A Dark-Adapted Eye (15 page)

She trailed off and in the moment of silence that ensued, I peeked out from beneath the pi
llow, intrigued.

“I have a confession to make,” she said with a sigh. She finished hanging up the dresses and turned to me. “I used to have sort of a thing for Ivory.”

“Really?” I asked skeptically.

“Yeah. He’s no bad boy—he’s really good, actually. I think it has to do with the fact that he doesn’t like me. For some reason that’s incredibly appealing.”

“Odd. Why are you telling me now?”

She shrugged. “Because we were talking about Les. Because Ivory’s gone. I always meant to tell you, but I didn’t want you thinking I was just hanging out with you for your brother. I wasn’t, of course. But I care about you both. You’re . . . my family.”

The doorbell rang then, a distant and distinct sound. I threw the pillow aside and sat up. A quick glance at the partially cracked blinds on my window revealed the black of evening. In the past few hours I’d forgotten all about Rade. Had he taken it upon himself to come to my door? I felt suddenly panicked. I had to get there before Les.

Yanking open my bedroom door, I saw Les rounding the corner to the living room. “Wait,” I said, hurrying after him. But he had already reached the door by the time I got to the end of the hallway. I came up beside him as he was opening it, mentally preparing for a hellish confront
ation.

It wasn’t Rade outside the door, though. It was Aleskie.

“I made it here as soon as I could,” she said, her blue eyes wide with urgency. “You have to leave
now
.”

Les looked at me, but I had no idea what she was talking about either.

“They’re coming. They’re going to kill you. Get
out
!”

She reached for me but Les struck out an arm to keep me behind him. Criseyde had followed me out of my room and now clung to my right arm. I could feel the worry in her touch, but my eyes were riveted on Les. He was talking to Aleskie, their voices low. I couldn’t make out ever
ything they were saying, but they seemed to be reaching some sort of understanding.

“We’re going, Asha,” Les said, turning to me. “I’ll take my bike. Everyone can follow in your car, Criseyde.”

“
Where
are we going?” I asked as Cris obediently headed back to my room for her purse and keys. “What’s happening?”

“I’ll tell you—”

The deafening sound of glass shattering interrupted him and we all jumped, suddenly on high alert. Looking in the direction of the sound, I realized the back door was open to the night, blinds clattering softly. Glass littered the carpet.

Another, softer shattering followed, along with a scream from Criseyde. Without thinking, I dashed down the hall to see if she was all right and found her locking my door from the inside before pulling it shut.

“Your window broke,” she informed me, wild-eyed, “and I think someone’s trying to get in.”

A series of footsteps thumped overhead. We both looked up, as if the ceiling could give us a clue as to what was on the roof. I had left my telescope up there, as I always did, and worried irrationally for the safety of it.

“Get the other doors,” Cris said quickly.

We shut Les and Ivory’s doors as well as the bathroom door. Maybe the flimsy locks wouldn’t hold off our attackers for long, but they would at least buy us some time.

“Les?” I called shakily.

“Stay there,” he shouted back, darting past the hallway opening as he headed for the back door. Aleskie was close behind him.

There were shouts, grunts. A sharp wooden crack split the air. Zinging with fear, I grabbed Criseyde’s arm. “Vampires,” I whispered.

How many was tough to guess, but they seemed to be all around us. The thumps above our heads continued, now interspersed with loud, distressing knocks on the outer stucco walls. Cris and I huddled together in the bend of the hallway right outside my bedroom door. With all the inside doors shut, it was the only place in the house away from any outer doors or windows.

“I don’t want to leave him alone,” I said.

“He’s got . . . whoever that was,” Cris reminded me, though she sounded doubtful.

“That’s Aleskie.”

I tried to figure out how I could help Les and if I should even try. How many vampires could he take on his own? How much help would Aleskie be? I knew they were still alive, or at least one of them was, because the sounds of fighting continued. There were gunshots and thuds and snaps and sounds I had no words for.

