Chapter Ten
Chapter
Ten
The bookcases get closer, pressing against my shoulders. Stay calm. I run my hands over a shelf, grabbing the tallest book I can find. I shove it on the floor, just in time to stop the cases from crushing me.
The vampire doesn’t move, but the red glow of her eyes helps mine adjust to the dark.
“This is a bad idea,” I say slowly. The turnstile continues its squeaking, but the book beneath me seems to be sturdy enough. For now.
“You little roach.” The vampire finally speaks, and I know I’ve heard her voice before.
Jannet. Don’t get involved with the Red Ribbons, Penny had said.
I’d thought they hadn’t recognised me. But I was wrong.
“It wasn’t enough for you to invade our campus,” she hisses.
“You just had to stick your nose where it ought not to be, didn’t you? ”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say. The turnstile, which had for a second gone quiet, starts squeaking again. But this time in the opposite direction, giving me breathing room. “Listen, I don’t want trouble.”
“A little too late for that.”
I hear footsteps at the other end of the aisle.
I draw out the chain from my watch.
“Jannet,” a voice says behind me, weaker, trembling. “This is a bad idea.”
“I told you to not join us if you can’t handle the dirty work, Stella,” Jannet says, voice sharp. She stalks towards me, entering the narrow aisle.
Her red eyes bore into mine, and I feel the back of my head prickle, then grow numb as she attempts to compel me.
“You’re going to kill Elia Tamarit,” she says, putting a hand on my neck, forcing me to look into her deadly eyes.
Her nails are sharp, strangely damp. “And then you’re going to kill yourself. ”
“But I don’t know who that is,” I say. Bite me, I think. Instead, Jannet stabs her nail into my neck, tearing the skin. Pain shoots through me, my knees suddenly weak.
“Look for her, and then—”
Before she can finish, I tighten my grip on my blade and slice upwards.
The silver melts through her face, and she screams. Burning flesh hides the stench of her venom.
Stella cries out behind me and starts running.
But just like last time, I’m faster. I grab her long hair and shove her against the cold metal wall.
She whimpers, while behind us, Jannet is clasping her face, making a gargling sound.
I hold the blade under Stella’s neck, and she sobs.
I hear it sizzling against her pale skin.
“You won’t tell anyone about this, will you? ” I ask in a low voice.
She shakes her head.
I should kill them both. Shove their dust under a bookcase, and hope no one comes back down into the archive. But they’re not working alone. Shit. Shit. Shit.
What would Penny do? She’s always in control. Jannet crawls out from between the aisles, holding her bloodied face, and when her wide eyes meet mine, she’s terrified. Stella is still clasping her neck, trembling. Maybe they’ll keep quiet.
And when questions come, I’ll say I was defending myself.
The excuse might not last long. But it’ll have to do.
Gritting my teeth, I turn on my heel and run through the dark.
The pain in my neck deepens. She must have licked her nail before stabbing me with it.
A few heads turn to stare as I race out of Kinsnet, and my head is pounding once I stumble out into the cold night.
The wound is burning, mixing with the ache in my head.
Then there are my period cramps, still twisting my insides.
Pain continues to spread, my sight blurring.
Does that leech even know her venom could kill a human?
I reach Tynarrich, hand clasped over the shallow cut on my neck. I slump against the cool wall of the lift, doors closing before it starts to climb up to the ninth floor. My head is swimming, cold sweat covers my forehead, red hair sticks to my skin in damp strands.
My room is empty. Penny told me to stay away. Focus on my mission. Why didn’t I listen to her?
I struggle out of my coat, and then grimace when I see the bloodstain on my shirt.
I take it off, and hope Astra doesn’t walk in now.
My period cup is full, so I empty and rinse it.
My cold sweat turns into a shiver. A bath wouldn’t do me any harm, I think, turning the hot tap until steaming water pours from the faucet.
Astra has a selection of bath salts. I consider pouring them all in just to piss her off, but I’m too dizzy to do anything except climb into the scalding water.
She probably won’t be back for several hours.
She’s probably in some semi-public corner of campus, fucking another vampire.
The cut on my neck burns as Jannet’s venom sinks into my blood.
I stare up at the ceiling. How am I going to explain my way out of this?
But before anxiety can distract me from the pain in my neck, the white steam clouds my vision, pulling me under.
“Cassie?”
Her voice is distant, yet somehow near at the same time.
“Go away,” I manage to say. The bath has gone cold, but I can’t move, my bones heavy, melting into the porcelain shell of the tub.
“Please.” Astra’s voice is tight, much closer now. I can feel her breath on me. “Cassie, please wake up.”
I do, blinking as I find her leaning over me, face too close to mine, metallic breath against my lips. I’m not in the bath, but in my bed.
“Must have been a very low concentration,” Astra says, one hand on my cheek, her skin cool and smooth.
“Low?” I croak, and I don’t sound like myself.
“Vampire venom is deadly,” she says. “And quick.”
When I was first recruited, I spent months poisoning myself.
One small dosage at a time, my own personal attempt at mithridatism.
But clearly all that work was for nothing, because the venom has taken a real toll on my body, weighing down my muscles.
