"Um." Courtney suddenly became really interested in the tip of her ponytail. "About that."
"Wait, no. Not fifty." Balthazar's forehead furrowed, as if the microwave had deeply confused him, although I could see he'd already figured out the controls. "It was—no, not the seventies either—1987, right?"
"No!" Her cheeks were pink now. Genevieve stared at her friend; she hadn't heard this before and looked appalled. Courtney retorted, "It was 1984."
"Ohhh. 1984. Three years earlier. Way after the French left Indochina. My mistake." Balthazar shrugged. "Forgive me, Courtney. The decades sort of run together for those of us who've been around awhile."
I pretended not to overhear, but I couldn't help smirking as Balthazar triumphantly hit Start and the microwave started nuking a cup of blood. Age meant status: Anybody who hadn't even lasted half a century yet was a newbie, so all Courtney's posturing was completely blown. Lucas and I belonged at the school every bit as much as she did—
—which felt weird, but was true. Perhaps we would return here in forty years, or four hundred. Maybe we would come back to learn about how human life had changed and revisit the place we'd first met. It still spooked me to think about the vastness of the years that stretched out in front of us both. I got a little scared every time I thought about how much I might have to adapt to a world that could change as much as it had changed for my father since the Norman Conquest. The feeling that came over me was a lot like the fear of heights—so far to fall.
But when I thought about facing those years with Lucas by my side, I wasn't afraid.
* * *
The worst storm of all blew through about the middle of March, a Saturday night so windy that even the thick antique glass of the school's windows rattled in the frames. Lightning lit up the sky so often that sometimes, for a minute or more, it looked like daylight outside. With absolutely everyone trapped inside, every single common room was packed. Fortunately, a few friends and I had a way to escape.
"Okay, how can you have this much Duke Ellington and no Dizzy Gillespie?" Balthazar demanded of my father. He sat on the floor cross-legged, going through the albums to find music for us to listen to. I could've grabbed a few CDs and the player from my room, but that would've meant leaving my place beside Lucas on the sofa. Lucas had his arm around my shoulder, so I wasn't budging.
"I used to have some Dizzy," Dad said. "Lost that in a fire in sixty-five."
Patrice, who sat primly in a nearby chair, sighed. "I had a terrible fire in 1892. It's horrifying."
"I would've thought you wouldn't mind the chance to shop for a whole new wardrobe," Lucas teased. Everyone sort of looked at him. "What did I say?"
"Fire is one of the few things that can kill us," Mom explained, arms folded in front of her chest. She and Dad were still wary of Lucas, but they were trying to make the best of things. Like Mrs. Bethany, they had rationalized that the more Lucas knew, the less likely he was to make another terrible mistake. "That makes fire scary stuff."
Lucas's expression clouded, and for a moment I had no idea what he was thinking or feeling. Mostly I was pleased because Mom had said "us," like Lucas already belonged.
Then Lucas said abruptly, "We were wondering about this the other day, actually. What are the other ways? That vampires can die, I mean?"
"Well, let's see." Dad clapped his hands together, like he had to work to remember this after a millennium. "Pretty short list, actually."
"Stakes," Lucas said firmly. "That's what they show on TV, anyway."
"Idiot box." Patrice obviously thought television was too newfangled to merit her attention. But she was willing to talk to Lucas about being a vampire. I hoped she might open up a little, the way she had to me about her life in New Orleans, but so far she had mostly stuck to hard facts. "Stakes 'kill' us, but only temporarily. Once the stake is pulled out, you'll be fine again in no time."
Balthazar put a Billie Holiday album on as he added, "You just have to make sure you have a friend who can dig you up and take care of that."
"It's pretty much fire and beheading." Mom ticked these two options off on her fingers.
"And holy water?" Lucas asked.
"Hardly." My father didn't bother to hide his contempt for Lucas's suggestion. "I've had holy water thrown at me a few times. If there's any difference between that and rainwater, I never felt it."
Lucas looked skeptical, but he simply nodded. "Okay. Sorry, I know these are stupid questions."
"It's a lot to absorb," Patrice said. From her, this was extremely charitable, so I gave her a smile as I leaned my head against Lucas's shoulder. Sheets of rain washed against the windows, a constant whisper of noise beneath Billie's croaky singing.
Mom must have noticed my snuggling a bit with Lucas, because she quickly tapped my father on the shoulder. "Okay, Adrian. We've hung out long enough. I'm sure the kids would rather talk without us."
"Kids? Save that for the classroom. We're almost exactly the same age!" Balthazar laughed. He was right, which was incredibly weird to think about. "You should stick around."
"I don't mind." Patrice shrugged.
Lucas and I shared a look. We kind of did mind, but in an ideal world, Mom and Dad would've taken Balthazar and Patrice away with them so we could make out on the couch. That wasn't going to happen.
Doing her eerie maternal-telepathy thing, Mom sighed sympathetically. "I guess there are times when no amount of privacy from the parents is enough, huh?"
