Darkness Before Dawn (21 page)

Tegan, as if reading my thoughts, pulls her stake from her backpack and grips it tightly. I realize I’m holding mine as well. I don’t even remember taking it from my boot.

“That guy’s creepy,” Tegan says. “I couldn’t see him clearly, but he was giving off weird vibes.”

“I wish Sin hadn’t gone after him.”

“He’ll be fine. He’s really tough. I can’t tell you how safe I feel with him.”

“So you really like him, huh?”

She shrugs. “Yeah, I do. It’s a little strange just being with one guy, but since I met him, I’m not looking for anyone else. What about you?”

“What about me what?”

“What’s going on with you and Michael? Seriously. When I met up with Sin and asked Michael if he was coming, his expression was so cold when I mentioned you that it was giving
me
chills.”

“He thinks I don’t have faith in him. And I was annoyed at him for dragging me out beyond the wall. But maybe it’s more than that.” I give her an earnest look. “You have to promise not to tell anyone.”

“Cross my heart. Now spill.”

“I’ve sorta been spending some time with Victor.”

“The Night Watchman? Whoa! That’s kinda major. So, Michael found out?”

“No, I just… I’m confused. I think I’m starting to like Victor.”

“What’s not to like?”

Why did I start this conversation? I can’t tell her everything.

“I don’t know. Victor and I … we’re not right for each other”—vamp and human—when has that ever worked out?—“but he just always seems to be there when I need someone. And Michael often … isn’t. But I know Michael’s better for me.” Human, human. No species conflict. No lifestyle conflict. No diet conflict.

“Victor is sexy, so I can’t blame you for having an interest in him. But then, so is Michael. Tough call. On the other hand, in some ways, Victor reminds me of Sin. They both project this don’t-mess-with-me attitude, which is an additional hotness factor.”

“Michael does, too,” I say, feeling a need to defend him.

“Yeah, but it’s not as … intense. Sin is just… God, okay, I admit it. I’m nuts about him. And it’s not just because he’s gorgeous and rich and tough. He listens to me. He makes my heart speed up just by looking at me. And he’s an amazing kisser. Complete package.”

And the package is walking back toward us, brushing his hair out of his eyes, only to have it fall back into place.

“The dude was fast. I couldn’t catch up with him.”

“Were you able to get a good look at him?” I ask.

“No. Sorry. But now I know to keep an eye out for him.”

“Thanks.”

“Not a problem.” He slips his arm around Tegan and she melts against his side. “Let’s head to the Daylight Grill.”

“I’m not in the mood to be a third wheel,” I tell them. “I’m going home.”

“We’ll go with you that far,” Tegan says.

As we start to walk away, I glance over my shoulder. Hoodie’s long gone, but I have to wonder why he was following me at all.

Chapter 21

I
didn’t hear from Michael all weekend. As I’m rushing down the hallway at school Monday morning, I’m anxious to see him, to make things right between us, to regain some balance in my life.

I come to a staggering stop at the sight of Michael with his forearm pressed to his locker door. He’s smiling down at Lila, who is backed up against his locker. Her hand is flattened against his chest as if she needs to count his heartbeats. She’s got this insipid grin on her face like he just hung the moon for her. Or handed her a pair of vamp fangs.

“What the hell?” Tegan says as she comes up beside me and nudges my shoulder, like I’m not already seeing what she’s seeing.

“Were you at Daylight this weekend? Did you see them together there?” My throat is suddenly so dry that I can barely get the words out.

“I was. And I didn’t. You need to get over there and shove her butt down three lockers to her own, where it belongs.”

“Yeah.” I should. But instead I’m rooted to the spot.

Lila releases an irritating giggle, pats Michael’s chest, and walks away. Still wearing a broad grin, he watches her retreating back. Passing me, she gives me a satisfied smirk that sets my blood to boiling. Then Michael notices me. His smile disappears. He turns to his locker and opens the door.

“Uh-oh,” Tegan says.

“I’ll see you in class,” I say, before wending my way around the students in the hallway until I arrive at Michael’s side. “What was that about?”

“What?” His voice echoes from inside his locker. Apparently he’s suddenly fascinated by the arrangement of his books.

