Mother and Father weren't mad, which was good, because I couldn't have explained my lateness to save my life. Sorry, Mother, but I met a boy wandering through the park like I do… I didn't realize it was so late, Father, there was this person who made the world explode… Instead I climbed the steps to my room and sat on my bed in a daze. Everything…the pale blue walls, the ordinary, cream-colored carpet, the tidy desk…seemed changed. My cozy room seemed different—lonelier. I couldn't describe or identify the feeling, just the absence of something vitally important that hadn't been missing half an hour ago. Dell.
Normally falling asleep was not an issue; surviving each day surrounded by people usually sapped all my limited energy. But tonight, tired though I was, sleep wouldn't come. The sense of lack was so strong—I would have cried, but couldn't cry, would have run, but my feet wouldn't go anywhere but to the window, which I opened. The slight breeze blew my childish, long white nightgown around my ankles, and I felt (foolishly) like some sort of medieval princess.
"Leia." It was Mother, standing in my now-open doorway. "Do you realize that it's almost ten? You have school tomorrow, you should be in bed."
"Yes, Mother," I said obediently, and she watched while I walked slowly away from the window and sat on my bed. She turned to go, paused, half held out her arms to me. Then her face crumpled and she did go.
Next morning, as always, I got up early, selected breakfast from the myriad selection of grainy, organic, flavorless health cereals—Mother was sitting at the table with a cup of black coffee and the newspaper, she nodded hello but didn't say anything. Clearly last night (and by the standards of my family, last night had been big) had been forgotten. Never before had my familiar routine seemed less appealing.
English (remember English? Life goes on, I thought with forced cheer) was my first class, and I was still shivering from a bike ride that had turned me into a drippy-nosed icicle. The truth was that although I had my own car (it was even a semi-nice one) I wasn't allowed to use it unless absolutely necessary. So I was shivering and bearing a head-full of helmet hair when Dell came in.
How I could have been in class with him for almost half a year without noticing him once was beyond me. Our eyes me—I didn't know what was going on—he looked away. Something disappeared, I could breathe again; I realized that I hadn't been breathing. As Ms. Eason prattled on about the obscure and possibly unintentional themes of Theater of the Absurd, I doodled. I hadn't doodled in class for an eternity. It felt good.
We were given the usual fifteen minutes at the end of class to 'consult with our groups,' and I wished Carrie hadn't been there. I wanted to talk to Dell. But Carrie was there, very much so, and I could only steal glances at him as Carrie prattled on about I-don't-even-know-what. Finally, when she paused for breath, Dell said, "I think we should all get together at my house—we can work better there than we can here. Carrie—you know the way, right?—and I'll pick you up, Leia."
"401 Hillside Drive, but I can get there myself if it's any trouble—" Idiot! Why did you say that?
"No, I'll get you. It's no trouble," he said, smiling at me.
"Okay, but…my parents…" don't let me do anything or go anywhere, ever.
"I can do parents," he said. The bell rang, and I would have stayed, but my next class was a ways away and Carrie seemed to be talking to him already, quickly and agitatedly.
The rest of the day…was weird. That was the only word, indistinct and indefinable as it was, that could have come close to describing it. Dell was in all my classes except for AP Spanish, yet his presence hummed at the edge of my mind. When we were in the same room, the presence seemed stronger, and strange though it was…it wasn't unpleasant. It was just a constant, unspoken reminder that there was someone else with me; an almost companionable feeling that I decided not to fight.
Definitely not something that made it easy to pay attention to the teacher. I stole glances at him about, oh, every thirty seconds. He seemed to be looking at me more or less constantly. But it was only uncomfortable during World History: as the teacher went on and on about the early Plantagenet kings, I could feel someone else looking at me. I snuck a glance behind me.
Adler Mostro was looking steadily at me with a terrifying, indefinable look in his golden eyes. I didn't know him—nobody seemed to. He was incredibly unfriendly, though never downright rude, to everyone. And he looked like a bad-tempered bird of prey—a prominent, hooked nose, flashing eyes under heavy brows, long, curving fingers—not ugly, but not exactly approachable.
He met my eyes with an unreadable look. I shuddered and turned away.
No kind-hearted airhead offered me a ride home today. It was windy and unpleasant, and the sense of friendly being soon morphed into absence. If this is what the rest of my life is going to be like, I'd just as soon take a pass. I couldn't even think of a decent argument to the contrary: the only solution would seem to be to be with Dell every second of every day, something my parents (and the life they'd planned for me) would never allow.
