Better Off Red (36 page)

She opened her still decorated door and I realized I’d never set foot in Benny’s room. I looked around at her bed, twice the size of mine over in Cramer, and her bright purple decorations. There were pictures of her and her mom lining her dresser and pictures of us girls on her desk. There was a picture of her and Cleo next to her bed. I didn’t see any evidence of Dalhem.

My dorm room would probably look the same way if I’d spent more than three minutes there a week. I glanced around once more.

There was only one bed.

“You don’t have a roommate?” I thought all the freshmen living in the dorms did.

“My parents sprang for a single.” She held her hand out, motioning for me to sit at her desk. I took a seat and she flopped on her bed, pulling her stuffed panther into her lap. “How is she?”

Benny asked.

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“Fine. I think. I haven’t seen her since last night. When did you find out?”

“Last night. My step-dad told me, but I knew before that.

There’s a database I have access to and her name popped up while I was getting ready for bed,” she said, putting on a casual front. I winced, feeling my chest ache for her. Benny pretended she didn’t notice my grimace. “I’m assuming she already has a feeder.”

“His name is Andrew. He seems very nice,” I said and then I blurted, “Benny, I know how you feel about her, but is there something more going on between you and Cleo?”

She looked up at me, a smirk touching the corner of her lips.

“There’s nothing going on between us anymore. She took Camila’s blood?” I nodded.

Benny stood and placed the large stuffed animal back on her pillows. “Let’s go.”

“He’s at the house right now, Benny. With Cleo.”

“Where else would he be?” she said. I had no clue. If Andrew was anything like Benny, he’d never want to leave Cleo’s side.

❖

As we walked back to the house, Benny shut down completely.

I wanted to be there for her, help her bear the brunt of whatever was running through her head, but that just wasn’t Benny’s style. She was preparing herself to handle Cleo’s pain, or maybe just dealing with her own.

Florencia let us in and told us Barb and Paige were back. They knew about Cleo and were both in their rooms getting their heads together. Florencia offered to make Benny breakfast, but she said no. We walked into the pantry and as we waited for the elevator, Benny finally spoke to me.

“I heard congratulations are in order for you.”

“Oh, ah, yeah. Camila asked me last night, before all this happened.” The elevator door opened and we stepped inside. Benny looked at the floor as I entered the code. Camila must have talked to Dalhem about her intentions with me while I was sleeping. Of

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course Benny would know about our engagement. At the moment I didn’t want to think about it.

“Well, congratulations. My mother is patiently waiting for the day she can call herself my step-father’s na’suul.”

“I thought she and Dalh—your step-dad were married.”

“They are married in the human world and she is his mate. A demon can only take another demon as their na’suul. They’ll have their proper ceremony after she changes.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say. Benny seemed to understand.

Camila had been trying to get me to stop knocking all semester, but I could hear voices on the other side of her door. I knocked twice and the door opened on its own. Camila was pacing in front of the TV and Cleo was sitting comfortably in one of Camila’s chairs.

Andrew was on the floor between her legs. They were both wearing the same clothes from the night before. He had on a shirt, but his shaggy brown hair had been shaved off. He looked a lot better.

Camila must have caught me staring at him as I walked over to the couch with Benny. “Did you cut his hair?”

“No. Moreland made him wear it long. He said he didn’t like it. I said he could cut it. So he did. Hey, Ginger,” Cleo said. Nobody missed the fact that she didn’t acknowledge Benny.

“Hey,” I replied, frowning slightly.

“Andrew, you know Ginger, and this is Benny,” Camila said.

He greeted us both with a nod and a polite hello.

Cleo took a breath and closed her eyes. “What do I do about my stuff?”

“I’d be happy to get your things for you,” Andrew murmured, gazing up at her. Sometime in the night she’d broken him of his habit of looking at the floor.

“No, honey,” Cleo hushed him sweetly.

“Andrew, it’s very kind of you,” Camila said. She was trying so hard to be patient with him and Cleo. “But I can’t let you roam around the upper floors. It’s a female-only residence.”

“Can I have Barb bring my stuff then?” Cleo asked.

