The Keeper's Vow (21 page)

“You should date better boys. He’s a trouble
maker.” Larry smiled at her but she got the feeling he was being
serious.

“Totally not my boyfriend,” Katie said,
wondering why he’d even think that. He could have easily been
Allison’s boyfriend, or they could have just been three kids
walking into a shop to get ice cream. Katie paid and sat down.

Tristan looked more annoyed than ever.
Obviously eavesdropping on her conversation.

She devoured half her ice cream in one sweet
minute. She’d forgotten how beautiful the flavors of rainbow
sherbet were.

Tristan asked her if she’d ever seen any
out-of-shape guardians.

“Since I only know the small population
Boise has to offer, no.”

“It’s because they don’t eat—” Tristan
stopped and stared out the window. A man with burn marks on his
face and a wretched limp passed by. Allison gasped.

“Allison,” Kate said astounded, “I know you
can be mean but that’s just—"

“Quiet,” Tristan hissed, glancing at Larry
who seemed none the wiser. He rushed them to finish their ice
cream. He didn’t talk again until they were out on the street.

“It was a fate wasn’t it?” Allison asked
Tristan as they walked past Sunny Music.

“Yes. And it was tracking. The nasty ones
shape-shift to look like that when they’re close to what they want.
They know people’s natural reactions are to stare, giving them a
good chance to scan every face.” Tristan said.

“What if that was just a perfectly normal
man with burn scars,” she asked, feeling like they were being a
little dramatic.

“His eyes. They were blank. You would have
known to look for that if you read a book once in a while,” Tristan
snapped.

It wasn’t Katie’s fault she never had time
for all her homework. Traci often pretended to understand when
Katie would show up with half her work done, but Katie was running
out of excuses.

“If fates are Downtown, the rumors must be
true. What if that fate
was
tracking a pure blood.” Allison
said, looking like a conspirator. “I read that the last time a Pure
blood was assassinated a war broke out. Like a power vacuum
everyone scrambling to gain power. The violence spread into our
world like wild fire. The real precursor to the first World
War.”

“Katalina. How comfortable are you with a
gun?”

“You mean to carry around? That’s illegal
for anyone under twenty-one,” she said, laughing.

“I didn’t ask you about the law. I asked you
how comfortable.” Tristan’s black hair looked wilder every step he
took—as if each movement shifted it into a more madden state of
being. He reminded her of the stray cat she used to feed. Before it
disappeared, she would sneak up on it and it’s hair would puff up
like a spiky cotton ball. “Katalina,” he yelled.

“I’m not.” He knew that. The last gun she
held shot out yellow paint.

“Knives?”

“Plastic ones—”

“Start carrying at least three—real ones.”
He pointed at her. “There, by your ankle and one in your pocket,
and one there.” His finger lingered on her thigh.

“How am I suppose to wear one on my thigh?”
Katie nearly burst into laughter. She’d most likely cut off her
fingers just touching one. Did he forget he only trusted her with a
plastic knife. Plus, Lucinda would never let that slide.

“You almost always wear a skirt.”

“Jesus, Tristan. Before I go around looking
like Laura Tomb Raider. Why are you acting like a
crazy-person?”

Even Allison had stopped laughing. She
looked serious, like Tristan. It was clear, Katie wasn’t getting
something. She was the one left out of the loop again. Her stomach
started to turn.

“You have to protect yourself. You have to
be prepared for anything. What if I’m not around?”

“Prepared for what?”

“Anything,” he yelled at her. A feeling told
her the wall, she suspected he held up between them, was about to
be flooded. His hair stood on its ends; fear and mania seeped out
of him and into her mind. She couldn’t shake the cold that creeped
into her skin making her jump as a car backfired next to them. It
climbed into her mind, a darkness, reaching around her head and
swallowing it whole. She didn’t understand the fear. She didn’t
need to, because she felt it.

He studied her face and the terror that, she
knew, was plastered on it. His expression changed and his emotions
pulled away from her like a vacuum sucking away wisps of smoke. But
it was too late. She had already felt it. “Just in case,” he said
calmly.