They wouldn't allow me to spend a few hours with him with another person present, apparently. "No, Leia—I said no. If you have to work, you can work here, but I've never met Dell Hawthorne or his family. You'll just have to call him and say that you can't come.
I didn't scream or cry or throw things, although I would have liked to. Instead, I went up to my room and locked myself in, the greatest rebellion I'd ever committed in my life.
I could feel her confusion and unhappiness so clearly, and it permeated me and made me miserable too. The connection was the strongest thing I'd ever felt—I wasn't a particularly strong telepath and normally it took actual effort to understand what people felt and thought. But it was as if she was shouting everything directly into my head, as if she wanted me to help her. And I couldn't. That feeling of helplessness was the most intense, and painful, sensation I'd ever known.
Had anyone ever talked about this? Had anyone ever mentioned how painful it was to have a soulmate? Nobody had ever said anything about it being painful. Why does this have to be so complicated?
You're being whiny.
And? I was sitting at the kitchen table, and Carrie was laughing at me. "The expression on your face, she giggled when I glared at her. "You look as if the universe has just thrown an enormous rotten tomato at you."
"Not a tomato, a complication. I don't like complications; I don't do complications that well."
Carrie looked at me appraisingly. Then turned away. "Not my complication," she said airily. "She's your soulmate; you wanted to deal with whatever comes up. I'm only involved if you end up endangering your life." I didn't bother to argue.
I went hunting, subconsciously hoping (very consciously, if the truth must be told) that Leia would be walking again and that I would find her, but no such luck. And I was growing tired of hunting rabbits.
The next day I fidgeted with the various papers we had on Adler (maps of the area surrounding his house, random factoids organized in no particular way, even stories from human newspapers about attacks by vicious eagles), not really seeing any of them, to the point that Carrie suggested I just go abduct her or something. It was actually a good idea. I left.
Even if I hadn't known where she lived already, I was almost sure I would have been able to find her anyway. The connection was that strong. It was almost (but not quite) unsettling—this connection could be uncomfortable…
But all these thoughts flew directly out of my head when I reached 401 Hillside Drive (incidentally, there was no hill involved): Leia was sitting in the window, her face pensive, sad, and pressed against the glass. I rushed up to the house; Leia had materialized at the door. "Hi," she said, but she seemed heartrendingly unhappy. "My parents will be here in about fifteen seconds and they'll tell you themselves, but I can't go."
Her parents materialized over her shoulder. I could see Leia's features in both of them, but their faces were hard. "Hello," I said pleasantly (I hoped). As I spoke, I felt for their minds. It was easier, it made my life that much less complicated, but I wish it hadn't been: their minds were remarkably unpleasant places to be.
"Please leave," the man said, his voice hard. "I'm afraid we can't trust our daughter with someone we've never met before."
"Now," the woman added. Leia looked at me with helpless misery in her eyes. I'm sorry, she was thinking, I'm sorry. I wanted to go with you, would have stayed with you…I concentrated harder on her parents minds.
You will let Leia go with me. You don't care when she gets back. Say it.
"You can go, Leia," her father said. "Stay as long as you need to." Leia looked in shock first at her father, then at me. What did you do to him? She asked me. I don't know if she knew I could hear her or not. All I said was,
"Thanks, Mr. Price. Come on, Leia." She got into the car with me and stared.
"What did you do to him?" she demanded, not angrily exactly, just awed. "I've never seen my dad—or my mom—they've never done anything like that."
How to phrase this, precisely. Well, you see, Leia, I'm a vampire, and because vampires have mind control… "I will tell you in ten minutes, eight if I speed." She opened her mouth to protest; I touched her hand just slightly, and sparks flickered over my skin. "Trust me," I said. Leia didn't say anything else. Just…just stared at me.
It took eight minutes to get to my (and Carrie's) house. Yes, I did speed. Leia's eyes were everywhere, flickering around like butterflies, scrutinizing everything, always returning to me. I won't pretend I wasn't flattered by that. "Okay," she said suddenly. "Let me guess. None of this has anything to do with our English project. Correct?"
I nodded. "Right."
So tell me what it is about, she thought, looking directly at me when she did this, and I had a feeling that she knew I could hear her. I took a deep breath, then spat out the answer before I could lose my nerve.
"Leia, I'm a vampire." Her reaction was unlike any I could ever have anticipated.