“What do they want?” Criseyde whimpered.

“I’m going to help him,” I said. “Come with me. Neither of us should be alone.”

As we crept toward the living room, clutching each other for dear life, the night became eerily silent.

“We are dead,” Cris said. “We are so dead.”

Suddenly a tall, thin figure dressed in black appeared in the gaping, jagged hole where the sliding glass door had once been. Criseyde screamed and my skin crawled with fright. I recognized Rade, who moved with such unhurried menace, whose expression was so devoid of emotion, it was impossible to tell whether he meant us harm.

“What are you doing here?” I asked in a low voice. “Did you do all this?” Though the living room looked largely unharmed, broken glass sparkled all over the carpet. The dining room table had somehow split down the middle, each half angled like sinking ships. The front door stood wide open. There was no sign of either Les or Aleskie.

“I was waiting for you, like we’d planned,” Rade said evenly. “I came to help when I noticed the commotion.”

“What the hell
was
this?” Cris demanded.

He didn’t even look at her. “You’ve made someone very angry, Asha. I wonder if someone recognized you at the hotel last night.”

“Oh, my god,” Cris said. “You went to a
hotel
with him?”

“It wasn’t like that,” I protested.

I noticed Rade’s eyes widen infinitesimally just before a pair of hands grabbed my shoulders from behind. I fell flat on my back, cutting myself on the glass wedged into the carpet fibers. My lungs struggled for the air that had been knocked out of them, but when I inhaled the glass dug sharply into my skin. An upside down face appeared above me. I didn’t recognize the man, but I knew he was a vampire.

Rade set me up
, I thought dimly.
All along he’s planned my death.

But then he was there by the vampire man’s side, moving more quickly than I had thought possible of him. The two fought like animals. I rolled onto one side and saw Cris hunched against the wall near the kitchen. With some effort I managed to get up and make my way over to her. We both looked over just in time to see the unknown vampire flee out the broken back door. Rade stood up, brushing lightly at his clothes, and glanced at us as if nothing unusual was happening.

He had just saved my life. Again.

Before I could say anything, Les and Aleskie entered through the front door. Both looked e
xactly as if they’d been fighting for their lives: visible skin striped with bloody scratches, clothes torn and smudged with dirt, hair wild.

Les, breathing heavily, focused immediately on Rade. His body taut, eyes dangerously stormy, he advanced quickly on my vampire.

“That’s Rade,” I said weakly. “He’s the vampire who bit me.”

“I saw them together last night,” Aleskie said. “He helped drive off the vampires just now, for what it’s worth.”

Rade remained motionless. “I mean her no harm.”

Fury darkened Les’s face and he launched himself at Rade. With a brittle crunch of glass, there was a sudden confusion of limbs as Les wrestled Rade down and swung his arm repeatedly at the vampire’s face. Rade did nothing to defend himself. I watched, rapt, and flinched at each punch. I wasn’t scared for Rade, just shocked at seeing Les so incensed. I knew he’d gotten into fights at school from time to time, but the Les I saw every day was reserved and rational, the complete opposite of what I was witnessing now.

At last he realized Rade wasn’t fighting back and sat up, letting him go. Rade’s slim dark figure dashed past Aleskie out the front door and disappeared into the night.

In the sudden quiet Les breathed heavily, his shoulders heaving. “Sorry,” he said after a m
oment. Without turning to look at any of us, he stood up and swiped his bloody hands over the thighs of his soiled jeans. “We should go now.”

Yes, I thought, there wasn’t any sense sleeping in a broken house.

Before we left, Criseyde helped me get bits of glass out of my skin and hair. Les got a flathead from a drawer in the kitchen so I could unlock my room. I changed clothes and shoved the glass-spangled ones I’d been wearing into a plastic bag to deal with later.

I gathered a few things to take with me, not sure where we were going or how long we’d be gone. At the last second I grabbed both my new dress and Criseyde’s, just in case Les still planned to take us to the party tomorrow. For whatever good that might do.