“You know what. You and Lila.”

He slams his locker closed with such force that I jump. He meets and holds my gaze, his unforgiving. “We were just talking. She and I have a lot in common.”

“Like what?”

“Wall-walking, for starters. She’s never done it at night, but she thinks it would be cool to go with me.”

My heart drops to the floor. “Michael, don’t do this. You don’t have to prove anything.”

“I know that.”

I’m not sure he does. But I want to change the subject. I want everything to go back to the way it was.

“Michael.” I press my hand to his chest, realizing too late that I’ve placed it in the same spot where Lila was resting hers earlier. “I have absolutely no Agency business to take care of tonight. And Rachel is working late. I thought maybe you and I could have an intimate picnic on the balcony, maybe even sneak a bottle of wine out of Rachel’s cabinet, the one she doesn’t think I know about.”

“I can’t. I have something else to do.”

His words are like a slap in my face.

“I gotta get to class,” he adds.

He’s walking away from me before I can protest, and I refuse to chase after him. Suddenly Tegan is at my side.

“If body language is any indication,” she muses, “I’d say that didn’t go well.”

“You have a gift for understatement.”

When school is finally over, I go outside to discover the clouds have grown dark and heavy with rain. They reflect my mood. Michael totally ignored me in kick-ass class. He sat with Lila at lunch. She was so smug about it that it set my teeth on edge.

I stare at the gathering storm clouds and feel like they’re inhabiting me. I’ve had this feeling before. I know what I have to do.

At home, I quickly gather my things and put them in my backpack.

I look out the window one more time. The clouds have thickened, blocking out the sun. Vampires could come out now if they wanted. The cloud cover offers enough protection from the harmful rays of the sun. But I’ll take the chance. Lightning flashes across the sky, stuck in the clouds, turning them from deep grays to light blues for just a moment. Ten seconds later, thunder echoes. My dad told me once that if I counted the time between the lightning and thunder, I’d be able to figure out if the storm was close. This one is. It’s just what I need. What I want.

By the time I get outside, the rain has started. I pull the hood on my raincoat over my head as I move through the streets. With my eyes on the ground, I watch the puddles grow around my shoes, every step making a bigger splash than the one before it as the rain picks up. I’m enjoying the pitter-patter of water droplets against the plastic hood; it echoes until it drowns out the world and it’s just me and the sidewalk.

It’s a long walk, past the areas of Denver that have been rebuilt. When I get to my destination, I take a moment to just look at it. The building used to be called Greene Tower, then Tower Eight, then Abandoned Building Thirty-six, before ending up as Demolition Site B. A massive fire ripped through the building several years ago. It was so fierce that, in spite of the efforts of the fire department, what remained after the flames were doused wasn’t livable. So it was simply abandoned, like so much of the city. Abandoned, like I’m feeling today.

It’s thirty stories high. My parents and I lived halfway up. Before they were hired by the Agency, they were professors at the local college, and this was all they could afford. It used to be somewhat nice, but now it’s an empty shell with pieces of walls and windows missing, entire floors collapsed, stairs with so many crumbling steps they’re unusable. No lights. No water. Just shadows and memories.

I step inside and the rain stops beating against me. Some transients might be left, trying to live in the few rooms that haven’t been infested with rats and roaches, but I’ve never seen anyone inside, not since it was condemned. Even though the storm has intensified, enough light comes through the clouds to illuminate the building through holes and cracks and windows. It’s gray and weak, but it’s enough. I know where I’m going.

I cautiously make my way deep into the building before coming to the right set of stairs. My goal is the eighteenth floor, but I’ll have to navigate a maze of steps and hallways to get there. It used to be as simple as entering the stairwell and going up. But not anymore. Too much rot and decay. I have to zigzag between flights of stairs to get there, and even then, if I don’t watch my step, I’ll fall down a new hole that wasn’t there last time.

When was the last time? Two months ago, I think. At this rate, I’ll never finish.

No artwork remains in the building, so the place looks like nothing more than a series of walls and beams thrown up to create an intricate, towering box. I often got lost in them as a kid, running around and banging on strangers’ doors until they pointed me in the right direction.

