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“As quick-witted as ever, I see. Miss Olivier, you may return to Evernight. Although the main building is uninhabitable at this time, we have set up temporary housing for the duration of the repairs, which will only take two or three months. Your parents are there, leading the rebuilding efforts. They wished to come along tonight, of course, but they were overemotional. Their recklessness would have hindered our efforts. How pleased they would be if you returned along with the rest of us.”
She wasn’t playing fair. The thought of my parents waiting back at Evernight, hoping that I would come in the door, tugged at me so hard that it felt like a sob was being torn from my body. “I won’t. I can’t.”
Mrs. Bethany’s severe, beautiful face seemed to have been etched into the darkness in lines of steel. “Love isn’t worth it, you know.”
“It isn’t only Lucas.” And it wasn’t, though I knew I could never leave him. My parents had told me too many lies. I could forgive them for that, but I needed to know the truth about what I could be—whether there was any choice for me besides becoming a full vampire. My parents wouldn’t help me learn that truth.
“Let me go.”
I thought for sure she would fight me, and I was in no state to put up any resistance. Instead her eyes lit up, like she was glad I’d said it. Somehow making her happy seemed even more dangerous than making her mad.
“We’ll meet again, Miss Olivier,” she said. “By that time, I think you may have very different priorities. And so shall I.”
What was that supposed to mean? I didn’t get a chance to ask. In what seemed like an instant, Mrs. Bethany had vanished into the darkness, and I was alone again.
Oh, God, now what? I blinked and tried to clear my fuzzy head. The swirling dust had finally begun to settle, and I saw a small sliver of light in the distance—not much, but enough to tell me it was one of the emergency lamps hung near the exit routes. That one, at least, wasn’t cut off.
They’d told us, during our Black Cross training, that if something ever did go wrong, we were all to meet at a supply shed at the far edge of the nearby park, over by the Hudson River.
But what if Lucas had been hurt or, even worse—no, I couldn’t even think it. All the same, the thought that he might be lying in the rubble around me was horrifying, and part of me wanted to remain, to turn over every last stone, if that was what it took to find him.
Yet after a few weeks of training, I understood Lucas better. I knew what he would say if he were here, so vividly that I could imagine him saying it: You’re too banged up to do any good right now. Get some help and get a game plan. That’s the only way to deal with this.
I staggered toward the light, determined to follow instructions. Maybe I was becoming a soldier, too.
This park wasn’t so large or lush a green space as Central Park; it was a ridge of stone clinging to the edge of the island, steeper even than the mountains around Evernight. My body shook from exhaustion and adrenaline overload as I stumbled over the rocks. Outside it was dark—a darker night than I’d experienced before in New York, the first time we’d been away from the omnipresent electric lights. It seemed like so long since I’d had time to really look at the sky.
When I made it to the shed, a few hunters stood outside. They tensed until they recognized me, and one of them called, “Lucas? She’s here.”
I expected him to rush out at once, but it took a few seconds. When Lucas emerged, he walked toward me slowly, as though every step were weighed down. “Are you all right?” I said.
“I—they didn’t hurt me.” His expression was strange.
My hands found his. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“The vampires killed seven people,” he said. He seemed to want to say more, but couldn’t. I realized that I already knew what was hurting him so much.
I whispered, “Eduardo. I know.” Lucas’s eyes met mine. I thought he would ask me how I knew, and I dreaded having to tell him I’d seen Eduardo’s murder. “Your mother—how is she?”
“She’s taking it hard.” He stared into the distance, where the horizon would have been if we’d had any light.
Shock left me numb to the full weight of my guilt. I was sorry Eduardo had been killed, but that was about all I could feel for him. Lucas had liked Eduardo even less than I, yet he was almost bowed over from the weight of the loss. It wasn’t his grief that hurt him; it was Kate’s. His mother had lost the man she loved, and compared to that, what we felt about Eduardo didn’t matter as much.
I hugged him tightly. “Go back to your mom,” I whispered. “She needs you.”
Lucas put his hands on either side of my head and kissed my hair. “Thank God you’re okay. I thought they’d come for you.”
It was my fault they’d attacked. I would have to confess that to him eventually, but this wasn’t the time. “I’m fine.”
He combed his fingers through my hair, then hugged me once more and turned back toward the shed where Kate was. As I stood there, Raquel came up to me. “You made it.”
“You, too.” I winced as I looked at her face. “You’re getting a black eye.”
“I really fought this time,” Raquel said. Despite the depression of nearly everyone around us, there was a wild sort of energy in her eyes. “I struck back. It felt—amazing.”
“I’m glad.”
“And you don’t look so pretty yourself, you know.”