Cris, Aleskie and I followed Les through the dark streets, unsure of our destination. The atmosphere in Criseyde’s car was sober and tense, none of us sure what to say to one another. Even Cris seemed humbled by the night’s events. For now the danger was behind us, but never gone for good.

eleven

gravity: a mutual physical force of nature that causes two bodies to attract each other

We ended up at Les’s dad’s house that night. In all the years Les had known Ivory, I had never seen the place. It was a house much like ours: few windows, bland-colored stucco and splitting wood trim. The neighborhood wasn’t far from ours, the distance easily walkable, which explained why Ivory and Les had been back and forth between the two houses so often as young teenagers, sometimes several times a day.

“Does your dad still live here?” I asked, following Les up the weedy front walk. I clutched my bag of clothes to my chest.

“Yeah. But he drives a truck now and he’s hardly ever here.”

Despite being currently empty, the house was warm and inviting, if not particularly modern. The plaid living room couches were worn and faded, the furniture made from honey-hued wood. There were pillows and throws and stacks of coasters all over the place. The TV remotes were lined up neatly parallel to each other on an end table. It smelled something like pine.

“There are two bedrooms,” Les said once everyone was inside. “You can decide who gets which room. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

He wouldn’t look at any of us. Criseyde nudged me in the ribs and nodded meaningfully at him. Then she grabbed Aleskie and headed off down the hall to look at the rooms.

I stared at Les’s inscrutable profile as he busied himself with a pile of mail left on a console table just inside the entrance. I thought about his busted knuckles, Rade’s bloodied face. Les could have kept hitting him all night and I wouldn’t have cared. Though I hoped Rade would be useful in finding Ivory, I hated him. No matter what kind of connection we may have shared, no matter how drawn to him I might feel, I would let him go in an instant. It was Les who mattered. Reserved as he was, he was the one who’d always be there for me.

“Les,” I said softly. “Are you all right?”

For the first time since his encounter with Rade, he raised his eyes to me. “Sorry you had to see that.”

“I don’t care,” I rushed to assure him. “Nothing could make . . . Les, it didn’t change my opinion of you.”

His lips lifted in a wry grin. “Good to know.”

“So . . . I have some things to tell you.” I paused for an uncertain moment, then sat down stiffly on one of the couches.

He remained standing. “I’m listening.”

“It’s about last night. I went to this . . . vampire dinner party at some abandoned hotel,” I b
egan. I looked at my hands as I spoke, knowing I would never get the whole story out if I watched his reaction to it. “Nothing happened to me, but I saw Aleskie there. I thought she must have betrayed us, but now I wonder if she was just trying to get information about Ivory, like I was. And when she came to warn us tonight, I knew she couldn’t possibly be a bad guy. Unless she’s a really good actress.”

I glanced up to find Les listening patiently. “Go on,” he said.

“Well,” I said reluctantly, “the attack just now was my fault. Rade said someone might have recognized me at the hotel. I don’t know who it could have been or what their motive was, but I’m sorry.” The apology was stupidly inadequate.

“Don’t blame yourself. You might never have done any of this if I hadn’t asked for your help with Lucinda.” He turned his head away, looking down, and said, “I’m going to make something to eat. Want anything?”

“No thanks.”

He walked into the kitchen without another word, flipping on the light and disappearing from view. I reached out to turn off the living room light and sat for a moment in the dim room. I stared at the soft glow from the kitchen, listening to Les opening drawers and cabinets. My mouth stretched into a yawn that made my eyes water. He’d said he would take the couch, but I lay down to sleep on it so he wouldn’t have to.

It was dark when my eyes opened again, but enough moonlight peeked through the curtains for me to make out Les’s form lying on the floor a few feet from the couch. I felt a rush of tenderness. I’d hoped he would take a bed in one of the rooms, but apparently he still thought it best if we stuck together at night.

