In the Dark (26 page)

“But
you’re here,” Amanda said. “You’re right
here. You didn’t . . . you didn’t die.” She
laughed, that same, stilted laugh.

“Kent
killed me. He drank my blood, all of it, until I died. And then he
gave me some of his. And then I woke up, like I’d been sleeping
really hard, and I was a vampire.”

Amanda’s
eyes widened slightly.

“Not
someone who lives like a vampire,” I tried to clarify. “Not
someone who likes blood and the night, but someone who really needs
blood and can’t go out during the day.”

She licked her
lips. Opened her mouth to speak and then didn’t. I waited
calmly for her to ask something. It really seemed the most natural
thing, now that I’d done the hard part, to tell her. I had
always told her everything.

“You
really believe all that?” Like she hoped I didn’t.

I stared back at
her. Trying to think how to reply. It wasn’t a matter of belief
– it
was.
“I didn’t at first,” I said.
“I really didn’t. I thought maybe it was some weird mind
game Kent was playing with me. But I . . . it’s been four
years. I’ve been through some stuff. Seen some things. It’s
all true. Kent was a vampire, and he turned me into one, too.”

Amanda nodded,
not blinking, staring at me. “So Kent was a vampire, too?”
she asked, far too carefully. “And so was that guy that was
just here?”

Her tone stopped
me cold.

“Yes,”
I said. “Yes, yes, yes. Is it that hard to believe?” Had
I treated Kent like this when he first told me? I’d had
questions, sure, and doubts, but the fact of vampirism had become so
ordinary, I couldn’t remember if I’d reacted like this.

Amanda bit her
lip, like she wanted to say something she shouldn’t.

I pounced on it.
“What?”

She shook her
head. “I just . . . are you sure you’re not . . .
over-reacting? To Kent’s death?”

My mouth fell
open.

“No. No,
absolutely not. I swear.”

She reached for
my hand. “I just want to be sure you’re okay, Jen –
Ian. Sorry.” She took a breath. “I just want to be sure
you’re okay. This worries me, all right? Especially right after
Kent dies on you. I mean, he was your best friend. That kind of
trauma can push people over the edge, you know?”

I let her take
my hand. If I’d been the least bit fuzzy on any details –
if I hadn’t been able to press my tongue to my fangs and feel
them, I might have nodded and started worrying about myself.

“Thank you
for worrying,” I said. “But I swear, I
swear,
I’m
broken up and I’ve got a hundred things on my mind, but I’m
not crazy.”

She nodded
carefully. Not committing to anything.

“Tell me
you understand.” I leaned forward, tried to meet her eyes. She
looked away. My stomach dropped like I’d fallen off a cliff.
“Amanda?”

She stared at
our hands.

One, frightened,
desperate tear managed to escape from one of my eyes.

“Amanda,
please,” I said. “Please believe me. This is just like
when Delana broke up with me in high school, remember? You were the
only one who understood. Please, I need you like that again. This is
hard. This is really, really hard, and I need you.”

She shook her
head softly, not denial, just uncertain. The red tear on my face
dripped off my cheek and landed
plat!
on her hand. She jumped
and finally looked at my face.

“You’re
bleeding,” she said.

“No, I’m
not,” I said, with that false calm that comes right before you
freak out entirely. “I am crying blood. I drink blood. I sleep
all day and come out at night. I didn’t buy my fangs, I grew
them. I’m a vampire.” My free hand clenched in and out of
a fist.

Silence.

She finally
cleared her throat. “Jen, this is all pretty weird –”

I took my hand
back and laughed. It felt ugly. “You think this is weird? How
do you think I feel? How do you think it feels to tell you this?
Shit, how do you think it felt for me the first time Kent showed me
how to hunt for blood? Pretty weird?”

She watched me,
mouth shut, face blank.

I looked back at
my fidgety hands. “Look, I don’t need this right now. I
know you need this explained better, I know you need time to adjust,
but I can’t do it. I’ve had . . . more on my mind than I
thought one person could have. And now you can’t believe I’m
a vampire. I can’t do it. I can’t.” I was freaking
out. It felt good.

She stayed
quiet. Purple hair fell into her eyes. She pushed it out of her way
absently.

