A Night Without Stars (11 page)

“You never told me your name, you know.” I tried to sound flippant, but even to my own ears there was a hoarseness in my voice that betrayed how perilously close I was to tears. I swallowed the hard lump in my throat. Crawling around searching for cameras like a deranged lunatic was one thing. Crying was another. 

The boy folded his long, lanky body in half until we were at the same level and I had no choice but to stare straight into his eyes. It was like gazing across a stormy sea. You could see the crests of the waves as they broke out of the water, but the real turmoil was beneath the frothing surf, hidden from view. “Maximus. My name is Maximus.”

“Maximus, huh?” I tried to smile but the skin on my face wouldn’t stretch. Everything felt tight, from my forehead all the way down to my toes.

It reminded me of a few weeks ago when I’d tried on a pair jeans that were one size too small. By some small miracle I managed to get them buttoned, only to spend the next ten minutes trying to peel myself out. Needless to say, I didn’t buy them.

That’s how I felt now. Like somehow I’d slipped into a body that was one size too small and my skin had to stretch to fit over it. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation.

“I’m Lola.” I didn’t offer my last name, and Maximus didn’t ask for it.

“Sorrows,” he said instead, causing me to blink at him in confusion.

“What?”

“That’s what the name Lola means. Sorrows.” Those stormy gray eyes studied me intently. “Are you sad, Lola?”

It was difficult not to squirm. Most kids in the twelve to nineteen age bracket were too busy looking at their cell phones to engage in eye contact that lasted more than a few seconds. Either Maximus didn’t have a cell phone or he just really, really liked making other people feel uncomfortable.

“I’m not sad,” I scoffed. Except I was. I’d just become an expert at hiding it. I wore my sarcasm like a shield, using it to protect the soft, vulnerable side I didn’t want anyone to see. A soft, vulnerable side that had no place in a world filled with drunken fathers and bloodthirsty monsters.

I still wasn’t sure
what
to be believe – although at the moment a psychopathic family of axe murderers was running neck and neck with vampires (pun totally intended) – but I did know something evil was happening outside the door of the storage unit.

It wasn’t only my imagination anymore. Travis’ frantic phone call, the woman covered in blood, Angelique’s fangs sinking into my flesh… All proof that something dark and twisted had come to the perfect little town of Revere and was tearing it apart from the inside out. I didn’t know why, or how, or even what they wanted. I just knew I needed to find my dad, rescue Travis, and get the hell out of Dodge.

When Maximus stood and offered his hand I took it without thinking, sliding my fingers along the calloused ridges of his palm until our hands interlocked. He pulled me up until we were standing so close together I could see each individual eyelash framing his baby grays and I was forced to come to terms with something I’d managed to ignore until now: Maximus was Hot with a capital H. If, you know, you were into the dark haired brooding mysterious types, which apparently I was now if my hammering pulse rate was any indication.

It was so disgustingly cliché that I gave myself a mental slap.
Pull yourself together Lola
.
Don’t you
dare
be one of those idiot girls who loses her head over a guy and gets herself killed because of it.

“Let go,” I demanded, giving a sharp tug.

Ignoring me, Maximus turned my wrist until my new scars were visible. He murmured something unintelligible under his breath before he abruptly dropped my hand as though I’d burned him and stepped back, putting as much distance between us as the cramped storage unit would allow.

“You’re infected,” he spat in disgust.

Well
excuse
me. 

I held my hand up towards the light to get a better look, but there was nothing to see. “No,” I said slowly, shaking my head. “I don’t know how it healed so quickly but it’s definitely not—”

“Your blood is infected. That’s why you aren’t crippled with pain right now. By the look of it you took a beating that would have knocked out a grown man, and yet you’re standing here talking to me as though nothing has happened. That’s because you don’t feel anything, do you? The slice on your cheek. The cut on your knee. The bruises on your arms.”

There were bruises on my arms? I glanced down and couldn’t quite hold back the gasp. It escaped between my lips on a little hiss of air when I saw the angry smudges staining my skin in every dark color imaginable. How had I not seen the bruises before now? My arms looked like a canvas straight out of some angry artist’s worst nightmare. I lifted the hem of my t-shirt, only to quickly yank it back down when I saw my stomach wasn’t any better off.

