Drake Chronicles: 03 Out for Blood (19 page)

•

Sunday night

“Are you tel ing me Chloe actual y punched you?” Jenna stared at me. She whistled through her teeth. “Dude. That is messed up.”

“I know,” I agreed grimly. We were walking across the quad toward the infirmary. I hadn’t seen Chloe al day, not since our fight. Definitely for the best. I shoved my hands in my pockets. “I’m tired of getting punched in the face.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t punch her back. You are a better woman than I am.” She shook her head.

“Remind me of that when my jaw goes purple to match the rest of my bruises.” At least it was only a dul ache; she hadn’t cracked a tooth or bruised the bone. I’d have been mad at myself if she’d managed to get the best of me, even hungover and doped up on those weird vitamins.

“You two weren’t the only ones fighting,” Jenna told me.

“What? Who else?”

“Two eleventh graders went at it over the last box of cereal in the common room.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, one of them needed two stitches. And someone got carted off to the infirmary. Some kind of flu.”

I hunched my shoulders. “Jenna, we have to figure this out. It doesn’t add up.”

“We wil .”

I wished I had her confidence. I felt as if we were going backward; everything was making less sense, not more. And it was starting to piss me off.

The safety lights blazed along the path and we could hear someone beating on the punching bags from the open window of the upstairs gym. Music poured out of the dorm behind us. It was familiar, homey.

Worth protecting.

We went straight to the infirmary, blinking at the bright fluorescent lights. The minute he saw us, Theo jumped up from his chair and blocked us.

“No way, girls.”

We both scowled.

“Theo, come on,” Jenna final y wheedled when he didn’t move. “Be a pal.”

“Not a toe past quarantine, kid.”

“Kid? You’re what, twenty-five?”

“Yeah, old enough to know better.”

“We just want to see Spencer,” I said.

“I know what you want. Forget it.” His expression softened. “Look, I know it’s hard.

But he’s in quarantine for a reason. You won’t help him by getting locked up in quarantine yourselves, or getting demerits or expel ed. You know the headmistress doesn’t mess around with this stuff.” He raised an eyebrow. “And you could get me fired as wel .”

“Guilt trip,” Jenna muttered.

“Damn straight.”

I knew we wouldn’t change his mind, but al the same, I had to try.

“Theo, he shouldn’t be alone. He’s our friend,” I said.

“He’s not alone,” Theo said just as Spencer’s mother came out from behind the curtain blocking the quarantine rooms. Her eyes were red, her cheeks so pale under her tan that they looked paper-thin. The rest of her was the same, from her sun-bleached blond hair to her sandals and silver toe rings. Spencer got his love of surfing and the ocean from his mom and his supernatural obsessions from his dad.

She saw me and her lips wobbled. I stared, horrified. If she cried, I didn’t know what I’d do. Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I do public displays of emotion. Luckily she clenched her jaw and tried to smile.

“Oh, Hunter, come here, sweetie.” She hugged me hard. She smel ed like salt and coconut oil. It was comforting.

“How is he?” I asked when she let go and squeezed Jenna’s hand.

“He’s strong,” she said, her voice breaking. It wasn’t real y an answer. I shifted from one foot to the other. I felt guilty and I didn’t know why. The clock on the wal ticked too loudly. “I have to get back to him.”

She wasn’t al owed in quarantine either, only on this side of the window. Once a day she was al owed in a ful medical suit to go inside and hold his hand and talk to him. We’d studied the procedure in class last year.

The reality was so much worse.

“I miss him already,” I said miserably as Jenna and I shuffled back outside. It was Sunday night; everyone was in a frenzy of last-minute unpacking and organizing and pretending school didn’t start tomorrow.

“Me too,” Jenna said. She kicked at a garbage can. “I wish there was more we could do.”

And then it hit me.

“There is.”

She turned to eye me. “What? What are you talking about?” I stopped, nodding slowly. “I bugged the eleventh-grade common room after Wil was bitten,” I said. “I forgot.”

“You forgot you bugged a room?” Jenna goggled. “Dude, you’re fierce. And I total y love you right now.”

“We might not find anything,” I quickly added.

“But at least we’l be doing something. No wonder Dailey tapped you for her Guild.”

“Didn’t she ask you?”

Jenna shrugged. “No.”

