Blood Forever (3 page)

I pull away. “Of course I remember Hades, you idiot. I’m stuck there for eternity, after all. Except when I manage to escape for a few blissful dream minutes. Which, I might add, you’re not exactly helping me make the most of.” I make a move to abandon the bed. But Rayne is too quick—grabbing my hand and jerking me back down.

“Sunny,” she says, her voice low and serious. “This is no dream.”

Her words send a chill down my spine. “But what else could it be?” I find myself asking, against my better judgment.

She looks at me solemnly. “We’ve been given another chance.”

“Another chance?” I am so lost at this point it’s not even funny.

“Look.” She draws in a breath. “Remember how I traveled to Hades to free your soul and everything?”

Again with the remember. As if I could forget how, only two days ago, my sister showed up at my dad’s front door with her boyfriend, Jareth, and vampire rock star Race Jameson. They had this crazy story about how they planned to make a deal with the devil to get me out. Very sweet of her and all, but, to be honest, I wasn’t that optimistic that she could really pull it
off. After all, there are only a few people in this world reported to have been brought back from the dead, and most of them are pretty important. Like, Son of God–type important. Why would anyone make an exception for me?

I realize my sister’s still talking. “Well, I finally got my audience with Hades, thanks to the help of his wife,” she says. “And I begged him to let you out. But he wouldn’t. He said it was against the rules or something, and that if he did it for you, he’d have to do it for everyone, yada, yada, yada.” Rayne rolls her eyes, telling me exactly what she thinks of that little technicality. “But he owed me—after I helped him win his video game. So we made a bargain anyway.”

I bite my lower lip, beginning to get a bad feeling about this. Something about my sister and her so-called bargains, which never seemed to work out in my favor. “Which was…?”

“He reset the clock for us. Basically sent us back in time, into our old bodies. Before any of the badness happened.” She dashes to her computer and pulls up the calendar. “See? It’s April fifteenth.”

I stare at her, realization hitting me with the force of a ten-ton truck. “April fifteenth?” I repeat. “Of last year…?”

“One month and one week before prom,” Rayne announces triumphantly. “And…”

“One month before Club Fang,” I realize aloud. “One month before Magnus bites me by mistake.” I stare at my sister, the implications of her so-called bargain hitting me hard and fast. Could it be true? Could we actually be back in time?

“Oh, Rayne,” I cry, looking at her with horrified eyes. “What have you done?”

“I’ve given you a second chance,” she says stoutly. “A chance for you to choose your destiny once and for all.” She pauses, then adds, “Are you willing to take it?”

B
ack in time. My stomach flip-flops as I stare at my sister, trying to make sense of it all. Back in time?

Rayne’s done some crazy stuff before, don’t get me wrong, but nothing like this. My mind races as I try to catalog the events of the past year. All the life-changing stuff we’ve experienced. All the supernatural events. Vampires, werewolves, fairies. Everything that happened to us…has it really now unhappened?

Rayne’s hopeful smile fades, her enthusiasm sliding into nervousness as she waits for me to say something…anything. I shake my head, not knowing whether I should kiss her or kill her. I mean, she did manage to do the impossible—to bring me back to life. But at what cost?

“I’m sorry, Sun,” my sister says after a time, her voice thick
with regret. “I know it’s a lot to take in. And believe me, I didn’t make the decision lightly. But Hades left me no choice. He’s really a ‘my way or the highway’ type of guy, if you want to know the truth. And not half as good at video games as he thinks he is.”

I lie back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Long ago, when we were kids, Rayne and I had pasted glow-in-the-dark stars up there and some of them had stayed stuck. Unlike my reality, that is, which has suddenly become completely unglued.

“Magnus,” I whisper, finally admitting aloud what’s been niggling at the back of my mind. My sweet vampire. What happened to him when time reset? Did he lose all memory of me and the things we’d shared over the last year? Does the Magnus in this time period even know I exist?

I let out an involuntary gasp at the thought. All those moments, all those memories, stolen away. Rayne lies down beside me, also staring up at the ceiling. “Yeah,” she says. “That’s the worst part. I had to leave Jareth behind, too.”