“
What aren’t you telling me,”
she
said to him silently.

Katie looked at Allison, and Allison shared
her look of confusion. “He just means it can be dangerous when wars
break between clans or covens. Sometimes they spill over up here
and people get hurt. Vampires are notorious for causing
commotions.” Allison rummaged through her purse and pulled out a
bottle of pepper spray. “Maybe you can hold on to this. I have a
ton of this stuff. We can’t have knives at school but carrying
around pepper spray when I don’t have my pocket knife makes me
feels safer. Plus, you know, normal people can be dangerous
too.”

Katie took the pepper spray. Allison
shrugged as they looked at Tristan again. He was gone in his own
mind. Somewhere too far for them to find.

Snow started to fall the week before
Thanksgiving break. The snow was better than the rain that had
murdered any hope of a practice without wet puddles. Every day
she’d go to school looking like she’d been in a fight with a bucket
of dirty water, and every night she went to bed feeling like she
got beat up by a hurricane. But today, was the first snowfall of
the year. Aside from it being the worst hair day she’d had in
weeks—dirt and snow from previous night, plus one squirt of
shampoo, does not mix well—she was excited for what today meant.
Tons of holiday breaks. Any break from Mrs. Barnes’ constant essays
on werewolf involvement in industrial age London, or Traci hassling
her about working on her core was a blessing.

Her core. It was something they worked on
every Friday in Field Study with Mr. Carver. They had to meditate
until they felt a type of coating over their skin. The reason they
were called guardians. They were untouchable by their paranormal
counterpart. If anyone had bothered to tell Katie that before, she
wouldn’t have spent nearly every day being paranoid about the
decision she’d made.

It wasn’t an easy thing though, Katie still
hadn’t figured out exactly what it was, and it wasn’t exactly
something someone could show her. Mr. Carver spoke about it like
putting on a coat. No one in the class could do it except Allison
and Adam, and even then it was only for a few seconds.

Katie could barely meditate, and yet it was
another Friday, another day to practice…

School probably wouldn’t have been as tiring
as it was lately, if Tristan weren’t pushing her even harder in
practice. But nothing was going to get in the way of today. Dry
bar-soap hair, stiff legs, or having dropped her deodorant on the
bathroom floor and then using the broken up pieces to prevent a
long day of bad body odor? Nope, none of that was going to taint
the day that marked the—summer aside—best part of the year.

To start it off, it was Friday! The best day
of the week because there was no after school activites. To make it
better, Lucinda canceled their morning training—most definitely
auspicious. She’d had a chill in her spine when she woke up and was
thrilled to stay in doors warm and inactive. She even snuck in a
few cups of hot chocolate before Tristan walked into the kitchen
ready to leave.

She almost skipped to school. It felt like a
good day.

“I’m running an errand today.”

Yet another glorious sign.

“A sign for what?”

“Nothing,” she smiled. “Why are you leaving
this time?” she asked, feigning only a slight interest. He canceled
their training sessions every so often to run secret errands, but
only in the evenings. For all she knew, it could be another lie, he
could be going on dates. Vampire girls with no morals or
self-respect. Then again, what
was
his type? He never told
her anything about him, his hobbies, his likes, dislikes—aside from
chastising her, books, and being called girly.

Your fault for having hair blacker than a
fresh dye job. No one’s hair curls that perfectly around their
face.

He cut her a look from the corner of his
eye. “I’ll be back before this evening, make sure you warm up
before practice.”

Katie shrugged, pretending she didn’t
care—but once they got to the school her stomach jolted. She hadn’t
expected him to leave just then.

He waved at her with his crooked smile as he
turned and disappeared around the corner leaving her in a sea of
student bodies. She felt confused and misplaced. He was gone…and
she was—alone. No one to hear her thoughts all day. No one to
chastise her.

She was free!

School dragged; by second period, she was
vacant and despondent.
And it’s only the second hour…
.