I slid off the couch and crouched beside him. I placed one hand on his shoulder.

Instantly he came awake. He looked at me in the dark, eyes fathomless. I started to tell him he could take the couch, that he didn’t have to sleep on the floor anymore, but before my lips could form the words, he slid one hand under my hair and brought his mouth to mine.

We kissed quietly, passionately. Except for his hand at the base of my skull, we kissed wit
hout touching. It was the kind of long, slow kiss shared only in the dark, only in the dead of night, between two people who had never before kissed each other.

All too soon he released me, drawing his hand back as if startled. My body was on fire. He rose quickly to his feet and just stood there while I remained in a crouch, neither of us having anywhere to go.

“I . . .”

“Sorry,” he said gruffly. “I didn’t—that wasn’t—”

“I just wanted to say you can have the couch,” I interrupted before I had to hear him rejecting me. “I’ll go sleep with Criseyde. Good night.”

And I walked out of the room, my chest bursting with emotion, my eyes darting blindly in the dark.

He didn’t try to stop me.

~

“Asha! You brought our dresses! You are my hero!”

Opening my eyes, I looked up from the floor to see Criseyde twirling around in front of me, rapturously hugging her hot pink dress to her chest.

We had slept in what I assumed to be Les’s old bedroom, though there were no personal items to indicate he’d ever lived here. There were no tack holes in the basic white walls, no photos, no books, no anything. The room could have belonged to anyone.

“I would never leave you stranded without clothes,” I replied through a yawn. I stretched my body, stiff from sleeping on the floor. The memory of last night’s kiss made me hot and I kicked off the blankets I’d found in the hall closet. Judging from the way Les had acted afterward, obv
iously it had been an accident. Maybe he’d been dreaming and hadn’t realized he’d been kissing
me
.

God. How was I ever going to face him now?

“Les told me the party’s at four,” Cris said. “I was like, who the heck holds a party at four in the afternoon? But I don’t know, I guess they like to give people time to get home before dark.” She twirled again, then laid the dress reverently on the bed. “I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be a couple hours getting ready. You want to go first?”

“No. I forgot to bring shower stuff. I’ll have to go get it from home.” The thought of retur
ning there, to the shattered windows and broken furniture and glass in the carpet, did not inspire enthusiasm.

“You can use my stuff if you want. I always carry an emergency supply in my purse.”

I had to laugh. “Of course you do.”

It wouldn’t be such a bad thing to go home after all, I decided. I would be able to survey the damage and determine what needed to be done to fix it. It would also be a good way to avoid Les.

Somehow I managed to slip out without anyone noticing. Walking briskly, even in the heat, I made it to the house in just ten minutes. My bedroom window looked out onto the carport, so I walked right past it on my way to the front door. I hadn’t bothered to notice last night, but it was indeed broken. I’d locked the front door out of sheer habit, but a house missing at least two windows wouldn’t be keeping anybody out of it.

The living room was worse than I remembered. Wearing only flip-flops, I walked gingerly over the crunching carpet. There was a dark stain on the couch—just dirt, not blood, thankfully. The end table lamp was on the floor, though not broken. I saw a couple of holes in the walls near the dining room. We could repair most of the damage ourselves, but we would definitely have to hire some people for the glass. Which meant I’d probably need to speak to Les as some point, since he had his own bank account as well as access to Ivory’s, and all I had was a debit card for Ivory’s account. I frowned, feeling slightly panicked at the thought of seeing him after our little mishap.

Slipping through the jagged back door, I climbed the ladder to the roof. With a sigh, I placed a hand on the telescope and closed my eyes. It was unharmed. Everything else I could deal with since my telescope had survived the night.

I climbed down and went back into the house. There was nothing I could do here today—nothing I felt like doing, anyway—so I grabbed an old cloth bag from my room and shoved shampoo and other bathroom necessities into it. I was ready to head back to the house and take my shower before the party, but I stopped outside Les’s door. It was still locked from last night.