I turn to glance at her, pulled out of my self-pity for a moment as it hits me exactly what my sister’s given up for me. She could have easily left me to rot in the Underworld and gone off to live happily ever after with her vampire boyfriend. But now, just like Magnus, Jareth won’t know her from a hole in the wall. She’s given up her true love—her eternal happiness—all for my second chance.

“I’m sorry, Rayne,” I whisper, reaching over to squeeze her hand.

“I can’t tell you what it was like,” she says, choking on her
words. “To have to sit there and tell him I’m leaving him, only moments after promising I’d stay by his side forever.” Her voice cracks on the word
forever
and I realize she’s lost something else in addition to her love. She’s no longer a vampire. No longer immortal. Everything she’s ever wanted in life has been ripped away. For me.

“Why did you do it?” I ask. “I mean, you could have just left me there…” Her sacrifice is so stunning, it’s hard for me to come to terms with it.

“Because I knew in my heart it was for the best,” she says simply. “It wasn’t just your death. Everything was bad. Magnus had been caught by Pyrus’s wolves and would be tried for treason. The vampires in the Blood Coven had been kicked out of the Consortium and would have had to live a life of starvation and exile.” She turns her head to look at me, her eyes pleading for my understanding. “I couldn’t bear to let everyone suffer because of my mistakes.”

“Rayne, it wasn’t your fault—”

But she waves me off. “That’s not important now. What’s important is you have a second chance,” she insists. “A chance to live the life you were supposed to live. A normal life without vampires and other supernatural surprises. Without all the darkness I dragged you into that night when Magnus bit you instead of me.”

My mind flashes back to that fateful night at Club Fang. The moment my life changed forever. Would I have done things differently if I knew then what I know now?

I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

“
H
ey, Sunny, you ready for the big game tonight?”

I turn around as my old friend and field hockey teammate Amanda taps me on the shoulder in the lunch line at school that afternoon. Wow. I haven’t seen her since—

Yesterday. Sunny, you haven’t seen her since yesterday. At least in her mind.

“Oh, totally,” I force myself to say, trying to keep my voice as casual as possible. It’s been so weird seeing all these people I haven’t seen since Rayne and I left Oakridge High for Vegas last November. Especially since to them, no time has passed at all. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Good,” Amanda pronounces, looking relieved. “When you weren’t in homeroom first period, I got worried. We have
got
to win this match against Haverhill tonight or we are totally screwed for the rest of the season.”

“I know, right?” I find myself saying, trying hard to muster up an appropriate level of concern over some random high school sporting event that I couldn’t care less about. I mean, really. Winning? Losing? What did it matter in the long run? It wasn’t as if anyone’s life were at stake. As if an evil vampire would take over the town and cause mass destruction if we didn’t score a goal. Heck, I played the same game the first time around and I can’t even remember what the outcome was.

It’s funny. I thought I’d be so psyched to get back to school. To go back to my former life and see all my old friends. But so far the first day back had been nothing short of a total nightmare. And not one of those dramatic, freaky nightmares that at least would be interesting. It was more like that movie
Groundhog Day
, where I felt as if I’d already lived it a thousand times before.

“By the way, I heard Jake Wilder might be stopping by the game tonight,” Amanda adds, giving me a not-so-subtle wink.

Jake Wilder. Wow. I’d almost forgotten he even existed. It’s hard to believe the resident school Sex God—the one I crushed on hardcore back in the day—was once a very important person in my life. Thinking back, I can’t even remember what I saw in him. I guess he was good looking. And popular. But he couldn’t hold a candle to Magnus. The most wonderful boyfriend in the entire universe.

Who I’d probably never see again.

Before heading to school, Rayne and I had made a pact. To
live a normal, vampire-free life from this point forward. Too much badness had happened, my sister reasoned, because of our dalliances in the otherworld. It was better for all involved if we stayed out of it altogether and lived normal, everyday lives from this point forward.

But though in my head I knew she was right, my heart was singing a different song. How could I ever waste time going after someone like Jake Wilder, when I knew someone like Magnus existed on the fringes of my reality?

I get my lunch—some nasty, dried-up chicken nuggets and fries—and follow Amanda over to the table where the rest of my team appears to be debating the various pros and cons of different brands of lip gloss with quite a bit of venom, considering the subject matter.

