Fangs for Freaks (16 page)

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Authors: Serena Robar

Tags: #Vampires, #Fiction, #Horror, #Best friends, #Horror & Ghost Stories, #Juvenile Fiction, #Social Issues, #School & Education, #Friendship, #Fantasy & Magic, #Horror stories, #Universities and colleges

BOOK: Fangs for Freaks
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His place was tidy and masculine. A couple of glasses sat in the draining board by the sink. His bed was semimade and visible from the living room. He turned on the lights, set to dim, then pulled me into his embrace. He was more controlled now, gentler and very tender. I kind of wanted the other Thomas back, the passionate one who wanted me right there on the golf course, but I knew he was hiding beneath the surface, ready to be unleashed after making sure I was ready.
“Are you sure you’re ready?” he whispered, looking deep into my eyes for the least sign of resistance. I wanted to scream, “Yes! Finally!” into his face but thought it might spoil the mood. Instead I nodded demurely and let me tell you, I don’t do demure for just anything.
He led me to his bedroom and kissed me again. My mind flashed to our motel room argument and I knew I couldn’t go any further without telling him I was sorry. “Thomas,” I said, as he pulled my shirt off over my head, “I’m sorry about California. I should have respected you more.”
He kissed one exposed shoulder and then the next. “I understand, Colby, you were excited and wanted to save the day.”
Uh, hello? Are we talking about the same thing here?
I pushed him away gently. “No, I mean about being intimate in the hotel room. I shouldn’t have blurted out my non-virgin status to try to goad you into putting out. I think it’s sweet that you wanted to wait until you were really ready.”
Pausing his tender caresses, he said woodenly, “So, you’re sorry about the sex fight but not about skipping out to save Sage and Tina all by yourself?”
I backpedaled quickly. “No, no. I’m sorry about all of it. I was reckless and I should have been a better partner to you on every level.”
His muscles relaxed beneath my hands after my confession and he started kissing my neck once more. I should have let it go, I should have shut my big fat mouth and not needed to get the last word in, but then I guess I wouldn’t be me then, would I?
“You have to admit,” I murmured into his ear, kneading his back with my hands, “I did manage to get the girls without any help.”
Thomas froze in mid-caress, pulling away from me quickly.
“So you’re not sorry you freed Tina and Sage?”
I looked at him in surprise. “I’m sorry I didn’t follow orders, but I didn’t really need your help, did I? I’m just saying maybe you don’t see how far I’ve come as a Protector, is all.”
“How far you’ve come as a Protector?” he parroted back to me.
“Ye-ah, I did get them safely to Psi Phi House all on my own.”
“And you left me stranded in California in the process,” he reminded me.
“I know, I know. I said I was sorry for that.” He didn’t make apologizing very easy, did he?
“And now Tina is dead.”
His statement hung in the air.
“Are you implying that if I hadn’t freed the half-bloods
on my own
then Tina would still be alive?” My voice was dead calm.
“I’m saying if you had followed orders and waited for me, we both would have returned to Psi Phi House together and I might have been able to stop Tina’s death.”
“
You
might have been able to stop Tina’s death? You, all on your own. Because Thomas, God’s gift to Vampire Investigators, would have single-handedly saved Tina if
he’d
only been there?!”
I flung myself away from him and grabbed the shirt he’d discarded only moments before. I yanked it over my head and was walking to the door before I’d even managed to get my arms through the holes.
“Where’re you going?” he demanded.
I grabbed his keys off the counter, made a very unladylike suggestion of what he could go do and left his apartment.
Eleven
O
nce outside, I realized that although I’d swiped Thomas’s keys, I wasn’t about to steal his car. I was awfully tempted though so I dumped the keys in his mail slot and walked down the street. After I was far enough away from his building, I pulled out my cell phone and debated who to call.
Piper was out of town and it was way too late to call my parents. I scrolled down the list of numbers and thought that I should really get a car or something. I paused over Carl’s number and after much debate, hit the speed dial. Carl would pick me up with very little questioning. Because he was extremely professional or really didn’t want to know, I wasn’t sure. I just knew I could count on him and that’s what I needed right now. Someone I could count on.
Carl arrived in twenty minutes. His gray Saab perfectly accented his dark good looks. It’s a shame he and Piper didn’t go out again after Homecoming, though they seemed quite fond of each other. Dating a vampire was so complicated.
His tinted window rolled down as he pulled up to the curb and said, “Someone call for a pickup from this address?”
I smirked at him and climbed into the car. He might not ask questions but he would make wisecracks the whole way home. At the moment, it was a small price to pay for a lift.
We’d made it safely onto the freeway before he asked, “So, how are you holding up?”
I snorted, my arms crossed as I kept my eyes glued to the side window, as though engrossed in the view.
“O-kay, then,” he murmured and we drove the rest of the way in silence.
Once we arrived at Psi Phi House, I felt bad about how I was treating Carl. After all, it wasn’t his fault that his partner was an arrogant know-it-all and he had gone out of his way to pick me up. When he parked the car I thanked him for coming to get me.
“Is there something I should know about?” he asked in a concerned way. All of a sudden I needed Carl’s take on the situation. I mean, he was here and Tina still died. Did that mean Thomas thought he was incompetent as well? I highly doubted that because he trusted Carl with everything, including Psi Phi House. It was only me that Thomas thought was a bumbling idiot.
“Do you think we could have done something to save Tina, to keep her from dying?”
“Colby, don’t beat yourself up about this. Sometimes good people die. You of all people should know that. If we knew something …”
“But we did know,” I interrupted. “We knew there was a spy somewhere and we didn’t stop Tina from being killed.”
