Destined For a Vampire (13 page)

Guilt rose up inside me, mingling with the fear, threatening to choke me.

What if she’d tried to find me and I was off making out with Bo? What if something had happened to her because I’d been so wrapped up in my own selfish world that I’d completely forgotten about her?

I hit the bathroom door at a run. It slammed back against the wall and rocked on its hinges.

“Savannah! Savannah, are you in here?”

I listened, praying I would hear her delicate voice. When nothing but silence greeted me, I turned to leave. If need be, I’d search every square inch of the school until I found her.

Just as the door was closing behind me, I heard a soft whisper. I caught the door with my foot and whirled back around. I heard the other door, the one on the opposite side of the bathroom that opened onto the back hall, creak as it closed.

“Savannah!” I called again.

“Ridley?”

A relief so profound, so draining washed through me that I thought my legs might fold. I couldn’t bear it if something else happened to Savannah, especially on my watch. I felt like I’d already let her down enough by keeping things from her, important things. I couldn’t hurt her any more.

“Ohmigod, Savannah, you scared me to death!” I was literally clutching my chest. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she murmured from one of the stalls.

“Where are you?”

“In this one,” she said, tapping at the third door with her knuckles.

I walked to stand in front of it. “Can I open the door?”

“Sure.”

I pushed the squeaky metal door back and there was Savannah, sitting on top of the closed toilet lid, holding her silver sunglasses between her fingers, smiling like she’d just won a million bucks.

“What are you doing?”

She giggled with delight. “Ridley, I saw him. I saw him!” she exclaimed, her eyes filling with tears. “He’s alive.”

“Who?”

“Devon.”

My heart tripped over itself for a few beats. “Devon? What? He’s alive?”

“Yes!”

“But- but- how do you know?”

“I told you I just saw him.”

“You
saw
him? You mean you talked to him? Tonight? Here?”

“Yes, I talked to him, but Ridley, I
saw him.”

It had been a very emotionally tumultuous night and I wasn’t the quickest at that moment, but I felt inordinately confused by what she was saying.

“What do you mean you ‘saw him’?”

She laughed out right this time. “I mean exactly that.
I saw him.”

I hated to be the one to point out the obvious, but…

“But Savannah, you’re blind. You can’t see anything.”

“You think I don’t know that, Ridley? I know I’m blind, but I saw him. I can see
him
.”

Then something scary occurred to me. What if she was hurt? Delusional?

“Savannah, are you hurt? Did you fall in here? Hit your head or something?”

I bent forward and started gently probing her head, checking for cuts or blood. Savannah grabbed my wrists in a firm grip and tugged my hands away from her. I stopped and looked down into her beautiful, sparkling chocolate eyes. They were clear and lucid, though they stared right through me, unseeing.

“Ridley, I’m fine. I’m telling you, I saw Devon.”

“But, I don’t—”

“I don’t know how either,” she interrupted. “But I did. It happened. And it was real. I saw him. I heard his voice and saw his lips move. I even felt him, Ridley. He held my hand and touched my face. He even kissed me, right before he left. Right before you came in.”

“But, how—”

“I don’t know, Ridley, but you can’t tell anyone. He made me promise.

He’d kill me if he knew I told you. Promise me,” she demanded, her expression serious.

“Alright. I promise,” I agreed. Then I thought of Bo. I had to tell him, but I didn’t want to out-and-out lie to Savannah. “Unless Bo comes back, too. I can tell him, right?”

Savannah grinned tolerantly. “Yes. If Bo mysteriously turns back up, you can tell him.”

We were silent for a few minutes, each lost in thought.

“So, did he say where he’s been? What happened?”

“No, he told me he’d find me later and we’d talk more.”

“Why is he back now? I mean, where has he been?”

Savannah shrugged.

“All he said was that he could finally trust himself around me, whatever that means.”

A little twinge of unease poked the back of my mind, but I was still too flabbergasted to make much sense of it right then.

