Awakening (Covenant College #1) (30 page)

“Did you know he was a vampire?”

“Not then,” I admitted.

“When did you find out?”

“After Blake took me to his monster academy.”

“And that was after the incident at the frat house?”

“Well, actually . . .” I broke off.

“Well, actually what?”

“I’ve been there a couple times,” I said. “The first time was before the incident at the frat house.”

“What did he want from you?”

“To join the cause,” I said simply.

“That makes sense,” Tara said. “They’ve always wanted you because of where you come from.”

“Everyone keeps saying that, and yet I had no idea any of that was supposedly going on,” I said. “I didn’t know about wolves.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Well, it’s true.”

Tara looked at me dubiously.

“It’s true. I had no idea. Even when Blake told me about it I still had trouble believing it.”

Tara shook her head. “I don’t know why you would be kept in the dark – and we don’t have time to figure that out.”

“What do you mean?”

“Zoe, I can’t protect you from the pack,” she said. “I’m not in charge. I have no pull. They’re already irritated with me about faking my death.”

“How did you do that, by the way?” Paris asked.

“It wasn’t easy.”

“You want to expand on that?”

“Not right now. It’s too long of a story.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“Move,” she said simply.
“Again.”

“Where are you going to move?”

“Some place where I can be safe.”

“Where is that?”

“I don’t know. I just want to go to school and be a normal person. I don’t want to be in all this pack crap. I don’t want to be threatened by vampires. I just want to be a person.”

“Why are the vampires after you?”

“I don’t even know if they know anymore,” Tara admitted.
“For as long as I’ve been alive I’ve just been told to hide from vampires because they want to wipe us all out.”

“But why?”

“I honestly don’t know,” she said. “It’s a grudge match, if you ask me. Both their kind and our kind want to be the reigning kings of the hill. It’s ridiculous.”

“Why don’t you, I don’t know, have designated wolf areas and designated vampire areas? I mean, that wouldn’t solve the Blake problem, but that would solve the other problem.”

“That’s the way I was for years,” Tara explained. “The thing is, without someone to fight, wolves get bored.”

“And vampires?”

“I don’t know them well enough to speak for them.”

We all froze when we heard a door open at the back of the house. Tara looked terrified. She pushed us towards the front door. “Go. I’ll find you when I can to say goodbye.”

The look on her face was enough to convince me, so Paris and I disappeared through the front door. We looked around furtively and crossed the street. No one had seen us. When we made it to the end of the block I pulled Paris into the bushes and forced her to crouch down alongside me.

“What are we doing?”

“Waiting.”

“Why?”

“I want to see what happens.”

We waited and waited and waited – for what seemed like hours. In reality, it was probably only 15 minutes. That’s when the door Paris and I had escaped through opened again.

This time it was Tara that stepped out. She looked around. Not seeing anyone, she anxiously started down the sidewalk. Paris looked like she was going to stand and go after Tara but I grabbed her and pulled her back down. I put my finger to my lips to warn her to be silent. She looked perplexed, but did as I told her to.

When Tara reached the corner she turned it quickly, heading away from us. I waited about two minutes and then stood up and started to cross the street after her.

“Where are we going?” Paris whispered.

“We’re following her.”

“Why?”

“Because her story doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know it doesn’t. She didn’t have time to explain.”

“No, she didn’t want to explain. She didn’t want us to find her.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Just call it intuition.”

Paris looked doubtful but followed me.

“Where do you think she’s going?”

“Someplace we can get answers.”

“Where’s that?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

Thirty-Six

Paris and I trailed a full two blocks behind Tara. We knew we ran the risk of losing her in the dark – but neither of us was stealthy enough to pull any closer. Luckily, we didn’t have that far to travel.

Tara wasn’t embarking on some long trek. In fact, she merely made a wide loop around the property. I realized, when she skirted into a darkened
building, that
the house she had entered backed up to the back of the Alpha Chi property.

Paris and I both huddled underneath a tree across the road from the house. We weren’t sure how to proceed.

“What do you think?” Paris asked.

“I think that this all feels like a weird set-up,” I admitted.

“What makes you say that? The fact that we just ran into our dead roommate and that she suspiciously walked out of a frat house that is filled with wolves, but she only went around the block and entered a dark house that is probably filled with certain doom?”

“Sarcasm isn’t going to help us at this point,” I chastised.

“Who was being sarcastic?”

I bit my lower lip as I looked at the house. I wasn’t sure what to do. I knew entering the house was a stupid idea – but I couldn’t exactly walk away either.

“Why don’t we sneak around and see if we can see in through a window?” Paris offered.

“That’s a good idea.”

“No it’s not – but I know you won’t leave and I don’t want to try and sneak into the house.”

We quietly made our way towards the house, slipping inside the hedge on the left side of the structure before we got to the front porch. I was hopeful no one in the house was staring out the window. If they were, everything we were about to do was a waste of time.

The first window was dark – and dirty. I wrapped the lip of my hoodie over my wrist and tried to clear a small area so we could see into the house. As far as I could tell, there was nothing in the room. It was so dark, though, I couldn’t be certain.

