A swift, rushing sound above me made me jump, but it was only a crow, flapping from branch to branch. I breathed out in relief—then realized that, further to the west, there was a spot of brightness in the bushes.
I hurried in that direction, running as quickly as I could. Once, I opened my mouth to call Raquel's name, then shut it again without calling. If it was Raquel ahead, I'd find out soon enough. If it wasn't, I might not want to draw attention.
As I got closer, my breathing now heavy from exertion, I heard Raquel's voice. Whatever gladness I might've felt was destroyed by her frightened words: "Leave me alone!"
"Hey, what's the problem?" I knew that voice—too confident, slyly mocking. "You keep acting like we'd never met before."
It was Erich. He hadn't come into town on the school trip. None of the "Evernight types" had. They seemed to consider it boring—or, more likely, they were simply eager for some time to hang out and be themselves without having to hide their true natures. At the moment, though, Erich looked like he was way too close to his true nature. Apparently he'd followed us into Riverton and waited to find somebody who walked off alone—and that was Raquel.
"I told you I didn't want to talk to you," Raquel insisted. She was terrified. Normally she came across as tough, but Erich's stalking had scared her past that. "So stop following me."
"You act like I'm a stranger." He smiled. His teeth were white in the darkness, and I remembered films I'd seen of sharks. "We sit next to each other in biology, Raquel. What's the problem? What's the worst thing I could do?"
Now I knew what had happened. Erich had found Raquel on her own in town and started following her. Instead of waiting in the square with everyone else, where she would've had to put up with his presence or maybe even ended up sitting with him on the shuttle bus, she'd tried to slip away. In the process, she'd gone farther and farther from the center of Riverton, then out of town altogether. By then she would've known she'd made a mistake, but by then he had her out here alone. She'd walked almost two miles toward school, despite the coldness of the night, and I felt a flare of pride in Raquel's courage and stubbornness.
Okay, it had also been stupid, but she had a right to expect that one of her classmates wouldn't try to kill her.
"You know what?" Erich said casually. "I'm hungry."
Raquel's face paled. She couldn't have known what Erich really meant by that, but she sensed what I sensed. What had been taunting was about to become something else. The energy between them was changing from potential to kinetic. She said, "I'm going."
"We'll see where you go," he replied.
I yelled, as loudly as I could, "Hey!"
Both Raquel and Erich whirled around to see me. Raquel's face instantly melted in relief. "Bianca!"
"This is none of your business," Erich snapped. "Back off."
That startled me. I'd assumed he would be the one backing off as soon as he'd been caught in the act. Apparently not. Normally this would be the moment when I started getting terrified, but I didn't. I felt adrenaline pumping through me, but I wasn't going cold or getting shaky. Instead, my muscles tensed with the same kind of anticipation you feel before a race. My sense of smell sharpened so that I could detect Raquel's sweat, Erich's cheap aftershave, even the fur of small mice in the underbrush. I swallowed hard, and my tongue brushed against my incisors, which were lengthening slowly in my excitement.
You'll start reacting like a vampire, my mother had said. This was part of what she'd meant.
"I'm not leaving. You are." I stepped closer to them, and Raquel stumbled toward me, trembling too hard to really run.
Erich's irritation made him scowl. He looked like a petulant child denied an after-school snack. "What, are you the only one allowed to break the rules?"
"Break the rules?" Raquel's voice was confused, near hysteria. "Bianca, what is he talking about? Can we get out of here?"
I went pale. He smirked at me. I recognized the threat at last. Erich was on the verge of telling Raquel who and what we both were. If he revealed the secret of Evernight, and he convinced Raquel that we were really vampires—and Raquel's earlier suspicions made me believe that he could—then she'd run from us both. That would give him the perfect opportunity to bite her. He could even claim he'd done it to erase her memory. I could try to stop him with the fighting instincts I already felt sharpening within me, but I wasn't a full vampire yet. Erich was stronger and swifter than I was. He'd beat me. He'd get Raquel. All he had to do was say a few more words.
Quickly, I said, "I'm reporting this to Mrs. Bethany."
Erich's smarmy grin slowly faded from his face. Even he had sense to be afraid of Mrs. Bethany. And after all her big speeches about how everyone had to keep the human students safe to protect the school? Oh, no, Mrs. Bethany wouldn't like Erich's attitude at all.
