The Bonding Ritual (Girls Wearing Black: Book Four) (16 page)

“I am staying here, and you are too. This story will change everything. Don’t you see? We had a ton of problems to solve, and in one fell swoop, I’ve taken care of all of them. We’ll just need to be a couple for the rest of the semester. We need my parents and everyone at school to think we’re madly in love.”

“You’re acting really weird. I’m worried about you.”

“I’ve never felt better. My mind is so clear. I know exactly what we’re going to do. And I’m sorry I brought you in this way, but I knew you wouldn’t understand. At least, not at first. Now that you’ve seen how my mother has reacted, you get it, don’t you?”

“No! I don’t get any of this!”

“It’s so simple, Jill. We convince everyone we’ve been planning this from the get-go. Everyone at school will follow along. The story is so sweet. Lovers, kept apart by fate, reunited in victory over a common enemy. This whole town is going to eat this up like you wouldn’t believe, and my mom is the key to all of it. Right now, she’s calling all the best gossipers in DC. By tomorrow, we’ll be the talk of the town. We’ll go back to school as the class couple, and not just that, we’ll be the class couple who gave Samantha an insurmountable lead in the Coronation contest! As far as everyone at school is concerned, the Coronation contest is over. You won the Rose Ransom and gave Samantha a hundred million dollars.”

“The Coronation contest is over, Ryan! The whole point of us being here was for Nicky to win. There’s no way she can do that now. There is no point in staying if Nicky doesn’t win.”

“You’re not getting it! Nicky
will
win. My plan will make sure of it. Did you see how my mom reacted to us? Did you see how it was like all her dreams came true?”

“Your mom totally creeped me out tonight.”

“Yeah, she can be like that. But now that we’ve got her in our pocket, we’ll have access to my family’s funds, eventually.”

“Eventually?”

“I don’t think they’re very liquid right now, you know, after forking over a hundred million for the Rose Ransom. But that’s okay. We wouldn’t act until the end of the year anyway. Like the kissing booths at spring carnival. Whatever opportunity there is for open donation at the end of the semester, that’s when we’ll act. We’ll have the checkbooks from two of the fattest bank accounts in town in our hands, and we’ll each write a check for Nicky Bloom that’s so large no one will possibly be able to match it.”

Jill leaned back against Ryan’s desk. “You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?”

“I’m telling you, Jill. My mom is so high on us right now, she’s going to trust me with a blank check when the time comes. All we have to do is be the perfect couple that she’s always wanted us to be.”

Jill didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything. In truth, it was a really clever plan. In its way, it was a far more certain road to victory for Nicky than anything Jill had devised for the mission.

“You know this will work,” Ryan said. “You know this is what we have to do.”

“No, I don’t,” said Jill. “Your story does a nice job of taking care of the politics at school, I’ll give you that, but it does nothing to protect us from the vampires who will be looking for Renata’s killer. And Bernadette’s killer.
And Melissa’s. Ryan, this mission was risky when it began. To continue it now after all that’s happened would be reckless.”

“You’re scared. It’s okay to be scared.”

“Don’t tell me about being scared! For the past three years, while you were skulking around your house and not talking to anyone, I was risking my life for the Network! You don’t know what it’s like to stare down a vampire who intends to look in your mind and discover the truth. I do! After what Bernadette did to me, I’m lucky to be alive. We all are!”

Ryan approached her. He put his hands on her arms.

“I don’t blame you for feeling like this, not after what happened last semester,” he said. “And I don’t pretend to know everything that happened to you while I was locked up in Italy.”

“The reason you don’t know is you ran out of the house this morning!”

“What I do know, Jill, is that you’re still alive. You were one step ahead of the immortals the whole time. You solved the Ransom. You saved me and Nicky. When this is over and the clan falls apart and we’re all free again, you will be the hero.”

“You don’t get to talk to me about any of this,” Jill said. “You’re not in the Network. You weren’t part of the plan.”

“Really? I thought your big plan last semester was to get me on board so we could use my money to win the contest for Nicky.”

“Ryan, it’s not…ugh! Why are we even having this conversation! What’s gotten into you! Into all of you!”

“The others want to stay too, don’t they?”

“Helena and Phillip do. Nicky did last night, but she seems…I don’t know. I think we should all get out of here tomorrow morning. We can go someplace where we know we’re safe and we can talk this through.”

“If that’s what--”

A knock on the door interrupted them.

“Hello? I’m sorry to bother you,” came Suzette’s voice. Jill wanted to scream at her. That woman was really getting on her nerves.

“What is it, Mom?” Ryan said.

“I’m so very sorry,” she said. “We have a guest. You both need to come back downstairs. I’m certain it will be a short visit.”

“A guest?” Jill whispered. “It’s one in the morning! What the hell is going on?”

“Hang on a sec,” Ryan said. “I’ll go talk to her.”

Jill hung back in the bedroom while Ryan went to the door. He only cracked it open, and spoke to his mother so quietly Jill couldn’t hear. When he came back, he said, “We need to go downstairs.”

“Why? Who’s down there?”

“This is going to be what we have to do for a while,” Ryan said. “For the next few weeks, my mom will want to show us off to lots of people.”

“That’s what we’re doing at one in the morning? Letting your mom show us off?”

“She says it’s someone really important. Come on. We’ll make it quick.”

Jill followed Ryan downstairs, expecting to find some lobbyist or politician waiting in the parlor. A late-night cocktail with some power player from the Hill was a regular occurrence in her own house, and her mind was already preparing her for such a visit based on many memories of her own.
Smile, give a firm handshake, laugh at their jokes, excuse yourself after one drink.

