"Don't worry," he said. "Some dim light gets in here on sunny days. It doesn't hurt." He shrugged.
I scooted closer to the hole in the floor, where the water was disappearing as the tide went out.
"Seriously, Bree. I've been down here before during the day. I told Riley about this cave - and how it was mostly fil ed with water, and he said it was cool when I needed to get out of the madhouse. Anyway, do I look like I got singed?"
I hesitated, thinking about how different his relationship with Riley was than mine. His eyebrows rose, waiting for an answer.
"No," I final y said. "But..."
"Look," he said impatiently. He crawled swiftly to the tunnel and stuck his arm in up to the shoulder. "Nothing."
I nodded once.
"Relax! Do you want me to see how high I can go?" As he spoke, he stuck his head into the hole and started climbing.
"Don't, Diego." He was already out of sight. "I'm relaxed, I swear."
He was laughing - it sounded like he was already several yards up the tunnel. I wanted to go after him, to grab his foot and yank him back, but I was frozen with stress. It would be stupid to risk my life to save some total stranger. But I hadn't had anything close to a friend in forever. Already it would be hard to go back to having no one to talk to, after only one night.
"No estoy quemando," he cal ed down, his tone teasing.
"Wait... is that...? Ow! "
"Diego?"
I leaped across the cave and stuck my head into the tunnel. His face was right there, inches from mine.
"Boo!"
I flinched back from his proximity - just a reflex, old habit.
"Funny," I said dryly, moving away as he slid back into the cave.
"You need to unwind, girl. I've looked into this, okay? Indirect sunlight doesn't hurt."
"So you're saying that I could just stand under a nice shady tree and be fine?"
He hesitated for a minute, as if debating whether or not to tel me something, and then said quietly, "I did once."
I stared at him, waiting for the grin. Because this was a joke. It didn't come.
"Riley said...," I started, and then my voice trailed off.
"Yeah, I know what Riley said," he agreed. "Maybe Riley doesn't know as much as he says he does."
"But Shel y and Steve. Doug and Adam. That kid with the bright red hair. Al of them. They're gone because they didn't get back in time. Riley saw the ashes."
Diego's brows pul ed together unhappily.
Chapters 5
"Everyone knows that old-timey vampires had to stay in coffins during the day," I went on. "To keep out of the sun. That's common knowledge, Diego."
"You're right. Al the stories do say that."
"And what would Riley gain by locking us up in a lightproof basement - one big group coffin - al day, anyway? We just demolish the place, and he has to deal with al the fighting, and it's constant turmoil. You can't tel me he enjoys it."
Something I'd said surprised him. He sat with his mouth open for a second, then closed it.
"What?"
"Common knowledge," he repeated. "What do vampires do in coffins al day?"
"Er - oh yeah, they're supposed to sleep, right? But I guess they're probably just lying there bored, 'cause we don't... Okay, so that part's wrong."
"Yeah. In the stories they're not just asleep, though. They're total y unconscious. They can't wake up. A human can walk right up and stake them, no problem. And that's another thing - stakes. You real y think someone could shove a piece of wood through you?"
I shrugged. "I haven't real y thought about it. I mean, not a normal piece of wood, obviously. Maybe sharpened wood has some kind of... I don't know. Magical properties or something."
Diego snorted. "Please."
"Wel, I don't know. I wouldn't just hold stil while some human ran at me with a filed broom handle, anyway."
Diego - stil with a sort of disgusted look on his face, as if magic were real y such a reach when you're a vampire - rol ed to his knees and started clawing into the limestone above his head. Tiny stone shards fil ed his hair, but he ignored them.
"What are you doing?"
"Experimenting."
He dug with both hands until he could stand upright, and then kept going.
"Diego, you get to the surface, you explode. Stop it."
"I'm not trying to - ah, here we go."
There was a loud crack, and then another crack, but no light. He ducked back down to where I could see his face, with a piece of tree root in his hand, white, dead, and dry under the clumps of dirt. The edge where he'd broken it was a sharp, uneven point. He tossed it to me.
"Stake me."
I tossed it back. "Whatever."
"Seriously. You know it can't hurt me." He lobbed the wood to me; instead of catching it, I batted it back. He snagged it out of the air and groaned. "You are so...
superstitious!"
"I am a vampire. If that doesn't prove that superstitious people are right, I don't know what does."
"Fine, I'l do it."
He held the branch away from himself dramatical y, arm extended, like it was a sword and he was about to impale himself.
"C'mon," I said uneasily. "This is sil y."
"That's my point. Here goes nothing."
He crushed the wood into his chest, right where his heart used to beat, with enough force to punch through a granite slab. I was total y frozen with panic until he laughed.
"You should see your face, Bree."
He sifted the splinters of broken wood through his fingers; the shattered root fel to the floor in mangled pieces. Diego brushed at his shirt, though it was too trashed from al the swimming and digging for the attempt to do any good. We'd both have to steal more clothes the next time we got a chance.