“She total y wil ,” I said, utterly convinced. “No one handles a crossbow like you do.”

“Thanks.” She tugged on my hand, dragging me after her as if we were heading for a giant mountain of Ed Westwick–shaped chocolate. “Now let’s go! I want to listen to those recordings of yours.”

“Slow down.” I tugged back. “If we go in there like a stampeding herd, people wil notice. We’re going for subtle right now.” I scowled. “And everyone’s staring at me as it is.”

“I know,” Jenna said, slowing her pace and relaxing her shoulders, as if we were just hanging out, strol ing back to our rooms. “Everyone’s heard about Wil by now.” I nodded, my throat clenching. The dorm was buzzing with activity as students tried to put off going to bed. Morning meant school had official y started. We climbed the stairs and hung around the eleventh-grade common room but it was packed. If we stayed any longer people would start to wonder. There was no way to get in and get the microphones without giving ourselves away.

“Damn it,” Jenna muttered. “It’s like eleven o’clock. Don’t they sleep?”

“Apparently not.” We turned away, going back down to our own floor. “I’l sneak up tonight after everyone’s in bed,” I assured her.

She looked deflated. “Okay.”

We couldn’t stop from pausing outside of Spencer’s room. The door was open a crack and we could see his roommate’s desk, piled with books and hand-whittled stakes. There was already clothes on the floor and an Angelina Jolie poster on the wal .

But Spencer’s side of the room was bare.

His surfing posters were gone, along with the old surfboard he usual y hung over the bed. I kicked the door open, Jenna crowding in behind me.

“What the hel ?” His roommate, John, jerked back. When he recognized us, his face went red. “Oh. Sorry.”

“Where’s Spencer’s stuff?” I demanded. His bookcase was cleared of his supernatural encyclopedias and boxes of charms and spel bags. Even his jar of sea salt was gone, which he always kept on his nightstand because every protective spel he researched cal ed for it. I marched over to his dresser and yanked it open. Empty. Not even a single turquoise bead to prove Spencer had ever been here. Fury and something darker, more debilitating gnawed at me, fraying my temper. “John, where’s his stuff?” I barely recognized my own voice.

John stood up, pity making him shuffle awkwardly. “They packed it up today. Didn’t they tel you?”

“No. They did not.”

“Who packed it?” Jenna snapped. She was vibrating with anger as wel . Between the two of us we could have powered a nuclear reactor. John wisely took a step backward.

“A couple of the guards.” He held up his hands beseechingly. “Look, I don’t know.”

“Wel , they can damn wel unpack it,” I seethed. “Because he’s going to be fine.”

“Yeah? I mean, yeah, of course,” he hastened to add. “Of course, he is.” I had to turn away from the bare mattress. It was making my eyes burn. It should have been heaped with Spencer’s Mexican blankets.

“Don’t let anyone move in here,” I told John, whirling to glare at him. He swal owed, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“I don’t real y—” He swal owed again when Jenna added her glare to mine. “Of course. I won’t.”

Out in the hal , Jenna and I exchanged bleak glances. I knew she was remembering Wil ’s room, stripped of his belongings long before I’d had to stake him. I shivered. Jenna looked like she wanted to throw up.

“We’re going to fix this,” I told her grimly. She nodded just as grimly.

“Damn right we are.”

•

I waited until I was sure everyone was asleep. I paused in my doorway to listen, and again at the bottom of the stairs, and once more on the landing outside the eleventh-grade common room. I didn’t hear anything and saw no one except Chloe asleep on the couch in our common room, her laptop half open on the floor next to her. I didn’t wake her up to go with me. I honestly didn’t know if I could trust her.

She’d feel the same way about me if she knew I’d gone through her stuff. I wasn’t sure how we’d gotten here. It was a long way from counting the days until we could be roommates to punching each other.

But I couldn’t worry about that right now.

Spencer was my only concern. He didn’t have much time and we didn’t have much information. I hadn’t been lying to Jenna when I told her there was no guarantee my microphones had recorded anything worth listening to. But I could hope.

I could hope real y hard.

The common room was final y deserted, the smel of barbecue potato chips lingering in the air. I crept forward, stepping as softly as I could. I retrieved the microphone from under the couch first, taking care not to stick my finger in the wads of old gum. Next, I plucked the one from the dresser. The one inside the coat rack was going to be decidedly trickier.