Maximus had a point. I should have been curled up on the floor whimpering in pain. Instead I felt… nothing. No, that wasn’t completely true. I felt one thing.

Energized.

I’d assumed it was the lingering traces of adrenaline, but what if it was something more? What if I really was infected? Stranger things had already happened tonight.

“Who bit you, Lola?” Maximus stepped forward, crowding me back against the desk. When my thighs bumped into the metal drawers, leaving me with nowhere else to run, he barricaded me in with his arms. I’d never been claustrophobic, but I’d also never been pinned to a desk by a hot guy with a gun. In theory it should have been sexy. In reality it was intimidating as hell. “Who bit you?” he repeated softly. “I need to know.”

And I needed to get out of here. My brain was on overload. I couldn’t process any new information. Not when I was still trying to come to terms with what I’d already been told. “I don’t… I’m not…” I shook my head, trying to clear it. My poor, pitiful braid slipped over my shoulder and I ran my fingers through the snarled ends. “I don’t remember,” I lied.

Maximus slapped his hands against the table with enough force to jostle open a drawer. “This is not a game,” he growled. His eyes were dark and heavy on mine, his pupils wide enough for me to see my own reflection. I looked terrified. “This is not make believe. This is not pretend. The monsters are real and they are here and they are
not leaving
. Do you understand?”

Couldn’t he see that I didn’t
want
to understand? To understand would mean to accept. Accept that Travis was in very real danger. Accept that the woman covered in blood was really dead. Accept that the girl who had bitten me was more than a very skilled, very scary actress paid to play a horrible, horrible prank.

“Angelique.” My shoulders sagged. “She said her name was Angelique.”

“
Angelique
.” Maximus hissed the name like a curse and spun away from me. He began to pace the length of the tiny unit. His shadow was enormous on the opposite wall. It moved sinuously, rippling across the stacked furniture like something alive.

“Do you know her?” If I sounded suspicious, it’s because I was. Maximus knew more than he was telling. A lot more, if I had to guess. I wanted answers almost as much as I wanted to close my eyes and pretend none of this was happening.

His eyes flicked to mine. “I have heard of her. She is not a creature to be trifled with.”

“A creature?” I repeated. “You make it sound like she’s not even human.”

“Because she isn’t.”

I drew in a shaky breath and braced my hands along the edge of the desk. It was time I stopped tiptoeing around the shallow end and dove headfirst into the pool. “You think she’s one of them. A… a vampire.”

“I do not think,” he corrected, “I know. You need to accept the truth, Lola, if you plan on staying alive.”

“The truth?” I said incredulously. “You’re saying the
truth
is that vampires are real and they’re out there, right now” – I flung my hand towards the door – “murdering and pillaging and doing whatever the hell vampires do. Maximus, that’s… that’s impossible. You know that, right? What you’re saying is impossible. What you want me to believe is
impossible
.”

“Going back in time is impossible. Turning invisible is impossible. Balancing the national debt is impossible. Blood sucking creatures that have been documented since the beginning of time across the entire world? Not impossible.”

I made a face. “Next you’ll be telling me they sparkle in the daylight.”

“No,” he said, giving me his first real smile. “Never that.”

I didn’t like what that slow, curving smile did to my insides.
Now is not a good time to crush on a strange boy you hardly know!
My practical side scolded.
But so hot… Gray eyes… Dark hair… That mouth… Gah gah…

Teenage hormones were so stupid. The world as I knew it was being irrevocably changed, Travis was being held captive by a vampire, and my dad – well, it was anyone’s guess. Yet here I was, alternating between being freaked out of my mind and trying to keep the drool from running down my chin.

Pathetic.

“So that’s the story you’re sticking with,” I said finally. “Vampires have taken over the little town of Revere, Pennsylvania.”

Maximus crossed his arms. “They prefer to be called drinkers but yes, what you just said, while a crude summarization, is technically correct.”

“You know you talk weird, right?”

“And you, like most Americans, speak at the level of a fifth grader.”