“Devon’s back,” I said numbly. What in the world could that mean? And Savannah could actually see him. I was missing something, something important. I could feel it, but I just couldn’t latch on to it.

“What are you doing in here anyway? How’d you know where to find me?”

“Dead cowboy,” I answered absently.

“Dead- oh, Zach.”

“Right, Zach.”

“Well,” Savannah said, standing abruptly. “Let’s go get our freak on. We’ve got some rug to cut before midnight.”

That shook me out of my stupor.

“I don’t think there’s going to be any more dancing tonight.”

“Why not?”

“Bailey Adams showed up with a torn costume and blood all over her face.

She’s saying that Summer attacked her and Jason and then dragged Jason off.”

Savannah gasped. “Shut up!”

“I’m serious.”

“What- I mean, who—”

“Don’t ask me. I’ve got nothing.”

“Come on, then. Let’s go see what’s going on,” Savannah said, grabbing my hand and tugging me forward. “Well, you can see. I’ll listen.”

I looked over at her and she was grinning cheekily. She was fine, right back to her old self. Nothing got Savannah down for long.

“You’re impossible.”

“I know,” she agreed pleasantly.

The cops were just arriving as we walked back into the gym. I gave Savannah a play-by-play of what I was seeing.

“One cop’s got Bailey over in the corner asking her questions. There’s another one talking to Mr. Hall. The back doors are open and I can see some lights out there. I guess they’re looking for Jason.”

The cop that was talking to Mr. Hall strode to the center of that area marked off to be the dance floor and he stopped.

“Can I have your attention, please?” he shouted in an authoritative voice.

A hush fell over the room and every eye turned toward him.

“One of the cops is getting ready to make an announcement,” I whispered to Savannah.

“I kinda figured that out,” she whispered back. “I’m blind, not deaf, remember?”

“Oh,” I said, feeling a sheepish grin slide into place. “Sorry.”

“My name is Officer Felding and I’m going to need everyone to form a single file line in front of that table,” he said, indicating the refreshments table. “I’m going to need your name, address and contact information, as well as your whereabouts for the last two hours. That includes bathroom breaks, trips to your car, any time and any reason that you
were not inside this room.”

He backed up toward the table, raising his arms and motioning us forward like a ground crew member at the airport, guiding a large plane into its hangar.

Kids started slowly moving forward to follow him, squeezing themselves into a thin line that snaked all the way around the gym.

The cop turned and spoke to Mr. Hall, who scrambled off quickly, obviously sent in search of something. A few minutes later, after the cop had cleared a spot on the refreshments table, Mr. Hall returned with two metal folding chairs in one hand and a stack of paper in the other.

The cop took the stack of paper and put it in on the table in front of him. He unfolded one of the chairs and sat. Mr. Hall unfolded the other and slid it under the table on the other side, opposite the policeman.

Officer Felding motioned the first student forward. It was a girl and, if the look on her face was any indication, she was scared to death. He motioned for her to sit in the chair opposite him as he began asking her questions. And so the process began. Savannah and I chatted quietly amongst ourselves and with the few others in our part of the line. Meanwhile, I scanned the shadows and the doorways, constantly watching for Bo.

I knew it would be incredibly difficult for him to contact me without being discovered. I’m sure he wished, as I did, that his invisibility was more controllable, more of an at-will condition. With fresh blood in his system, without some serious stress to burn it off, he’d be quite discernible for some time.

A shiver passed through me as I thought of him being attacked by a vampire Drew or a whatever-she-is Summer and having to fight for his life. That would increase his metabolism, but I’d rather him not gain his transparency in such a way.

No one could be 100% certain yet that Bo was the boy who can’t be killed, and until that could be ascertained, I didn’t want him taking any chances.

Savannah was deep in conversation with one of our school band’s violinists when something fluttered in my stomach. Once more, my eyes searched the periphery of the room.

I caught movement in the same hallway Bo had taken me into. Something shifted just inside the shadows. I saw the flash of a hand as it breeched the light. It motioned me forward and then disappeared again. It had to be Bo. Didn’t it?