“No.”

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“Why?”

“Cleo, your family is going to want your things.” Camila suddenly stopped pacing and her brows knitted together as she stared at Cleo. “Just say it. Get it out now.”

“Thank you for saving my life. But…” Cleo tilted her head back, staring blankly at the ceiling. She tried to keep it together, but she couldn’t. Several ragged, deep breaths puffed out her cheeks and then the blue tears bubbled over, sliding down the side of her face.

Quickly, she looked back down and started wiping them away. She took another breath and more tears came. “Can I even say good-bye?”My throat ran dry and somehow I managed to hold my own tears back. So did Benny, but I could feel her shaking, her leg trembling against mine.

“There are ways, but, Cleo, I need you to wait. I am sorry.

You’re too emotional and you’re too strong,” Camila said.

“When then?” Cleo wiped her nose and fixed a steady expression on her face. “When can I tell my mama I’m sorry for leaving her? When can I tell my daddy that I love him?”

“When I know you’re under control. When I know I can trust you to deal with humans carefully so you won’t accidentally reveal yourself.”

“How much more under control do I need to be? I didn’t hurt Andrew at all. And my powers are all in fine working order.”

“You shifted?” Camila frowned.

“Yeah, last night. He likes to bottom sometimes.” Andrew blushed and suddenly became very interested in the glasses lining the bar. That didn’t hide the fact that his blush ran all the way down his neck. I glanced back and forth between Cleo and Camila. They were sharing something, something that Cleo accepted reluctantly as she rolled her eyes and leaned back further into the chair. Camila went on.

“You have access to the account. You can have whatever you want, but let your family clear out your room.”

“Fine. Can he borrow the car? I’d like to let him grab his stuff.

Faeth just brought him this shirt.”

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“Sure. Here.” Camila tossed the keys to the Range Rover across the room. “You can have the car.”

“Sweet. Thank you. What else?”

“You need two more feeders. If you’re going to stay here, and you’re more than welcome to, I’d prefer if they were female.”

“So would I. Do I go out and find them or—”

“No. The sister-queens are letting you choose among the girls.”

Cleo’s gaze flashed to Benny’s face, her eyes narrowing.

She looked away just as quickly, but even Andrew had caught the tense glance between them. I swallowed nervously and reached for Benny’s hand. She yanked it away.

“Okay,” Cleo said to Camila. “Well, I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes. I’ll let them decide who.”

“Excuse me.” Benny stood and marched out the door. I was surprised when it gently clicked shut instead of slamming.

I turned to Cleo “What did you just say to her?”

“I told her to go fuck herself.”

“That was unnecessary,” Camila said.

“Then she shouldn’t have let me in!” Cleo shouted back. “Did you hear her?” she asked Camila.

“No.”

“She was blocking me till the fucking second you said I could choose. This bitch said, ‘she’s ready to feed me whenever I’m ready to take her.’ She is happy about this shit.” Cleo waved her hands up and down her stomach. “She’s fucking happy I died just so she could have me the way she wanted me. Listen, I’m grateful to you.

I’m glad my face isn’t extra crispy anymore. And Andrew told me I’d be missing an arm, but I didn’t want this. She did.”

“And this is what I’m talking about. I need to know you won’t do that with someone in your family or someone in your mother’s congregation you don’t get along with. The human mind is fragile, Cleo. You can’t just mess with it whenever the mood strikes.”

“Okay, whatever. My bad,” she said. She started stroking Andrew’s bald head. He and I both exhaled once our vampires started to relax.

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“So I’m on ice for a while. Fine. Is there anything you need me to do?” Cleo asked.

“Just lie low, please. Don’t go where people will recognize you until I know you can hold a different form. And I would like for you to stay away from the girls until your feeders are chosen. They will sense your power and your need and they won’t know how to deal with it. And please, feed the boy and let him get some sleep.

Andrew, we’ll talk more about work for you later.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Cleo moved to stand and Andrew followed, immediately moving out of her way. Then Cleo walked across the room and hugged Camila.

