But I had. I’d let Bethany help me, just because I’d helped her. Somehow, she’d crept under my skin. She’d seen a glimmer of the real me.
And now she was gone, possibly missing, possibly dead.
I’m going to find her
, I said silently, daring Zev to argue, to try to tell me what to do when he couldn’t even answer a simple question himself.
I’m going to find her, and I’m going to find out what they did to her—even if it means going straight to the belly of the beast
.
14
The house looked more like a coliseum than an actual home. Enormous columns lined the front door on either side; the lawn was pristine. At the moment, however, I was more concerned with the ten-foot-tall security gate that marked the property’s borders on all sides.
The gate was a problem.
I could have climbed it. If there’d been a pack of hellhounds on the other side, I doubtlessly would have, but this was recon, not a confrontation. I needed to be invisible, and that meant that if I was going to scale the gate, I at the very least needed to identify the least conspicuous location from which to do so.
I moved with the absolute silence of a panther stalking its prey, light on my feet, drawn to the shadows. The tank top I’d pilfered from the dormitories was black. The jeans had a dark wash. I could do this. I could blend. I could disappear into my surroundings….
About a quarter of the way around the house, I made my move, sidling up to the wall. It was made of brick and topped with wrought iron. I braced my foot against the base of the wall and curled the tips of my fingers downward, poised to dig my nails into the mortar.
“I bet you were a cat in a former life.”
I didn’t jump. I didn’t curse. My heart didn’t beat any faster at the interruption, but my breath caught in my throat.
“Skylar?”
“Hiya, Kali.”
For someone who gave every appearance of being Human with a capital H—physically, at least—Skylar Hayden was surprisingly stealthy.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, relaxing my hands and mimicking her posture, like I hadn’t been on the verge of beginning my career in breaking and entering a few seconds before.
“No idea.” Skylar grinned. “The universe works in mysterious ways.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “Likely story.”
“Also, when you and Bethany didn’t show up for school this morning, Elliot kind of freaked. He called Bethany, and her dad answered the phone. I tried calling you, but apparently, you don’t have a cell phone.”
“I lost it,” I said. If by “lost,” you mean “used it to dismember some zombies a few nights ago.” I went through cell phones almost as quickly as I went through clothes.
“In any case, I told Elliot you guys were fine, he went to class, and I came here. Speaking of, why are you here? I sense that the chocolate chips have hit the fan.”
“What else do you sense?”
Skylar shrugged. “Little bit psychic,” she reminded me. “I have my limitations.”
She seems … enthusiastic.
I almost responded to Zev’s words out loud, but stopped myself just in time.
That’s one word for it.
“So why are we climbing the Davises’ wall?” Skylar clearly wasn’t put out by the idea—just curious.
“
We
are not climbing anything,” I told her. “
I
need to get inside Bethany’s house. The two of us were in an accident this morning, and I think the people we saw yesterday might have taken her.”
“Taken her where?”
“I don’t know, Skylar. All I know is that someone ran our car off the road, I got knocked unconscious, and when I woke up, Bethany and the car were both gone.” I hadn’t meant to tell her that much. At this rate, I’d be confessing my deepest, darkest secrets by noon.
You seem to be somewhat attached to this human.
I ignored the running commentary in my head—and the scent of strawberries and blood, which I belatedly realized was the way Skylar smelled to the parasite inside of me. The one that connected me to Zev. The one that, according to Zev, I would eventually have to feed.
If I concentrated, I could hear Skylar’s heart beating, could see the pulse of her carotid artery in her neck.
I focused on not concentrating.
“If you think someone took Bethany, why are we at her house? Shouldn’t we be looking for evidence at the scene of the crime? Talking to people who might have seen where she went? Or,
ohhh
, we could check out local hospitals, and I could borrow Genevieve’s police scanner, and maybe Darryl could hack the DMV.”
I wasn’t sure which part of that run-on statement to respond to first. “Genevieve has a police scanner?”
Skylar shrugged. “We all have hobbies.”
Given what I spent my spare time doing, I wasn’t exactly in a position to be throwing stones.
“This isn’t a game, Skylar.” My voice was serious, but when Skylar responded, her tone made mine seem like child’s play.
“I know, Kali.” Her blue eyes were shadowed, her mouth set into a firm line. “Trust me, I know.”
Somehow, it was easy to believe that she knew the stakes, maybe even better than I did. “We shouldn’t be talking here,” I told her. “Someone might see us, and let’s just say that the people who ran Bethany’s car off the road might have reason to be looking for me.”
Like the fact that I was still in possession of their “specimen.”
And the fact that my body had disappeared from the side of the road.
The fact that I wasn’t dead …
On the off chance that Skylar
was
psychic, I stopped that line of thinking in its tracks and started talking, careful to keep the details to a bare minimum. I needed to tell Skylar enough to convince her this was dangerous, but not so much that I’d put her in
more
danger. Hitting a few key points, I ended with, “Whatever’s going on, Bethany’s dad is involved. She mentioned something about her dad keeping some of his equipment at home. He might have records here, too….”
