Velvet (12 page)

“Ah,” I replied intelligently.

“You, though,” he said, glancing down at me. “With enough concentration, we can actually pick you out from a crowd. It’s definitely easier out here, where the population density is so low. The stronger you’re feeling any particular emotion, the easier it is to find you. That’s how I knew where you were in the woods.”

“One, that’s super-creepy,” I interrupted, “and two,
how
?”

He frowned, thinking, then looked over at me. “Have you ever walked into a room and just
felt
that everyone was really angry, or sad, or whatever, without anyone having to say a word? It’s not really like that at all, but that’s the closest I can explain without diving into theoretical physics and emotional resonance and revealing that my alter ego is an unequivocal nerd.”

I smiled at that. “I figured the nerd part out a while ago. But how do I know you’re not just staying around me because you’re hungry?”

He snorted a sudden, surprised laugh and glanced at me. “We’re in a small town, but it’s not
that
small—I get breakfast just passing people at school.”

I sat up. “So, wait, if you were in the city, would you be crazy-strong or something, because there are so many crowds?”

He shook his head. “We’re like batteries—we can only charge up so much.”

I didn’t really know how I felt about all this. Was he feeding off me now? Was “feeding” even an appropriate verb? I wanted a different one, mostly because I didn’t want to think of him as some sort of animal. “Charging up” was much cleaner.

“I sense confusion,” he said half seriously.

“Can you really pick out which emotion I’m feeling?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes all I can tell is tone. Dark or light. Negative or positive. Demons can only feed off negative emotion. Like Dementors.”

A smile spread over my face. “Did you just make a Harry Potter reference?”

He shrugged, blushing. “I was a kid, too. I may or may not have read Harry Potter.”

“How many times?”

“The whole series?” I nodded and he blushed harder. “Five times,” he admitted finally. “I had a huge crush on Hermione.”

I couldn’t help it, I burst out laughing. “You totally have a Gryffindor scarf, don’t you? And an Elder wand and a Goblet of Fire.” I grinned at him. “Tell me you have a Goblet of Fire.”

His face was red, and it was adorable. “No goblet.” He paused, then admitted, “I might have the wand.”

I laughed again, suddenly liking him so much more. “Well, I’m glad you’re not a Dementor. Although it’s super-creepy to think that something like a Dementor exists. Which I’m not totally sold on, by the way. Maybe you got some sort of bio-tech contact lenses yesterday to freak me out, and you’re really committed to an elaborate joke. I could be on a reality-TV show right now.”

“Could be,” he conceded. “And you’re welcome to believe whatever you wish. My job is simply to keep you safe.”

I looked up at him sharply. “Wait—what?”

But we were coming up on the school parking lot. He pulled into a spot and cut the engine, then looked at me.

“Later,” he said. “I promise.”

I scowled, but got out, shutting my door. Before I could even make it to the sidewalk, Adrian caught my hand.

“I’ll see you at lunch,” he said quietly. He bent and kissed me lightly on the cheek like he had the night before. All too soon his fingers left mine and he walked off.

I floated to Mr. Warren’s room and hovered above my seat. What on earth was happening to me? I was one of the least romantic people I knew. I didn’t get whimsical over a kiss on the cheek. I was probably just still in shock that Adrian wasn’t gay. And the whole vampire thing. And that we were fake-dating, which I still didn’t really understand, at all. Trish walked in and plunked down next to me.

“Ready for the quiz?” she asked.

“The quiz?” I repeated stupidly.

“On the last chapter of the novel?”

Yesterday, I would have shrugged and been perfectly happy failing. Today, somehow, I felt awake—I felt
alive
—and I cared. Maybe it was that everything Adrian had told me made me feel like the world was bigger than it was before. Maybe my life—my future—wasn’t as closed in and cut off as I’d imagined. Maybe the cheek-kiss was affecting my brain.

I spent the next ten minutes skimming the last chapter, trying to remember what we’d read. When Mr. Warren passed the quiz around, I guessed on maybe half the questions and slunk off to second period.

