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If I could learn to float, I could do anything. I would learn to swim. Maybe even to fight. The award would be mine.
I thought about Ronan, wondering what training he’d endured, why he’d chosen the life he did. What was his background? And, more important, why was he only a Tracer? Though they did seem stronger and sharper than most regular people—a by-product of drinking the blood—why wouldn’t someone choose immortality? “Why
don’t you want to be a vampire?”
There was only the lapping sound of the water, and I thought he wouldn’t answer, but finally I heard him utter, “Unbearable. ”
“Why?” My voice was a whisper.
“Because life would be only that, forever. To watch person after person perish while I lived on? A life of grief and loss. Unbearable. ”
“You sound like you know. Like you’ve experienced a loss. ”
“Aye, I have. As will you. ”
If it was so horrible, I didn’t understand why he’d chosen to stay. Or why he’d continue to bring girls like me to the island. “If this life is so bleak, then why are you even helping me?”
Though hard to see in the dark, it seemed he stood straighter, tenser. “Someone has taken an interest in you. ”
My heart fell. That was the only reason? It freaked me out to think someone out there was watching me. But worse, I’d convinced myself Ronan was helping me because he wanted to. Because of me. “Oh,” I said quietly, cursing the dopey teenage melancholy in my voice.
“And I confess . . . ” He shook his head, as though regretting what he was about to say next. “You remind me of someone. ”
An old girlfriend? A lover? “Who?”
Abruptly, he turned his back on me. I dropped like a stone and righted myself, scrubbing the water from my eyes.
“That’s enough for today. ” Ronan strode back to shore, his shoulders lurching from side to side, knees lifting high over the surf, getting out of the water as quickly as possible. Away from me. “Weather is coming. We need to get back for the evening meal. You must drink. ”
A higher-than-usual wave slapped at the backs of my thighs and I stumbled, awkwardly finding my footing. Whatever illusions I’d harbored about a regular guy helping a regular girl learn to swim were shattered with those three words: You must drink.
It was so aberrant, so repellant to take something that’d once flowed in another’s veins and absorb it into your own. But what alarmed me wasn’t the thought of having to drink that ropy, viscous fluid. It was that I couldn’t wait to get back for it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
We had a few lessons like that, and Crispin’s Cove began to feel like our place, safe and familiar. I liked the fresh air and found I preferred the briny taste of the sea to the superchlorinated indoor pool. The black water didn’t freak me out as much as it had in our first lesson, and I’d even graduated from floating to a solid crawl stroke.
Ronan and I toweled off, quickly peeling off our wet suits and changing in the dark, with me hidden behind one of the larger boulders for privacy.
I was tousling my hair, encouraging it to dry, and chatting some nonsense as we walked up the dorm stairs. They were waiting for us in the foyer.
I knew at once something had happened. Most everyone was there. The Initiates, the Proctors.
Had someone died? But then I thought No, girls have been dying, and there is never any ceremony around it. I studied the crowd, my panic growing. Everyone was staring at me.
All the girls from my floor were there, glaring like I’d just drowned their pet kitten. Except for Lilac, who had a sort of gleeful malice dancing in her eyes.
I stood as still and expressionless as marble. My Proctor Amanda stepped forward. Her frosty greeting bothered me more than any evil stare Lilac could shoot my way. “Drew, why’d you do it? I can understand the photo, but did you seriously think you could keep an iPod?”
Slowly, I registered her words. My mom’s picture. Confiscated. I stood there stunned, feeling gutted.
And the iPod? Now that I was entrenched in my new world, it seemed so stupid that I’d once valued something so ridiculous. But then a little bit of the old Drew flared to life. “It was just an iPod,” I muttered to nobody but myself.
Unfortunately, Guidon Masha heard me. She cracked her whip, and though I was fully clad in my winter gear, her aim was lethal. The leather kissed my face, so precise that I hadn’t known she’d broken the skin until I felt the warm ooze of blood down my cheek. “You will keep silent, Acari. ”
Cold nausea washed through me. I was in deep trouble. And who knew what punishments this freak show doled out to girls in trouble?
I glanced to Ronan, but he looked stricken, his expression one of such profound disappointment, I had to turn away. Before coming here, when I messed up, I messed up only for myself. But now, seeing how troubled he was, and Amanda, too, I couldn’t help the sickening feeling that I’d let them down. That I’d failed them.