We shuffled down to the next window – but we didn’t have any luck there either.

“Let’s go to the back of the house,” Paris whispered.

I nodded and we moved further down the side of the house. In my attempt to be quiet I should have paid more attention, because my shoe snagged on the root of the hedge as I tried to move into the backyard and I sprawled out into the open. Probably not my best move, especially since there were about thirty wolves watching me as I brushed the knees of my jeans off and looked up. Paris rushed out to help me and froze when she saw all the eyes focused on us.

Tara was standing in the middle of the wolves. She didn’t look surprised to see us. In fact, she looked satisfied.

“I knew you couldn’t just go home,” she said smugly.

“We wanted to make sure you were alright,” Paris whispered.

“I didn’t,” I offered. “I just wanted to see what you were up to.”

Tara smirked. “I bet you wish you had just let it go?”

“Not particularly,” I lied.

“Don’t worry,” she soothed. “You will.”

Tara motioned to the wolves and they surrounded Paris and me. There really was no sense of running off. We’d never make it.

I put up a minimal struggle when a couple of sets of rough hands grabbed my arms. “Let go of me, dog breath,” I seethed.

Tara pointed to a picnic table on the far side of the property. “Go sit there and shut up,” she ordered.

“I will go over there and sit – but only because my knee hurts,” I sniffed.

Paris kicked my shin. “Stop antagonizing them.”

“Why? They’re going to kill us anyway.”

“She’s not wrong,” Tara
said,
her eyes hardening.

“Why not just do it now?” Paris asked Tara. I think she was still appealing to Tara’s sense of humanity. I was fairly certain that -- if Tara ever had any humanity – it was long gone.

“It’s not your turn yet,” Tara supplied.

“Whose turn is it?” Paris asked, her voice sounded like a squeak more than anything else. Tara ignored her.

“Your name is Lola isn’t it?” I don’t know why I said it. If there was even a chance of us getting out of here, I had just blown it. I never did know when to keep my mouth shut.

Tara froze in surprise. “Who told you that?”

“I went to
Zilwaukee
.”
Might as well let it all out.

“Why would you do that?” I could tell Tara was angry. She was just barely controlling her rage.

“We couldn’t figure out why no one came to pick up your stuff,” I said honestly. “We wanted to send our condolences to your parents. Then we realized that you never mentioned your parents.”

“So you went to
Zilwaukee
?”

“Not right away.
We
Googled
you first.”

“You
Googled
me?”

“And when we came up with nothing we thought that was weird – so I went to
Zilwaukee
.” I decided not to mention
Aric
. I didn’t think it mattered at this point, but if there was a way to protect him I had to try.

“No one knows me as Tara in
Zilwaukee
,” Tara said grimly.

“No, but someone recognized your picture. She said your name was Lola, though.”

“What picture?”

“The ones on my phone that I took at that first party.”

“I didn’t see you taking any pictures.”

“I wasn’t hiding it.”

Tara frowned. “Who recognized me?”

Uh, oh.
“A waitress at a diner.”
Not a lie.

Tara seemed to think about it for a second and then her jaw set in a grim line. “It was Fern, wasn’t it?”

“Who’s Fern?”

“She never could mind her own business.”

“Well, to be fair, I took the picture to her. She didn’t seek me out.”

“That’s true,” Tara said eyeing me. “This really is
all your
fault.”

“Have you been talking to my mom?”

Tara smiled despite herself. “It’s too bad. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to kill you. You’ve put me in a very untenable position.”

“Forget that for a second, how do you still look like you’re 22?”

Tara regarded with a hint of mirth. She must have decided that it didn’t really matter what she told me since she was going to kill me anyways. “It’s
a glamour
.”

“What’s
a glamour
?”

“It’s a spell,” Paris had finally found her voice.

“You’re a witch?” I was surprised. “I thought you were a wolf?”

“I’m both.”

I turned incredulously to Paris. “You didn’t tell me that was even possible.”

“Why wouldn’t it be possible?”

“I don’t know – it’s like double-dipping.”

“She’s not a potato chip,” Paris grumbled.

Tara watched us argue with bemusement. “I can’t believe you’re my arch nemesis,” she sighed.

“Your arch nemesis?
You need to stop watching soap operas – or reading comic books – or whatever it is that you’re doing.”

Tara’s previous amusement fled her face. “Do you really think making fun of me is the best way to go here?”

“Well, you’re going to kills us anyway and I’m not big on groveling, so I don’t see the point of that.
Even now.”

“The warrior to the end,” Tara smirked.

“I’m not a warrior,” I argued. “I’m just a person.”

“You really have no idea what you are, do you?” Tara seemed to want an honest answer.

“You’re like the fifth person to say that to me in the last few weeks,” I admitted. “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

Tara met my gaze solidly. “That’s too bad.”

“You could tell me.”

“Even I don’t know all that you are,” she admitted. “And I don’t think it’s my place to tell you.”

“Well, since I’m going to die and you’re the only one that knows,” I tried again.

“I don’t have enough time,” she said. “I might actually tell you if I had time.”

“Why? What’s going to happen now?”