Anything.
Speak to me. Tell me I’m crazy, tell me you believe me, tell me
to fuck off, just talk!

Her hair fell
back into her eyes. She shoved it out of the way. “So Alec
believes all this stuff, too, huh?” she asked her hands.

I nodded without
speaking. I wanted to scream.

“How do
you know him?”

“He says
he’s my older brother.”

That got me more
of the hairy eyeball, but like she saw a stranger that seemed
familiar. Not looking at me.

“Because
you both knew Kent? Doesn’t that seem a little . . .
desperate?” She sounded like an adult talking to a
middle-schooler.

“Fuck
this,” I said. “Let me know when you’re done
analyzing me, huh?”

She hunkered
down on herself.

“I’ll
be in my room.” I left.

The tears
started before I even made the stairs. I had already lost two people.
Now it felt like I was losing another.

At least Kent
and Emily had no choice about abandoning me.

I went to my
room and shut the door.

A
soft rap on my door woke me. I peeled my thick eyelids open and
raised my head. Moving took too much effort. I flopped back down
again. My skin prickled, somehow
aware
the sun was up. I
ignored the tapping.

Rapping again,
louder this time. Not urgent, but not going away either. I rubbed my
eyes.

“What?”
I croaked.

“Ian?”
Amanda’s voice. I frowned. She still didn’t buy the
vampire thing. “Ian, the sun’s down.”

Yeah, maybe
it’s down, but it’s still light out.

I didn’t
answer.

She knocked
again. “Ian? Are you awake?”

“No,”
I said. My eyes were starting to ache.

“Ian?”

I snorted. “No,
it’s Mother Theresa.”

Silence.

“Ian, can
we talk?”

A quick and
bleary glance at my bedside clock made me groan. It was just after
seven – I usually didn’t get up for another half hour.

My door creaked
open a bit, letting Amanda’s face poke in. It was a tense,
thinking face. I could guess what about. She looked as worn out as I
felt. I buried my face in my pillow.

“You’re
bleeding again,” she said softly.

I wasn’t.
Dried blood colored my pillow, but none of it was fresh.

“Yeah,
been doing that a lot lately,” I murmured. “You know,
when someone murders your best friend, you tend to cry.”

Silence. I
didn’t look at her.

“Murdered?”

I hugged my
pillow. It was too early for this.

Amanda didn’t
see it that way. “You told Mom –”

“I tell
Mom a lot of shit.” I managed to sit up, rubbing my eyes. “You
think I told her I was a vampire?”

Amanda paused
uncomfortably. “How did he die?” she asked a little
quieter.

Why did she have
to ask questions that would make me see, make me remember?

“Someone
ripped his heart out of his chest.” I tried not to attach
meaning to the words. Just say them, not feel them. It didn’t
work.

Amanda gasped.
“Who?”

The tears
started fresh, and I started breathing. I hated that. It was so
obvious I was upset.

“Sebastian
killed him. The person who did it.”

Drank him.

Maybe Amanda
said something, maybe my name, I wasn’t sure. I was trapped
with my memories, shaking and breathing hard. I stayed that way for a
while, several minutes, helpless to stop remembering. Then something
inside me snapped. The shuddering stopped, but my abdomen clenched
hard and a sour taste flooded the back of my throat. I bolted for my
bathroom, dropping my face over the sink just as the blood came up.
Amanda followed me. My stomach jerked again, trickling more blood
into the sink.

“
I
thought you liked it . . .”

Someone’s
spilled drink . . .

More blood came
up. Just a dribble. I gagged.

Amanda touched
the side of my face, pulled my hair back. My tears spilled right
along with what I coughed up, until I was sobbing and gagging both.

“Ian, is
this normal?” Amanda asked softly. “I’m sorry,
there’s just so much blood . . .”

“I don’t
know,” I gasped. My voice echoed at me from the sink. “I
don’t know. Kent never told me. He never told me about any of
this.” There wasn’t much blood. Enough to scare someone
who wasn’t used to the sight. I spat out a big red blotch and
sat down hard.

“Do I need
to take you to the ER?” she asked finally.

I shook my head.
“I’m clinically dead,” I told her, repeating Kent’s
words. “No pulse. No body temperature. No bodily functions.”