I stood in front of it, frowning as I ran through my options. I could tip it over and shake the microphone loose, but those old coat racks weighed a ton. There was a good chance the bottom would slide out and hit the floor. I didn’t have a magnet to lure it up the pole either. If Chloe and I were stil talking to each other, she probably could have rigged up something. She was good at that sort of thing. I unscrewed the top and stood on my tiptoes to look down the length of it. Darkness and dust. I took the smal penlight from my pocket and switched it on, keeping the light angled down the pole. If it flashed into a window, one of the guards outside might see it and come to investigate. It didn’t do me much good anyway. It only served to glint off the microphone pen casing and prove that it was far out of my reach.

I shook it once, rattling it. I’d have to abandon it until I had a better plan and hope the other ones had recorded something useful. I hated to do it. It gal ed my stubborn streak.

But I had bigger problems.

Such as the cool pale hand that suddenly clamped over my mouth, jerking my body backward against a hard chest.

Chapter 20

•

Hunter

I jabbed my elbow back as quick as I could but he was already dancing away. My heel caught his instep hard enough for him to make a sound. And then he tugged and whirled me around, backing me into the wal . His hand was stil over my mouth. I hooked my foot around his ankle and shoved. He staggered back and went down, slipping on the area rug. He took me with him, yanking so that I landed on top of him. He sprawled with uncanny silence, not even rattling the furniture when he landed. Blue eyes laughed at me.

“Quinn,” I snapped, final y recognizing him. I whacked him. Hard. “What the hel are you doing? I could have staked you, you idiot.” He grinned. “I’m quicker than you are.”

“Shut up, you are not.” Okay, so he was. But only because he had supernatural abilities. If he’d been a normal human guy, I could have taken him. I could stil take him. I just needed a few more weapons to do it.

“I didn’t think you lived on this floor.”

“How do you know where my room is?” I asked. “And what are you even doing here? You do realize this is a school for vampire hunters, right? Why do I have to keep reminding you of that?”

He smirked. “I have a pass.” He was tel ing the truth. I hadn’t noticed it yet but there was a discreet metal button, like the ones you get at museums, pinned to the col ar of his T-shirt. The shirt was almost the exact blue of his eyes. The pin was contraband. It al owed the bearer to be on campus without a mess of security coming down on his or her head. It almost certainly had never been worn by a vampire before.

“Where did you get that?” I demanded.

“Off Kieran.”

“Kieran gave you a campus free-access pass?” I repeated dubiously.

“Not so much ‘gave’ as left his knapsack out while he was kissing my sister.”

“So you stole it.”

“Did I mention he was kissing my
baby
sister?” Al the talk about kissing was making it hard not to look at his mouth. Or to pretend I didn’t know exactly how his lips felt on mine.

He frowned suddenly, his fingers on my chin, his expression going hard as steel.

“What happened to your face this time?”

I wrinkled my nose. Great. I’d forgotten I was bruised and probably looked like a mottled grape. “Chloe punched me. Wel , she tried to.”

“
Chloe
punched you?”

“Yes,” I grumbled.

“Wel , I can’t punch her back.” He sounded disgruntled. “She’s a girl.” I blinked. “I didn’t ask you to.”

“That’s what guys do,” he muttered. “When someone hurts a girl. Especial y you.” I wasn’t sure what he meant by that but I felt kind of warm and jittery inside, like I’d had too much hot chocolate.

And then I realized I was stil lying on top of him.

We were pressed together, close enough that my breath ruffled his long hair. He had the kind of beauty that almost burns, as if he belonged in a Pre-Raphaelite painting of a poet or a mythic doomed lover. He was that gorgeous.

He raised his eyebrow, the trademark smirk getting more pronounced.

And he was a vampire. Which meant he could hear the sound of my heartbeat accelerating while I stared at him and thought about how pretty he was.

Crap.

Total y unfair advantage.

I pushed up on my palms to launch myself off him before I embarrassed myself completely and irrevocably.

“Hey.” He watched me back away as if he was dangerous. He looked entirely too pleased with himself. “Where are you going?”

“To bed.” Double crap. What if he thought that was an invitation? Was it an invitation? And when, exactly, had I lost my mind? “Uh, I meant to my room. Where my bed is. And—shit.” I forced myself to stop babbling.