I started walking again. I wasn’t in the mood. “Perfect. I’ll be happy to have an audience for when I take you down.”
“Watch your back,” he called to me.
“Maybe you should watch yours,” I said over my shoulder. “Make sure there are no rips.”
“Hey, D,” Yasuo called.
I spotted my friends on the path and waved at them. Rob blended into the crowd of milling students, then was gone. I was sure he’d turn up again one of these days, like a bad penny.
Yas jogged over in that easy lope of his, and Emma was right behind him, weaving her way toward us.
I pasted a smile on my face. “Hey, guys.”
“Hey, stranger,” Emma said, giving me a hug. She glanced to where Rob had been just a moment before. “What’d he want?”
“Rob?” I rolled my eyes. I had more urgent issues to deal with than stupid adolescent Trainees. “Oh, we go way back. Forget him.”
Yasuo looked impatient, his eyes aimed in the direction of the dining hall. “You going to dinner?”
I hedged. No. I was going to skip dinner and go in search of a mysterious Draug keeper who may or may not be willing to help me.
But I couldn’t tell them that. Instead, I said, “No. I was just about to turn around. I left my towel down on the beach. I need to go back for it.”
I hated lying; the words felt thick and awkward coming out of my mouth. Once I would have spilled my guts to them, but now I had no other choice.
I told myself this was Emma and Yasuo. They were different. But in my heart I knew there was an undeniable gulf between us now, one that I’d felt even before Carden’s pronouncement echoed in my head. You mustn’t trust.
Something else nagged in the back of my mind. An unsettling voice telling me, Especially Yasuo.
Yas was my buddy, it was true. But seeing as he spent most of our limited coed free time with Emma, our own bonding time had been cut way back. It’d allowed me to see from a distance the changes he was undergoing—his longer fangs, the more remote eyes, and most disturbing of all, an essential stillness and coldness that was gradually enshrouding his natural charisma like a fog.
His eyes were on me, and unlike the first time we’d met, they were unreadable. His arm snaked around Emma’s shoulders, claiming her.
Was he claiming her from me?
But then Emma smiled, and it was as sincere as it’d ever been. “Want us to wait for you?”
Was that Yasuo’s hand tightening on her shoulder? Was he giving her a silent message? “Yeah, D,” he said. “We’re happy to wait.”
I didn’t believe he meant it. “Don’t sweat it,” I told them.
If I’d been concerned before about the implications of their affair, now I was really worried. It wasn’t healthy—or safe—for them to be so isolationist like this.
Amanda’s death had made it clear that we girls were allowed to fraternize with only one set of guys, and they were of the undead variety. That meant no Tracer boyfriends and probably no Trainees, either.
I refused to contemplate my own singular relationship obsession, and if that made me a hypocrite, so be it.
“Can we save you a seat?” Emma asked.
“I don’t know if I’ll make it back.” I’d have to last without this evening’s shooter of blood. But since kissing Carden, I felt like I could go for days without the refrigerated stuff. “Grab me a couple dinner rolls, though, would you?”
The sun made its final dip behind the rocky horizon, casting us in cool gray twilight. Emma peered at me through the dusk. “You sure you’re okay?”
How long had I zoned out, thinking of Carden?
“I’m fine,” I replied, seeing how Emma didn’t totally believe me.
But Yasuo believed what he wanted to believe. “Then we’re outta here,” he said. “Let’s go, prairie girl. Gotta grab the good stuff before it’s all gone.”
Guilt gnawed at me as I watched them walk down the path, away from me. They were my friends, but my bond with Carden set me apart from them whether I liked it or not.
It’d set me apart from everyone. There was no one I could tell about it all. And I probably shouldn’t tell anyone I was investigating on his behalf, either. Not even Ronan. If I told him, I knew I’d see only condemnation in his eyes, and I wouldn’t be able to stand that.
I turned my back and pretended to return to the beach. When it was safe, with a quick glance all around, I jogged off, headed south. In search of the keeper of the Draug.
I smelled it before I saw it. It was something I’d smelled once before—the stench of sickness and rot. The scent of Draug. And by the distant echoing snarls, there were several of them.
I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Could they be tamed? Why were they kept? Was this what prevented them from roaming free, decimating the human population or coming to get young, tender girl flesh in the night? I shuddered, my skin crawling with revulsion.
