CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ORION FENIMORE
What part of be quiet do you not understand?
LILA MURPHY
The part where you’re telling me to be quiet.
Vampire Falls. Season one, episode nine – “Not On Our Watch”
“Everyone’s looking at me.”
“Nobody’s looking at you, babe,” says Roxy. “They’re looking at the Kaltenbrande demon and the dude with the claw marks across his cheek. How is the blood spurting like that?”
Do not be alarmed. There has not been a demon massacre at the hotel.
We’re looking round the special effects demos in one of the breakout rooms. You can have an actual artist from the show make you up to look like a vampire, demon or zombie – whatever’s your poison.
Guess who had a reaction to the glue last year and had to take an antihistamine then lay down with a flannel over her face for the entire last day?
What was under the flannel looked way worse than the Verrucrust demon prosthetics, believe me.
“And me, because I’m a big fake fan loser person,” I grumble.
Roxy ignores me and takes a photo of a zombie doing the peace sign.
After the quiz, I raced up to our room to pack my bags and flee my failure, only to discover Roxy had anticipated this move and confiscated my key card.
So here I am instead, dragging my hopeless, hollow shell around, a fraud among my peers. At least I’ve been able to shower.
“You’re not a loser, and you still get points for second place, remember?
” says Roxy, putting the envelope in her backpack.
We retrieved it from the coffee shop, where they referred to me as Chair Girl.
“Reception said we can use one of the empty conference rooms so you can practise for the next part of the competition. You can do your usual routine, but you should still go through it.”
“What’s the point? Big fake loser people don’t win cosplay competitions.”
“They don’t if they don’t practise.” I pause and raise my eyebrows at her. Roxy rolls her eyes. “And you’re not a loser. You’re amazing, blah blah, I already said that.”
“Charming,” I grumble, shuffling along.
We watch a make-up artist pull a werewolf mask over the head of a woman who is absolutely thrilled at the prospect of seeing through the eyes of a lycanthrope. Roxy looks at me.
“Have you seen Fake McKinley since you snapped at him at the quiz?”
“I didn’t snap.” Roxy raises an eyebrow, and I sigh. “Fine. But he didn’t answer a single question.”
“Excuse me, but you hissed at him every time he tried to contribute,” she says, then sticks out her bottom lip. “His poor, handsome, chiselled face was so sad, Eliza – so, so sad.”
“Don’t,” I say, feeling bad for snapping. Roxy’s used toit, but Fake McKinley isn’t. “I should probably make sure he’s OK.”
“You should probably apologise to Toby as well then. I think he thought you were possessed.”
“Toby will be OK; he has his mum and he’s not on my team, anyway,” I say, shrugging. “Fake McKinley is all alone, Roxy. He has nobody else here, but more importantly he’s . . .”
I do a chef’s kiss and Roxy nods in agreement.
“. . . so symmetrical,” I say, still moved by the symmetry. “His face is just perfection.”
“Resurrecting your DVS fan club, are you?”
My stomach plummets right into the toes of my Docs as Charlie Chamberlain saunters up to us. Where did he come from? Does he hover in the shadows, like Death?
“Actually, we never closed it, for your information,” I say, pleased with myself.
“She’s talking about her new boyfriend,” says Roxy, slinging an arm around me.
“Haha,” I say.
“You have a boyfriend?” asks Vivian as she joins us, then she frowns at Charlie Chamberlain. “Ew. Why are you doing an annoying throat-clearing thing? It’s gross.”
“I’m not,” he says, clearing his throat.
“Are we talking about that guy in the werewolf costume?” asks Vivian, her eyebrow arching. Roxy nods. “My, my. He is quite the hottie, bitches.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I clarify. “He’s just a guy.”
I catch Charlie Chamberlain’s eye and he blinks triple time then looks away quickly.
“WHERE IS IT?!”
Surprised, I fall into Roxy, my hands up ready to fight the angry, if quite small, vampire who has just leapt from a stool on the other side of the room and headed straight for my jugular. At least, I think that’s what’s happening.
“Where’s what?” I manage, looking around in case I’m part of a flash mob or something.
“The last chapter!” says the vampire, her voice desperate and menacing, and also kind of like . . .
“Sadie?” I say, frowning. “Is that you?”
“Duh.”
Vampire Sadie folds her arms and taps a foot, her pre-tween stance in contrast with the pointy fangs and wrinkly forehead. She doesn’t take her blood-red eyes from me as she shrugs her brother’s hand from her shoulder.
“She’s in a mood,” he says.
“I’m not in a mood,” she snaps, then waves her phone in his face. “I just have to know what happens. I need to know.”
We take a step back in case her head starts spinning; we’ve never witnessed her rage before.
“Happens with what, Sadie?” says Roxy.
“In Never Leave,” she turns to me, her vampire eyes wide, “does Viggo get to Orion in time? Does Lila lose her connection to the ghost of Desvoria? What happens?”
Roxy looks round at me, but I can’t take my eyes off Sadie who just said a bunch of words that wouldn’t mean anything to anyone who hasn’t read that particular Vampire Falls fan fiction. Or anyone who didn’t write it.
“You’re reading Never Leave?” I ask.
“Uh-huh, but no, because I can’t see the final chapter,”she says, waving her phone again.
It’s been so long since I even thought about Never Leave that I forgot it was still out there.
“How did you find it?” I say.
“Charlie showed it to me,” says Sadie.
I look at Charlie, who shrugs immediately and frowns.
“I didn’t show it to her. I mean, I just explained what fan fiction is and she found it.”
“No, you said you’d show me something cool,” says Vampire Sadie, shaking her head, “and you found it on Wattpad and then we read the first three chapters together on your iPad, Charlie.”
“Oh, did you, Charlie?” says Roxy.
Charlie Chamberlain clears his throat and looks everywhere apart from directly at me.
“I’m reading it too,” says Vivian.
“What?” I say, gaping at her, my entire ecosystem turning on its head.
“It’s really good,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “When’s the final part going up?”
“It’s not,” I say, folding my arms.
Sadie steps forward and looks up at me, her red eyes burning into my soul.
“Why not?” she gasps.
“I . . . I just stopped writing it,” I say, wondering if I should beg for my life.
“Why?”
Damn these children and their incessant questioning.
“Because . . . I just did,” I said.
“When?” demands Sadie.
I swallow, desperately trying not to look at Charlie Chamberlain.
“About a year ago, I guess.”
“But why?” implores the tiny vampire.
Why indeed, Sadie, I think as my eyes flick to Charlie Chamberlain of their own accord, much like my memory has a tendency to do.