A Dark-Adapted Eye (20 page)

“But you’re not safe from other vampires,” he pointed out. “Someone else might like what you are now.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But those times I was out with Rade, I knew he wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”

“Except for last night, when he tried to have you killed.”

“He didn’t want me killed,” I said, a trace of defensiveness in my voice. “I was supposed to kill her all along. But I just wanted to help. That’s the only reason I did any of this. The only reason anything happened to me.”

“I know.”

My hands clenched into fists. “No, you don’t! You keep saying that, but you don’t know everything! You don’t know everything about
me
! And you can’t protect me from everything, so stop acting like you can. I’m not going to pretend to be some weak little girl for you. It doesn’t matter how much I love you!”

He pushed off the counter and took a step in my direction, half an incongruous smile on his lips. “You love me?”

It felt as if my heart stuttered to a stop for a moment. My throat was tight. I hadn’t meant to tell him that. Not yet anyway. I hadn’t meant . . . I blinked at him, thinking suddenly of how he’d helped Ivory nurse me back to health after Rade’s bite, how he’d raged and driven off my alcoholic father. The time he’d complimented my pink hair. The times he’d looked at me and refused to look at me.

“Yes,” I replied defiantly. “I do.”

His grin widened and he took another step toward me. “I knew that.”

“I’m not surprised. You think you know everything.”

“And what do you know?” I shrugged and he said, “Then you probably don’t know I love you, too.”

I held my breath for a moment, feeling exquisitely overwhelmed. He had said them at last. The words I’d longed to hear.

My elation quickly transformed into exasperation no less powerful. I cried, “Why didn’t you tell me? How
would
I know that? It’s not like you make anything obvious with that—that closed-off face of yours!”

“I guess I don’t. But I want to now. Or I want to try.”

“You can’t tell me what to do,” I declared, placing a hand on his chest as he started to come closer. “You can’t stop me from doing anything. You can’t be jealous. You can’t act like I’m not your equal.”

He smiled at my words, wide and white, all teeth and creased cheeks and crinkled glinting eyes. It was a killer smile, and not one I’d seen very often. There was something slightly rakish about it, something electric. It had the power to undo me.

“Asha,” he said through that smile, “I won’t do anything you don’t want me to.”

“Good.” I lowered my hand.

“But
you
can’t tell
me
what to do. You can’t lie to me. You can’t act like I’m not
your
equal.”

I pressed my lips together to keep from smiling. “So you forgive me?”

“Always.” His arms came around me then, as if he’d been anxious to touch me. I pressed my face into his shoulder, weak for the scent of him.

“We just told each other what to do,” I said.

“Oh. We’ll just spend the rest of the day begging each other’s forgiveness.” I giggled against his shoulder and he tightened his arms. “I know you’re not weak,” he said, “and you don’t have to pretend to be. I hate that you keep running off right into the middle of the danger, but I also kind of like it. I like that you’re willing to do it, I mean.”

“You’re sick.”

“Probably. Definitely.”

“We’re a good match, then.”

I shimmied out of his arms, intending for him to come after me, and he did. We bantered back and forth for a while and teased each other until we couldn’t wait. The hours slipped away from us. I felt silly with lightheartedness.

But later, after we’d made plans to retrieve our stuff from Les’s dad’s house, I felt sunk with regret. Because I was enjoying myself and in certain moments conveniently forgot important o
bligations. Things that had driven me and brought me to this point. Ivory was still out there, somewhere. I hoped.

It had been days. We had no leads. I had failed.

No. Not my fault.

I loved my brother and wanted him back. But Ivory was gone, dead or not dead, and I was still here. Les was still here. My life wouldn’t stop for my brother or anyone else. It would go on and I had to go with it. No wasting time revisiting the unchangeable past. New dawns were co
ming, new days, and I was going to see them. I was going to live.

~

“What does it mean?”

Aleskie looked uncomfortable at the question. “Just what I told you already. Pater Luna is supposed to return.”

“Tomorrow night, during the lunar eclipse,” I said. “That’s what you told Ivory, isn’t it? That’s why he warned me not to go outside.”

She nodded. “He shouldn’t have let on that he knew anything in front of the vampires. That’s why they took him, to keep him silent. Not that it matters, because no one’s going to try to stop them. No one can.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” I demanded.

Her eyes were slightly reproachful. “I didn’t want you guys to do anything stupid, that’s why. You could get killed.”

“We could get killed any time. We could have been killed like fifteen times since yesterday.”

“That’s not the point—”

“What are they going to do?” Les interrupted.

Aleskie sighed. “All the vampires are going to gather in the desert outside the city to witness Pater Luna’s return.”

I frowned. “That sounds . . . cultish.”

“Exactly. I’m afraid of what they’re going to do when nothing happens.”

“You don’t believe in Pater Luna?”

“Of course not!” she cried. “It’s just some mythological crap made up so the vampires have something to look forward to, some purpose. People have been waiting for the end since the b
eginning, and these prophecies of the world ending and doors opening in the sky and whatever else never come true, and someone always ‘predicts’ something else happening on some other random date. But in this case, I’m sure vampires are going to be angry when their so-called father doesn’t appear. They’ve been promised endless blood and perfect dominion over humans, and no magical being is going to deliver that.”

“What should we do, then?” Criseyde demanded. “Just wait around here or try to escape b
efore shit goes down?”

“I’m not leaving here without Ivory,” I said decisively.

Les reached over and squeezed my hand. “Let’s go home,” he said.

