CHAPTER 18
Okay. This passing-out-cold thing was getting a little old.
I woke up with a start, sitting bolt upright and trying not to scream. Something had startled me awake, and I was sure someone was in the house. I listened, though, and realized that I could hear just about everything going on around me. Including a little squeak that made me pretty sure that although we didn’t have rats, we might have a family of mice living under the floorboards.
Rodents notwithstanding, I have to say that the preternatural-hearing thing was pretty cool. And it also convinced me that I was all alone.
My eyes drifted to my walls, and I realized I’d dozed off while I’d been planning to buy pink muslin. Although now that I thought about it, maybe red would be better. Bloodred, you know? Just for the irony.
I scooted to the edge of the bed and stretched, surprised I’d fallen asleep so quickly. I must have been more tired than I thought. My stomach rumbled, and I immediately thought of brownies. Right after that, I felt nauseous. So much for my future with chocolate.
I got up, intending to go through the kitchen to the garage. I’d put the blood from the sink back into the ice chest, then hidden the whole thing in the big freezer. Since my mom hasn’t defrosted anything in months, I wasn’t worried about being discovered.
I stopped in my doorway, though. Mom never shut the curtains, and it had been just a few minutes shy of sunrise when I’d finished covering my windows and had my little nap. That meant the house was UV Central, and I was stuck in this room until the sun went down.
I groaned, my stomach growling, as I turned to look at my clock. Exactly how many hours was I going to be stuck here, anyw—?
I stopped midthought. Because according to my clock, it was five-thirty-seven. I’d looked up sunset after Jenny left, so I’d be sure to meet Stephen at more or less the right time. And this was it. Sunset. Or, rather, a few minutes after.
I gaped at the clock, not quite believing. If that was true, then I slept the entire freaking day!
The sun had come up, and I’d crashed and burned (well, not literally, thank goodness). And now that I was awake, I had two big problems: one, getting to the bleachers before Stephen gave up and did some incredibly gory and mean master-minion thing to punish me. And two, actually going to school tomorrow if I couldn’t manage to stay awake.
The first I solved by racing out the door and sprinting toward the school.
But the second . . . well, for that one, I didn’t have a good solution at all.