"Don't," Erich said. "Just drop it, okay?"
"You drop it. Get out of here. Go."
Erich glared at Raquel one more time, then stalked off into the woods alone.
"Bianca!" Raquel stumbled through the last few branches that separated us. Quickly I ran my tongue across my teeth, settling down so that I looked and acted human again. "Oh, my God, what's wrong with that guy?"
"He's a jerk." It was true, even if it wasn't the whole truth.
Raquel hugged herself tightly. "Who comes after—acts like he would—Oh, man. Okay. Okay."
I peered through the darkness to make sure that Eri
ch was really retreating. His footsteps had faded, and I couldn't see his pale coat any longer. He was gone, at least for the moment, but I didn't trust him. "Come on," I said. "We're going to make a quick side trip."
Too numb to ask questions, Raquel followed me as we walked back toward the river. We only had to go another quarter mile before we found a small footbridge made of stone. It hadn't been used regularly in a long time, and some of the stones were loose, but she didn't complain or ask questions as I led her to the other side. Erich could cross the river if he really wanted to, but his natural aversion to running water, coupled with his fear of Mrs. Bethany, would almost certainly be enough to keep us safe. Once we were on the far bank, I asked, "How are you?"
"Fine. I'm fine."
"Raquel, tell the truth. Erich came after you in the woods—you're still shaking!"
Her skin was clammy, but Raquel insisted, her voice shrill, "I'm fine!" We stared at each other in silence for a second, and then she added in a whisper, "Bianca, please. He didn't touch me. So I'm fine."
Someday Raquel might be ready to talk about this, but not tonight. Tonight she needed to get out of here and fast. "Okay," I said. "Let's get back to school."
"Never thought I'd be glad to go back to Evernight." Her laugh sounded broken, somehow. We started to walk away, but then she paused. "Aren't you going to—to call the police or the teachers or somebody?"
"We'll tell Mrs. Bethany as soon as we get back."
"I could try to call from here. I have my cell—it worked in town—"
"We're not in town any longer. You know we don't get reception out here."
"It's so stupid." She was shaking so hard that her teeth chattered. "Why don't those rich bitches make their mommies and daddies pay for a tower?"
Because most of them haven't even gotten used to landlines yet, I thought. "Come on. Let's go." She wouldn't let me put my arm around her shoulders as we made our way out of the frosty woods. Instead she just kept twisting her leather bracelet over and over.
* * *
That night, after Raquel went to bed, I went to see Mrs. Bethany in her carriage house office. Given her disdainful attitude toward me, I'd assumed she would doubt my word, but she didn't. "We'll see to this," she said. "You are dismissed."
I hesitated. "That's it?"
"Do you think you should be allowed to discuss his punishment? To mete it out, perhaps?" She arched one eyebrow. "I know how to keep discipline at my own school, Miss Olivier. Or would you like to write another essay as a reminder?"
"I just meant, what are we going to tell everybody? They'll want to know what happened to Raquel." Already I could envision Lucas's handsome face, maybe questioning again if something strange was at work within Evernight. "She'll tell people it was Erich. We'll just have to say he was playing a practical joke or something, right?"
"That sounds reasonable." Why did she look so amused? I realized the reason when Mrs. Bethany added, "You're becoming quite adept in deception, Miss Olivier. Progress at last."
I was afraid she might be right.
Chapter Ten
The first snowfall of winter disappointed us all—only an inch and a half, just enough to melt into ice and slick the sidewalks. The countryside appeared patchy and dull, yellow-brown hills spotted with watery clumps of snow. Outside the bedroom window of my turret room, the gargoyle wore beads of frozen water over his scales and wings. It wasn't enough snow to play in or even to enjoy looking at.
"Suits me," Patrice said, artfully draping an acid-green muffler around her neck just so. "I'm glad we're getting more sunshine."
"Now that you can go back out in it again, you mean." I had been so frustrated with Patrice and the others with their constant "dieting" before the Autumn Ball; like all vampires denied blood, they'd become thinner—and more vampiric. Courtney and her admiring clique had all been staying out of the sunlight, something that didn't bother a well-fed vampire but was painful to a starving one. I'd had to put up with Patrice spending hours in front of the mirror trying to see herself as her reflection faded more and more, approaching invisibility. I thought they'd seemed bitchier, too, but with that crew, it was hard to tell.
