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I picked my tray back up. “No way, bucko. Jury’s still out on you. ”
The words were harsh, but I’d said them with a wink. I was learning.
I joined the others at the table just as Tracer Judge did—now there was a guy. He’d been my phenomena teacher last term. Cute, with floppy hair and warm, puppy dog eyes. A what-you-see-is-what-you-get sort of guy.
“Acari Drew, I haven’t seen you around. ” He sounded genuinely pleased to see me.
“She’s been busy with Alcántara,” Amanda said in a flat voice.
My smile faded a bit at the barb. “I’m still alive,” I told him, ignoring her comment as best I could. “Despite Master Dagursson’s best efforts at dancing me to death. I’ve been spending a lot of time with Alcántara, too. But I have to. ” I shot her a look. “Our mission is next month. ”
“No idea where you’re going yet?” Yas asked over a mouthful of stew. Now there was someone who could do with some etiquette training.
“None. ” I took a swig of blood from my little crystal shooter, and a shiver rolled over me. The cold drink had grossed me out at first—all thick and viscous, the color of a red jewel—but now the taking of it was a deeply pleasant sensation.
The table had grown silent, and I couldn’t figure out why. Well, I knew partly why. Yas and Emma were quietly in their own world, cutting their eyes at each other. Only now it no longer annoyed me—it was novel and exciting to be privy to their burgeoning relationship. I felt like an anthropologist. Or a friend.
It was really the Ronan/Amanda/Judge triumvirate that made the table hum with tension. It seemed to me they were making it uncomfortable for everyone. And to think it’d been so nice to see good old benign Tracer Judge.
Ronan blurted, “I have to go. ” He stood and exchanged a weighty nod with Amanda.
Then Amanda stood, too—surprise, surprise. “So do I. ”
I put my fork down, tired of all the secrets. Couldn’t people just say what was going on in their lives? Lately it felt as if my friends wouldn’t tell me anything if I didn’t drag the information out of them.
As Ronan and Amanda left, I decided to spy on them. I shoveled stew into my mouth, crammed a hard roll into my pocket, and wasn’t far behind them. Keeping a safe distance, I followed, certain I would catch them in the act.
Confronting Emma about her crush on Yasuo had taken a tremendous weight off my shoulders. It felt good to talk about things instead of being on the outside looking in. I’d find Ronan and Amanda and talk to them, too. They’d know that I knew about them, and maybe this tension would ease a little.
I trailed them as best I could, which was pretty well, if I said so myself. All that intense training was good for something—I was a regular James Bond.
But then something unexpected happened. I hid behind a hedge along the path, watching as they reached the Acari dorm. And then, without even a hug between them, they said good-bye, and Amanda went inside.
Had they fought? Were they just being discreet? They weren’t acting as I imagined lovers normally acted.
I jogged to catch up to Ronan as he picked up the trail to the coast. But why there? He didn’t have his surfboard or his wet suit, so he wasn’t going for a swim.
And why didn’t he just drive? He was one of the few people who had the use of the campus SUVs. Did it mean he went somewhere he didn’t want people to know about?
He walked, and I followed, and just as I was beginning to think it a fool’s errand—my luck he’d turn on me, shout, Gotcha, and make me do water drills—he walked right by the beach, taking a tiny path I’d never seen before.
And then he headed inland, toward the other side of the island.
I didn’t think twice. I followed.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
And then he left the trail, and I did think twice.
Don’t stray from the path—it was one of the mainstays of the vampire rule book. Nerves tensed my muscles, tightening my stride. I’d become hardwired to follow the rules, because with them came survival.
Ronan had also warned me to stay away from the far side of the island. Could that be where he was headed? Was he going to see his family?
Maybe I was just desperately curious for a glimpse of the real Ronan. And maybe, somewhere in the back of my mind, I considered myself safe from trouble—that if it came down to it, I’d be protected by Alcántara. Whatever the reason, though it was stupid and reckless, I followed.
The farther inland we went, the trickier it got. I was able to see him from quite a distance—it was crazy, but this whole episode made me realize just how much my vision had improved since drinking the blood. Even so, there were few trees and fewer rocks, and I was intermittently forced to let Ronan slip out of sight lest he spot me.
Finally, I had to put more distance between us. The landscape had become too barren, all gravel and flat plateaus as opposed to the crags and cliffs of the shoreline.
But Tracer Judge had covered rudimentary fieldcraft in last term’s phenomena class. I knew how to track, and how to avoid being tracked myself. Following Ronan thus far, I’d relied on some basic techniques. It was time to see just how much I’d learned.