I trailed off.
All I needed was a name. Once we knew who Bethany’s father was working for, Skylar could go Nancy Drew them to her heart’s content.
Know thy enemy.
Drain them dry.
“Kali?” Skylar’s voice broke into my thoughts, and I realized that I’d been staring—at her throat.
“Yeah?”
“You didn’t get rid of the chupacabra, did you?”
I didn’t answer. Instead, I turned back to the wall. “I need to get inside.”
Skylar nodded. “Go ahead. I’ll work on Plan B.”
More terrifying words had never been spoken, but before I could convince Skylar that there would be no Plan B, she was already off and running, and I was left with two choices: follow her or scale the wall.
I scaled the wall.
The mortar cracked under the force of my fingernails, and I flashed back to the feel of thick, leathery flesh giving way under my razor-sharp nails.
They’re out there. They’re waiting. They’re yours.
Find them. Find them
now.
It was only nine thirty in the morning, and already, I wanted to hunt so badly I could taste it on the tip of my tongue, bittersweet.
Dropping to the ground and landing in a crouch, I couldn’t help turning my inner ear to the world around me. There was something close. Something old.
Something deadly.
Ignoring the hum of the preternatural at the edge of my senses, I made my way to the side of Bethany’s house. The windows were closed. A camera stared down at me from overhead. I dodged its view and considered my options.
“For what it’s worth, I’m going in the front door.”
This time, Skylar didn’t appear right next to me. Instead, she yelled the words across the lawn, from the gargantuan front porch.
How had she gotten past the gate?
“I had the guard buzz me in,” Skylar called. “He’s really very nice.”
Even from a distance, I could tell that the expression on Skylar’s face was anything but innocent. She wanted in—not just the house, but the situation. If the woman in heels was keeping track of the Davises’ visitors, Skylar had just thrown herself onto her radar, and from the way she was standing there, I got the feeling that it was intentional, that she would keep doing it, again and again, until her life was on the line as much as mine.
Until she’d destroyed every reason I had for wanting to keep her out.
As I watched, horrified, Skylar stepped forward and rang the doorbell. I pressed my back against the side of the house, slipping as far into the shadows as I could. The front door opened, and Skylar grinned.
“Hey, Bethany,” she said, her voice carrying. “What’s up?”
15
Bethany looked like a shadow of her former self. She was wearing a light yellow sundress, faded and out of season. Her pale skin was marred by bruises, and her left arm was in a sling.
Red hair hung in a limp ponytail to one side, and even from a distance, I could see a sluggish quality to the way she moved, the way she blinked.
Had they drugged her?
Without even meaning to, I stepped out from the shadows. I began moving toward the duo on the front porch, but before I’d fully crossed the lawn, Bethany marked my presence. She stared at me, like she was trying to see through some kind of fog.
She shook.
Her mouth moved, but I couldn’t make out the words until I got closer.
“You’re dead.”
I stepped up onto the porch, careful to keep my back to the surveillance.
“I saw you. I saw you die. You’re dead.”
The first time she said it, Bethany’s voice was monotone, but by the second time—and the third—she was starting to sound more like her old self.
She was starting to sound pissed.
“I saw you. You went through the windshield. You broke your neck. There was blood—so much blood, and your legs …”
“Maybe you saw wrong,” Skylar suggested.
“I know what I saw. Kali’s dead, and I’m crazy. They drugged me up, and now I’m crazy. They were afraid I’d tell someone. They knew my dad couldn’t keep me here forever, so they made me crazy.”
“You’re not crazy,” I said calmly. “You must have just gotten things mixed up in the wreck. I was bleeding, but they were mostly surface cuts. When I woke up, you were gone. I was worried, so I came here.”
“I think I’d know if you weren’t dead,” Bethany snapped. “And, no offense, but I’m pretty sure I’m more qualified to tell if I’m crazy than you are.”
I couldn’t tell if Bethany was on the verge of hysterics or reading me the riot act. Skylar must have been leaning toward the “hysterical” interpretation, because she wound up and smacked her, right across the face.
Bethany blinked. “Did you just hit me?” she asked, disbelief coloring her every feature.
Skylar raised both hands, palms outward. “I come in peace!”
“You do not come in peace. You hit me.”
“I hit in peace!”
Sensing that this could devolve into an all-out brawl very quickly, I took matters into my own hands—literally. I stepped forward and put my right palm on Bethany’s shoulder.
“I told you I’d be okay, and I’m okay,” I said softly.
I could see the wheels turning in Bethany’s head, see her wanting to believe me.
“Are
you
okay?” I asked her.
Bethany shrugged off my touch. “I’m fine.”
“No you’re not,” Skylar piped up. “Somebody drugged you, and your dad is keeping you locked up in your own home. That’s not fine.”
“What is she even doing here?” Bethany directed the question at me, and I took that as evidence that she was at the very least less sure that I was a hallucination than she’d been a moment before.
