The Keeper's Vow (38 page)

Katie took a step back. She stuttered but
nothing came out. Her dad had been cheating? A divorce? When had
Allison
gotten
a boyfriend? Who? Why didn’t she tell her?
“I—I didn’t know—”

“Of course you didn’t
fucking
know!
YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT ANYONE BUT YOURSELF.” Allison was done. She
didn’t wait for Katie to respond, or for Katie to say she was
sorry, or say that Allison was being a little unfair.

Katie followed behind Allison until Allison
made the left turn to take her home. She never once turned back to
see if Katie was behind her or not. Katie wanted to scream. She
wanted to slump down onto the sidewalk and scream. Of course she
didn’t. She’d have to wait until she was in her bedroom face-first
into a pillow.

She tried to focus on how’d she’d sneak back
in. It was better than seeing the dead look in Tristan’s eyes and
the way Allison’s red hair swung after she’d turned her back on
Katie. She decided to go up the same way she’d left. It wasn’t so
hard, not with her new body.

As soon as she put her head into the window
it was over.

“YOU SNUCK OUT?! AFTER YOU WERE ATTACKED BY
A WEREWOLF AND SHOT BY A VAMPIRE. YOU SNUCK OUT TO GOD KNOWS WHERE?
DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE LOOKING FOR YOU?” Her dad was
pacing. He’d flung over her bookcase in a rage. Why was every one
in her life so violent? He went on for at least twenty-minutes
telling her that she’d never leave the house again, that he was
going to take her to an omitter because she wasn’t responsible,
that she’d wasted peoples time and energy, and again and again, how
stupid she was.

When he was done he’d called Lucinda to tell
her that Katie had been found and Lucinda spent thirty-minutes
screeching through the phone repeating everything her father had
already covered. One word hovering—
selfish
.

Katie didn’t cry. She was numb.

Everyone hated her.

She took a shower and fixed her bookcase.
Her favorite Peter Pan book was pinned under the case. The cover
was bent and the spine tore when she pulled it from under the
bookcase. She tried to fix it. Stupid book. She never liked the
story. Never even read it. Why was she trying to fix something that
was never going to be whole again?

She charged her cell phone and it blew up
with missed calls and text messages. She didn’t dare listen to any
of the voicemails. She started to delete them all until she came
across a strange number. She listened to it.

“
Hello, Katie? It’s Larry, I think your
friend left her phone in my office. I’ll bring it by the ice cream
shop, don’t let me forget next time you stop by. See you soon.
Oh—I’ve been thinking about adding frozen yogurt to the selection.
I’ve ordered a few different ones. Free “froyo” if you girls can
tell me which ones are best. See you soon.”

Katie breathed deep and fell back onto her
bed. She didn’t feel every fiber like before, not unless she paid
attention. It was almost eight o’clock and she hadn’t slept at all.
She wasn’t tired either. Must have been a side effect from the
blood, like her ability to see, smell, and hear, and piss people
off to exaggerated extremes.

She rolled over on her side. Traci would be
here any moment and the last things she wanted was to explain why
she hadn’t touched any of the work she assigned her. She wasn’t in
the mood for it.

“Katie did you do
any
of it?” Traci
said in her squeaky voice. The squeaks used to be enduring but that
was when she saw Traci once a day for an hour.

“I got busy, I—”

“Busy doing what? You just don’t care. I
can’t help you if you won’t help yourself.”

“I’m not allowed to slack off for
one
day?!” Katie ran her hands through her hair her fingers got caught
in a tangle.

“
One day off?
Katie I’d be glad if
you only took
one
day off. When’s the last time you did all
the work I asked you to? When was the last time you did an entire
assignment? You’re full of excuses.”

“I’M TRYING!” Katie screamed. They were all
attacking her today it wasn’t fair.

“Do you even use the planner I got you?”
Traci waited for an answer, but Katie wasn’t going to give it. It
was still in the back of her locker where she put it after Traci
gave it to her. Traci shook her head and grabbed her purse. She
rummaged for a second and pulled out the planner that was supposed
to be in Katie's locker—the locker Traci had to go through to get
her books. “You never even opened it.” Traci flopped it on the
table, packed her things, and left.

