CHAPTER 33
“Okay,” Chris said, holding out his hand. “Where is it?”
I was back in the lab, and Clayton was there with me. I took a step backward, and he put his hand on my shoulder. The gesture was totally useless (I mean, the vampiric football god could totally take my geeky sorta-boyfriend), but I still felt better.
“What do you want, Chris?” I asked cautiously. I was expecting him to lay into me about the basketballs. About Nelson getting jabbed in the shoulder. About stealing their clothes (the pictures were already all over the Internet!).
Instead he just squinted at me. “The daywalking formula. You told me to come back for it, remember?”
Duh. With all the excitement after tryouts, I’d totally forgotten. “I told Stephen to come back for it,” I said. I could hardly put Operation Fry Stephen into place if I couldn’t get my “formula” to Stephen!
“And he sent me.”
“Nuh-uh,” I said. “No way. Steph—”
“Is laying low. I mean, come on! You heard about that vampire hunter, right?”
“So, what? The hunter is keeping Stephen from coming to me?”
“He told me to bring it to him,” Chris said. He held out his hand. “Come on. He’s waiting.”
I told you to send Stephen,” I said, holding my ground.
“Damn it, Beth. I already told you! After that fiasco with the vampire hunter, he’s keeping a low profile. And he’s pissed off, too, you know? Do you really want to be the one to get him more worked up?”
I hesitated. Chris did have a point there.
“Okay,” I said. “But this is for Stephen.” If Chris got fried, the gig would be up. The school would be short one vampire (which was good), but Bad Boy Stephen would still be around. And that wasn’t the way my plan was supposed to go. “So don’t get any bright ideas about using it yourself,” I added.
“And risk pissing Stephen off? Are you crazy?”
Once again, he had a point.
“Okay, here.” I passed him a bottle of Coppertone.
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“Um, no.”
“This is sunscreen.”
“Well, sure. It looks like sunscreen. But that’s the beauty of it. What I’ve done is enhance the spectrum through the use of the unique properties of our blood. Which means that the particular characteristics of the benzophenones have been enhanced to create a filter that doesn’t follow the law of diminishing returns like an ordinary sunscreen.” I squared my shoulders and plowed on. “I mean, I can show you the algebraic derivation if you’d like.”
He stared at me. For that matter, Clayton was staring at me.
I stared back and waited to see if he’d buy it. The truth was, I was totally bullshitting. But I really had altered the sunscreen. I figured Stephen might take a look at it, so it did have some blood components in there, and a few other odds and ends I’d thrown in for good measure.
None of it was any good, though, if Chris didn’t take the bait.
I was beginning to think he was going to call me a big fat liar when he tucked the bottle in his jacket pocket. “Okay, then.”
“Just remember—Stephen needs to slather it all over his body. Any bare skin will get fried. And have him wear a hat. His scalp’s gonna be a problem.”
“Got it.”
And then he was gone.
Clayton and I looked at each other, our eyes locked until Clayton finally broke into a wide grin.
“What?” I demanded.
“You,” he said. “You are brilliant.”
“That’s why I’m the valedictorian,” I said with a laugh. “And you aren’t.”