On a whim, I retrieved the screwdriver from where I’d left it and undid the lock. Leaving my bag in the hall, I pushed the door open and stepped slowly into the room.

I’d gotten glimpses of it over the years, but I’d never been inside. It was about as messy as I’d expect a boy’s room to be: clothes tossed on the floor, bed unmade, a few cups cluttering the nightstand. The short black bookshelf in the corner by the window, however, was impeccably neat. There was a row of CDs—The Cramps, Hot Snakes, Stray Cats—and a handful of books—
Lord of the Flies
,
The Outsiders.
I spotted a little red Buddha figurine, a frameless photograph of two people who must have been his parents, and a brass dish full of coins.

“What are you doing?”

I spun around at Les’s voice. “I . . . um . . . I came to get some stuff and I . . . Sorry. I didn’t mean . . . I wasn’t . . .” I lifted one hand uselessly, eyes landing everywhere in the room except on him. If I didn’t get out of here right now, I was going to cry. How humiliating for him to have caught me snooping around his room. How stupid I’d been to do it.

“I came to check out the damage,” he said, ignoring my idiotic stammering.

“Oh. Yeah. Me too. I’ll just . . .” I gestured that I wanted to move past him, but he kept blocking the door. I stood there feeling embarrassed and wishing he would go away so we could pretend everything was normal again.

“About last night,” he said.

No such luck. With a sigh, I began to tap one foot in nervous impatience. “Yeah. I get it. You were probably, like, dreaming and thought I was—someone else—”

“No. I knew it was you.”

I looked at him for a brief instant. He was staring at me, steady and intent. He’d never looked at me quite this way before and I didn’t know what to think. Didn’t know what to think when he started toward me, his expression never changing.
Couldn’t
think when he pressed his lips onto mine. I shook to feel his arms come around me and hold me tight against his lean body.

And then my hands were in his hair, along the sides of his face. I pressed closer, deepening the kiss, and he responded with a low growling sound. My heart pounded. Les was undoubtedly more experienced than I was, but I knew exactly where this would end up and I had no problem going there.

I slid my hands beneath his shirt and he raised his arms to pull it off. His chest was pale and smooth, defined with angles of muscle. I ran my fingers over his skin, encountering various small scars. I explored his lean ribs, the slant of his collarbone, his broad shoulders. He looked down at me, his eyes ardent and unwavering, yet betraying a surprising vulnerability.

“I’ve . . . wanted this,” he said, his voice catching slightly.

I took his face between my hands and pulled it down to mine. I was elated, kissing this boy I had loved for years, feeling his hands on me, his hunger. He had thought about me before tonight. He had looked at me at some point, his thoughts mirroring mine. He wasn’t indifferent to me as I’d always believed.

We groped our way to his bed, the pale gray sheets twisting beneath us. He left a trail of kisses down my neck and ground his hips against mine. I felt a fierce, unbearable wave of desire and fumbled at the waist of his jeans, clumsily desperate as I was for more.

“Hold on,” he said softly. “We don’t have to hurry.”

His weight sank into me. I pushed against the wall with my right arm and flipped on top of him. He worked his hands under my shirt and up my waist, his touch making me shiver. He lifted the shirt over my head and tossed it aside, and then rolled back on top of me. My skin felt hot beneath the kisses he left on my neck, my shoulders, along my collarbone, and down my sto
mach. Then he returned to my mouth and we were fully immersed in one another, greedy for touch, wild with longing.

After several minutes of rolling around he stepped back off the bed and removed his own jeans. Then he undid mine, lifting up my hips to slide them off. He glided his palms up my calves and brought my legs over his shoulders. He held me with hot, roaming hands, his face b
etween my knees. He kissed the insides of my thighs.

“I can’t,” I panted. “Les, I need—”

He looked at me, the side of his face resting gently against the sensitive skin between my legs. “You want to stop?”

I shook my head fervently. “No, no. I want to keep going. I need
more
. I need . . .”