Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side (19 page)

Thank god. She was secure.

I hurried back to Lucius, who was clutching his ribs through his bloody shirt. Kneeling, I grabbed his free hand. "It's okay," I promised. But I couldn't help glancing at his leg. The break had happened at midcalf, the leather boot actually bent. "Get help," I called to Faith, who seemed paralyzed, wailing over and over, "It was an accident."

"Get someone!" I yelled at her again. "Now!"

This woke her up, and Faith turned to run.

"No," Lucius barked, louder than I would have thought possible, given the twisted state of his body. But something in his tone caught Faith up short, and she spun around. "Get Jessica's parents. No one else."

Faith hesitated, panicked, puzzled, unsure. She looked to me.

"Get the paramedics," I begged Faith. What was Lucius doing? He needed an ambulance.

"Jessicas parents only," Lucius said, speaking right over me, in his most commanding tone. He clutched my hand so I couldn't go.

"I . . . I. .." Faith started to say something.

"Go," Lucius ordered.

Faith ran. I prayed that she would get the paramedics.

"Damn this hurts." Lucius groaned, face twisting as a wave of pain shot through him. He squeezed my hand. "Just stay here, would you?"

"I'm not going anywhere," I said, willing my voice not to quiver. I was terrified and struggling not to let Lucius see my fear. A trickle of blood seeped from his mouth, and I stifled the urge to cry out. That couldn't be good. That could mean internal bleeding. I wiped the crimson liquid away with shaky fingers, and a tear fell on his cheek. I hadn't even realized I was crying.

"Please, don't do that." Lucius gasped, meeting my eyes. "Don't fall apart on me. Remember: You're royalty."

I squeezed his hand tighter. "I'm not crying. Just hang in there."

He shifted a little, winced. "You know. . . this can't kill a. . .

God, was he still going to do that vampire shtick now? I didn't believe for a second that he couldn't die. "Lie still."
And hope that Faith ignores your commands.

"This leg .. . Dammit." His chest heaved, and he coughed. More blood. A lot of blood. Too much blood. It was coming from his lungs. Probably a puncture. I had taken enough first aid training at school to know a little bit about accidents. I swiped his lips with my sleeve, but that only smeared more blood on both of us. "Help's coming," I promised.
But will it be too little, too late?

On instinct I smoothed Lucius's dark hair with my free hand. His face relaxed just a shade; his breathing calmed slightly. So I kept my hand there, resting on his forehead.

"Jess?" He searched my face with his eyes.

"Don't talk."

"I ... I think you deserve ... a ribbon."

In spite of myself, I laughed, a ragged, clenching laugh, and bent to kiss his forehead. It just happened. It just felt like the right thing to do. "So do you."

His eyes closed. I sensed his consciousness was slipping away. "And Jess?"

“Be quiet.”

"Don't let them do anything ... to my horse," he managed, through difficult breaths. "She didn't mean . . . any harm. It was just the crop, you know . . ."

"I'll try, Lucius," I promised. But I knew I wouldn't succeed. Hell's Belle's reprieve was over.

"Thank you, Antanasia . .." His voice was almost inaudible.

From around the side of the barn I heard car tires on grass. I exhaled with a small measure of relief. Faith had gone for the ambulance.

But no. When the vehicle spun around the corner, it was a beat-up VW van with Ned Packwood at the wheel. My parents jumped out, fear on their faces, and pushed me out of the way. "Take me to your home," Lucius begged, coming around a little. "You understand ..."

Mom spun around to face me. "Open the back of the van," she ordered.

"Mom—he needs an ambulance!"

"Do it, Jessica."

I started to cry again then, because I didn't understand what was happening, and I didn't want to take part in killing Lucius. But I did as I was told.

My parents lifted Lucius into the van as gently as they could, but he still moaned, even though he was now fully unconscious, the pain so bad that it must have ripped through even his insensate brain. I started to crawl in after him, but Dad stopped me with a firm hand on my shoulder. Mom climbed in instead, crouching next to Lucius.

"You stay here and explain what happened," Dad said. "Tell them . . . tell them we took Lucius to the hospital."

I saw the lie in my father's face, and my eyes widened. "You
are
taking him there, aren't you?"

"Just tell everyone he's okay," Dad said, not quite answering my question. "Then take care of the horse."

It was too much, what they were asking. What if they really didn't take him to the hospital and Lucius died? They would be responsible. Maybe accused of negligence, or some sort of
murder.
Faith had seen that Lucius wasn't okay. She knew he needed a doctor. And 4-H would check to see that he'd been hospitalized. Liability issues and all that. What the hell were my parents doing? They could go to
jail.
And for what? It made no sense to keep Lucius away from a hospital.