“You should apologize to her,” she said quietly as they embraced

“I will when I’m better under control.” Cleo stepped back. “So we’re like sisters now?”

“Yes. But I’m older and more mature and better looking. I’m going to let all this back talking slide for now.”

“Yes, ma’am. Here. I won’t be needing this anymore.” Cleo reached behind her neck and unlatched her ruby necklace she’d reclaimed from Dr. Fountain before she left the hospital. She pooled the platinum links gently in Camila’s hand. “I’ll be back later.” She turned to me with a casual nod. “Peace out, Ginge.”

My good-bye came out hoarse, but Cleo pretended she didn’t notice.

After they were gone, Camila closed the door. She leaned back against it, the necklace in her hand gripped in her tight fist. She let out a deep breath that I could almost feel from across the room. She looked at me and forced a grin, more apologies written all over her face. “Come on, Red,” she said, nodding toward her office. “You can pick out our new car.”

It was none of my business, but I wanted to go after Cleo. I wanted to ask her how she really felt, without Camila’s influence or without Andrew around. I wanted to tell her that I tried to say something on her behalf before the ball on this mess had started rolling, but I let her go. I met Camila halfway across the room and

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slid my hand into her warm palm. There was nothing I could say to make the situation better for anyone and there was nothing I could do.

❖

Camila made a few calls, and it was confirmed that her new silver Mercedes G55 AMG would be delivered on Tuesday. It was kind of weird and boxy looking, but I liked it because it was big like the Range Rover. All I could think about was Cleo’s crushed and burned Civic. The last thing I wanted to do was hop in a little car.

Camila liked it because it was expensive.

After our online shopping trip, she gave me some space to start studying for my chem final. We had three days of class left, then two reading days, which I think were for our professors to actually write the tests. The Monday after was my comprehensive chemistry exam. I had plenty of material to cover in a little over seven days, but it was useless. I couldn’t focus.

Instead, Camila and I talked about Andrew. She wasn’t bothered by having him in the house, but adjustments would be made. For one, he had no job. He was twenty-three and had been living with Moreland as her full time slave basically since he was eighteen.

He’d dropped out of college after a month. Moreland had found him bed-hopping his way from meal to meal around Houston and asked for special permission to take him as a feeder.

The term slave weirded me out a bit. I didn’t try to deny that, but Camila explained that in Moreland’s situation, it simply meant that Andrew, and the other guy Luke, were at Moreland’s disposal twenty-four seven. Her other feeders had jobs and lives of their own, but Andrew spent all of his time with her. Cleo didn’t have the patience to deal with that kind of a pet, so Camila planned on asking Andrew if there was anything he wanted to do—go back to school, any skills he wanted to learn—and she would help him do it.

Otherwise, they’d give him some sort of job working for the sister-queens. Idle hands and all.

We sat in her office chair, me in her lap, and for a long time she was quiet. When I started to get restless under the weight of my own

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thoughts, she offered to have lunch brought down. I wasn’t hungry, but I did want to talk to Paige and Barb. I left Camila to make some more phone calls and went upstairs. I found them in Cleo’s room clearing out her sex toys and porn. We searched the place for anything else her mother, the Reverend Cynthia Jones, might find unbecoming of a good Christian woman. We didn’t find much, but under her bed we found a few Polaroids of her and Benny kissing the night of the Iota Halloween Party. I didn’t even know people still used those old cameras, but it was obvious from the angle that Cleo had taken them herself. Barb suggested I hold on to them for Benny.

I didn’t argue and brought them back to Camila’s apartment, hoping that at some point Cleo or Benny would want them.

After everyone was back on campus, the sister-queens gathered their feeders and told them exactly what had happened, about Andrew and Cleo’s new role as a sister-queen in our bizarre family.

Danni and Amy broke down and sobbed when they heard the news even though they understood that Cleo was okay. It was the accident that bothered them, that bothered all of us. As Camila told them about how we spent our Saturday night in the burn unit across town, I knew they were picturing every horrible moment that had put Cleo in that hospital bed and the horrible pain she had suffered until the sister-queens were able to reach her.