I felt weird for staring. I glanced quickly around the room to see if anyone had noticed that Fred was normal - and pretty - for the moment. No one was looking our way. I stole a fast peek at Kevin, ready to shift my focus at once if he noticed, but his eyes were concentrated on some point to the left of where we stood. He was frowning slightly. Before I could look away, his gaze skipped right over to me and settled on my right side. His frown deepened. Like... he was trying to see me and couldn't. I felt the corners of my mouth twitch into not quite a grin. There was too much to worry about to real y enjoy Kevin's blindness. I looked back at Fred, wondering if the gross-out factor would return, only to see that he was smiling with me. Smiling, he was real y spectacular.
Then the moment was over, and Fred went back to his book. I didn't move for a while, waiting for something to happen. For Diego to come through the door. Or Riley with Diego. Or Raoul. Or for the nausea to hit again, or for Kevin to glare in my direction, or for the next fight to break out. Something. When nothing did, I eventual y pul ed myself together and did what I should have been doing - pretending nothing unusual was going on. I grabbed a book from the pile near Fred's feet and then sat down right there and acted like I was reading. It was probably one of the same books I'd pretended to read yesterday, but it didn't look familiar. I flipped through the pages, again taking nothing in.
My mind was racing around in tight little circles. Where was Diego? How had Riley reacted to his story? What had it al meant - the talk before the cloaks, the talk after the cloaks?
I worked through it, going backward, trying to assemble the pieces into a recognizable picture. The vampire world had some kind of police, and they were damn scary. This wild group of months-old vampires was supposed to be an army, and this army was somehow il egal. Our creator had an enemy. Strike that, two enemies. We were going to attack one of them in five days, or else the other ones, the scary cloaks, were going to attack her - or us, or both. We would be trained for this attack...
as soon as Riley got back. I snuck a glance at the door, then forced my eyes back to the page in front of me. And then the stuff before the visitors. She was worrying about some decision. She was pleased that she had so many vampires - so many soldiers. Riley was happy that Diego and I had survived.... He'd said he thought he'd lost two more to the sun, so that must mean he didn't know how vampires really reacted to sunlight. What she'd said was strange, though. She'd asked if he was sure. Sure Diego had survived? Or... sure that Diego's story was true?
The last thought frightened me. Did she already know that the sun didn't hurt us? If she did know, then why had she lied to Riley and, through him, to us?
Why would she want to keep us in the dark - literal y? Was it very important to her that we stay ignorant? Important enough to get Diego in trouble? I was working myself into a real panic, frozen solid. If I stil could sweat, I would have been sweating now. I had to refocus to turn the next page, to keep my eyes down.
Was Riley deceived, or was he in on it, too? When Riley'd said he thought he'd lost two more to the sun, did he mean the sun literal y... or the lie about the sun?
If it was the second option, then to know the truth meant being lost. Panic scattered my thoughts. I tried to be rational and make sense of it. It was harder without Diego. Having someone to talk to, to interact with, sharpened my ability to concentrate. Without that, fear sucked at the edges of my thoughts, twisted with the always-present thirst. The lure of blood was constantly close to the surface. Even now, decently wel fed, I could feel the burn and the need. Think about her, think about Riley, I told myself. I had to understand why they would lie - if they were lying - so that I could try to figure out what it would mean to them that Diego knew their secret.
If they hadn't lied, if they'd just told us al that the day was as safe for us as the night, how would that change things? I imagined what it would be like if we didn't have to be contained in a blacked-out basement al day, if the twenty-one of us - maybe fewer now, depending on how the hunting parties were getting along - were free to do what we wanted whenever we wanted to.
We would want to hunt. That was a given.
If we didn't have to come back, if we didn't have to hide...
wel, many of us wouldn't come back very regularly. It was hard to focus on the return while the thirst was in charge. But Riley had dril ed so deeply into al of us the threat of burning, of a return of that hideous pain we'd al experienced once. That was the reason we could stop ourselves. Self-preservation, the only instinct stronger than thirst.
So the threat kept us together. There were other hiding places, like Diego's cave, but who else thought about that kind of thing? We had a place to go, a base, so we went to it. Clear heads were not a vampire specialty. Or, at least, they weren't the specialty of young vampires. Riley was clearheaded. Diego was more clearheaded than I was. Those cloaked vampires were terrifyingly focused. I shuddered. So the routine wouldn't control us forever. What would they do when we were older, clearer? It struck me that nobody was older than Riley. Everyone here was new. She needed a bunch of us now for this mystery enemy. But what about afterward?
I had a strong feeling that I didn't want to be around for that part. And I suddenly realized something stupendously obvious. It was the solution that had tickled the edges of my understanding before, when I was tracking the vampire herd to this place with Diego.
I didn't have to be around for that part. I didn't have to be around for one more night.
I was a statue again as I thought over this stunning idea. If Diego and I hadn't known where the gang was most likely headed, would we ever have found them? Probably not. And that was a big group leaving a wide trail. What if it were a single vampire, one who could leap up onto the land, maybe into a tree, without leaving a trail at the edge of the water.... Just one, or maybe two vampires who could swim as far out to sea as they wanted... Who could return to land anywhere... Canada, California, Chile, China...