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Lucas’s smile was thin. “I had to get Bianca out. I know I broke protocol by telling her about Black Cross, but I trust her.”
“I hope Lucas’s right about you, Bianca.” His eyes narrowed, focusing hard on me before darting over to Lucas. Clearly he meant that I better hope Lucas was right. Giving away secrets wasn’t something this group took lightly—especially not Eduardo and Kate, who seemed to be the leaders. “We don’t have much time for explanations, not if we’re about to move.”
The others all started talking to Lucas about his narrow escape. I knew I ought to talk to them, too, to help Lucas with the cover story if for no other reason. Yet I remained distracted. My entire life was changing every second, pulling me away so quickly from the world I’d known that I felt a kind of psychological whiplash. And there was even more to it than that. I felt a sort of buzzing so low I couldn’t quite find the sound, like a subtle vibration in the earth. Despite the fact that I hadn’t eaten in almost a day, my stomach churned. Something was wrong with this place, deeply wrong.
Then I glanced at the wall and saw a shape on the wall where the plaster was brighter than everywhere else, where something had hung for years and blocked the light. It was the shape of a cross.
Too late I realized that this wasn’t just an abandoned meetinghouse. Back in earlier centuries, a lot of meeting houses had served another function as well. During the week, they were halls for debate or community functions or sometimes even trials. Then, on Sundays, the meetinghouses became churches.
A church—ugh. Vampires don’t burst into flames upon touching a cross, the way horror movies like to suggest, but that doesn’t make churches a fun place to be. I felt slightly dizzy and turned my head away from the shape of the cross.
“Bianca?” Lucas’s fingers brushed my cheek. “Are you okay?”
“I can’t stay here. Is there someplace else I can go?”
“It’s not safe for you to be out right now.” To my surprise, it was Dana who spoke. “Forget those Evernight bastards. We’ve got bad news in town, and she’s enough to worry about.”
I should’ve asked who that “bad news” was, or pretended that I had a safe place to go, or something. But the buzzing in my brain was getting stronger—consecrated earth telling me to leave. My reaction was only a pale shadow of what my parents experienced in churches, but it was enough to confuse me and make me weak. “Can’t I go back to the hotel? We didn’t check out.”
“A hotel? Oh, my.” Mr. Watanabe looked flustered. “These days, they grow up fast.”
“We need to get Bianca to safety.” Kate’s sharp voice turned even a simple suggestion into a command. “We have to concentrate, and I suspect Lucas can’t do that with her here.”
“I’m fine.” To Lucas, clearly, Kate’s comment sounded like criticism. “Bianca helps me think straight. I’m better when I’m with her.”
Mr. Watanabe beamed at him. I would have, too, if I hadn’t wanted to leave the church so badly. “It’s okay,” I swore. “You can find me later. I should go back to the hotel.”
Eduardo shook his head. “The vampires might have traced you there. We should get you to a safe place. What about your home?”
The simple question knocked the breath out of me. My home—Mom and Dad, my telescope and my Klimt print, old phonograph records and even the gargoyle—seemed like the safest place in the world and the farthest away. I’d rarely felt so lost. “I can’t go there.”
“If you’re worried about a cover story, we can help you with that,” Kate said briskly, unwilling to be dissuaded. “We just have to get you to your family. Where are your parents?”
The back door slammed open, venting light and cold air into the room. I jumped, but I was the only one—all the Black Cross fighters, including Lucas, were instantly on guard, weapons in their hands, to face the enemies at the door. The vampires.
Standing in front of them all were Mom and Dad.
Chapter Nineteen
“BIANCA!”
My father’s voice and Lucas’s rang out at the same time, each of them trying to warn me about the other, and I felt as though I were being torn in two. Other people started shouting, words overlapping, and the buzzing in my brain mingled with panic so that I couldn’t tell any of the speakers apart.
“Let her go!”
“Get out of here!”
“Step back or you die. That’s all there is to it.”
“If you try to hurt her—”
“Bianca? Bianca!”
That was Mom. I focused on her and only her. She stood in the doorway, holding out one hand. The sunlight dappled her caramel-colored hair so that she was outlined with a sort of halo. “Come here, sweetheart.” She opened her hand so wide that every tendon and muscle tensed, so wide it had to hurt. “Just come here.”
“She’s not going anywhere.” Kate stepped forward so that she stood between us with her hands on her hips. One of her fingers rested on the hilt of the knife in her belt. “You’re finished lying to this girl. In fact, I’d say you’re finished, period.”
“You have ten seconds,” my father growled.