An eternity later it was lunch and Trish and I walked to the picnic tables. Just as I was about to sit down, I felt an arm slide around my waist. I froze, blushing instantly. I guess Adrian was really determined to make the fake-dating thing look legit, even at school. I did not, however, expect to feel the brush of lips against my temple. Half the table was staring at us, and in the sudden, rippling hush,
everyone
turned to stare. The red flush covering my face was burning hot, even though a cold breeze was blowing the snow around in little flurries. Trish stood opposite me, lunch in hand, mouth hanging open.

I cleared my throat and that seemed to trigger everyone back into motion. When we sat, Trish kicked my shin under the table and gave me a meaningful look.

Later
, I mouthed.

She scowled at me, but didn’t say anything. I looked around and spotted Norah at another table. There was a crowd of freshman girls around her, craning their heads closer to hear. By the end of lunch, everyone up to the principal would have heard that Adrian and I were dating.

“Something wrong, sugar plum?” Adrian murmured in my ear.

I smiled my most demure smile and leaned close so only he could hear. “I am going to punch you in the left kneecap if you call me ‘sugar plum’ again.”

He just chuckled.

Twenty minutes later the bell rang, and I would have dashed off to fifth period if Adrian hadn’t caught me by the back of my coat.

“What is it with you and running away from me?” he asked quizzically, slinging an arm over my shoulders.

“Maybe you’re hideous, and I can’t stand the sight of your face?”

He looked thoughtful. “Mmm, no, that’s not it.”

I snorted. “Confident much?”

He leaned in close and murmured, “I’m not the one who talks in my sleep about sexy pirate men.”

I paled, horrified. “I did not.”

He grimaced at me in a way that clearly said,
Yes. Yes, you did.

We stopped in front of my classroom and he leaned down and slowly brushed my cheek with his lips. I stumbled through history and music, walking with my stomach in knots to study hall. For once, I beat Adrian. I’d just settled in when he stopped and looked at the vacant chair opposite me.

“I take it I’m allowed to sit with you again?”

I tried to keep my face composed, neutral. “Yes.”

He set his stuff down and took out a book.

“Nope,” I said, placing my hand on the cover and sliding it toward me. “Questions first.”

He looked around. “In study hall?”

“Do you seriously think I can concentrate on homework right now?”

He put the book away. “All right—what’s next?”

We were pretty secluded in our little corner, but I leaned in anyway. “What did you mean when you said you were my personal shadow?”

He rubbed his eyes. “It means that you’re in trouble.” I frowned, waiting for him to elaborate. “For instance—that storm? Wasn’t a storm.”

“The storm was not a storm.”

“It was a disturbance.”

I snorted. “In the Force?”

He shrugged. “I mean—yeah, sort of. My father came back.”

“From where?”

He looked at me, equal parts amused and uncomfortable. “From hell.”

I blinked. “Oh.”

“It’s not a fiery lake or lava pit or anything like that. It doesn’t seem to be a physical dimension at all.” He glanced at me, then down at the table, twirling a mechanical pencil in his hands before clearing his throat. “My little brother, Lucian, he’s only been with us for a year. When he was born my father took him. He grew up in hell until he was ten.”

I stared at him, thinking he must be joking. “Your brother grew up in
hell
?”

“Yes. Or the dimensional plane we collectively agree to call hell.”

I thought he must be joking, but he looked dead serious. “But, if it’s not a physical, y’know,
place
,” I asked, “how did your brother survive?”

Adrian started to speak, then stopped. “I—I’ve never been. Some of us have. It’s been explained to me that it’s a bit like when you’re e-mailing someone a picture. The visual information—colors and shadows and lines—it all gets converted to ones and zeroes and compressed before it’s transmitted. Apparently Lucian’s body was like that—stored, indefinitely, as information. As an idea.”

Well, that one was certainly hard to wrap my head around.

He smiled uncomfortably. “The more science progresses, the more we understand particles and light and time, the more it seems to wrap right back around into myth.” He shook his head. “The point is, we found him—which was unprecedented—and took him back—which was even more unprecedented.” He risked a glance up at me.