When I was seven years old we had a neighbor named Mickey. He was my first real crush. Just an innocent kind of thing. I wanted to, I don’t know, kiss him on the cheek and then run away, or give him a giant bouquet of flowers, because I thought maybe boys liked dandelions. I knocked on his door one day so I could invite him to my birthday party. I’d already arranged the seating chart so he’d be right next to me. I was so proud of my cunning ways. But when the door opened it was a different family. My parents said Mickey had “gone to a new school” and his parents had to move. A few months ago I looked through the Agency files on Mickey, hit with a sudden curiosity. He was killed in his sleep by vampires. His entire family was drained.

It’s difficult to believe that I was ever that innocent—or young. Sometimes I feel as though I’ve been acting like an adult forever. I don’t know why my parents didn’t move. The war was in its last days. Maybe they thought things would get better when the peace negotiations were finalized. Maybe they truly believed that VampHu would keep vampires on the other side of the wall. I hate knowing that my brother, after surviving the war, returned to us here and was the one to dispel that myth.

After the last flight of stairs, I finally arrive at the eighteenth floor. I walk down the hall, bits of light coming in through the doorways, since most of the doors have been stripped off their hinges. I step around one of the holes in the floor and almost trip on a bit of torn-up carpet. Rats must’ve chewed through it, because I don’t remember that from last time.

When I get to my old apartment, the place where we lived until Brady died, it’s the brightest one on the floor. But that’s only because the entire outside wall is missing. I’m ten steps from plummeting to the ground. We weren’t the last tenants, of course. There was always someone more desperate ready to fill an apartment back then, even one vampires had attacked. So the sparse furniture crumbling in the corner isn’t ours; nor is the small crib in the next room.

I sit cross-legged near the ledge. It provides a good panoramic view of the city. I couldn’t really appreciate it as a kid. It doesn’t face the Works or the downtown district. No huge buildings are in the way. Just the streets below and the row houses and the wall and the mountains beyond that. The wind lashes, and raindrops splash on the already soaked hardwood floor. It was carpeted once, I think. Hard to remember now. Details like that fade.

I unzip my backpack and pull out a photo of my parents and me. Back when we were happy, or as happy as humans were allowed to be. Just the three of us smiling in front of the water fountain in the North District, a fountain that stopped working long ago. My father’s holding the camera at arm’s length to capture all of us.

I’m thirteen in the photo, my hair pulled back in a French braid I thought was so mature. We’d moved into the apartment that I now share with Rachel, courtesy of Dad’s new prestige within the Agency. He was initially hired as a consultant on vampire affairs. The Agency provides housing for all its employees. Mom looks happy; maybe she finally found the security she always longed for. The thought of making a better future for their only surviving child must’ve been powerful. It must’ve brought smiles to their faces every night as they tucked me into bed.

And then they died. Together. On the road to Valentine Manor. Because Mom couldn’t stand the thought of Dad facing Valentine alone. Like I now have to.

I put down the photo and pull out a box of matches from my jeans pocket. I light the corner of the Polaroid. It curls inward, carrying the yellow flame with it. The fire erases my dad’s face, turning it black and charred, then consumes my family until we are just ash.

I come here to let everything out. This way it doesn’t affect my work; it doesn’t affect my studies. I purge all my emotions here, in this abandoned building. I don’t know if it’s big enough to house all my anger and sorrow. Maybe that’s the reason it’s falling apart. The weight of my emptying heart tears it down piece by piece.

This is why I don’t talk about my parents to other people. I don’t want to be reminded of the pain. This is where I do my remembering. I burn photos of them, slowly, one at a time. Maybe one day they’ll all be gone, and so will the despair I feel. And the nightmares.

I cry a little less every time. It’s just a trickle now, so little I can’t tell the difference between the tears and the rain already on my cheeks. I’m afraid my relationship with Michael is like this building, deteriorating until it’s beyond repair. I don’t know how to make anything last. How to hold on to Michael. Or if I even should.

The photo’s almost finished burning. I wish my emotions drained that fast. The wind carries the ash outside, where the rain beats it down to the ground.