"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."
I shifted uneasily at the last word. Diego kept waiting for my answer, like he hadn't said anything weird. I took a deep breath and thought back.
"I was close enough," I admitted after a few seconds of his patient watching. "Not there yet, but in a few more weeks..." I shrugged. "You know, I don't remember much, but I do remember thinking there was nothing more powerful on this planet than just plain old hunger. Turns out, thirst is worst."
He laughed. "Sing it, sister."
"What about you? You weren't a troubled teen runaway like the rest of us?"
"Oh, I was troubled, all right." He stopped talking.
But I could sit around and wait for the answers to inappropriate questions, too. I just stared at him.
He sighed. The scent of his breath was nice. Everybody smelled sweet, but Diego had a little something extra--some spice like cinnamon or cloves.
"I tried to stay away from all that junk. Studied hard. I was gonna get out of the ghetto, you know. Go to college. Make something of myself. But there was a guy--not much different than Raoul. Join or die, that was his motto. I wasn't having any, so I stayed away from his group. I was careful. Stayed alive." He stopped, closing his eyes.
I wasn't done being pushy. "And?"
"My kid brother wasn't as careful."
I was about to ask if his brother had joined or died, but the expression on his face made asking unnecessary. I looked away, not sure how to respond. I couldn't really understand his loss, the pain it still clearly caused him to feel. I hadn't left anything behind that I still missed. Was that the difference? Was that why he dwelled on memories that the rest of us shunned?
I still didn't see how Riley came into this. Riley and the cheeseburger of pain. I wanted that part of the story, but now I felt bad for pushing him to answer.
Lucky for my curiosity, Diego kept going after a minute.
"I kind of lost it. Stole a gun from a friend and went hunting." He chuckled darkly. "Wasn't as good at it then. But I got the guy that got my brother before they got me. The rest of his crew had me cornered in an alley. Then, suddenly, Riley was there, between me and them. I remember thinking he was the whitest guy I'd ever seen. He didn't even look at the others when they shot him. Like the bullets were flies. You know what he said to me? He said, 'Want a new life, kid?'"
"Hah!" I laughed. "That's way better than mine. All I got was, 'Want a burger, kid?'"
I still remembered how Riley'd looked that night, though the image was all blurry because my eyes'd sucked back then. He was the hottest boy I'd ever seen, tall and blond and perfect, every feature. I knew his eyes must be just as beautiful behind the dark sunglasses he never took off. And his voice was so gentle, so kind. I figured I knew what he would want in exchange for the meal, and I would have given it to him, too. Not because he was so pretty to look at, but because I hadn't eaten anything but trash for two weeks. It turned out he wanted something else, though.
Diego laughed at the burger line. "You must have been pretty hungry."
"Damn straight."
"So why were you so hungry?"
"Because I was stupid and ran away before I had a driver's license. I couldn't get a real job, and I was a bad thief."
"What were you running from?"
I hesitated. The memories were a little more clear as I focused on them, and I wasn't sure I wanted that.
"Oh, c'mon," he coaxed. "I told you mine."
"Yeah, you did. Okay. I was running from my dad. He used to knock me around a lot. Probably did the same to my mom before she took off. I was pretty little then--I didn't know much. It got worse. I figured if I waited too long I'd end up dead. He told me if I ever ran away I'd starve. He was right about that--only thing he was ever right about as far as I'm concerned. I don't think about it much."
Diego nodded in agreement. "Hard to remember that stuff, isn't it? Everything's so fuzzy and dark."
"Like trying to see with mud in your eyes."
"Good way to put it," he complimented me. He squinted at me like he was trying to see, and rubbed his eyes.
We laughed together again. Weird.
"I don't think I've laughed with anybody since I met Riley," he said, echoing my thoughts. "This is nice. You're nice. Not like the others. You ever try to have a conversation with one of them?"
"Nope, I haven't."
"You're not missing anything. Which is my point. Wouldn't Riley's standard of living be a little higher if he surrounded himself with decent vampires? If we're supposed to protect her, shouldn't he be looking for the smart ones?"
"So Riley doesn't need brains," I reasoned. "He needs numbers."
Diego pursed his lips, considering. "Like chess. He's not making knights and bishops."
"We're just pawns," I realized.
We stared at each other again for a long minute.
"I don't want to think that," Diego said.
"So what do we do?" I asked, using the plural automatically. Like we were already a team.
He thought about my question for a second, seeming uneasy, and I regretted the "we." But then he said, "What can we do when we don't know what's happening?"