Indeed, Suzette led them into the parlor, but the man they found there was no politician. Long black hair, deep-set eyes, a suave sophistication not just to his movement, but to his very presence—the man waiting for them in the parlor was someone Jill hadn’t seen since the Homecoming Masquerade. He was someone she hoped she would never see again.

“Good evening,” Sergio Alonzo said, flashing a smile of brilliant white teeth.

With the first words from his mouth, Jill knew all was lost. Sergio had a way about him that was hypnotic even when he wasn’t trying to be. He was like a magnet that drew all the attention in the room his way. With two words, he established that he controlled everything and everyone in this house. There would be no fighting him. There would be no running away.

This wasn’t the first time Jill had entered a room and found a vampire waiting for her. When Bernadette did the same thing to her three months back, Jill managed to key in the emergency code on her phone before it was too late. That code, which broadcast a distress signal to the Network, and recorded all that happened in the room that night, was the only reason she was still alive.

While Sergio reached out to shake Ryan’s hand, Jill slipped her own hand into her pocket and grabbed her phone. Her fingers danced across the screen, and even though she knew Sergio was aware of what she was doing, even though she could sense him spying her out of the corner of his eye, she keyed in the emergency code. When she was done, and her hand had let the phone loose in her pocket again, Sergio turned her way.

“Silencing your cell phone, are you, Miss Wentworth?” he said.

“Yes,” Jill said nervously.

“How very considerate of you. I wish more people your age were aware of how distracting those infernal devices can be.”

Suzette let out a nervous laugh,
then said, “Jill is from solid Virginia stock. A very well-mannered girl.”

“I’m sure,” said Sergio.

At that moment, both of Ryan’s parents pulled phones from their pockets and shut them off. As they did so, Sergio looked right at Jill, and winked.

“My purpose here tonight is to gather information,” Sergio said. “I will be brief.”

“You can stay as long as you’d like,” Suzette said. “It’s such an honor to have you in this house.”

“Yes, well, I assure you I can complete my business in a matter of minutes.”

Sergio reached into his jacket and pulled out a small notebook and a pen.

“We are visiting the family of every student who was in attendance at Renata’s year-end party,” Sergio said. “Daciana has divided the chore among several of us in
the clan. I have the Jenson family on my list. Since Miss Wentworth is here also, perhaps I will assign my name to her family as well.”

Jill stood in place, watching as Sergio made a mark in his notebook.

“As you may have heard,” he said, “there was an accident at Renata’s mansion following the party.”

“I have heard,” said Suzette with exaggerated concern. “I have friends who said they saw smoke.”

“Yes, I’m sure they did. There was quite the fire at the house. In fact, the entire mansion has burned to the ground.”

Suzette’s reaction was horrified enough for all of them. Jill stood in place, aware that this was the end.

She felt strangely at peace about it. It wasn’t like this was the first time she had faced her own death. So long as that phone kept recording, kept broadcasting, she could be content knowing there was nothing more for her to do.

“More than the burning of the mansion,” Sergio said, “what has us concerned is that Renata has disappeared, and we have evidence she betrayed the clan.”

“Oh my,” said Suzette.

“Because of all this, it is our duty to ask the students who were in attendance at Renata’s party if they saw anything unusual,” Sergio said. “That’s why I’m here. I’ll start with you, Ryan. Did you see anything unusual?”

Ryan looked directly at Sergio and said, “No, sir.”

Immediately, Jill became skeptical of her own eyes. She remembered when she stood in front of Bernadette, thinking she was resisting her advances, when in fact she was telling her everything.

Was it happening again? Was Sergio already modifying her memory? It had to be. Surely Ryan wouldn’t be able to look Sergio in the eye and just lie to him, would he? Surely Sergio wouldn’t accept the word of a student without coaxing the truth out of his mind.

“Thank you, Ryan,” Sergio said. He turned to Jill. “What about you, Miss Wentworth? Did you see anything…
untoward
during Renata’s party?”

He wasn’t in her mind. He was looking in her eyes, but he wasn’t forcing her to tell him the truth.

It had to be fantasy. At this very moment, Jill was probably spilling her guts and remembering something entirely different.

“I saw nothing that concerned me,” she said.

Sergio let Jill’s words hang in the air, and for a second, there was silence in the house. Suzette broke the silence with a nervous giggle.

“Well then,” Sergio said. “I suppose I will cross your names off my list.”

As he wrote in his notebook, he said, “Jensons, innocent. Wentworths, innocent. Oh, while I’m here, I have something for you.”

Sergio stuffed his notebook and pen away in one side of his coat. From the other side, he retrieved an envelope.

“I’m afraid I only have one of these with me tonight,” he said, “but rest assured, Jill, yours will come in the mail. With Renata now out of the picture, Daciana has decided to take a more active role in the school. She will begin with a party for the senior class at her house, a week from Saturday. This is your invitation.”

Sergio handed the envelope to Ryan.

“Perhaps I will see you both there?” he said.

“Definitely,” said Ryan.

“Good night everyone,” Sergio said. “I’ll see myself out.”

“Well, that was interesting,” Ryan said as he closed the door behind Jill.

They were back in his bedroom, a few minutes removed from Sergio’s exit. Jill pulled out her phone and pressed the pound key followed by the number 22 to stop broadcasting the emergency signal to the Network.

A second later, a text came from Helena.

Are you okay?

Jill called her back.

“What was that all about?” Helena said.

“Sergio was here,” said Jill. “At Ryan’s house. Were you able to hear the conversation?”

“I heard every word,” said Helena. “What incredible luck! A party at Daciana’s house! The Network has dreamed of getting in there for years!”