"Evernight is definitely a challenging place to date," Lucas agreed. Balthazar acted really interested in the Billie Holliday album cover all of a sudden.
Remembering how I'd shot Balthazar down, I cast about for any way to lighten the moment for him, then remembered a funny story I could tell. "Hey, at least it isn't as bad for us as it was for your great-grandfather-whatever. Right, Lucas?" Lucas gave me a blank look. His face went pale, like I'd said something scary. Surely he was thinking about the wrong thing.
"Is this a family anecdote?" Mom asked. "Those are usually the best kind." Everyone was listening now.
"One of Lucas's ancestors came to Evernight, a great-grandfather or something around a hundred and fifty years ago. Come on, you tell it better!" I elbowed Lucas, but now his body was totally tense, as rigid as a board. He had said the story was a secret, but that had to be a joke, didn't it? A story more than a hundred years old couldn't be a secret. Maybe Lucas thought it was embarrassing, but I couldn't see why he'd be ashamed of something that didn't really have anything to do with him. "Anyway, he came here to study. He got into a duel with one of the other students, maybe over a girl, and they fought right in the great hall. That's how that one stained-glass window was broken—did you know that? Neither of them died, but they expelled him, and…"
My voice trailed off as I saw that my parents and Balthazar had all gone completely still. They were staring at Lucas. His fingers were digging into my shoulder.
The only other person in the room who looked as confused as I felt was Patrice. "They let humans in before?"
"No," Balthazar said sharply. "Never."
"You had an ancestor who was a vampire?" I was astonished. "Lucas, you never knew this? Is that even possible?"
"I don't think that's what we're dealing with." My father stood up slowly. He wasn't a very tall man, yet something about the way he loomed over us on the sofa was incredibly intimidating. "I don't think that at all."
"A hundred and fifty years ago." Mom's voice shook. "That was when…the one time that they…"
Dad never took his eyes off Lucas. "Yes."
Then he grabbed Lucas by the throat.
I screamed. Had Dad gone crazy? Suddenly Lucas pushed his arms through my father's, prying him off, and then Lucas's fist smashed into Dad's nose. Blood sprayed out, wet drops hitting me across the face.
"Stop! What are you doing? Stop!" I cried.
Everything after that happened so fast. Balthazar pulled me away from the fight, hard, so that I stumbled a
nd fell onto the floor. He threw a punch at Lucas, too, but Lucas ducked it. Patrice wrapped her arms around me, screaming loudly, and because of that unable to move. My mother slammed one of the wooden dinner chairs onto the floor so forcefully that it broke. I thought at first that she was trying to get the guys' attention, to figure out what the hell was going on, but instead she took one of the chair legs in her hand as a club and swung it into the small of Lucas's back.
He shouted in pain, but instantly he spun, broke Mom's grip, and left her clutching her hand. Dad and Balthazar were both on Lucas, trying to fight him as one, but he was as fast as they were, blocking every blow. I remembered the pizza parlor and the fight there. As formidable as Lucas had come across then, that had been nothing. This was how he could really fight—powerful enough to fend off two vampires at once.
I was strong enough to fight with them, but I didn't want to fight my parents for Lucas, or Lucas for my parents, not until I understood what the hell had just happened.
"What are you doing?" I shrieked. "Stop it, everyone, stop it!"
They didn't stop. My father swung at Lucas's gut, and when Lucas dodged it, he seemed to fall backward—but he was faking, crouching to grab the chair leg my mother had dropped. Immediately Dad and Balthazar edged backward, and I realized Lucas now possessed a stake. Maybe he couldn't kill either of them forever with that alone, but he could take them out of commission.
Patrice screamed in my ear as Lucas plunged the stake toward Balthazar's chest. Balthazar leaped backward, only barely avoiding the blow. I could see a cut along his cheekbone, crescent shaped from Lucas's fist. Then, to my horror, Lucas focused on my father. He was actually trying to stake Dad.
"Lucas, don't!" I pleaded. "Mom, tell him to—Where's Mom?" She seemed to have vanished while I was distracted by the fight.
"She's run downstairs for help." My father's words came out in a growl. "Mrs. Bethany will be here soon, and then we'll get this taken care of."
Lucas only hesitated for a second. "Bianca, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Lucas?"
His eyes met mine. "I love you."
And then he ran, out the door, down the steps. At first all of us were too stunned to do anything, but then Dad and Balthazar took off after him. I turned to Patrice, who still huddled next to me on the floor. "Do you understand any of this?"
"No." She ran her hands over her smooth, plaited hair, as if she could erase her earlier panic by fixing her own appearance. Nothing else mattered to her.
Though my legs shook, I got up and rushed after them, stumbling down the steps. I could hear Balthazar's shouts echoing against the stone: "Stop him! Stop him now!"
Then there was a terrible crash, the silvery sound of splinters of glass ricocheting against floors and walls, and my father swore. My heart pounded so hard that I felt almost like I'd die if I didn't stop running, but I'd die if I did stop, because Lucas was in danger and I had to be with him.
