Chapter 11. Lorena
lorena
I can feel the bags shadowing my eyes as soon as I wake up in the morning. The skin there is tender, like it might molt.
But I did it. I’m alive. I defeated the vampire.
I was so afraid he—William—would know I was lying about the cloud, since there’s no internet connection here, but he’s clearly clueless.
Hopefully he’s far away by now. My leverage over him is only temporary, until he learns about things like AI and deepfakes, but at least I bought myself enough time to do what’s needed to keep everyone safe.
I’m going to speak to Minaro after class today and tell her about the wardrobe and William.
I’ll say I discovered the room alone and accept whatever consequences necessary, but first she needs to seal off that passage so no one else ever disturbs that darkness. Especially my friends. And then we need to find this mysterious Legion and let them know a vampire is on the loose.
“Are you ignoring me because you’re still pissed off?”
Salma’s concerned face comes into focus. “I already told you I was sorry, Lore.” She frowns as she surveys me. “Also, how do you sleep so much and still look more tired than the rest of us?”
“Good one!” says Tiffany appreciatively.
“I didn’t say I was sleeping well,” I say, not offering more than that.
“Well, we all decided we’re taking the night off from the LUB,” says Salma.
“Trevor didn’t want to, but we outvoted him.
We’ve been spending every night there going through hundreds of blank books, just because he’s convinced there’s a secret hidden somewhere, and if we don’t check every page, we could miss it. ”
I flash to that green book again. What did Trevor find that’s convinced him there’s something written in those blank pages?
“But it’s only Wednesday,” Salma goes on, “and we’re already falling behind on both homework and sleep.”
I’ll finally start catching up on those things, too, now that I got rid of the vampire.
I grab my phone off my desk, and part of me wants to pull up the video just to see him in the daylight.
But I force myself to hide the device instead, stuffing it under my mattress when neither Salma nor Tiffany is looking.
It’s time to put William Pride out of my mind.
Yet all through American history, I can’t stop thinking of what he revealed about the past. It feels impossible that he was describing our world. If vampires really existed, there would be evidence. Others would have survived.
I miss most of Ms. Floreville’s lecture on the Roanoke Colony, too busy trying to convince myself that the things in our textbook are true.
Every time I assure myself that I’m not going to see the vampire again, the relief that ballooned in my chest earlier begins to deflate. While I’m glad I no longer have to worry about death by exsanguination, there’s something anticlimactic about my triumph.
Our whole civilization has been built on an existential lie, and I’ve lost my only chance to find the truth.
Now I will never know why he was in that coffin, or what other worlds may exist out there. I will never know who the Legion of Fire was or what it’s like to be a Familiar.
I will never feel my heart race as it did when he came near.
I ignore that last longing because I don’t want to know what it means. Am I seriously this romance-deprived that I’m romanticizing a monster just because he’s good-looking?
Ms. Floreville is discussing how the colonists of Roanoke vanished and became the Lost Colony. Sort of like how the vampires have vanished from all historical records. I feel my eyelids growing heavy, and I let my neck go limp, my chin dropping as I drift off …
I feel a sharp poke in my side, and my eyes fly open.
Mr. Torres is staring at me expectantly from the front of the room. I don’t even remember walking into Spanish class. I peek at Salma, who’s glaring at me and pointing to a sentence in her textbook.
But sleepiness is still gnawing at me, and the print is a blur.
“Miss Navarro,” says a grimacing Mr. Torres, “if you cannot stay awake during class, I am afraid I’m going to have to—”
“It’s my fault, Mr. Torres!” Salma snaps to her feet, and I’m too stunned to stop her. “I—I was coughing all night, and I kept her up. I like to take naps after class, but Lorena doesn’t, so she’s running on very little sleep.”
Our teacher looks from her to me and sighs. “Okay, look—Miss Navarro, if this behavior repeats itself tomorrow, you will have a first strike on your record, is that clear?”
I nod in assent, and Salma sits back down.
“You only get two chances here,” says Mr. Torres. “Third strike means expulsion.”