So he didn't mind the team thing, which made me feel really good in a way I didn't remember ever feeling before. "I guess we keep our eyes open, pay attention, try to figure it out."
He nodded. "We need to think about everything Riley's told us, everything he's done." He paused thoughtfully. "You know, I tried to hash some of this out with Riley once, but he couldn't have cared less. Told me to keep my mind on more important things--like thirst. Which was all I could think about then, of course. He sent me out hunting, and I
stopped worrying...."
I watched him thinking about Riley, his eyes unfocused as he relived the memory, and I wondered. Diego was my first friend in this life, but I wasn't his.
Suddenly his focus snapped back to me. "So what have we learned from Riley?"
I concentrated, running through the last three months in my head. "He really doesn't tell us much, you know. Just the vampire basics."
"We'll have to listen more carefully."
We sat in silence, pondering this. I mostly thought about how much I didn't know. And why hadn't I worried about everything I didn't know before now? It was like talking to Diego had cleared my head. For the first time in three months, blood was not the main thing in there.
The silence lasted for a while. The black hole I'd felt funneling fresh air into the cave wasn't black anymore. It was dark gray now and getting infinitesimally lighter with each second. Diego noticed me eyeing it nervously.
"Don't worry," he said. "Some dim light gets in here on sunny days. It doesn't hurt." He shrugged.
I scooted closer to the hole in the floor, where the water was disappearing as the tide went out.
"Seriously, Bree. I've been down here before during the day. I told Riley about this cave--and how it was mostly filled with water, and he said it was cool when I needed to get out of the madhouse. Anyway, do I look like I got singed?"
I hesitated, thinking about how different his relationship with Riley was than mine. His eyebrows rose, waiting for an answer. "No," I finally said. "But..."
"Look," he said impatiently. He crawled swiftly to the tunnel and stuck his arm in up to the shoulder. "Nothing."
I nodded once.
"Relax! Do you want me to see how high I can go?" As he spoke, he stuck his head into the hole and started climbing.
"Don't, Diego." He was already out of sight. "I'm relaxed, I swear."
He was laughing--it sounded like he was already several yards up the tunnel. I wanted to go after him, to grab his foot and yank him back, but I was frozen with stress. It would be stupid to risk my life to save some total stranger. But I hadn't had anything close to a friend in forever. Already it would be hard to go back to having no one to talk to, after only one night.
"No estoy quemando," he called down, his tone teasing. "Wait... is that...? Ow!"
"Diego?"
I leaped across the cave and stuck my head into the tunnel. His face was right there, inches from mine.
"Boo!"
I flinched back from his proximity--just a reflex, old habit.
"Funny," I said dryly, moving away as he slid back into the cave.
"You need to unwind, girl. I've looked into this, okay? Indirect sunlight doesn't hurt."
"So you're saying that I could just stand under a nice shady tree and be fine?"
He hesitated for a minute, as if debating whether or not to tell me something, and then said quietly, "I did once."
I stared at him, waiting for the grin. Because this was a joke.
It didn't come.
"Riley said...," I started, and then my voice trailed off.
"Yeah, I know what Riley said," he agreed. "Maybe Riley doesn't know as much as he says he does."
"But Shelly and Steve. Doug and Adam. That kid with the bright red hair. All of them. They're gone because they didn't get back in time. Riley saw the ashes."
Diego's brows pulled together unhappily.
"Everyone knows that old-timey vampires had to stay in coffins during the day," I went on. "To keep out of the sun. That's common knowledge, Diego."
"You're right. All the stories do say that."
"And what would Riley gain by locking us up in a lightproof basement--one big group coffin--all day, anyway? We just demolish the place, and he has to deal with all the fighting, and it's constant turmoil. You can't tell me he enjoys it."
Something I'd said surprised him. He sat with his mouth open for a second, then closed it.
"What?"
"Common knowledge," he repeated. "What do vampires do in coffins all day?"
"Er--oh yeah, they're supposed to sleep, right? But I guess they're probably just lying there bored, 'cause we don't... Okay, so that part's wrong."
"Yeah. In the stories they're not just asleep, though. They're totally unconscious. They can't wake up. A human can walk right up and stake them, no problem. And that's another thing--stakes. You really think someone could shove a piece of wood through you?"
I shrugged. "I haven't really thought about it. I mean, not a normal piece of wood, obviously. Maybe sharpened wood has some kind of... I don't know. Magical properties or something."
Diego snorted. "Please."
"Well, I don't know. I wouldn't just hold still while some human ran at me with a filed broom handle, anyway."
Diego--still with a sort of disgusted look on his face, as if magic were really such a reach when you're a vampire--rolled to his knees and started clawing into the limestone above his head. Tiny stone shards filled his hair, but he ignored them.