Amanda raised an
eyebrow. I held out my wrist for her.

“Find my
pulse,” I said. “Go ahead. Touch me. I’m cold. I
don’t have a pulse.”

With a small
frown, she leaned in and took hold of my wrist – dropped it
fast. “You are cold.”

“Thank
you, Doctor Tamereaux. I’ve been dead for four years. What the
hell did you expect?”

Her face paled a
shade or two. I shut up and took my hand back. I had just decided
that she was going to run screaming into the night when she reached
out and took my wrist again. I opened my mouth to ask her why –
and let it shut quietly.

She searched one
tiny spot after another, warm fingers pressed to my skin. I let her
have it for a while, until it was obvious she didn’t intend to
give up.

“Can I
have my hand back?” I asked. She let go of it like it had
bitten her. I waited for her to say something, arms folded. I was
hungry again after my little display of panic. I thought about trying
to lap up some of the blood I’d left in the sink. Decided to
forget it.

“I told
you,” I said.

She nodded.
Purple hair fell into her eyes; she left it there.

“Amanda?”

She glanced at
me.

“Look, I
really need someone. Kent’s . . . he’s gone, and he
didn’t tell me anything about himself. I just found out he made
another vampire before me. I just found out he had enemies who would
kill him! I can’t deal with this anymore.” I wiped my
face. “If you can’t believe me, I need you to leave and
forget about it. I can’t deal with it.”

She didn’t
move. Just watched me. I watched her back. Waiting.

“I need to
wash my face,” I said finally.

She stood there.

I got up, pulled
my hair back, turned on the tap. Amanda just watched. I washed my
face. Rinsed all the blood I’d coughed up down the drain. When
I turned to leave the bathroom, she stood in my way. I put one hand
on her back and steered her out into my room. She went, glancing back
at me once. I stopped her in my room and went to my closet to pull
out clothes for the night. I just wanted to pretend that everything
was normal, time to get up, get dressed, go out for the night.

“I don’t
disbelieve you,” Amanda said. “It’s just . . .”
her eyes dropped, checking the floor as if she had a script down
there. “It’s really weird.”

Relief tried to
spring forward in my chest. I squished it. “Yeah. It is.”

I pulled out a
set of black yoga pants and a neon sport top. If Sebastian intended
to run me around his practice room like a scared rabbit, I could at
least dress for it.

Of course, he
might not even let me talk to him.

I changed out of
my underwear and tank top and into my training outfit. Amanda stood
to the side, frowning. I paused to rub Gypsy’s head. She purred
and blinked her eyes at me. I led the way upstairs, braiding my hair
as I went. To keep it out of my face. In case I ended up needing it
out of my face.

Gypsy trotted up
behind me, Amanda trailed me more slowly. In the kitchen, I got
Gypsy’s food bag out of a cupboard. Amanda absently checked a
cupboard across the kitchen, then another, then another. Finally she
paused.

“Hungry,”
she said. “You guys don’t eat much, huh?”

“No, not
really,” I said instead of “
Just blood. Did you think
we kept it in the fridge?”

She shifted her
weight. “Guess you wouldn’t.” She stopped speaking,
as if she had more to say and decided to shut up.

I stood, waiting
for her to make the next move.

“You wanna
talk some more?” she asked, watching me like a stranger. “About
some of this vampire stuff?”

I waited a beat
to see how she reacted to what she’d just said. She didn’t
move. Unsure, but not horrified.

“If you’ll
listen,” I said quietly.

“Okay.”

I talked myself
out of the relief that wanted to come. Just because she said okay
didn’t mean she knew what she was in for. I fed my cat, trying
to stay cool. Gypsy didn’t have to act. She just meowed and
waited for her dinner. Watching Gypsy eat reminded me I was hungry.
I’d puked a lot of blood into the sink and down the drain. What
a waste.

“I need to
eat first,” I said, watching Amanda out of the corner of my
eye. Her face whitened oh-so-slightly. I kept going as if nothing had
happened. “And I have a meeting with Sebastian.” I didn’t
include how I thought that might go. “Wanna meet up somewhere?
Back here, at a coffee shop, a restaurant?”

She didn’t
answer right away. I turned to look at her, waiting for a reply. She
was gazing past me, seeing more inside her own head.