“So,” I said slowly. “You’re immortal. Your dad’s a demon. You absorb emotions as energy. You can do freaky things with your eyes and make people forget stuff, your brother was stored digitally in hell, and for some grand, mysterious reason, I am being intentionally informed about your secret vampire society.”

He thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. The point of all this has to do with Lucian—and you. Julian, Mariana, and I are all lost causes as far as our father is concerned. But when you invest ten years in a kid, like our father did with Lucian, you’re gonna be a little pissed if he’s taken away. We knew he was going to come looking, which is why Lucian came to live with us. We’re remote, unlike most others of our kind, who prefer high-density population centers. If there was going to be any kind of altercation, the collateral damage would be minimal out here. But we had no idea that he’d be so
close
when he came. Usually, it’s very difficult to pinpoint where you come through. When you travel between dimensions, you sort of upset physics. It literally agitates the fabric of the universe. Anyway—he opens a gateway, we get a freak storm.”

I stared at Adrian. “So I just happened to be sitting right there when an interdimensional portal opened up next to your house?”

He nodded.

“Okay,” I said, “but, so what? You rescued me, the storm’s over, I’m safe now.” When he didn’t respond, I followed up with a prompting “I’m safe, right?”

He leaned in close, even took my hand in his and stared down at it like it was the most fascinating thing in the world. Whatever he was about to say, it was bad.

“Your mom had died only a few days before,” he began. “You were, quite understandably, upset. If my father had come through in the city, he could have latched on to anyone, but there are so few people up here, and you were—
emotional
enough to draw attention. We could feel you, and we knew he’d head straight for you to strengthen whatever body he’d managed to create for himself. But I found you before he did. And I had to—”

He shook his head and sat back, a disgusted look on his face.

My stomach felt slimy. “What?”

His glance flicked up at me. “There’s no good way to say this.” He grimaced. “I had to drain you.”

“You had to—
what
?”

He let out a long breath. “In order to keep you from being detected, I siphoned off your emotion—all of it. I had to make even
you
forget you existed. That’s why you couldn’t remember the storm, and that’s why you were so weak. I nearly killed you, to keep you alive.”

I stared at him.

He scrubbed a hand across the bridge of his nose. “The stupid thing is, that
should
have been it. You were safe, you were home, our father left, we scared him off. Even Lucian was safe.” He looked tired suddenly. “Except Mariana had a dream about you.”

I stared at him. “What sort of dream?”

He shrugged. “She didn’t tell me much—she rarely does. They’re abstract and open to interpretation and that can mess with things. All I was told was that it had something to do with our father wanting to locate you.”

“But—it’s just a dream. Right?”

He shook his head. “No. No, unfortunately, it’s not just a dream. You’d already left residual emotional energy all over the place, like heat coming off pavement after a day in the sun. He still noticed you. Mariana’s vision confirms that.”

He glanced at me. “Since we go to the same school, it was my job to keep an eye on you after that, give you information as needed. My sister’s vision could mean nothing, but that’s rare. We don’t know what will happen, we don’t know
when
it will happen—but we do know it will revolve around you.”

A pregnant silence followed his statement as we stared at each other. I was, apparently, at the epicenter of a crazy demon vision, and Adrian was my vampire liaison.

And I had no idea how I was supposed to feel about that.

The bell rang sharply, startling us both. I looked away, cramming books into my messenger bag, and walked to his truck in a sort of daze, weaving through the flood of students. It felt weird that all this mythical shit was going down, and yet life went on, looking for all the world like everything was totally normal. Trish certainly didn’t know about any of this. Could I tell her? Could I tell my grandma? No. How could I tell them something I didn’t even really believe myself?

“So,” I said, finally breaking the strained silence after we were winding our way into the mountains. “Your father’s secret evil plan is to—what? Kill me?”

There was another uncomfortable pause before he finally muttered, “Not exactly.”

I looked over at Adrian. Finally, he cleared his throat. “We think he wants to impregnate you.”

I blinked.

I laughed.

And then I saw that he was serious.

I spun toward him on the seat, not sure if I’d heard him right. “He wants to
impregnate
me? Like, with a
baby
, that kind of impregnate?”