Vamplayers (12 page)

“Fine? Are you kidding me? They look like zombies. Look at Cara. She hasn’t smiled all period. And that girl is normally addicted to smiling.”

Bianca corrects me. “She smiled when your hair was filling up with spitballs. I know that much.”

“Whatever. And Alice? I haven’t seen her this sad since
21 Jump Street
went off the air.”

Oops. Big slip.

Big
slip.

“What’s that?”

Obviously, Bianca is clueless about the minor eighties TV drama that launched Johnny Depp’s career.

“Inside joke.” I squirm in my seat. How could I be so stupid?

Luckily, despite Bianca’s obvious charms, brainpower is not one of them.

“Whatever.” She sighs, admiring her nails. “I don’t see you spending a ton of time with your
sisters
this semester, do you?”

“Do
you?”
I snap, wondering if she suspects something about Alice, Cara, and me or if
Sisters
is just her fancy way of saying
friends, girls,
whatever.

She shrugs. “Sure, why not? They’re fun to be around.”

I see Cara’s grim expression, her unkempt hair, and last night’s red jeans. “They don’t look so fun right now.”

“Maybe you’re sitting too close to them.”

I regard her carefully. “What is it about certain girls that they can’t share friends—that they have to take friends instead?”

“If they were really your friends, do you think I could take them away from you so easily?”

I smile. “Is that how you do it? Is that your shtick? You talk me down to build yourself up?”

She shifts in her seat. “It doesn’t take much talking when it comes to you, Lily. It’s clear you don’t belong here.”

I stare her down. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She shrugs. “We’ll see about that.”

The bell rings, and I stand, eager to do something, tear something, trip something, break something.

As if we’ve been politely chitchatting, Bianca stands gracefully, straightens the front of her dress, and walks directly to Alice and Cara.

They rise slowly to greet her. Well, at least Alice does. Cara needs some help, which Bianca and Alice give her, if begrudgingly. She looks weak. Like, blood weak.

But she fed last night, same as me.

Still, her shoulders are slumped, her eyes glazed, her skin ashy and clammy.

If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was … turning.

But that’s impossible. Vampires don’t turn, do they?

As they lean to help her, Cara shoots me a look. In it are our many years of friendship, a wink of compassion, and maybe an ounce of regret. For her? For me? It happens so fast, it’s hard to tell.

Then she blinks, and the look is gone. In its place is another: anger, fear, anxiety, even confusion. It’s the look of a wounded animal with its leg stuck in a trap, panicking half the time, denying the hopelessness of its situation the rest, alternating between pain and sadness, victory and defeat, hope and hopelessness.

I’ve never seen that look before. I’m quite certain I never want to see it again.

Now she’s up, and the girls are helping her across the room, out the door, and into the crowded hallways, where they’re absorbed like blood into the stream.

I want to follow, but it’s no use.

With Bianca around, there’s no talking to Alice and Cara.

I begin the long walk to my next class. It feels more like an ending.

Chapter 16

I
sit alone at dinner that night, sour and anxious after another long day. Alice and Cara are nowhere to be found, MIA since PE (so much for Cara’s big protocol speech last night). I feel self-conscious after the spitball incident, aware that many more eyes than usual are looking my way and none for the right reasons. At least I’m clean now, double-showered and changed, but I still feel slightly dirty and plenty betrayed.

Zander and Grover are hustling around. I try to help them again, images of peeling lettuce and other things with Zander all night dancing around in my head. But their scruffy kitchen manager, a guy by the name of Palermo (though he looks more Irish than Italian) kicks me out of the kitchen on account of liability issues.

So here I am, alone in a sea of happy faces.

A finger taps my shoulder.

I smile, expecting to see Grover’s chubby cheeks or Zander’s crooked smile.

Instead I see Tristan sliding out a chair next to me, his tray full of fruit cups and cottage cheese. “Is this seat taken?” he asks knowingly, already sitting down, as if I could kick him out even if I wanted to.

“Not tonight.” I shrug, pushing around a few hush puppies on my plate for good measure. “My suite mates are MIA.”

“No, they’re not,” he says quietly, poking open an apple juice box but not taking a sip. “They’re with Bianca and the girls, the rugby team, and a few other various jock types down at the Burger Barn in Ravens Roost.”

“What? Isn’t that like a twenty-five-minute drive? What’d they do? Fly?”

“Hardly. Bianca has a car. The rugby team has a van. They do let students drive where you come from, don’t they?”

“Yeah. I just didn’t think they did here at Nightshade.”

He grunts. “Too right, but in case you haven’t noticed, Bianca has a certain way of charming people.”

“Tell me about it.” I picture Cara’s face the night before in our dorm room, practically beaming at the thought of spending a night in Bianca’s holy presence. “I just don’t take Headmistress Holly as the easily charmed type, if you know what I mean.”

“Indeed, I do. And she isn’t, but what Headmistress Holly doesn’t know won’t hurt her, right?”

I shrug, break up a hush puppy with my fork, and move it around some more.

The chatter in the cafeteria builds. I try to ignore the whispers and fingers pointed in our direction.

“I missed you at the track this morning,” he says through tight lips, considering a piece of overripe watermelon on his fork before putting it back on his plate. “I thought we had a deal.”

“Did we?” I watch from across the room as Zander labors under another heavy bus tray. “I thought I made it pretty clear I’d show up when I felt like it.”

He arches his eyebrows. “I see.” He sounds vaguely like Bianca with his superior, sarcastic tone. “From the way you were lapping me yesterday, I thought you felt a whole
lot
like it.”

