Crimson Death (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #25)(20)

Can we talk?

Talk about what, Will? About how you’ve ignored me since … well, since that night? Or about your reaction at the party? Or do you want to discuss why you were basically Jesus at the lake and are now in the running to be the Antichrist? Because as interesting as those conversation topics all sound, I’d rather invite Chipmunk Charlie into my room to watch me sleep every night than hear you explain how little I mean to you.

Every time I took my phone out, my parents started talking in low voices, like I would somehow miss what they were saying from the other side of the rounded booth. I was distracted, but not that distracted. They were talking about Aunt Linda. The topic of the times, these days. I picked up enough snippets to get a feel for it. Not responding to treatment… Changing medication … Demand some better pain meds … Says she doesn’t want to be foggy, but…

My phone buzzed in my hand, and I jumped a full mile. Then I saw who was calling, and my parents’ conversation was officially tuned out.

Will. Will was calling me. Will was out there somewhere, right now, calling me. Thinking about me. Wanting me to pick up.

Maybe Mom was onto something with this “manifesting” theory after all.

I almost answered it, too. Almost. But there was that tingling power again. And honestly, it was more than that. The more I’d been thinking about his message, the more I suspected that he wanted to beg me not to out him. Or to tell me the summer meant nothing, and he’d see me around. Goddamnit, I didn’t want to hear him say that. It’d cheapen the whole thing. As if the second I heard him discount it, it’d erase all that happiness. With everything going on with Aunt Linda, and being away from my friends, and having to deal with Lara, those memories were all I had. I needed them for a little longer.

So I watched my phone in silence until the call ended.

Sorry, Will.

Too busy.

Just like you’ve been.





8


He ambushed me.

I was running more than ten minutes late the next morning. I’d finished up at my locker, mentally rehearsing my excuse to Ms. Hurstenwild, when I got that creepy, ominous feeling. The one that says there’s someone, possibly-slash-probably a serial killer, right behind you. I turned around to find Will all up in my personal space, staring me down like he was a freaking matador or something.

“Didn’t get my text, I guess?” he said in this airy way, like he couldn’t really care. Which would be believable if he wasn’t in the process of cornering me in an empty hallway about it.

I was rattled, but I did my best not to make it obvious. “Pot, kettle,” I said, even airier. So airy it was approaching helium. Okay, maybe it was obvious after all.

He shoved one hand into the pocket of his chinos and stuck one finger of the other in his mouth to chew a cuticle. I got déjà vu seeing that. It’s what he did whenever I caught him off guard in the summer. Cuticle nibbling, faraway look, shifting his weight. He was so familiar. I knew him. Probably better than someone had any business knowing someone they’d only met a few months ago.

He removed his finger from his mouth. Here we go. Considered, thoughtful response time. “You’re right. I’m a total hypocrite.”

Again. Not what I’d expected. And there I’d been bracing myself for a gentle lecture about how he didn’t owe me anything, or how I’d been reading into the summer too much. It was a surprisingly mature response for someone who’d spent a solid two weeks refusing to look me in the eye.

It made me relax a little. “Yup. Do I get an explanation, or … ?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk about.”

“Well, I’m here. So, let’s talk, I guess.”

We faced each other down. Will’s finger had wandered into his mouth again. Procrastinator. Ms. Hurstenwild was going to genuinely murder me.

I closed my locker and started walking backward. “Look, Will, if you don’t have anything to—”

At that moment, two things happened.

A little farther down the hall, a door opened, and a student stepped halfway out of the classroom. Only the back of the head was visible—the student had paused to speak to the teacher on the way out—but the close-trimmed Afro and black-and-white letterman jacket looked a lot like it belonged to Will’s friend Matt.

Lo and behold, I was right on the money with that one. With a small yelp, Will lunged forward, opened a nearby door, and shoved me into the room.

Before I could get my bearings, Will had joined me and slammed the door closed, plunging us into darkness. I tried to back away and stepped right into what felt like a mop bucket. Or at least, it was a mop bucket, I figured from the crunch of snapping plastic. I shot a hand out to steady myself and smacked straight into a shelf of some sort. A bunch of unidentified items clattered onto the concrete floor—and onto my feet. I swore in pain as a particularly heavy bottle all but shattered my toes. Motherfucker.

“Jesus Christ, Ollie, hold still,” Will’s voice hissed through the darkness.

“What are you doing? Is this an assault? Should I scream?”

“I didn’t want Matt to see us.”

“Ah. Getting rid of witnesses. So it is an assault?”

“Come on, Ollie, be serious.”

I kind of was, to be honest. “And why does it matter if Matt sees us?”