I half ran, half fell the last spiral of the steps to see Balthazar, Dad, and a few students standing around, staring at the one clear glass window of the great hall. The window was shattered, and I realized that Lucas had used the chair leg to break it and escape. He hadn't even had the minute it would've taken to run halfway down the hall to the door. My parents had probably stopped chasing him only because plenty of human kids were in the room, freaked-out and about to start asking difficult questions.
My mother walked into the great hall, clutching her wrist. A few steps behind her was Mrs. Bethany, whose dark eyes flashed with barely suppressed rage.
"What the hell is going on?" Raquel came down the steps behind me. "Was there—was there a fight or something?"
Mrs. Bethany drew herself upright. "This is none of your concern. Everyone, back to your rooms."
Raquel shot me a look as she started edging back up to our floor. Obviously she wanted me to explain, but how could I? My entire body flushed hot, then cold with every heartbeat, and I couldn't really breathe. It hadn't been five minutes since I'd sat next to Lucas while we laughed at my parents' jokes.
Mom, Dad, and Balthazar didn't move when the others did, so I remained still, too. As soon as everyone else had left, I wanted to ask Dad what this meant, but I didn't get the chance. Mrs. Bethany demanded, "What happened?"
"Lucas is part of Black Cross," my father said. Mrs. Bethany's eyes went wide—not like she was scared but definitely surprised, the first time I'd ever seen her show any vulnerability at all. "We found out only now."
"Black Cross." She balled her hands into fists and stared at the broken window. The rain blew through the jagged opening with the gusts of wind, and thunder boomed out again. "What can they mean by this?"
"We have to go after him immediately." Dad looked ready to run outside that second. Mom laid her good hand on his arm.
Very quietly, she said, "There will always be hunters. Nothing has really changed."
Mrs. Bethany turned toward her, head cocked, eyes narrow. "Your pity is useless to us, Celia. I understand your desire to spare your daughter pain, but if you and your husband had been more vigilant, she would not be in this situation now."
"This kid came here for a reason. He hurt our daughter to accomplish it. I intend to find out what it is." Dad peered through the darkness. "He can't move as fast in the storm as we can. We should go now."
"We have time to assemble a team," Mrs. Bethany insisted. "Mr. Ross will summon help as soon as he can, which means we cannot be sure of finding him alone. Mr. and Mrs. Olivier, both of you, come with me to fetch and arm the others."
"I'm on the team, too." Balthazar's jaw was set.
Her eyes swept up and down as though taking his measure. "Very well, Mr. More. For the moment, I suggest you see to Miss Olivier. Explain her folly and keep her quiet."
Mom held out a hand toward me. "I should talk to her."
"Given your willingness to ignore the hard facts, I think the task is better left to a more neutral party." Mrs. Bethany pointed toward the staircase.
I half expected Mom to tell Mrs. Bethany where she could shove her attitude, but Dad grabbed her good arm and pulled her upstairs with him. Long skirts in her hands, Mrs. Bethany followed.
The moment we were alone, I turned to Balthazar. "What just happened?"
"Shh, Bianca, calm down." He put his hands on my shoulders, but I wasn't having any of it.
"Calm down? You guys just attacked my boyfriend, who attacked back. I don't understand this, none of it! Please, Balthazar, just tell me—tell me, oh, God, what? I don't even know what to ask!" So many questions welled up inside me that they seemed to stick in my throat, choking me.
Balthazar said evenly, "You've been lied to. We've all been lied to."
One question rose to blot out all the others. "What is Black Cross?"
"Vampire hunters."
"What?"
"Black Cross is a group of vampire hunters who have plagued us ever since the Middle Ages. They track us down. They separate us from others of our kind. And they kill us." Balthazar wiped the drops of my father's blood from my face as tenderly as though they were tears. "They tried to infiltrate Evernight Academy once before. Every so often, a human talks or bribes his way in here, and they tolerate it as a way of avoiding attention. One of those humans turned out to be a member of Black Cross."
"Around a hundred and fifty years ago." The story I'd told upstairs, the one Lucas had revealed when we first met, suddenly made sense. "The fight in the story—it wasn't a duel, was it?"
Balthazar shook his head. "No. The Black Cross operative was discovered and fought his way out. The same thing happened tonight."
Black Cross. Vampire hunters. Lucas hadn't mentioned finding them in the books Mrs. Bethany gave him; I realized he had kept them from me.
Lucas had come here to hunt down and kill creatures like me. He'd even coaxed me into biting him again—and giving him the strength and power to truly fight back. He'd used me to become a more efficient killer, and then
he'd tried to murder my parents, and he'd lied about everything, all along.
In the beginning, before Lucas knew I was a vampire, he kept trying to protect me. I thought he was taking care of me because I was lonely, but it wasn't that at all. He thought I was a human surrounded by vampires, and that's why he kept looking out for me.
But ever since he found out what I really am, he's been using me to get deeper inside Evernight. To gain our powers. To get whatever he wanted. He made me feel guilty about lying to him when he was telling an even bigger lie.
What had seemed like love was betrayal.