I swallow a rebuke because it’s not my job to feel; it’s my job to pretend. I shrug, bite off a frown, and quip, “Well, somebody has to play hard to get around here.”

He laughs uproariously, enough to draw the attention of students at several nearby tables, including Zander, who quickly disappears behind the kitchen door. “I must admit you’re a far sight frostier than your suite mates. What are their names again? Malice and Farah?”

I laugh. Despite his massive ego and obvious Vamplayer tendencies, Tristan does have a certain charm about him. It’s equal parts aloof and knowing, confident and condescending. It says,
Aren’t I special? Aren’t you lucky I’m talking to you? Don’t you dare think of not falling in love with me.
It wouldn’t normally appeal to me, this blatant cockiness, but for some reason Tristan wears it well. Very well.

“It’s Alice and Cara,” I correct him, trying to sound equally haughty and failing. “You might want to know the names of the girls you go skinny-dipping with.”

He looks at me, opens his mouth to say something, then shuts it, playing with his cottage cheese until the lumps are lumpier and the whole thing is runny.

”Alice,” he says deliberately, his thin lips caressing the letters. “Cara. Yes, I’ll have to remember that next time we are, how do you say, skinny-dipping?”

“Don’t be such a prude,” I say as the heat of his body wafts over like an expensive cologne. “I doubt you’re unfamiliar with the term.”

He shakes his head, smiles, and with no trace of irony says, “If you’d care to show me, I’d certainly be more than happy to—”

“Oh, no.” I laugh, nudging him with my shoulder. “Like you said, I’m the frosty one.”

He overturns another spoonful of cottage cheese. I swear he hasn’t taken one bite. “Frosty? Did I really say you were frosty?”

I can’t pin down his accent. It’s not entirely European, like that of some of the students whose rich foreign parents obviously ship them here to Nightshade for an exceptional education, but there are a few traces. It’s more adult than anything, be it his word choices—
indeed, certainly
—or the way he seems to measure every word like they all matter.

“Yes, yes, you did. Just ten seconds ago you called me the frosty one.”

“Oh dear, that’s not very complimentary, is it?”

I shake my head. “No, in fact. And I demand an apology, or I’ll have security roust you out of that chair in no time.”

Good gawd, am I? Am I really?

Yes, I am. I’m actually
flirting
with this creep.

Suddenly I feel bad about judging Alice and Cara for falling under Bianca’s spell so easily and so soon. Ten words and two smiles from Tristan, and I’m all soupy like his room temperature cottage cheese.

“This?” he says, pointing to the kitchen doors where Grover and Zander scowl in our general direction until they see us looking and duck through the swinging doors. “This is your idea of security?”

I don’t know if he recognizes Zander from bumping into him after our run yesterday morning or is simply disparaging all kitchen help as a group (probably), but I don’t respond.

We sit in awkward silence until he puts his hand flat over mine and says, “You’re right. I do owe you an apology. And I would like to make it privately, if you don’t mind.”

His hand is warm and, before I know it, he’s pulled me up from my seat and is walking me through the cafeteria. I don’t resist; it’s like I
can’t
resist. And it’s not just any old walk. This guy is known for making grand entrances. Why would his exits be any less grand? He has my hand in the crook of his arm, like we’re prom king and queen. His pace is steady and measured, like he’s done this a thousand times before.

I just want to bolt before Grover and Zander see us leaving together.

A hush falls in the room, and Tristan guides me past what seem like miles of gawking faces, all of them whispering, most of them, “Bianca,” until at last we are on the other side of the cafeteria doors and I have the presence of mind to stop him.

“Hold on. Hold on. Who are you and what did you do with that big snob Tristan?”

He smiles, kissing me before I can stop him.

And long after I can stop him.

Chapter 17

T
ristan’s room is a few floors up from mine, but we stop there for only a moment. He walks into his dorm suite, and through the barely cracked door I hear some muted TV show. (Does everyone have a TV but us?)

When he emerges, he has a picnic basket in his hand.

“What?” I snort, disbelieving. “You happened to have a picnic basket within reach of your front door?”

He grins. “A gentleman must always be prepared.”

“Prepared for what? We just ate!”

“You call that swill back there food?” he huffs.

He leads me down the stairs, through a back hallway, out across a small employee parking lot behind the school, and toward a secluded spot in the deserted faculty break area. We’re just close enough to the school to feel safe, whatever
that
feels like, but far enough away from the rest of the cafeteria clowns or after-dinner jocks on the rugby field to have privacy.

The sun has set by now, the night is cool, and I’m glad I chose to dress modestly for dinner in fluted slacks and a beaded sweater.

He finds us a stone picnic table, the kind no one ever really sits at, and places the heavy wicker basket on top. He dusts off my seat dramatically and invites me to sit across from him. His actions and very presence make me feel like I’m at the nicest French restaurant in town.

Stupid Vamplayers. Why do they always have to be so damn charming?

As if on cue, the encroaching darkness signals a porch light next to the faculty break area to flicker to life; we both blink in its sudden brightness.

He takes off his leather jacket, the weathered charcoal kind with two tan stripes down the arms, and wraps it around my shoulders. It’s like something out of some romcom Alice would watch four thousand times and Cara and I would make fun of four thousand one times.

“But you’ll freeze to death,” I say before I can stop myself (total romcom line if I’ve ever heard one).

He points to the gray hoodie he had on underneath. “Like I said, a gentleman always comes prepared.” He sits and opens the basket.