I never got in trouble in class at my old school, so that last word reverberates through me, and my back stiffens with fear. I do a slightly better job of focusing in precalculus, which I don’t have with Salma, and then it’s finally lunchtime.
“We need to talk.” Salma finds me as soon as I leave the classroom, and it feels like déjà vu from yesterday, only she’s gripping my elbow like I’m a wayward toddler she wants to keep in her custody. The hall fills with more students, including Tiffany.
“What’s up?” she asks, noting how Salma is holding me.
“We’ll meet you at lunch,” says Sal.
Tiffany looks at me through slitted eyes, like she knows her banishment is my fault. As soon as her heels click-clack away, Salma drags me in the other direction, to the ballroom-like sitting room that I cut through last night. In the daylight, with the chandeliers off, it looks less regal.
“Thanks for the save in Spanish,” I say, trying to pull my arm back.
“Lore, I’m fucking worried about you.” Salma keeps her hold on me, her brown eyes narrowed with concern.
“You’re sleeping more hours than the rest of us, but you look like you’ve been pulling all-nighters.
And you’ve never gotten in trouble at school before!
Something is happening to you, and I think I know what it is. ”
She inhales deeply, like this is costing her, and I feel awful that I’m causing her even more pain than she’s already in.
“You resent me for making you come to Huntington,” she blurts out. “Especially since I ditched you the other night. And you have every right to be upset.”
“I don’t—and I’m not!” I rest my hand on hers reassuringly. “I’m just not sleeping well, that’s all. How else do you think I knew you snuck out the other night?”
I manage to lie to Salma with ease. A small part of me is impressed, but most of me is disgusted.
“No,” she argues, “you’re not sleeping well because you didn’t want to come here. I know I twisted your arm—but now I’m letting go.” She pulls her hand off me. “I’m going to call your parents, and I would prefer to do it with you and not behind your back.”
“You’re what?”
“I expected you to have called them by now, but I think you’re afraid they’ll hear it in your voice, how unhappy you are. So, if you won’t do it, I will.”
I feel something tightening in my chest. This isn’t like Salma at all. She’s acting like—
Me.
“Salma, what’s going on? You’re not being yourself.”
“You mean I’m being like you?” she asks, reading my thoughts. “Now you can see how it feels.”
“I told you I’m fine!”
Her eyes widen to comical size. “You’re one step closer to expulsion!”
“You heard Mr. Torres,” I say, trying to placate her. “Just give me one more day. If I’m still a mess tomorrow, we can call my parents. Okay?”
She nods in assent, and she looks more relieved than I feel. This is way out of character for her—but then I could say the same about myself.
For Sal’s sake, I force myself to stay awake in my other classes, until finally we get to last period. I love the way Minaro runs this class: She lets us read for the first forty-five minutes, then we have a class discussion about the novel for the last fifteen minutes.
Class time has started, but one of the chairs in the front row remains empty. A quick scan of the others tells me Mateo is missing.
The director isn’t here yet, either. I open my copy of Jane Eyre, eager to keep reading. Jane is at school, and even though Lowood is just as miserable as her aunt’s house, I love that she’s found a friend like Helen.
“Mateo is no longer in this class,” says a deep voice, and I look up from my book to see Minaro, who’s standing in front of her desk, addressing us.
“He informed us this morning of his decision to return home. We are of course saddened by this, but we recognize that it can be hard to stay away from our families for this long.”
She looks at me, like she’s somehow aware of my conversation with Salma.
“Yet there is, as with everything, a silver lining,” says the director. “As it is quite early in the year, we were able to let in a student off the waitlist.”
The door opens, and our teacher says, “What fortuitous timing! Please welcome…” The new kid stays out in the hall, and she gestures for them to enter the room. “Your name, dear?”
The guy looks like he barely fits into the school uniform, cutting an even taller and stronger figure than Trevor. As I lift my gaze, the air gets suctioned out of me, and my throat grows dryer than a desert.
The new kid looks straight into my eyes as he introduces himself.
“William Pride.”