My period cramps just add an extra layer to the pain.
“If it had been a higher dosage, you wouldn’t have made it home.”
That word, home, is so incredibly strange. So out of place.
“It’s too hot,” I whisper, head thumping. The curtains of my bed are open already, but she pulls them further apart. Then she unlocks the shutters and opens the window wide. Wind blows in, making a mess of Astra’s short and carefully styled hair. Why is she here?
“I have to cure you now, before it’s too late, all right?” she says, and I blink, staring at her.
“Cure me?” A panic the likes of which I’ve not felt in years seizes ahold of me. “If you bite me I—”
“I’m not going to bite you,” she says, dumbfounded. She vanishes for a moment and reappears with a dagger. “I’m going to pour a few droplets of my blood onto the wound,” she says.
The wound burns, and I stare at her, my eyes wide. “No, you’re not.”
“My blood has healing properties,” she says, aggravated. She puts the dagger down. It’s close enough for me to grab it. I can still defend myself. “It’s an antidote for practically every wound and poison you can imagine.”
“I’m not being turned into a vampire,” I snarl, and my hand is close, so close to the dagger.
Astra sighs again, shaking her head. “I—You do realise you would have to die first for that to happen, right? I’m trying to stop that from happening!” She twists the hem of her shirt. She’s nervous.
“Why?” I ask.
“What?”
“Why do you want to help me?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do?” she says. “Just because you think I’m a monster, doesn’t mean I actually am one.”
I think I’ll recover naturally—but what if I’m wrong?
“Please, Cassie,” she says, leaning over me again, her brows knotted tight, as though glaring will somehow convince me.
I have to say no.
Just the thought of her blood mingling with mine makes me want to throw up.
“Are you sure it won’t kill me?”
“It won’t,” she whispers.
Clouds clear, revealing a full moon. A crow flies past our window, joining the murder that lives on the branches below. “All right, then,” I finally say. The moon’s silver glow shines on my bed, covering us both.
She breathes out, relieved, and lifts the dagger. “Look away if you don’t want to see my blood,” she says, holding her palm out.
I watch. I’ve seen plenty of vampires bleed before. She winces as she draws the blade across her skin, the dark liquid instantly pooling in her cupped hand. “You won’t feel a thing,” she assures me.
She presses her blood-soaked hand to my neck, and just as she promised, I don’t feel anything. Nothing but my own pulse, loud, beating against her skin. A strange feeling rushes through me as her blood seeps into the wound, warmth slowly eating away at the pain.
Her frown relaxes, and she smiles. “There. It’s gone.”
The pain, as she promised, vanishes. Even my period cramps. Slowly, I sit up. I’m in my nightgown, although I have no memory of putting it on. Her shirtsleeves are wet. It’s only now, as the pain recedes, that I realise she must have gotten me out of the bath. She’s seen me naked.
I touch my neck. The wound has healed completely; all that’s left is the sticky residue of her blood. The feeling makes me want to vomit, but I keep that to myself. I can’t believe I let her heal me. “Thank you,” I say.
Aliz gawks at me, shocked by the words. She clears her throat, and I could swear she looks embarrassed. “You should rest,” she says, mattress creaking as she gets up. “But now I need to have a word with whoever did this to you,” she says, darkness slipping into her voice.
“Did what?” I ask, reaching for my water bottle. Astra crouches down, picking something up from the floor. My white shirt with a couple of spots of blood on the collar. I sigh. “Some girls,” I say.
“What did they look like?”
“Vampires.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Very funny. At least try to describe them.”
“A vampire’s beauty is impossible to describe,” I say. Strength slowly returns to my muscles.
“Was it the Red Ribbons?” she asks. I bite my tongue, keeping my expression neutral.
Shit. I see her rummaging through her bag for something.
A makeup wipe of some sort. Before I can ask what she’s doing, she sits next to me again and rubs it against my neck, cleaning the blood.
I clench my teeth, trying to ignore our proximity.
“I knew they were plotting something, so if—”
“How did you know?” I ask, not breaking eye contact. She’s so close. The scent of her blood, of my own, mingle with the mossy fragrance she carries everywhere. “Are you a member?” I already know she isn’t, but I like seeing her frown.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Just last night you told me you were superior.”
“No, I said my senses were more refined. And I was only trying to annoy you,” she says. “Please, Cassie. Just tell me.”
“I don’t remember them,” I say. “It all happened very quickly, all right?”
“I’m trying to help you.”
“You already did,” I say. “The wound is gone.”
“Fine,” she says, exasperated. “But I’m going to find whoever did this to you, whether you like it or not.”
I wait until she’s out of the room before picking up my phone. Did you know that Astra blood is magical?
I type this, almost hit send, but I stop. If I tell Penny about Aliz’s blood, I’ll have to tell her about my encounter with the Red Ribbons, after she explicitly told me to stay away. The feeling that I might have disappointed her aches almost as much as the wound in my neck did.
That odd warmth that slipped beneath my skin when Aliz healed me hasn’t left yet.
I stare out at the moon one last time before shutting the window. When I close my eyes, I can still feel her hand, pressed to my neck, and her breath against my lips.