“Knowing there was a spy who told other vampires where you were going is not the same thing as knowing one of the girls in the house was going to commit murder.”
Carl was absolutely right. We didn’t know that. No one knew that or Tina might still be here. Thomas wouldn’t have done anything differently with the same information we had. It wasn’t my fault Tina died because I left Thomas in California.
He was such a friggin’ control freak (and I should know ’cause I was Type A as well) that he’d assumed he could have saved Tina had he just been there. Nothing like piling a little pressure on one’s self. And Thomas thought I had issues. Hello?! That was certainly the pot calling the kettle black.
“Thanks, Carl, you’ve really helped me clarify some things.”
Carl looked more confused than ever. “Glad I could help. Mind telling me how I enlightened your evening?”
“By making me realize I’m not perfect—”
He raised an eyebrow at my declaration.
“—and neither is anyone else.”
My explanation did nothing to alleviate the confused look on his face. I added, “You know, if Piper decides to stay in England you can totally have her job as my best friend.”
Carl actually shuddered at my gracious offer. He
shuddered
. Was being my best friend such a tough gig? I hardly thought so. I decided Vampire Investigators in general had issues to work out.
“Anyway, thanks again.”
I climbed out of the car and made my way toward the House. I was nowhere closer to finding the killer than I was before, but now I had something I didn’t before. I didn’t need to depend on someone else to believe that I’d done my best. That I was a good Protector. I had faith in myself and that was enough for me.
In the house, most of the girls were subdued and hanging out in the basement. The Tribunal had removed Tina’s body and everyone seemed to silently agree that upstairs was a no half-blood zone. I tried to comfort them as best I could, but it was difficult because I didn’t know if the person I wanted to console was really the killer. In the end, I slipped upstairs to my room and logged onto the Net to check my e-mail.
Awaiting me was a reply from Piper, complaining that she was on vacation and really didn’t want to traipse around Ileana’s musty old homes but she would do it, of course, as a favor to me, yada, yada, yada. No one did guilt like Piper.
I started to compose a reply and stopped in mid-sentence. How did I announce a half-blood murder in e-mail? Should I ask how her day was first and then say something like, “By the way, you’ll never guess what happened to me today”? I lightly tapped my fingers on the keyboard drawer. I should tell her but I didn’t want her freaking out that I was in danger.
In the end I decided to forego telling her about Tina but stressed how important finding out more about Ileana was to me and to start immediately. It sounded sort of melodramatic, even to my ears, but I shrugged. Piper was used to my drama. She wouldn’t blink an eye at the tone.
There was a timid knock at my door.
“Come in.” I turned off the computer monitor and swung around to greet my guest.
Sage tentatively opened the door and entered.
“Hey,” I said gently. “How are you holding up?”
Her eyes were swollen and her skin was blotchy, but despite that she still looked beautiful. Sage was just one of those people.
“I’m doing okay, I guess.” She crossed the room. “Can I sit down?”
I jumped to my feet and swept the array of stuffed animals and pillows off my bed. “Of course.”
She sat down and looked around my room, eyes settling on a glittering tiara on my dresser.
“Nice crown,” she commented.
Not wanting to prompt her if she wasn’t ready to speak, I admired the crown as well.
“Homecoming queen, my senior year.”
She nodded and admitted, “Your room’s cool too.”
“Thanks,” I responded. Mentally I was poking her with a stick so she would explain why she was here.
“I think I know who killed Tina,” she blurted out.
That was so not even in the ballpark of why I thought she was visiting me.
“You do?”
She nodded her head vigorously but said nothing.
“Do you want to tell me who?” I prodded again.
“I … I think Lance may have done it.”
“Lance? The ex-boyfriend, surfer vampire Lance? What makes you think that?”
“The last time they broke up, I could tell Tina really meant it and so could Lance. They’d broken up before, dozens of times, but Tina was really through with him. Anyway, she told me he took it really hard. He accused her of being ungrateful after all he’d done for her. Then when that tactic didn’t work, he told her if he couldn’t have her, no one could.”
“But we saw Lance arrive with Cookie,” I pointed out. Why did vampires have to go off the deep end?
“I thought that too, but when I was talking to Cookie, you know,
after
we found Tina, she mentioned that Lance left the same night we did. He took off right after discovering we’d gone to Psi Phi House. He met Cookie at the airport and brought her here.”
I digested this bit of information. I didn’t believe that a vampire had broken into the House—but what if Tina invited him in? He could have shown up right before dawn and convinced her to let him inside to talk, and no one would have been the wiser.
But why didn’t I see them? I was up at dawn and that was when the Tribunal Security was coming on duty. Could it be I just missed him?
“Thank you for telling me this, Sage. I know how hard all this is for you. Especially since you trusted me to protect you both.”
“I don’t blame you, Colby. Cookie begged me to go back with her. She would have gone up against the Tribunal to take me back but I didn’t want to go. I want to be here, with others like me. It’s like I finally belong, you know?”
Now this reasoning I could totally understand and I was grateful she didn’t blame me for Tina’s death. If Lance was responsible—and that was still a way big “if ” in my mind—there was no safe place for Sage.
“Why didn’t you tell Cookie or me sooner, that Lance had threatened Tina?”
Her eyes threatened to overflow again as she answered in a tiny whisper, “Because Tina always exaggerated things. And Lance was sort of the same way, you know? They lived off the drama. I guess I didn’t really believe he would hurt her. But I should have, I should have done something.”
She broke down into tears again and I rushed to her side.
“Don’t. Don’t do this to yourself, Sage. You’re not to blame. The person who killed Tina is at fault and no one else.”

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