I squinted at him. “You’re not American?”

“Canadian.”

Well, that explained a lot. Another thought occurred to me, one that didn’t sit quite as well as the last. “Wait a sec. If what you’re saying is true—”

“It is.”

“—and if Angelique really is a vampire—”

“She is.”

“—and if I’m really infected—”

“You are.”

“—then does that mean I’m going to turn into one of them?” I looked down at my hand and then up at Maximus, horror written over every inch of my face.

“No.
No
,” he repeated firmly when my mouth opened. “There must be equal blood transfusion for a change to take place. Did you drink from her?”

“Did I… Ew, no way.” I shuddered at the very idea.

“Then it is impossible for you to turn.”

I sighed with relief and sagged against the table. “You could have led with that bit, you know. How about next time you try ‘don’t worry Lola, you’re infected, but nothing bad will happen’. How about that?”

“Because that would be a false statement.” He reached up and absently tucked back a curl that had tumbled into his eyes. For the first time I noticed there was a silver spike poking through the cartilage on his left ear. The piercing was small, no bigger than a quarter of an inch, but deadly sharp. It reminded me of the vampire’s silver fangs, and I felt a chill pass between my shoulder blades that had nothing to do with the temperature of the storage unit.

“What do you mean, a false statement?” I asked. “Either I’m going to turn into one of those… those things or I’m not. There can’t be an in between.”

“Those scars on your hand indicate Angelique has marked you. Your blood went into her and became a part of her, which means you two are now connected, albeit a faint connection given she did not take very much blood.”

“Barely any,” I agreed.

“Still, she will be able to sense you.” Maximus’ eyes narrowed. “Even now she could be tracking you. Hunting you.”

“H-hunting me?” I recalled the burning pain when she sank her fangs into my flesh. The choking terror. The certainty of death. Bile rose in my throat, surging up from the empty pit of my stomach. It tasted bitter on my tongue and I swallowed it back down with an audible gulp. “She can’t find me.” I didn’t realize I’d begun to tremble until the desk started to vibrate. “You can’t let her find me. Please.” My eyes were wide and wild. My breathing short and fast. In that moment I was little more than a cornered animal, desperate for a way out. All thoughts of Travis and my father fled. I feared only for myself, and the fear was all encompassing. “Please, you can’t let her find me. You can’t let her—”

Maximus grabbed my shoulders and gave me a quick, hard shake. “Stop it,” he ordered and, to my surprise, I did. It was impossible not to. He may have been the same age as me, but authority seemed to ooze from his very pores.

His eyes searched mine, using my weakened state to probe deep into places I never let anyone look. Places
I
never even looked. I tried to twist my head to the side but he gently grasped my chin, forcing me to stare straight into the shadowy depths of his eyes and see the truth of my own fear reflected back at me. “You cannot afford to panic,” he said softly. “You cannot be afraid. Not now, not ever again. The drinkers feed on blood and weakness. You have already given them a taste of the first, do not allow them to have the second.”

I came back to myself slowly. With every deep breath I drew the panic subsided until I was left with only a vague sense of embarrassment. “Sorry,” I muttered.

“For what?”

“Losing my shit.” 

Another rare smile, another answering flutter deep in my belly. I really needed to get my hormones under control. “Lola, these are extenuating circumstances. You are allowed to ‘lose your shit’.”

He still had one hand on my shoulder, the other on my jaw. We realized it at the same time and I felt a sense of glib satisfaction surge through me when he flushed and abruptly stepped away, pinning his arms to his sides. If the dull red creeping up from underneath the collar of his leather jacket was any indication, I wasn’t the
only
one battling teenage hormones.

“So,” I said briskly, “let’s recap. Crazy ass vampires have taken over the town, my friend Travis is being held hostage, and I need to find my dad.”

“You are forgetting one important thing.”

Vampires, check. Travis, check. Dad, check. What else was there? For some inexplicable reason my mind veered to Everett James, but I quickly shook him loose. “What? And by the way, don’t think I’ve forgotten you in all this. Why are you here, anyways?” My eyes narrowed. “And how do you know so much about what is going on? And why do you—”