Eternal Kiss (28 page)

Of course, it wasn’t as easy to get rid of her cousin as that. Gabby walked with her all the way home, talking excitedly all the way about Colin. Warning her that going out with him wasn’t a good
idea. He was weird, he was too silent, he was too pale, he was too strange, he acted like a serial killer, he never talked to anyone. He was probably full of himself and boring.

“So I’ll be bored,” Jen said, keeping her eyes straight ahead as she walked. It was easier to disagree with Gabby when you acted calm and didn’t get mad. “So what?”

“So why subject yourself to that when you could spend the evening with me?” Gabby’s voice was wheedling. “Where’s the girl power?”

“Girl power doesn’t mean never going out with boys ever, Gabs. You go out with boys all the time.”

“I’m just looking out for you. Colin is—weird.”

“So he’s weird.
I’m
weird.”

“Not like him.” Gabby sounded unhappy. “I think he could be—dangerous.”

That did it. Despite vowing to stay calm, Jen whirled on her cousin. “Is this about Bridget saying he was a vampire? Is that what this is about? I thought that was a joke.”

“It was.”

“So you don’t think he’s a vampire.”

Gabby met her gaze, steadily. “No. I don’t.”

Surprise washed over Jennifer, and then something else—disappointment? It flared out quickly, and now she was angry again. “Then
stop
bugging me. I bet I can guess what’s
really
bothering you.”

“I bet you can’t.” Gabby’s blue eyes sparked with matching annoyance.

“You’re always the one who gets the dates. You’ve always got some cute guy panting after you. Now that I’m the one with the date, you’re jealous. You noticed Colin first, and you’re mad he likes
me.
”

Once the words were out of Jen’s mouth, she wished she could take them back. There was the strangest expression on Gabby’s face. She’d never seen her cousin look like that before.

“Let me tell you, Jen,” Gabby said, “whether you believe me or not, jealous is the
last
thing I am.”

Jennifer opened her mouth to shoot back that she didn’t believe her, then closed it again. Whatever else was going on—whatever was the real reason her cousin was acting so strange—it was obvious that Gabby was telling the truth.

Jennifer sat on her bed, looking at herself in the mirror that hung over her dresser. She had changed her clothes a dozen times, and finally settled on black jeans and a black sweater. Her hair was down, brushed out, with gel on the ends to stop it from frizzing. Between her dark hair and her dark sweater, her face seemed to hover in the mirror like an untethered white balloon floating in the darkness of the room.

He’s not coming.

It was almost midnight. There were books spilled out across her bed. She had tried reading to take her mind off waiting, but that had only made things worse. She’d tried finishing the vampire novel she was halfway through, but it had only made her
skin feel hot and unbearably itchy. She could hear the clock in the hallway ticking—hear the snap, snap, of each minute passing. The air in the room seemed close and suffocating, too, as if she couldn’t quite breathe properly.

He’s not coming.

She wished she hadn’t told Gabby anything. It would be humiliating to have to go to school in the morning and admit that the date she’d fought so hard to defend hadn’t even happened because she’d been stood up. Maybe Colin had just been mocking her with all his talk about blood and desire and—

It came then, a soft rap on her window. She whirled around to stare; the floating white balloon in the mirror veering as if caught by a gust of wind. She heard the sound again and stood up, going to the window and throwing it open, leaning out into the soft spring night.

He was in the garden below her window, a black shadow against the neatly trimmed grass of the front lawn, face and eyes printed white against the darkness. He beckoned to her with his hand.
Come down.

She came down, and he was waiting by the front steps. He put his finger to her lips, shushing her before she could ask him any questions. When he took his hand away she could taste the salt from his skin on her mouth.

He took her hand. She let him, and he drew her toward the front gate and out onto the street. It was empty, the white lights
painted down the center of the road gleaming in the moonlight, the parked cars still as sleeping animals. Colin pulled her into the shadows between two cars and kissed her, hard and hungrily, pushing her back against the trunk of a neighbor’s Jeep, the handle of the trunk jamming into her back.

Colin’s hands were alternately cold and hot on her skin, sliding up under the back of her sweater. His mouth tasted like salt. She was dizzy, floating, cut free from everything. Her fingers scrabbled against his shoulders, his neck. She could feel his pulse hammering.
His heart beats
, she thought. His mouth found her cheek, the side of her jaw, her throat. Desire and fear flared up inside her and she whimpered.

Colin pulled back. His lips looked bruised in the dim light, his eyes hot. He said, “You’re right. We shouldn’t do this here.” He took her hand again. “Let’s go.”

“Where?” she whispered. It was all she had the breath to say.

He grinned, bright in the darkness. “You’ll see.”

The cemetery gate was unlocked. Colin pushed it open and slipped through, pulling Jen behind him. There was a gravel path running between the graves, lined with pale headstones. Some of the graves had flowers scattered across them, black in the shadows. Their feet crunched on the path.