Skylar didn’t wait for me to answer Bethany’s question—she jumped right in herself. “Someone’s watching you, Bethany. They’re after Kali. And I can’t shake the idea that this is bigger, that there’s something else,
someone
else….” Skylar frowned. “Bad people are doing bad things. Good people are doing bad things, too. I’m supposed to be here. I’m supposed to help.”
Skylar blinked, and her eyes stayed closed for a fraction of a second longer than they should have. “This is.”
She sounded … sad. Stubborn, determined, and sad.
“This is what?” I asked, wondering how many times I’d worn that same expression on my face and what exactly had put it on hers.
“It,” Skylar said simply. “This is
it
.”
Bethany snorted. “Because that really clears things up.”
Skylar smiled, but the expression only took on half her face. “Give it a few days,” she said, “and it will.”
I had no idea what she was talking about, but for better or worse, at the moment, I had bigger fish to fry.
I’d come here as step one in a plan to track down Bethany, but it looked like I wasn’t going to need steps two through four. Instead, I needed to find out what Bethany knew, what she remembered.
Besides the fact that I should have been dead.
“Can we come in?” I asked.
Bethany planted her body firmly in front of the open door. “My dad could come home any second. You shouldn’t be here when he does.”
“Then can we go somewhere else?” I gave her a look. “We need to talk.”
“I can’t leave,” Bethany replied without hesitation. “They’ll know if I do. My dad said everything was going to be okay. He said he’d take care of it, but I have to stay here.”
There was something in her eyes when she talked about her father—not quite anger, not quite fear.
“Why didn’t you go to the police?” I didn’t mean for the words to come out of my mouth with an edge to them, but they did. Bethany had left me on the side of the road. Maybe she hadn’t had a choice. Maybe they’d forced her to go, but she’d left me broken and bleeding on the ground and hadn’t lifted a hand against the people who’d put me there.
“You were already dead!”
The vehemence of Bethany’s words took me by surprise.
“You were dead, and it was my fault. I was the one driving. I was the one who got bitten. I couldn’t—I can’t do this again.”
Again?
“There was nothing I could do for you, Kali.”
“But there was something you could do for someone else.” Skylar tilted her head from one side to the other and then back again, staring intently at the lines of Bethany’s face. “Someone you love.”
Bethany’s eyes hardened, and she stepped back into the house, ready to slam the door in our faces. Unfortunately for her, I was quick.
Too quick.
Quicker than I would have been two days before.
There are some benefits to being bitten.
As Zev’s words echoed in my head, I realized how very close I was standing to Bethany. How fast her heart was pounding. How hungry the thing inside me was. I was fast and strong and
more
than I’d been two days before—and the chupacabra wanted blood.
Twenty-one hours and nine minutes.
“You can’t come in,” Bethany snapped, bringing me back to the present.
“Evidence would suggest otherwise,” Skylar commented, following my lead and stepping into the house.
“Get out.”
“Nope.” Skylar grinned. “I want to see Château Davis. You’ve been dating my brother for six months, and you’ve stolen my tampons twice. The least you can do is give me a tour.”
“Skylar,” Bethany said, her voice cracking. “Please, both of you, just get out.”
“Bethany?”
I half expected to run into Bethany’s father, but instead, the voice that had issued that query was clearly female.
“You guys need to go,” Bethany said again, her voice low and urgent.
“Bethany, dear,” the voice called from the other room, “have you seen Tyler?”
Bethany flinched. A moment later, her face was a blank canvas, flat and unreadable. She plastered on a smile and turned around, just as a woman wearing heels and a white silk bathrobe stepped into the room. She had long, wavy hair that straddled the line between blonde and red. Her eyes were wide, her smile inviting.
“Oh dear,” she said. “I didn’t realize Bethie had guests.”
“They were just leaving,” Bethany said.
“Don’t be silly, sweetheart. They should at least stay for breakfast. Have you seen your brother? It’s omelet day, and you know how he feels about those.”
Bethany stood up a little straighter, and her face softened. “Okay, Mom. Okay.”
I wasn’t sure what Bethany was saying “okay” to, but it seemed to satisfy her mother, who ran a smoothing hand over the white silk robe.
“I ought to get dressed,” she said absentmindedly. “Something’s not right.”
“Everything’s fine,” Bethany said. “I promise.”
Her mother nodded, and a second later she was gone, leaving the three of us in the foyer, silent, the air thick with all of the things we weren’t saying.
“She’s the one you’re helping,” Skylar said. “Your mom. What did your dad say he’d do for her if you kept your mouth shut about what happened out on the highway this morning?”
In my mind, I rephrased Skylar’s question—
what did he say he’d do to your mother if you didn’t?
“It’s none of your business,” Bethany said, her voice low and full of warning. “You never saw her. She’s fine.”
I couldn’t shake the look in Mrs. Davis’s eyes, the singsong tone to her voice. I’d seen her before, at university functions. She’d seemed fine.
Normal.
Like Bethany, only older.
What’s wrong with her?
I wondered, but that wasn’t the kind of question you asked out loud.
So instead, I asked something else. “Who’s Tyler?”