CHAPTER 34
I spent the next twenty-four hours in a state of complete and total freaked-outness, broken only in part by a few nice moments (like Clayton sneaking into my room so that we could watch old Buffy episodes on DVD and, you know, make out).
Mostly, though, I was a wreck. Had Stephen tried the stuff? Had he already gone out into the sun and burst into a million bits of dust? Had Janitor Bob swept him up and sent him to the dipsy Dumpster?
I kept hoping . . . but I just didn’t know. Partly because nobody was in school who could tell me. Tamara and Stacy weren’t around, I couldn’t find Chris anywhere, and when I checked after third period on Tuesday, Nelson (though he was surely fully healed by now), was listed as absent in the office attendance records.
Which left me with nothing to do but schoolwork.
A few days ago, that would have been no problem. Now, it felt really weird.
“We’ll know soon,” Clayton said, sliding up next to me in the journalism room.
“What if he didn’t try it?” I whispered. “What if he wants me to demonstrate how to use it?” That little possibility hadn’t occurred to me. If I had to slather the stuff on and step outside, I was going to be the crispy critter. And I wasn’t too crazy about that possibility.
“We’ll figure something out,” he said. And then he reached out and squeezed my hand. In public! With everyone in the room watching.
Oh. My. God.
I so have a boyfriend.
Which was exactly what Jenny said to me two periods later as we headed toward Latin. “You freak! Why didn’t you tell me!” She whacked me with her notebook and tried to look perturbed. I could tell she was happy for me, though. I mean, lately I’d been having a pretty bad week, what with being a vampire and all. Boyfriend action was a nice little perk.
“Yo! Beth!” A kid I recognized from chess club passed by, his fingers spread in a Vulcan salute. “You and Richie are rocking in the polls.”
I turned and blinked at Jenny. “We are?”
“Oh, man! You haven’t logged on lately? Tamara and Stacy and Chris and Stephen have totally dropped. And you and Richie are climbing fast!” She paused to readjust her books. “I’m not sure you’re going to win, though. Richie has totally gone all out. He’s started his own blog, and he’s posting comments all over the Watch.”
“About what?”
“About what freaks the popular kids are. About the parties at that bar Stephen took you to. And about how other kids should avoid going because no one can remember what happens there, so maybe they’re doing something funny with the drinks. Which isn’t true, but it’s not like we can tell them the real story, right?”
“Wow,” I said, my head spinning. Richie was really making his mark. Which meant that Stephen had to be well and truly pissed.
I made a mental note to buy Richie a present. Like, say, Australia.
I was going to hit Jenny up for more scoop on the blog comments, but the bell had rung, and we were running for our seats. Our Latin teacher, Mr. Tucker, came in—half comatose as usual—and started scrawling vocabulary words on the white board with a dry erase marker.
He stopped when a runner from the office came in and handed him a folded piece of paper. He read it, then looked at me.
“Well, Ms. Frasier. Looks like you’re wanted in the gymnasium.”
“I am?”
“Take your things,” he said, then turned back to the board before I could ask who wanted me. Only teachers could pull kids out of class. Ladybell, maybe? Wanting to bust my chops about all my past Stepford articles? Coach Dunne? Because he’d found out I’d gone into the boys’ locker room?
On the whole, I didn’t want to go. But I was programmed from birth to be a good little student, so I did what all good little students do: I went where they told me to go.
And when I got there, I saw Stephen Wills and Chris Freytag.
Uh-oh.
“Look at this,” Stephen said, his face contorted and his voice filled with rage.
I looked.
He was pointing at Chris. Burned, scarred, disfigured Chris. My stomach twisted, and I almost cried out. For that matter, I almost ran. I mean, they had to have brought me there to kill me . . . or worse.
But then Chris gave me just the slightest shake of his head. Don’t say anything stupid, he seemed to be saying. And he didn’t look nearly as pissed off as Stephen. And that didn’t make much sense at all.
Since I wasn’t at all sure yet what was going on, I decided to say hardly anything at all.
I just looked back at Stephen and waited.
“This is what we need you to prevent. This is why we made you. And yet we still don’t have the formula. We still can’t walk during the day!”
“I . . . I . . .” I cleared my throat and tried again. “What happened?”
“I got in a fight,” Chris said, his eyes never leaving mine. “And I got shoved outside. They pulled me back in right as my skin was burning, and I yelled something about having gasoline thrown on me. Which was total bs, but it got them out of there.”
“When?” I whispered.
“Yesterday. Before dark.”
I looked between the two of them. One, Chris had clearly not been in a fight. He’d tried my formula and somehow managed to get out of the sun before he fried. Which begged the question of why my ass wasn’t nailed to a wall, but I’d leave that little mystery alone for the moment. My other question was a little more complex. “How come you’re still . . . you know . . . scarred?”
“To heal, he must feed. And our food supply has been rather limited since Richie Carter started his campaign.” Stephen bared his fangs. “But I’ll deal with him soon enough.”
“Oh.” Oops. Give the guy some moxie, and put him in the line of fire. That so hadn’t been my plan! “Um, what about the girls?”
“Drain them so that they can’t perform?” He shook his head. “No. They can use our blood for enhancement. We cannot use theirs.”
I thought that seemed like a goofy rule under the circumstances, but since Stephen was the big cheese—and since the big cheese still didn’t know that this was all my fault—I decided to keep my mouth shut.
Except . . .
“My finger healed right away,” I said, then told him how I’d stuck my hand out of the grave.
He brushed off my question. “Your veins flowed with fresh blood. And your injury was minimal. Even when the stake burned your hand, the damage was superficial. This,” he said with a wave toward Chris, “is not.”
“It doesn’t matter, Stephen,” Chris said. “I’ll be fine.”
“This could happen again,” Stephen said, slowly and calmly. Too calm, if you know what I mean. And I saw the fury in his eyes when he turned back to me. “Two days. You have two days to find the answer. Otherwise, my dear, I think we’ll just consider you a lost cause.”