Jen’s heart was pounding. “What are we doing here?”

“Relax.” Colin turned, holding both her hands in his, walking backward. He drew her after him, and she could have pulled
away, but she didn’t want to. “I want to show you one of my favorite places.”

She let him lead her. “All right.”

The path wound under the trees, where the shadows were thick and dark as paint, and came out by the side of a small lake. Hills rose around the lake, spiked with mausoleums and leaning gravestones. Colin let go of Jen’s hand long enough to slide off his backpack. He pulled a blanket out of it, spreading it on the ground, and beckoned her to come and sit beside him.

For a moment, they sat in silence together, looking out over the lake. The wind had come up, and ruffled Jen’s hair, lifting it away from her hot forehead, cooling her burning skin. The moon shone down on the lake, making it glow. Jen had the feeling of floating away from the rest of the world, being something holy and apart.

“Come here.” Colin drew her down next to him, wrapping his arms around her, pressing their bodies together. She had never been so close to another human being; she wanted to lose herself in the moment, but kept marveling at how strange it all was—the feeling of the grommets on his jacket pressing into her skin, the cold air and the heat of his body, the slide of his lips across hers. He tangled his hands in her hair, raking his fingers down and through it. He drew up the back of her shirt in handfuls, and she felt the cold of his rings on her skin as he slid his hands under, fumbling with the clasp of her bra.

“No … don’t,” she whispered, but he just laughed, flicking the clasp open. He’d done this before, it seemed. His hands on
her bare skin made her shudder.

“Relax,” he said, again, but Jen didn’t feel relaxed. She felt agitated—she didn’t know why—every nerve in her body humming. Her skin
itched.
She felt awkward suddenly, not at home in her body. Even her teeth felt too big for her mouth.

“I want to stop,” she said.

He pulled back just enough to look down at her, bewildered. His pulse was pounding. She could see it under the skin of his throat. “I thought you wanted this,” he said. “You didn’t want to go on a date. You said you just wanted me to come to your window.”

“Not for this,” she said.

He stared down at her. “Your
teeth
,” he said. His pulse was hammering now. She couldn’t look away from it, fluttering under his skin. Her stomach twisted, growling. She was—hungry. “Are those real?”

Jen blinked, bewildered. “What?”

“Baby, those are truly freaky.” He was grinning again now. “I love how you’re so into this stuff. I knew you would be the minute I saw you. So—you want to bite my neck?” He swept his hair back, leaving the pale side of his throat exposed. “Go ahead.”

He leaned down, closer to her, until all she could see was the blue veins under his skin, the beat of his pulse, and she could—
smell the blood.
Her ears roared, the sound of the wind driven out by the audible sound of rushing blood.
Pale bodies sinking back into darkness, dark hair blown on the wind, red fingernails scrap
ing across the front of an old-fashioned white shirt, blood on an exposed throat, blue veins running under skin like a roadmap
—

When her teeth met in his throat, he screamed. No one ever screamed in the books, but Colin screamed. He tried to push at her with frantic hands, but she had her legs wrapped around him, her arm across the back of his neck. She clung to him like a tick as he reared up and then collapsed, his scream turning to a gurgle.

And then there was just the blood. It exploded into her mouth, hot and salty, and she felt her eyes roll back, her hands digging into Colin’s shoulders, kneading them the way a cat kneads its mother as it drinks milk. He was still struggling, kicking at her feebly, but it didn’t last long. She didn’t know it, but she’d opened his carotid artery with her teeth. He bled out in under a minute, going limp under her body, eyes open and staring glassily at the sky. She didn’t notice that, either. She was still drinking.

The blood was gone too soon. Suddenly there was no more of it pumping into her mouth, there was only the dry sucking noise her mouth made against his skin. She jerked back, revolted.

She stared. Colin lay twisted on the ground, his neck bent at an unnatural angle. She reached to touch his arm, then snatched her hand back. His skin felt papery and limp, his body light as a husk. His skin was a dull putty color.

“Colin,” Jen whispered. “
Colin
?”

The whites of his eyes were flecked with blood. She had made a mess of his neck. It looked like an animal had been chewing on him. No neat puncture wounds, just a ragged sort of
hole. His clothes were drenched in blood. It was all over her, too. Her hair hung in sticky red tassels down her shoulders.

The worst part of it was that she was still hungry.

Jen wrapped her arm around herself and let out a wail, and then another one. They echoed through the silence of the cemetery like a fire alarm going off in an empty house. She was still wailing when someone stepped up behind her and put their arms around her from behind. She heard a voice in her ear, soft and soothing.

“Jen, Jen,” Gabby said. “It’s all right. Everything’s all right. Let’s get you home.”