Aleskie and Cris drove over together, while I rode behind Les on his motorcycle. I pressed my cheek hard against his back, my arms anchored so tight around his torso my muscles ached. My hair snapped in the wind. I kept my eyes squeezed shut, refusing to peek at anything as we zoomed down the street.

At last we slowed, then stopped. I peeled my eyes open and saw we were in front of the house. With shaky legs, I dismounted and found the sidewalk.

“Whoa,” I said.

Les swung off easily and sauntered toward me. “Sorry I didn’t have a helmet for you. It gets in the way when you’re hunting vampires.”

As I opened my mouth to reply, my eyes drifted down the road. The words stuck in my throat when I saw the familiar black car parked there. Waiting. Les followed my gaze and came to stand beside me. I reached for his hand, letting him know I wasn’t going to leave his side and didn’t want him to leave mine.

Rade opened the car door and glided down the sidewalk toward us as if the guy standing next to me hadn’t beaten in his face. As if he hadn’t sprung a bloodthirsty vampire upon me last night. I held tightly to Les’s hand and he didn’t move other than to press closer to me, but I could feel his tension.

An irregular rectangle of yellow light fell across the driveway as Criseyde and Aleskie opened the door for us. Their chatter fell warily silent when they noticed the vampire.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him.

“I wanted to give this to you,” Rade said, holding a folded slip of paper out to me. “You’ve earned it.”

I took the paper without touching his fingers and let go of Les’s hand to unfold it. It was an address. I didn’t recognize it, but I kept reading it over and over, as if it would start to take on meaning. A bad, sickening feeling began to form in the pit of my stomach.

My voice was quiet, purposefully calm. “What is this?”

“That’s the address where you can find your brother.”

The paper trembled slightly. It took on new creases as my fingers tightened. I stared unblin
kingly at it, the careless pen marks blurring together. Rade had written this. He’d said I’d earned it. He had
known
. All along he had known.

“You,” I hissed under my breath. I pressed my teeth together so hard they ached. Slowly I raised my eyes, wide with rage, to his long white face. “You kept this from me.”

“It was the only way I could show you the things I wanted you to see,” he explained hollowly.

“I didn’t have to see them,” I said, growing increasingly agitated. “I didn’t have to
see
! You shouldn’t have shown me!”

“I wouldn’t have let you get hurt.”

You’ve already hurt me. Ten years ago you did. And last night I was nearly killed because of you.

The words flew through my mind but I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t articulate the level of my anger. Something was building inside me, something screeching and dark and wild. Les tigh
tened his hand on my shoulder but I quickly brushed it off and lunged at Rade. As with Les, he didn’t resist the violence I unleashed upon him. He didn’t move as I threw my fists at his nose, his mouth, his chest. My nails tore two thin scratches into his white cheeks. I knew I was going to kill him, just as he’d asked. I would do it with my aching bare hands, my cracking fingers. And I wouldn’t feel the least bit sorry.

It was only a moment before Les pulled me back and I surrendered to his firm but gentle grasp around my upper arms. I breathed heavily, glaring at Rade, flexing my battered hands against my thighs.

“I don’t blame you,” he said evenly, as if I’d never touched him.

“Fuck off.”

He bent his head, accepting my anger but not, I thought, caring much about why I felt it. He backed away from us and after a few steps turned and headed for his car, lean as a snake.

“
Don’t come back!
” I shrieked.

My only acknowledgement was the dim sound of his engine roaring to life. He executed a tight turn and drove off without even switching on his lights.

“Asha? What just happened?” Cris asked, hesitantly coming toward us.

It was too much effort to answer her, so I didn’t. Les dropped his hands and I turned to him, speechless. I held the paper aloft between us, somehow having managed not to lose it. An uni
ntelligible noise escaped my lips.

He took the paper and glanced at the address. His eyes returned to me, colorless in the sha
dowy lights lining the street. “You’re not going to sneak off into the night, are you?”

I tilted my head slightly to one side. “I don’t know?”

Half a wry smile crossed his lips. “You won’t have to. We can check this out together.” I breathed a sigh of relief as he added, “But first I want to go inside the house and try to find out what kind of place this is so we don’t just rush in blindly. While I do that, you calm down so you can go into this with a cool head.”

His words were sensible. “Yes. I’ll make us something to eat. I’m starving.”

Criseyde put her arm around me and we walked up to the house together. Aleskie followed wordlessly behind us. I looked over my shoulder at the vampire girl and smiled weakly. Because they were both vampires, I worried she would take my attack on Rade personally, but she reached up and gave my fingers a quick squeeze. It felt nice to have a new friend alongside an old one.

And Les. He sat down on the couch, one foot up on the coffee table, and started looking up the address on his phone. I paused at the entrance to the kitchen and looked at him. He felt my gaze and glanced up, smiling faintly. We locked eyes and stared without moving, without spea
king, but feeling and meaning jumped between us. Heat spread. I wished none of this had ever happened. No. I wished I could just go to him and let his arms make me forget everything, just for a little while . . .

Fingers snapped near my ear. “Food?” Criseyde said. “Remember? I’ll help.”

We made four sandwiches, a simple and mindless task that kept my hands from shaking. Two for Les, one each for me and Cris. We ate them in the living room and discussed our plan.

“I didn’t realize it,” Les said after devouring one of his sandwiches, “but that’s the address to the Market.”

“The Market?” I repeated. “That place where they do . . . research?”

He nodded. “It was deserted the last time I went. He might have been there already. Ash, do you feel comfortable taking a gun and using it? You can still have Ivory’s. I’ve got one of my own.”