CHAPTER 14
As soon as I hung up with my dad, I called Jenny’s cell phone. “Where are you?”
“I’ll be there in five. I had to beg for the car. It was a whole big production. Honestly, I should join the drama club.”
I waited for her to stop rambling. “Do me a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Before you come, swing by the hospital. My dad’s going to leave something for me at the information counter in Admitting.” My father the doctor is desperate for his darling daughter to follow in his footsteps, so I’d been pretty sure that he’d jump when I said “science project.” And I’d been right. I didn’t even have to mention the forgotten birthday, which was just as well since I really didn’t need the drama.
“Swing by?” Jenny squealed. “That’s like totally out of my way.”
“It’s really important.”
She sighed.
“Come on, Jen. I’d get it myself, but no one gave me a car for my birthday. And I’m not exactly in my mom’s good graces right now. You know?”
“Fine. Whatever.” She readjusted her arrival time to thirty minutes. “But you still have to tell me everything.
She walked into my bedroom twenty-two minutes later, swearing she didn’t break any traffic laws. I didn’t care if she’d broken them all. I’d spent the last twenty-two minutes willing myself not to jump the mom-meal in the kitchen. I mean, I didn’t want to, but this craving was so beyond my desperate need for M&M’S during my period that I wasn’t really sure I could control it.
“I met your mom on the way in,” she said. “She told me to tell you that the brief was a piece of crap and she was going back to the office and that she’d probably be there all night and she’d see you tomorrow.” She rattled that off and then drew in a deep breath. “God, your mom is a scary, scary lady!”
I agreed wholeheartedly, but I didn’t say anything. I was too focused on the cooler she had in her hand. She caught me looking and passed it to me. “So what is this, anyway?”
I was too thirsty to talk. I just reached out and grabbed the cooler, then bolted into my bathroom, slamming the door behind me. I yanked the lid off and there, nestled in a bunch of ice packs, I found ambrosia: twelve pint bags of blood.
I took back every mean thing I ever said about my dad, then grabbed up one of the bags. I looked around for my razor to make a slice in the plastic, then realized I didn’t need it. That tingling feeling in my mouth was caused by sprouting fangs. How convenient. Gross, but convenient. And without any more ado, I closed my mouth over the plastic, punched my teeth through, and sucked.
I’d drained the packet and was about to bite into a second one when Jenny barged in. “I can’t wait! I have to hear about Steph—” She stopped and stared. I wished I’d remembered to lock the door. “Oh. My. God.”
She backed out of the bathroom, then turned and ran. I managed to come down off my little wave of satiated satisfaction long enough to realize that this was A Bad Thing.
I tossed the second bag into the sink and tore after her. She’d gotten a decent head start, though, and was already through the kitchen and fumbling with the lock on the back door.
“Jenny, wait!”
“Screw that!” She managed to flip the lock and pulled the door open.
“Jenny! It’s not what it—” I shut up, because it was exactly what it seemed to be.
She barreled down the steps, and I barreled right along behind her. Barreled right over her, actually, because I was faster than I was used to and not doing too great a job at judging distances and stuff. She fell and I fell on top of her.
She screamed and held her fingers like a cross. “No! Beth! I’m your best friend! Please don’t kill me!”
“I’m not going to kill you!” I said, but I barely got the words out before I found myself being pulled off her by the back of my collar. Then someone tossed me back down and loomed over me with a huge freaking wooden stake!
I screamed and tried to roll away, but there was nowhere to go, what with Jenny on one side and our huge oak tree on the other. And here comes Blade swooshing down on me and leading with the stake, and all the while I’m tossing my arms up to protect myself and thinking that this is it. Now I really will be dead. Dead dead. Not undead.
Except he didn’t make it to my heart. He didn’t even make it past my arms. Because Jenny threw herself across me and yelled, “You just leave her alone! Leave. Her. Alone.”
“But she’s a vampire!” came the answer, and I knew that voice!
“Clayton?”
“Don’t talk to me, evil spawn of Satan!”
“Hey!” Jenny said. “You take that back!”
“I am not the spawn of Satan!” I mean, I may not think my parents are the greatest, but they’re not that bad!
“I told you not to go out there,” Clayton said. “I warned you!”
“You knew?” I tried to sit up, but with Jenny sprawled protectively across my chest, I couldn’t move.
He ignored me, instead, kicking at Jenny’s thighs. “Get out of the way, Jenny! She’s not your friend anymore. Once she drinks, she’s doomed forever.”
“She is my friend!”
“Then why were you running?”
I’m actually glad he asked that. I mean, I was thrilled Jenny had saved me from the stake and all, but I wasn’t entirely sure why she had.
“I was . . . freaked out,” Jenny said. “Yeah. Really freaked out. I mean, you would be, too, right?”
“Yeah,” Clayton said. He gestured with the stake. “And then I’d get over it and do what needed to be done.”
Honestly, I felt a little stupid just lying there, but I wasn’t sure what else to do. Run and he might catch me. And, also, I remembered the way I felt when I’d been so thirsty. Around my mom, I mean. What if I felt that same way when I got angry or scared or really riled up in a fight? I mean, even though Clayton was really pissing me off, I didn’t want to bite him.
At any rate, I doubted Jenny would let me up. Right then she was telling Clayton in the most stringent of tones that she wasn’t some “narrow-minded sycophant who abandons a friend simply because she happens to be part of a misunderstood minority!”
“Misunderstood minority?” he parroted. “She tried to suck your blood!”
“I did not!” I said.
“Shut up, you lying undead animal!”
“Hey!” Now he was starting to hurt my feelings!
“Leave her alone!” Jenny said. “It’s not her fault. She didn’t do this to herself.” She twisted around to look at me. “Did you?”
I rolled my eyes. “Stephen The-Big-Jerk Wills.”
“See?” Jenny said, turning back to Clayton.
“Why are you defending her? She tried to kill you!”
“No, I—”
“She did not.”
“Yeah? Then how come you were running? How come there’s blood all over her mouth?”
“There’s not any on my neck,” Jenny shot back. “Is there, Sherlock?”
“Well . . .”
“Would you two shut up?” I said. “I was drinking from hospital bags. No way would I hurt Jenny! Like she said, she ran because she was freaked. I mean, I can understand that. I’m freaked, too.”
He stepped back, his stake lowering just a bit. “So, you didn’t bite her?”
“I told you. No.”
“And you haven’t bitten anyone?”
“For the umpteenth time, no.
He looked at Jenny. “Really?”
“Honest. I brought blood when I came over.” She made a face. “I didn’t know it was blood, but she drank it and I saw, and—”
“—that’s when you so rudely interrupted,” I finished.
“Well, okay.” He slid the stake into a pocket and held a hand out for Jenny. “Get up, then.”
“Like hell.”
“I’m not going to stake her,” he said wearily. “If she hasn’t drunk from a person yet, there’s still hope.”
At that, I perked up. “There is? What are you talking about? And how do you know all this stuff anyway?”
Clayton nodded toward my still-open back door. “Let’s go inside,” he said. “And I’ll tell you everything.”