She was the third person that day to walk
out on her. She could handle Tristan, because maybe, maybe she
could fix it. She could handle Allison, because Allison always
forgives her. Her dad and Lucinda, they were just angry parents.
But Traci was never disappointed in her. Traci always gave her
those lame motivational speeches and worked with her.

Katie laid her head on the table and cried.
They were all right—they were right about everything.

No one talked to her for a week. It wouldn’t
have been so bad if she could sleep, or leave the house. She was
surprised that her dad never put bars on the windows. She tried to
make it up to him by cooking everyday and cleaning the house, but
it didn’t work. The only way they communicated was via grocery list
and short commands. An actual conversation about anything other
than what she should, or could do was non-existent.

She never ate what she cooked. It was like
stuffing food down an already stuffed body, but as the week went
on, she could feel her body growing more tired.

Lucinda still trained her but she never saw
Allison. Lucinda made gestures and gave lectures when she wanted
Katie to do something, which was only shoot, because that was all
they did for a week straight. After training she’d discussed what
Katie did well what she need to do better and what they were going
to do next. That was it. No friendly chats, none of the small talk
Lucinda was known for. Only lectures, instructions, and feedback.
Traci mumbled a word here or there, but Katie never knew if she was
talking to herself or not.

Since Katie didn’t need her nights to sleep,
she did her homework and tried to catch up on the things she’d
never bothered to do. Traci sometimes seemed impressed, but she
never really said anything.

She was allowed to go to school starting
tomorrow. It was a good thing, she could hear other voices, besides
the ones on the television. Her teachers would probably talk
directly to her and she wouldn’t feel like she’d break out into
tears every time Lucinda looked at her with disappointed eyes.

Katie stayed up that night working on math.
She was getting even better at it, so many patterns. She laughed at
herself when she started looking forward to doing the next
problem.

She laid back on her bed taking a break. She
couldn’t wait for school tomorrow It would be nice to spend time
seeing something other than her four walls.

“
TELL ME!”

Katie shot up. It was Tristan. Her body
filled with dizziness and rage. She even tasted alcohol.

“
I told you, I don’t know.”
In her
mind she saw a small guy with red hair and bright blue eyes. He was
shaking. “
Look man you’ve had a few drinks, maybe you’re
confusing me with someone else.”

Tristan was laughing manically. She could
feel his rage boiling over.
“You’re making this harder,”
Tristan grabbed the guys face and slammed it into a brick wall,
“
Than it has to be.”
The guy was scratching at Tristan’s
hand but the pain felt good. Tristan let go and the man’s head
flung backwards. Blood stained the wall.
“Tell me.”
He
breathed hard.

The red head cried and held his head.
“Don’t kill me. Please. I don’t know.”

Tristan was walking away. He flexed his fist
and laughed.

Everything went blank. But Katie could still
taste the alcohol and the echo of his manic laugh. Her heart
pounded threatening to break her chest. What was he doing?

She tried to focus her dizzy mind on math.
But she was kidding herself. Her hands shook—they ached. It was
him. She was feeling too much of him. She tried to slow her
breathing. She didn’t want to see something like that again. But it
was too late, she was sucked in again.

He was pounding back drinks. So many he
started to throw up. Katie ran to the bathroom quick enough to make
it into the toilet.

Tristan?

If he heard her he was ignoring her.

And still drinking.

It went on for hours. Until six in the
morning. She’d see flashes of him beating people, getting drunker
and, right before he passed out, fighting three people at once.
They’d knocked him out. But she knew he was alive. She’d caught a
glimpse of Mercedes throwing water on his face.

It was almost time to go to school and Katie
laid curled up on her bed. She didn’t want to go. Her stomach
pinched and she couldn’t get her body to stop shaking. She’d felt
one of those punches. She even checked a few times to make sure her
hands weren’t bleeding. The Black Void. It was back, but she was no
longer floating above it’s surface. She was in the deep end.