Patrice knew what I was referring to and shook her head, so exasperated with me. "I've been fine since the day after the ball. It was worth a few weeks of hunger pangs and staying in the shade! Eventually you'll learn the value of self-denial." Her round cheeks dimpled with amusement. "But not while Lucas's around, right?"
We laughed a long time at one of our few shared jokes. I was glad we were pretty much getting along, because between Raquel's trouble and exams approaching, I needed as little stress in my life as possible.
Finals were brutal. I'd expected as much, but that didn't make the papers for Mrs. Bethany write themselves or the trig exam any easier. My mother revealed an unexpected sadistic streak by covering every single thing she'd ever mentioned in class—though the main essay on the Missouri Compromise had at least been signaled in advance by some bouncing on the balls of her feet. Guess that means Balthazar is doing okay, I thought as I wrote so fast that my hand cramped around my pen. I hoped I was doing half as well.
I threw myself into my studying during finals week, not only because of the intensity of the tests but also because work served as a distraction. Making Raquel quiz me nonstop took her mind off what had nearly happened in the woods. It helped that Mrs. Bethany had Erich on penalty, which involved him spending virtually every free moment scrubbing down hallways and glowering at me furiously when he got the chance.
"I don't trust that guy," Lucas said once as we walked past him.
"You just hate his guts." That was true as far as it went, though I knew other, better reasons for not trusting Erich.
Despite our efforts to keep Raquel busy, she remained haunted. Whatever fears she'd always carried within her had been magnified by Erich's harassment. I knew that she wasn't sleeping at night because of the dark circles under her eyes, and one day she came to the library with her hair freshly hacked off—obviously something she'd done herself, and not very carefully either.
In an attempt to be tactful, I shifted my books to one side so she could sit next to me at the table and began, "You know, I used to cut hair for my friends in my hometown—"
"I know my hair looks crappy." Raquel didn't even look at me as her backpack thudded onto the floor. "And, no, I don't want you or anybody to fix it for me. I hope it looks crappy. Then maybe he won't keep looking at me."
"Who? Erich?" Lucas said, immediately tense.
Raquel sank into her seat. "Who do you think? Yeah, Erich."
Until then, I hadn't realized that I wasn't the only one Erich was staring at. I'd interrupted Erich in the middle of a hunt; he'd made up his mind to drink Raquel's blood, maybe—maybe even to hurt her. Most vampires never killed, Mom and Dad said. Was Erich the exception to that rule?
Surely not, I thought. Mrs. Bethany wouldn't let anybody like that in Evernight.
As Lucas quickly changed the subject, asking Raquel for a copy of the study sheets for my dad's biology class, I looked at him and felt, once again, the surge of longing—of possessiveness—that I always knew in his presence. Mine, I thought. I always want you to be mine.
I'd always thought that was emotion talking, but maybe it was something else. Maybe that need to claim someone else was part of being a vampire and therefore more powerful than any human longing.
Erich certainly didn't care about Raquel the way I did for Lucas, but if he felt one-tenth as much possessiveness toward her as I did toward Lucas—
—then there was no way Erich was done with Raquel yet.
* * *
That night, in the bathroom, I ran into Raquel again. She was shaking the sleeping pills I'd recommended into her palm—four or five of them. "Watch it," I said. "You don't want to take too many."
Raquel's face was bleak. "And never wake up again? Doesn't sound that awful to me." She sighed. "Trust me, Bianca, this isn't nearly enoug
h to kill anybody."
"It's more than you need to sleep."
"Not with the sounds on the roof." She popped the pills into her mouth, then bent over to gulp a couple of swallows of water directly from the cold tap of the sink. After wiping her face with the back of her hand, Raquel continued, "They're still there. Louder now, I think. All the time. And I'm not imagining them."
I didn't like the sound of that. "I believe you."
It was just something to say, but Raquel's eyes got wide. "You do?" Her voice was no more than a whisper. "Really? You're not just saying it?"
"Really, I believe you."
To my shock, Raquel's eyes teared up. She quickly blinked them away, but I knew what I'd seen. "Nobody ever believed me, before."
I stepped a little closer. "Believed you about what?"