"What are you doing?"
"Experimenting."
He dug with both hands until he could stand upright, and then kept going.
"Diego, you get to the surface, you explode. Stop it."
"I'm not trying to--ah, here we go."
There was a loud crack, and then another crack, but no light. He ducked back down to where I could see his face, with a piece of tree root in his hand, white, dead, and dry under the clumps of dirt. The edge where he'd broken it was a sharp, uneven point. He tossed it to me.
"Stake me."
I tossed it back. "Whatever."
"Seriously. You know it can't hurt me." He lobbed the wood to me; instead of catching it, I batted it back.
He snagged it out of the air and groaned. "You are so... superstitious!"
"I am a vampire. If that doesn't prove that superstitious people are right, I don't know what does."
"Fine, I'll do it."
He held the branch away from himself dramatically, arm extended, like it was a sword and he was about to impale himself.
"C'mon," I said uneasily. "This is silly."
"That's my point. Here goes nothing."
He crushed the wood into his chest, right where his heart used to beat, with enough force to punch through a granite slab. I was totally frozen with panic until he laughed.
"You should see your face, Bree."
He sifted the splinters of broken wood through his fingers; the shattered root fell to the floor in mangled pieces. Diego brushed at his shirt, though it was too trashed from all the swimming and digging for the attempt to do any good. We'd both have to steal more clothes the next time we got a chance.
"Maybe it's different when a human does it."
"Because you felt so magical when you were human?"
"I don't know, Diego," I said, exasperated. "I didn't make up all those stories."
He nodded, suddenly more serious. "What if the stories are exactly that? Made up."
I sighed. "What difference does it make?"
"Not sure. But if we're going to be smart about why we're here--why Riley brought us to her, why she's making more of us--then we have to understand as much as we possibly can." He frowned, every trace of laughter totally gone from his face now.
I just stared back at him. I didn't have any answers.
His face softened just a little. "This helps a lot, you know. Talking about it. Helps me focus."
"Me, too," I said. "I don't know why I never thought about any of this before. It seems so obvious. But working on it together... I don't know. I can stay on track better."
"Exactly." Diego smiled at me. "I'm really glad you came out tonight."
"Don't get all gooey on me now."
"What? You don't want to be"--he widened his eyes and his voice went up an octave--"BFFs?" He laughed at the goofy expression.
I rolled my eyes, not totally sure if he was making fun of the expression or of me.
"C'mon, Bree. Be my best
est bud forever. Please?" Still teasing, but his wide smile was natural and... hopeful. He held out his hand.
This time I went for a real high five, not realizing until he caught my hand and held it that he'd intended anything else.
It was shockingly weird to touch another person after a whole life--because the last three months were my whole life--of avoiding any kind of contact. Like touching a sparking downed power line, only to find out that it felt nice.
The smile on my face felt a little lopsided. "Count me in."
"Excellent. Our own private club."
"Very exclusive," I agreed.
He still had my hand. Not shaking it, but not exactly holding it, either. "We need a secret handshake."
"You can be in charge of that one."
"So the super-secret best friends club is called to order, all present, secret handshake to be devised at a later date," he said. "First order of business: Riley. Clueless? Misinformed? Or lying?"
His eyes were on mine as he spoke, wide and sincere. There was no change as he said Riley's name. In that instant, I was sure there was nothing to the stories about Diego and Riley. Diego had just been around more than the others, nothing more. I could trust him.
"Add this to the list," I said. "Agenda. As in, what is his?"
"Bull's-eye. That's exactly what we've got to find out. But first, another experiment."
"That word makes me nervous."
"Trust is an essential part of the whole secret club gig."
He stood up into the extra ceiling space he'd just carved out and started digging again. In a second, his feet were dangling while he held himself up with one hand and excavated with the other.
"You better be digging for garlic," I warned him, and backed up toward the tunnel that led to the sea.
"The stories aren't real, Bree," he called to me. He pulled himself higher into the hole he was making, and the dirt continued to rain down. He was going to fill in his hidey-hole at this rate. Or flood it with light, which would make it even more useless.
I slid most of the way into the escape channel, just my fingertips and eyes above the edge. The water only came up to my hips. It would take me just the smallest fraction of a second to disappear into the darkness below. I could spend a day not breathing.
I'd never been a fan of fire. This might have been because of some buried childhood memory, or maybe it was more recent. Becoming a vampire was enough fire to last me.
Diego had to be close to the surface. Once again, I struggled with the idea of losing my new and only friend.