I scanned the dirt for what Judge called a track trap—an area in the terrain that lent itself to marks. Marshy ground, mud—anything that held a footprint. In my case, it was gravel.
And there I saw it, up ahead, a particularly gritty spot. Ronan’s footprints were easy to detect. There were faint depressions in the terrain with hints of damp—dark streaks among light gray—representing bits of gravel recently displaced.
I squatted to study the prints. The wind was up, and these tracks would fade by the end of the day. If it’d been sunny, the telltale dark patches wouldn’t have lasted more than a couple hours.
I followed due northwest. Every once in a while I lost his trail but always managed to pick it up again. And then something changed. I squatted again, studying.
There was a new pattern, visible only in the deeper patches of grit. His toes were digging more sharply into the terrain, with halos of gravel exploding from the heel. Ronan had begun to jog.
I began to jog, too, tamping down a spurt of nerves. Why had he upped his pace? Did he sense someone was following him? Did he know it was me?
Or maybe he was just eager. He’d given Amanda a key. Maybe he was running to her, to their secret rendezvous.
The footprints changed again, deeper, cutting hard to the right. He’d changed direction, due northeast. Back to the water.
I dug my thumb in the soil to check the depth and dampness, to see if it was telling a true story. Because the tracks told me he was running now.
I ran eastward following him, and the landscape got hilly again, bringing more boulders and crags with it. Cold prickled the back of my neck. A sensation nagged me—I felt watched.
My imagination, I told myself. Refusing to bow to nerves, I looked around. Sure enough, I was alone. I felt silly that I’d even let my head go there.
And then I cursed myself. I’d lost his trail. I knew better than to let emotion or imagination overwhelm me. It’d been lesson number one: Don’t lose control.
Had I lost Ronan for good? Suddenly, I felt so alone, and with the solitude came a burst of irrational panic. There were aspects to tracking I hadn’t mastered, such as determining the age of a print. Maybe I’d been following a trail that was laid weeks ago. Maybe I’d never been following him in the first place.
The boulders were getting taller the closer I approached the northeastern edge of the island. It was a place I’d never seen before, far from campus, far from the southern edge where I’d spotted those houses from Ronan’s boat.
The path had grown so jagged, I didn’t know what lay around each bend. I was freaking and ran too recklessly, my eyes glued to the ground, scanning desperately for his trail. Before, I’d wanted to track him, bu
t now I just didn’t want to be alone. When I looked up, I spotted him. Too close.
“Oh crap. ” I skittered to a halt, dropping and rolling behind a low rock, my heart in my throat.
I peeked back around, but Ronan hadn’t seen me. Patches of scrubby grass grew in the shadow of the rocks, and it looked foreign amidst all the gray. Beyond, the ground seemed simply to end, a straight drop to the sea, which was a steely haze on the horizon. He’d slowed to a brisk walk, no longer running. And who wouldn’t, navigating along the edge of a cliff?
But then he disappeared over the ledge, and I gasped. I scuffled as close as I could, and I spotted him, picking his way down a hidden path, winding down the granite face.
My eyes were playing tricks on me. The skies of the Dimming lent an eerie sort of light, and I squinted to make sense of the ragged rocks, mud, and what tufts of greenery were tenacious enough to cling to the steep, windswept cliff face.
I couldn’t get any closer without being discovered, but I stared until the white and gray haze burnt into my vision. And then he simply vanished.
It was the only reason I saw the cave.
I scrambled to the edge on hands and knees. Scrubbing my hand over my eyes, I peered again. His trail had narrowed—by the cave mouth, it was no more than a ledge. The cave itself was no more than a black smudge on the rock face. Its height was hard to judge from this distance, and although it was obviously large enough to fit Ronan, he’d had to bend to enter.
He stayed in there forever.
The sky was unchanging, but the wind picked up, and my belly quickly leached its warmth into the cold, gritty ground. I rubbed my hands together, trying to chafe warmth into them.
I debated returning to campus, but curiosity won in the end, and I stayed. Besides, I was a little scared of whatever might be lying in wait out there—I didn’t want Ronan to discover me, but I didn’t want to stray too far from him, either. I focused only on the cave mouth, forcing my mind to go blank—if I treated this as a meditative exercise, maybe the cold wouldn’t be so numbing, my nerves so frayed, and my position so uncomfortable.
A lighter color emerged from the black. I thought my tired eyes might be playing tricks, so I blinked hard and squinted again. But it was Ronan, exiting the cave.