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The door opened again. I didn’t need to look. I could feel by the stillness in the room that vampires continued to gather. I wondered if Ronan was out there, too, witnessing my impromptu bloodletting.
I quickly shifted the practice dagger from one hand to the other, drying my sweaty palms along my uninjured thigh. I was just about done for, and I could see in Claire’s glittering eyes that she thought so, too.
I was settling the useless weapon in my palm when one last, desperate option came to me. Instead of grasping the hilt, I took the blade between my fingers, finding its balance. The steel was cool. I imagined myself just as cool.
I am water that flows.
With a deep inhale, I threw, imagining the dagger riding on a wave of fluid power. It struck Claire just above the sternum. But the dull blade didn’t penetrate.
Still, it had hit hard, and she rubbed her chest. She kicked the dagger away, and it careened off the mat to the floor below. She looked manic, half laughing, half snarling. “You’ll pay for what you did. ”
I had to remain calm. I had no weapon. But I had my hands. There were 2:01 on the clock, and my life was in the balance.
Blood dripped down my leg, and I left smeary red footprints on the mat. The cut on my leg was deep. My hip and thigh were on fire.
Vampires swarmed the gym now. They looked like statuary posed along the periphery—a gallery of men carved from pale granite. My mind flashed to an image of them feeding on my lifeless body. It galvanized me.
I am grounded. I am Watcher.
I would survive. More than that, I would win.
No longer bothering to wipe the blood from my hands, I strode to Claire. I imagined myself powerful. I was powerful.
I flew at her, grabbing her blade arm with both hands. We grappled, kicking and kneeing and snarling. Claire wriggled in my grip, trying to point her knife toward me.
I wrenched her wrists back. Our legs tangled. I hooked my ankle under hers, thinking if I tripped her, maybe I could twist her arm enough to knock the dagger free.
She stumbled. My hands were slick with sweat and blood, and her arm slipped from my grasp. She fell.
But instead of hopping back up to continue the fight, she just lay there. I nudged her with my foot, half expecting a trick. She flopped onto her back.
I stared down at the body of Idaho Claire and the dagger that had caught in her throat.
Watcher Priti struck her gong. “Acari Drew scores a win. ”
My second kill.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Several days later, Ronan found me in the phenom library. I’d curled into an oversized leather armchair and sat, staring out the window at the rainy day. My days blurred together, and I hadn’t seemed to be able to get back to normal. Accidentally killing your classmates had a way of doing that to a girl.
I idly rubbed my scars, concealed under the fabric of my leggings. They itched like mad, but that was okay—I imagined it a sort of penance for killing Idaho Claire.
My skin had knit together shockingly fast, a side benefit of drinking so much vampire blood. Amanda had seemed pleased, and more than a bit surprised, by how well and quickly I’d healed. I guess I vibed with the blood. Great. Did that mean I was no longer completely human, either?
I nestled deeper in the chair. More than ever, I wished I still had my iPod. I was in a classical-piano sort of a mood. That or Metallica.
“Where’ve you been? It’s time for swim. ”
Ronan stood in the doorway. Not even the sight of his solid biceps peeking from the sleeves of a damp, clinging T-shirt cheered me. In fact, the effect was just the opposite. I needed to stop looking at him like that. I was terrified the day might come when Master Alcántara noticed me noticing.
I tore my eyes from his shirt. “Jeez,
Ronan. Don’t you get cold?”
“It’s May. ” He walked into the library, raking the wet hair from his face.
Enough time had passed since the incident with my iPod, and things were slowly getting back to normal—whatever that meant—between us. But life was cheap on this island, and I couldn’t let myself forget to maintain emotional distance. And that meant I really needed to stop ogling his clothes like I might develop X-ray vision. I turned my head, staring back out the window instead. “I think the hottest it’s been is forty-four degrees. ”
