“How can you relapse on vampire bites? It’s not like somebody could sneak it in or something.”
“I don’t know. She left while I was in Australia. I never should’ve went.” I shook my head and went over to her closet. She didn’t have one quite as big as mine, but she had shoved twice as many clothes in it. I opened the doors to find shoes and skirts jumping out at me.
“You think if you’d been here, she wouldn’t have left?” Bobby asked. I glanced back at him and saw him opening her nightstand drawer and rooting around in it.
“I don’t know.” I sifted through her clothes, but there were too many for me to really look at. Sighing, I turned around and looked back at Bobby. “The only thing I know is that I don’t know what happened to Jane.”
“Good news.” Bobby reached into her dresser drawer and pulled out a cell phone. “I think I’ve got her phone.”
“Holy shit.” I ran over and grabbed it from him. I clicked and touched it all over, but nothing happened. The screen stayed black. “What’s wrong with it? It won’t turn on.”
“Well, it’s been sitting in the drawer for at least two weeks, so the battery is probably dead,” Bobby pointed out.
I looked around her room and spotted the charger next to the desk. I plugged in the phone and sat down in the chair. By the time I got the damn thing on, my heart felt like it would beat out of my chest. Bobby stood behind me, looking at it over my shoulder.
She had a few missed calls stored up, most of them from people she used to party with, but three were from an unknown caller. She didn’t have voicemails, so that didn’t help, and I moved on to her text messages. Before the sixteenth of January, she’d received a couple messages, all from people I knew, but she hadn’t sent any out.
“Why wasn’t she replying to their texts?” Bobby asked, reading over my shoulder.
“She was in rehab until the sixteenth. She didn’t have her phone with her,” I said. “When she replied, that’s when she got out.”
The text messages from people she knew were all about going out or partying, and Jane hadn’t responded to any of them. The only messages she responded to were from an unknown caller, and those messages made my blood run cold.
Are you out yet? The unknown number had texted.
Who is this? Jane texted back.
You know who this is. I want you to meet me.
Where? Jane replied.
Outside of the gas station on 8th street.
I’ll be there soon. Jane texted.
I’ll be waiting.
And that was it. There were no more text messages in her phone.
“That’s it?” Bobby asked.
“That’s it.” I stood up, and he reached for the phone, so I handed it to him. “That gas station is only a few blocks from here. She must’ve been at home.”
“So she knew who it was?” Bobby played around on her phone, searching for more hidden messages or some clue that we didn’t see.
“Yeah.” I walked over to Jane’s window, realizing she’d willingly left to meet her killer, and she’d probably died a few blocks from her home. “Call it.”
“What?”
“Call the number,” I turned back to Bobby. “Call and see who answers.”
“What if I don’t know who answers?” he asked.
“Then ask who it is. Just call the number and try to sound tough.”
“Okay?” He took a deep breath and hit the call button the phone. I watched him, barely able to breathe myself, and waited while he held the phone to his ear. His face fell and he shook his head. “We’re sorry. The number you have reached is no longer in service.”
“Dammit,” I groaned and looked back at the window. “She knew who it was. She left with them. And she got killed right down this street! And I have no idea-”
Then I saw something on the street corner, below her bedroom window. Something moved in the shadows, and I realized that the streetlight was out. All the other lights on the street were lit up fine, but the one outside of Jane’s room was out. It didn’t mean anything really. Vampires made sure the streetlight was always out outside of V, but a light going out didn’t mean anything in and of itself.
But I had this feeling. I couldn’t explain it exactly, but it was something inside my veins. Something almost tingly but painful too. As soon as I’d caught sight of something moving outside, I’d felt it.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Bobby asked.
“Somebody’s down there.”
“Where?” He came up next to me to look outside, and I saw it again. It had moved to the side, so it was almost out of my line of vision, but I knew it was out there.
“Meet me downstairs,” I told Bobby as I opened the bedroom window. I pulled out the screen, bending it in half to get it out quickly.
“What? What are you doing?”
“It’ll take me too long to go through the apartment. Just meet me downstairs.” I climbed through the window, crouching down on the ledge.
“What’ll I tell her parents when you’re not with me?”
“I don’t know. Think of something,” I said, and I leapt off her window.
I would’ve been fine landing on the ground, but I jumped out towards the street lamp. I wanted some element of surprise, even if it was a small one. My hands wrapped around the lamppost, and I looked down at the ground. The figure was looking up at me.