“Oh-Em-Gee, are you for real?” Olivia cries in disgust. “That stuff is like liquid glue! The one time I wore it, I almost got stuck to Carter permanently when I kissed him!”

“As if that’s a bad thing,” Ava shot back with a devious smile on her lips.

“Please,” cut in Jessica. “I make my own lip gloss. All you need is a little beeswax. A little honey…”

“So, um, anyone hear about that crazy terrorist attack over in Syria this weekend?” I butt in, after checking my phone for a time-appropriate current event. “Pretty scary, right?”

The girls turn to look at me as if I have three heads and have just announced that I enjoy waterboarding over the weekends for fun.

“Um, yeah. Scary,” Olivia says quickly. Then she turns back
to Jessica. “So wait. You make your own? But can you tint it that way? I much prefer tinted gloss…”

Oh God. I rise from my seat and flee the inane conversation, purposely leaving my inedible lunch behind me. Was this really what my friends thought was important? Had I once thought it was important, too? Then I remember the ridiculous amount of lip gloss I’d pawed through this morning in my bathroom drawer trying to find a tube of toothpaste. Evidently so.

But not anymore. Try as I might, I can’t seem to bring myself to care about lip gloss or field hockey games or cute boys with no personalities. I can’t care about English or math or getting good grades. All these things that once took priority in my so-called normal life now seem flat and dull and ridiculous.

I have to face it: I’m not that girl anymore. That innocent, naive creature who flitted through life without a care in the world for anything but her own well-being. And I can’t go back to being her, no matter how hard I try. Not when I know what’s out there, under the surface of our world. The battles, the chaos, the intrigue. And most important, the most beautiful, sweet, loving vampire in the entire universe.

The one who no longer knows I exist.

I scan the cafeteria, catching sight of my sister, sitting and laughing with her best friend, Spider, as if no time at all has passed between them. My hackles rise. How can she be adjusting so nicely when I’m feeling like I’m in the freaking Twilight Zone? I stomp over in her direction.

“But Rayne, there’s no such thing as a level eighty mage!” I
hear Spider protest as I approach. “And I’ve never heard of that spell…”

“Oh. Right.” Rayne looks suddenly flustered as she sees me approach. “Well, I think it’s…um, in the next expansion pack?” She looks up at me and smiles nervously. “Hey, Sunny!” she cries. “How’s it going?”

“I don’t see anything listed here about a new expansion pack,” Spider mutters, staring down at her phone while my sister shoots me a
Save me!
look.

“Rayne, I’ve got to talk to you,” I butt in, now realizing that perhaps my sister isn’t fitting in quite as well as it first appeared. I shouldn’t be happy about that, but I kind of am. “Alone.”

“Sorry, Spider,” Rayne says quickly, a look of relief washing over her face. “Can I catch you later?” She leaps up from her seat and follows me to an empty table. Once we’re seated, she wipes her brow. “Thank God,” she says. “I had no idea how hard it was to remember which game updates happened when.” She presses a few buttons on her phone. “I could have sworn the two-point-three patch had come out by now…”

I roll my eyes. “Um, can you review your game history on your own time?”

“Oh. Sorry.” She looks up, stuffing her phone in her pocket. “What’s going on? Are you having fun in your old life? Did you get to see some of your friends? Have you found Jake Wilder yet? Is he as hot as you remember him? Maybe you should ask him to prom. I mean, since this time around you don’t have that magical vampire scent to attract him and get him to ask you—”

“Rayne,” I interrupt. “I can’t take it anymore. It’s all too vapid and boring. I mean, no one here cares about anything but dressing up and hooking up—and not necessarily in that order.”

“Well, evidently a few people are interested in the nuances of game patch releases…”

“Rayne! I’m serious,” I cry, giving her a pleading look. “What’s wrong with me? I should be overjoyed to spend long hours discussing the benefits and drawbacks of various lip glosses.”

My sister raises a skeptical eyebrow.

“Don’t mock! I used to love that kind of thing,” I confess. “And yet now all I want to do is take a tube of it and shove it up my best friend’s nose—to get her to stop talking!”