I scrambled for an excuse, a good reason to escape the crowded gymnasium and make my way to Bo. I spotted another cop, standing by the double doors at the back of the gym, the ones that were propped open and now showed a string of yellow crime scene tape that passed in front of them. I concluded that they must’ve found something bothersome.

“I’ve gotta pee,” I told Savannah. I waved to the policeman. “Excuse me.”

His head turned toward me and he motioned me forward. I hurried toward him, smiling my most innocent, beguiling smile.

“I’m sorry, but is there any way that I could be excused for, like, five minutes to go to the bathroom?”

When he didn’t immediately agree, I pressed. “Please?” I think I might even have batted my eyelashes. I can’t be sure.

He looked uncomfortably at the other officer and then he sighed. I knew I had him then.

“It will only take a minute. I promise.”

“Alright. Five minutes, or I’m coming in after you.”

“Thank you. I’ll be right back.”

I hurried off, crossing the gym and bolting through the doors into the hallway. Rather than making a left, however, I veered right, toward the auditorium. I could access the small hallway from that direction, too. That must’ve been how Bo got in there without being seen.

I opened the auditorium door, slipped through and let it fall quietly shut behind me. The only lighting was the red glow of the three exit signs; one behind me and one over the doors on either side of the stage toward the front. I scrambled down the sloped aisle and made my way to the steps that led up onto the platform.

I turned the corner to round the curtains and go back stage. That’s the only way I could get to the door that led to the gym, the door that led to Bo.

I jerked to a halt. Nothing but pitch black lay in front of me, between me and the door. A little shower of trepidation rained chills down my arms.

I listened closely for any sounds, but the only thing I heard was the muffled thump of my own heartbeat beating in my ears.

Quietly, I placed one foot in front of the other and entered the darkness. I struggled to make out shapes of things that stood in my path. Just barely, I could make out a rack that held costumes. It was pushed up against the wall. I saw the pale outline of the tall top of a cardboard castle they’d used in a set at the beginning of the school year when they’d put on Romeo and Juliet. I imagined that every high school in the free world had the exact same light gray castle turret.

I saw the thin stream of light coming from the top of the door that led to the gym and knew the short flight of stairs was straight ahead.

Then something moved in front of the light, blocking it out for an instant before it reappeared.

My heart lurched and my breath was suddenly trapped inside lungs that had ceased to work. My first thought was that something, someone—the same someone who’d attacked me in my room or the same someone who’d attacked me in the woods—was after me. What if it had been Summer all along? Or Drew?

Fear blinded my senses to everything else, so when hands grabbed my arms, I opened my mouth to scream, ready to fight like a hellcat and claw my way out of there.

A hand covered my mouth and a familiar voice had my fear draining away like storm water.

“Shh, it’s me,” Bo said softly. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

I breathed heavily for a few seconds while all my vital signs returned to normal. “That’s ok. What did you find out?”

“There was at least one vampire here, but I don’t think it was a female.”

“So Bailey didn’t see Summer? Why would she say that?” I was immediately irritated that she might’ve maliciously blamed Summer for something so horrendous.

“I didn’t say Summer wasn’t there. I said there was at least one vampire there. But there was something else, too, something I haven’t smelled before.”

“Something you haven’t smelled before?” I asked in surprise. I would’ve thought Bo would be familiar with…well, whatever else was out there. It would’ve bothered me more if I didn’t just then remember that Bo’s memory had been tampered with. A lot. “Any thoughts on what it might be?”

“Well, I keep thinking about the biting. It’s not like a vampire at all. We don’t chew or take out chunks of flesh.”

“What does?”

“Lucius said that when vampires feed, we don’t just feed on the blood; we feed on life. He said that it can have side effects, draining away someone’s life like that and leaving them somewhat alive. He mentioned that it changes them, gives them a madness and a hunger of their own.”

“You think that someone’s been feeding on Summer?”

“I think it’s possible.”

“How would we know? And what would we have to do about it? I mean, is there any way to save someone like that?”