Chapter 28. Lorena #2
Hiding under a table, I keep my eyes trained on the entrance I came in through, watching for anyone following me. After a stretch of silence, I keep moving.
I use my phone’s flashlight to make it up the first tower’s crumbling staircase. Yet when I approach the first section that’s in disrepair, I can’t see the cracks and craters in the stone—wooden planks have been placed over those steps, making them safer to climb.
William must have done it.
For me.
My heart speeds up along with my feet, and as I swing open the penthouse door, I remember the vampire welcoming me to Thornfield Hall.
Frigid air blows through the room, and I button the top of my coat. Using my phone for light, I spot the box of uniforms on the floor, and when I peel back the layers of cotton, I see his suit’s shiny threads buried at the bottom.
I stride up to the loose rock in the wall, and it’s a lot heavier to dislodge than the vampire made it look. I manage to drop it to the floor, where it lands with a dull thud, and I’m just glad this tower is too far for anyone to hear.
Reaching into his hiding place, the first thing I touch is smooth and icy cold. The metallic box with the letter the vampire found in Minaro’s office. I can also feel a book—Hamlet—and more metal, which must be the framed portraits. Everything is here.
If William compelled Zach to forge his student file, and he didn’t pack his things to go to Hanover, then one thing is clear: He had no intention of abandoning Huntington.
Not until he met those damn vampires.
I consider taking these things with me. Both for safekeeping and for show-and-tell when I tell Salma about him. I pull out the copy of Hamlet, and a piece of paper slips free from the play’s pages.
I kneel to pick it up, and when I see what’s on it, I freeze.
It’s the photo of William and me at the Halloween ball. He must have taken it from the school’s display, but he didn’t destroy it. He kept it.
What does that mean—?
“What the fuck is this?”
I gasp and spin around, aiming my phone’s flashlight at my best friend’s face.
Salma’s light is on me, too, then it bounces around the rest of the room. She’s in her coat, so she must’ve seen me putting mine on. She followed me here.
“Lorena.” Her phone’s beam lands on me again. “What is this?”
“It’s … William’s room.”
“How is this his room?” she asks, hugging her torso for warmth. “It’s freezing and falling apart and doesn’t have a single piece of fucking furniture.”
“I can explain,” I say, “but let’s go somewhere warmer first—”
“No! Explain it now. This whole time, I’ve felt like you were hiding something. You’ve gone from never having a crush to being inseparable from this guy who isn’t your boyfriend and barely talks to the rest of us, and now you’re going to tell me what the hell is going on.”
She seems to say it all in one long breath because it takes her a few inhales to replenish her oxygen.
“The night we found the LUB,” I say, and each word dehydrates me more, until my mouth feels like cotton. “Remember how the coffin moved?”
She nods slowly.
“I lied.”
Salma just stares at me, withholding her reaction.
“Someone was inside, and he attacked me.”
“What?” Her expression cracks with outrage and concern. “Are you okay? Did you report him—?”
“It was William.” I whisper the name, but I know she heard me.
Salma goes back to her blank stare, giving nothing away.
“He’s not … human, Sal.”
Her expression looks stuck, like a laptop that won’t boot up.
“He’s a—a vampire.”
The word feels ridiculous, even now. Hanging in the air, without further explanation, it sounds not like the punch line to a joke but the setup. So I plunge into the full story of how that first night went and everything that has happened since.
I tell her how he’s been hibernating since the 1700s, and I explain that vampires used to coexist with humans, and they were only kept in check by a group called the Legion of Fire.
“On the Harvard campus, I went with him to Massachusetts Hall, where he had buried a time capsule that proves his story is true,” I say, describing how he used his powers of compulsion to make Minaro accept him as a waitlisted applicant and organize the impromptu field trip.
“Apparently, only one bloodline—called the Stokers, believe it or not—has the power to turn people into vampires. William isn’t one of them.”
Lastly, I tell her how he met a couple of vampires in Hanover and isn’t coming back.
What greets me is more silence.
“I know this sounds unbelievable, but I swear it’s the truth. I can show you a—”
“I believe you,” says Salma, and the word video dies in my throat. “I believe that for months you’ve known that we were friends with a vampire, and you didn’t tell me. Even though I’ve spent years trying to convince you this stuff is real.”
She speaks in a quiet voice that’s worse than yelling.
“You found what I’ve always searched for, and you kept it from me.”
“Sal, I was trying to protect you!”
“From what, Lore?!” Now she raises her voice, too. “From confirming everything I’ve ever believed is true—?”
She leans against the wall for support, raking in deep breaths.
I close the space between us. “Are you okay?”
“Stay away from me,” she says with a snarl, holding a hand up in warning. “I thought we were sisters, but for you to keep this from me—you’re not the person I knew.”
The betrayal on her face is worse than anything I’ve experienced at Huntington. I can barely move as she stalks out, her phone’s light retreating down the dark stairs.
She didn’t ask me to prove anything. She needed no evidence beyond my word.
That kind of trust takes a lifetime to earn—
And one bad decision to break.