She went to school, but spent half of it in
the nurses office when he started having nightmares—she hoped they
were just nightmares and not memories. One of a D-range vampire
breaking through his front door. He was a little boy, maybe eight.
It was the first time he’d ever killed someone. The sound of a neck
cracking, as if there were a thousand tiny bones popping at once.
That night. It changed something in him, she could tell by the way
he’d wake up filling her mind with his scream every time he stabbed
the D-range in the head. He’d wake up, take a drink, and go back to
sleep. Those dreams were real…but the others…she hoped…
so
bad
they weren’t.

A Death Dealer. He lied. They weren’t a
police force. They were executioners.

During the week, she tried to pay attention
in class, but she was merely walking in the dark. Flashes here and
there. And screaming always screaming. She had been right to call
it the Black Void, because it never ended. Perpetual darkness—she
waited for the twilight, a glimmer of hope, but just when silence
settled something else crawled out. Once it was a little girl. A
D-range, the others wanted him to kill her, but he couldn’t—she was
just a little girl.

They did it and made him watch her head snap
back as the bullet went through. It didn’t kill her though, it only
stopped her long enough for them to throw her out into the rising
sun. He ran after her, but by the time he’d reached her body, it
shattered into crystals—she felt like fine sand.

Katie woke up crying in her math class. She
couldn’t stop. She didn’t know when she’d fallen a sleep, or when
she’d been led to the office, or when they called her dad. She kept
seeing that little girls face and the bullet going through her
head. They never closed her eyes. They just tossed her. And he
never made it, he wasn’t fast enough.

Katie screamed.

“Katie? Katie Bug, talk to me.” It was her
dad. He was shaking her.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She was talking to
Tristan, but only her dad heard her. Her dad took her home and when
Lucinda came to train her she didn’t look surprised to find Katie
curled up in her room.

“Katie? When was the last time you drank?
You have to, every two weeks or you’ll start having withdrawals. Do
you feel dizzy? Murky? Lethargic?”

No. She couldn’t drink anymore. The visions
were less detailed as the week went on. If she drank again she’d
feel him more. She’d feel it all. She couldn’t. When he was drunk
there was no wall. Katie stayed curled up on her bed and gripped
her pillow.

“How does this work, Lucinda?” Her dad
said.

“I don’t know.”

“Ask the boy.”

“He’s been missing. Actually, I wanted to
take Katie to Gray City to help me find him. I know they can sense
each other,”

Katie looked at Lucinda. How did she
know?

“I’ve watched you both train. You lived at
my house. These things don’t escape me. Tristan always saw you
before you walked into a room. He spent most of your practices
answering questions you never said out loud. And you just confirmed
it.”

Katie shook her head. She didn’t want to go
to Gray City. She didn’t want to see him. It could get worse the
closer she’d get to him. For the first time she was truly afraid of
Tristan. Not because he was half-vampire, but because of what he
kept locked up inside of him. The real reason he’d always kept her
out.

—And like that Katie caught a glimpse of a
woman flying into light. Katie—no Tristan—had scratches and bites
on his arms from where she’d tried to hold on.

Katie shook her head.

It took an hour for Lucinda to convince her
to go. Lucinda told her he’d been creating a noise amongst some of
the guardians in Gray City, but Katie knew that. It was the fact
that Lucinda was worried that changed her mind. Tristan hadn’t
returned home since the day he shut the elevator doors in Katie’s
face. It was her fault.

Lucinda kept looking back at Katie while
they drove into downtown. Tristan hadn’t started drinking yet, but
the nightmares, or memories, were starting up.

“What’s going on Katie?” Lucinda said.

Katie shook her head. Katie didn’t want to
tell her just how far she could sense Tristan. It would be a
violation if she did.

They took the Bistro down into Gray City and
Katie felt him like a magnet. This time was much different from the
last. She was afraid of what they’d find. He wasn’t far, he was in
a small bar that Lucinda said was owned by an ex-guardian turned
werewolf.