I knew a spurt of fear, too. It was impossible not to be afraid—anyone who’d ever spied a Draug would be. They were neither vampire nor human, creatures for whom something had gone very, very wrong in their transformation. Which meant some of them had been Trainees. Maybe all of them were—I didn’t know. I’d encountered only two in my life. One whose flesh was so decayed, all I’d been able to discern were rotted black strips of skin, a couple of shining fangs, and the creature’s complete and all-consuming urge to eat me.
By the time I’d encountered the second Draug, I’d known what it was I faced and so had been able to keep my senses about me. Which only meant I was very aware of my tearing flesh, cracking bones, and imminent death. I’d thought I was dead meat until Ronan showed up to stake it. Where blood had once flowed, black tar oozed, seeping from its wound, bringing with it this stench I smelled now. It was the stench of evil.
Josh had said keeper of the Draug. Which meant they were kept. Which meant I was okay. Somewhat. Maybe. Because obviously they escaped sometimes.
Curiosity, reason, and need overcame raw fear. Carden would be staked if I didn’t act.
My eyes swept the foreign landscape. I’d never been to this part of the island before. It was craggier, hillier, with thin paths winding between towering rock formations.
But Carden had taught me about hills and climbing. Had he somehow intuited that I would need those very skills?
Sending up a silent thank-you to my vampire, I chose one of the higher rock faces that also seemed to have a manageable enough incline that I wouldn’t need to do more than scramble up on my hands and knees. It would get me high enough to have a vantage over more land, but it wasn’t so steep that I’d have to actually rock climb up the thing.
Night was coming fast now, and I needed to hurry. What I was doing was dangerous, and it’d become exponentially more so once it was curfew time.
With the darkness came cold. The moon was full and bright, though, and I felt its oddly charged light on my skin. I was still in my gym uniform, and I had that weird feeling of being cold and sweaty at the same time. It was just as well—I’d probably have torn up the knees of my leggings anyway.
A half hour in, and my knees were scraped and my nails blackened from the grit that jammed beneath them as I inched my way up. I was certain that technically the rock formation would’ve only been classified as a hill, but the thing sure felt like a mountain to me.
Finally I reached the top and eased onto the plateau on my belly. I felt a tug at my hips and adjusted my clothing. I’d tied a thin strip of fabric into a makeshift holster for my throwing stars and kept it hidden under my shorts. It was thin enough and tied tightly enough that nobody could see. Clinging as it did to the side of my hip bones, the shuriken didn’t hurt me when I took a hit to my abdomen, and only cut a little when I fell on my side. Unfortunately, both were common occurrences.
It was a small price to pay. These days, it just felt stupid to go out unarmed. I thought of the homemade stakes Ronan kept hidden in his sleeves. I was sure I wasn’t the only Acari who kept hidden weaponry.
Scooting along on my stomach, I inched out as far as I dared to the opposite edge, scanning below for the keeper’s cottage. I opened my senses all around me. I’d been surprised from behind by a Draug before. It wouldn’t happen again.
“Come on.” I spoke under my breath, and it came out as smoke, disappearing at once into the blackness. “Where are you?”
The moon was bright way up here, but this rock that gave me such a great vantage point also managed to cast the valley in shadow. I blinked hard, peering into the darkness.
Nothing. I opened my ears to the distant snarls and groans. Caught their scent on the wind. I spun slowly on my belly to look down from the far ledge. And there I spotted him.
A figure in the darkness, moving amidst large structures. Were they cages? I squinted hard. The wind gusted, sending goose bumps shivering up my legs and arms, but it blew the clouds overhead, sending a finger of moonlight down, illuminating hands, reaching from between bars.
Draug hands, clawing in the darkness, moaning, pleading. They wanted blood.
I saw the figure more clearly now, too. It was a man, and something in his gait told me it was an older man. He had something long and thin in one hand—a stick maybe?—and a walking staff in the other. It was long and curved at the top, like a reaping hook. It gave me the creeps.
A hand swiped at him, and I heard his curse from my perch, an unintelligible, thickly accented bark. He swung that stick at the cage and there was an electrical zzzt sound, followed by an explosion of shrieks and snarls. Not a stick, then—he held a cattle prod.
It chilled me. But then I realized I was chilled because it was freezing. It was full dark, and now that I wasn’t moving, the air was bitter cold.
I needed to get the hell out of there. I could get away with skipping dinner, but I couldn’t get away with missing curfew. As it was, I’d have a real job explaining myself if I ran into any vampires on the way home.
I’d come back, though.