As the day blurred, she let her head fall to
her desk as Mrs. Barnes called roll. She eyed his empty desk,
startled to find herself wishing he was there. He would be making a
sly comment about her having coffee withdrawals or maybe poking fun
at her makeshift ponytail of twisted curls and pencils.
Hell is
selling frozen popsicles. I think we’ve become…friends.

Cue the manic laugh
. He wasn’t
exactly friend material. He was a jerk, always on her about doing
homework, and down right brutal during their training sessions.
Every other day he bruised her so bad she wouldn’t heal for weeks.
These stiff legs were
his
fault. Though, she didn’t make it
any easier for him to like her. She was unrelenting when letting
him know what she
really
thought about him. But he deserved
it.

Yet, there was his empty seat. She missed
him, that was for sure; but it was the antics she missed. Not him
in her head. She was a diary with no lock, and he was a book with
empty pages. It wasn’t fair.

“I’m glad you’ve started stalking someone
else for a change. The way you used to follow Brian around was kind
of pathetic,” a suicidal voice said next to her.

Does Christi want to die?
Sure,
Christi probably could have beat her up a few months ago, but
fighting Tristan taught Katie one thing: she could fight anyone and
come out alive
and
on top.

“If you don’t shut up, I’m going to pound
your face into the desk,” Katie said, not looking at Christi.

“Look, Katie. I’m not trying to start
anything. I’m just saying—I’m glad you’ve found someone else.”

Katie had to see if the sincerity in
Christi’s voice matched her face. Katie was shocked. The venomous
snake was actually being honest. Rude, but honest.

“I haven’t
found
someone else. And I
didn’t follow Brian around. We were best-friends.” She wished she
hadn’t said,
“were.
”
Are. We are best-friends.

“Okay, well I’m glad you found a new
best-friend. I’m trying to be nice, just accept it,” Christi
sounded exasperated, but genuine.

“Why?” Dread filled her. If Christi was
extending an olive branch, the world must be coming to its end
soon. The apocalypse was near and she hadn’t stocked up on a year
supply of rainbow sherbet ice cream.

“Because—it’s obvious we see a lot of each
other. You’re in the program, and—I’m just trying to call a truce.
Are you always this difficult?” Christi said, looking a little
jittery. She stuck out her hand for a handshake but Katie ignored
it. She opened her textbook and stared at a picture, of a man
transforming into a wolf, trying to piece together Christi’s
godawful change in behavior.

“It’s not a good idea, Kay,” Allison said in
their math class.

“Allison, you should have seen her, she
tried to shake my hand.”

“Kay…”

“It’s not like I’m going to beat her up.
Just burn down her house or something. I feel like today is a good
day for that. All the signs point to my success.”

“What?” Allison looked tired.

“Brian would support me,” Katie said,
knowing the old Brian would have.
The new Brian wouldn’t care if
I fell off a cliff.

“Brian is anything
but
supportive,”
Allison spat, breaking the lead in her mechanical pencil.

“Allison.”

“Seriously, Kay. He’s an asshole. Stop
talking about him. He’s been treating you like dirt. He’s pretty
much replaced you,” Allison glanced at her. “I mean, he might as
well have with the way he’s ignoring you.”

Katie knew that Allison was covering
something up. That small darting of the eyes, it was her tell.
“What do you mean ‘
replaced you,’
?”

“I just said it figuratively.”

“Who?”

“No one.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Allison.”

“All of them!” she said too loud. Mr. Right,
looked up from his desk. They put their heads down and wrote down a
few math problems.

“Explain,” Katie said after a moment.

“He’s been hanging out with kids from the
Junior Guardian Society. They’re his new best-friends. Christi is
the president, so there’s no way you’re going to get chummy with
them. He’s pretty much traded you in so stop being nice to
him.”

Katie stared at Allison. “When did you
know?”

“Kay, I didn’t say anything because—"

“When?”

“August. After preliminaries. But I didn’t
say anything because I thought it was a phase. I thought he’d stop
ignoring you. I thought they were only his friends because of Will
and Lucy, you know? Having elite parents on the ‘Elite Force’ is
like having celebrity parents. I thought they were using him and
that he would realize it and go back to you. But…I guess I was
wrong.”