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

“Jesus Christ,” Juliette muttered. She stacked Niamh’s lunch tray on top of her own and stood up. “I’m gonna go after her.”

“Walk, don’t run,” Lara said.

Part of me wanted to go after Niamh, too. God knew she hadn’t deserved those digs, and I wanted her to know I had her back. But something stopped me from leaving Lara. A little voice that said maybe Lara needed someone here, too. And that maybe, with all her thorns and brambles, Lara didn’t get much in the way of comfort.

I watched her closely as Juliette left us alone. It was like she’d forgotten I was still here. As she stared after Juliette, her stoic expression crumpled so quickly I thought I’d imagined it. Then she was back to looking amused and detached. She caught me staring at her, and raised her eyebrows at me in a challenge. “What?”

“Nothing,” I said. Actually, that wasn’t true. I’d been about to say something, but she looked like she wanted to make me her next victim, and the courage had faded fast.

“Good.” She sat in silence for a moment, poking at her food with a fork, then grabbed her tray and left.

The guys returned looking bewildered. “Where’d everyone go?” Darnell asked.

Will wore a concerned expression, and held his lunch tray out toward the doorway Lara had stalked through. “Is she okay?” he asked.

And all at once, we were back at the lake. There, Will was always the first one to tell if someone wasn’t quite right, as well as the first one to try to fix it. That was how we’d met. It was one of the things I’d liked most about him. Where had that sweetness gone, and why was it coming out now, and over Lara of all things? Who was the real Will? He had so many masks I had no idea what his damn face looked like anymore.

“Actually, I’m going to check on her,” I said. “Can you get my tray for me? I need to try and catch up with her.”

Will nodded and gestured for me to go, and it was like we were on the same team again. Despite my best intentions re: switching off all affection, a little burst of happiness popped somewhere inside my chest. I kept it firmly off my face.

I found Lara near the lockers. She’d grabbed her books, and was hovering around in front of the classrooms, too early to go in. She saw me approaching from a mile away, and she shook her head in annoyance, turning her back on me to lean against the wall with her books clutched to her chest.

“Hey,” I said, slowing as I reached her.

“What?” she snapped.

I ignored the fact that she clearly didn’t want me here and joined her at the wall. We didn’t speak for a while, until I got the courage back up. “You can kiss whoever the fuck you want,” I said finally. “And it’s no one’s business but yours.”

She turned around, surprised. “You don’t think she actually got to me, do you?” she asked with a scoff. “Please. Like I give a crap what anyone thinks about what I do.”

The show was convincing. Except … “I think everyone cares what people think, a little. Even if they don’t want to.”

Suddenly, I was staring at her back again. “Well, you don’t know me very well, then.”

“Guess not. If you really don’t care, then I envy you.”

“Good. You should.”

“If you ever need to talk, though …”

“I don’t.”

“Good,” I said. Well, at least I tried. Maybe I was wrong. For all I knew, Lara hadn’t liked kissing that Renee girl the way I thought she had. It was possible I’d misread her expression at the lunch table just now. But if I hadn’t, then, well … lf I’d had no one to talk to when I was thinking about coming out, I would’ve gone crazy. I didn’t want anyone to go through that if I could help it. Not even Medusa’s distant relative over here.

I got halfway down the hallway when I looked back at Lara. Just in time to see her peeking right back at me.





10


Aunt Linda was taking bad turn after bad turn these days. She seemed to be living in a permanent bad turn, if you asked me. Not that anyone did. They’d stopped telling me things, too. Mostly, I just got ordered to babysit Crista and Dylan while the adults went to sort out adult things. I guessed they thought I couldn’t handle hearing what was going on. Or maybe they thought the less I knew, the less chance I’d accidentally let on to the kids how serious things were. Who knows? Either way, it didn’t matter how much I pressed my parents, they kept me firmly in the dark.

In a weird way, it was a good thing. If no one told me how bad things were, I could still kid myself it was temporary. Just a blip.

Anyway, with my newly contracted role as Crista and Dylan’s guardian from after school until bedtime, I didn’t have much chance to practice bass. Not seriously, anyway. And the guys in Absolution of the Chained were as serious as it came. The others didn’t make mistakes. They didn’t shame me if I slipped up in practice and threw everyone else off, but it was pretty obvious I was the only one who ever did. So I started ditching lunch altogether and holing up in the music room instead, repeating the trickier lines over and over until they became second nature.

One of these lunches in early October, I was so focused on what I was doing that I didn’t hear the door open. It wasn’t until I caught something move out of the corner of my eye that I noticed Will. Seeing someone at all, let alone Will, when I didn’t expect it gave me such a shock I jumped in my seat and swore.