But there was no time to protest, no time to ask for guidance. Lucius needed to get somewhere warm, at least. Hopefully someplace where people knew how to handle broken bones and bleeding lungs. As long as it wasn't our kitchen, where Dad might attempt some herbal cure . . .

My chest seized again with dread. If my parents were going to try some sort of "natural healing" on Lucius—they were so far out of their league. All of these things spun through my mind as I followed on foot behind the old van, staring helplessly as it bumped out of the grassy area and bounced through the gravel parking lot, as fast as Dad could drive without, presumably, arousing suspicion or jostling Lucius too much.

I was still standing there watching a cloud of receding, drifting dust, when Faith reappeared at my side, more composed. Her eyes were rimmed red, but her shoulders were stiffly at attention again. Still, her voice caught, just a hitch, when she asked, "Do you think he's going to ... to be ... ?"

"He'll be fine," I promised, lying more smoothly than I'd thought possible. But I had to sound convincing. My whole family's survival, not just Lucius's, was at stake. "I don't think his injuries were as bad as we thought at first," I added.

"No?" Faith shot me a skeptical look. But it was a hopeful look, too. I realized she wanted to believe the lie. After all, she didn't want to be responsible for Lucius's injury—or death.

"He sat up a little," I told her, forcing myself to meet Faith's ocean blue eyes. "And made a joke."

The tension in Faith's face eased, and I knew she had willed herself to believe me. She was so desperate to be absolved. "It must have just looked bad at first because it happened so fast..."

"Yeah, probably," I agreed. "It was definitely scary, at first."

Faith's gaze drifted off toward the parking lot, as if she expected to still see the van driving away. I noticed then that she continued to hold the crop, and tapped it idly against her boot. I would have tossed that thing in the trash, ground it into dust.
How could she have not seen the sign in our barn?

The answer was so easy it was almost laughable. Because Faith Crosse didn't see anything beyond her own small sphere of concern. That's why.

"Even if he wasn't as bad off as we thought, why didn't he want the paramedics?" she wondered aloud.

I wasn't quite sure myself, but I had a feeling it had something to do with Lucius's delusions about being a vampire. That definitely wasn't a suitable answer for Faith, though, so I ventured, "I think he's too proud. Too brave to be carried off with a bunch of sirens and people watching." Actually, knowing Lucius, that might have been true, too.

Faith smiled a little at that, still gazing off in the distance. The crop beat a steady rhythm on her boot. She was completely calm now, almost at ease. "Yes," she said, more to herself than to me. "Lucius Vladescu does not seem like he's afraid of anything. And he does know what he wants, doesn't he?"

You have no idea,
I wanted to tell her. But by then, a whole crowd of 4-H officials was marching in our direction, and I turned to face them, ready to tell more lies.

Chapter
23

IT WAS DARK by the time I got home, riding Belle the back way, cutting through empty cornfields and avoiding the roads as much as possible, almost like I was afraid I was being followed. I certainly hadn't wanted to catch a ride home with any of the people who'd offered: Faith or the 4-H leaders. Especially the 4-H leaders, whose questions I'd already answered at least fifty times. They'd just keep harping on why none of the local hospitals seemed to know anything about a boy who'd been injured by a horse. And then they'd want to talk to my parents, at which point they might just walk into our farmhouse to find Lucius Vladescu near dead—or dead, even—on our couch, my father trying to resuscitate him with herbs and infusions.

I spurred Belle a little more quickly at the thought.

Could Lucius really be dead? How would I feel if he was? Would I mourn him? Grieve?
Guilt tugged at me.
Would I be relieved on some level?

And was I worried more for Lucius or for my parents' role in this disaster?

All of these questions roiled around in my mind like a stinking stew made from spoiled odds and ends as Belle and I picked our way home, stuck at a horse's pace when I longed for a jet. Our progress seemed ridiculously slow.
Einstein had explained that feeling, hadn't he? Relativity. One's perception of time was relative to one's desire for its passage. Right?

Time. Relativity. Science.

I tried to focus on those concepts instead of pointless worrying, but my mind kept wandering back to the blood on Lu-cius's shirt. The blood spurting from his mouth. The red, red blood. By the time I reached the end of our lane, I had Belle at a recklessly full gallop, and I dropped the reins, sliding from her back, as I caught sight of my parents' van parked in front of the house. There was another car, too. An unfamiliar but equally decrepit sedan. The house was mainly dark, but a few muted lights glowed from deep inside.

Abandoning poor Belle, knowing I should cool her down and put her in her stall, I stomped up the steps and ran inside.

"Mom!" I hollered at the top of my lungs, slamming the door behind me.

My mother emerged from the dining room, shushing me with a finger to the lips. "Jessica, please. Keep your voice down."

"What happened? How is he?" I pushed past her toward the dining room, but Mom caught my arm. .

 
"No, Jessica . . . not right now."