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The word, Doug had said it, but Saber couldn’t say it now, couldn’t even think it.
“Why do they let them do it?” she asked, her voice cracking a little under the weight of her terror. “For… forstuff?”
“First they do it for the stuff,” he said, laughing a little. “Then they do it because it feelsreally, reallygood.”
13
November
How do you prove to yourself that you aren’t going insane?
Saber lay in her bed, a bed that her father told her was hers, in a house her father had told her was theirs, on an island far from everything she had ever known, wet and sticky-cold, relentlessly dark, vaulted with trees, layered with hills, mountains, and surrounded on all sides by cold, deep water.
Nothing felt real, even her own body. She pulled the new, expensive down comforter around herself, shivering. She felt insubstantial and utterly alone, like she might be the only living human being in the entire world. The house was silent, not even the air conditioner or heater were running. The light seeping through her huge window was diffused and white-gray, like it was coming through a paper screen.
She tried to think about the night before, the things she’d heard and seen. The journey between witnessing that spectacle, repulsive and alluring, of Rex being fed upon by that woman, and where she was now, in her bed. It had been a blur. She couldn’t remember coming home, couldn’t remember anything after seeing Rex and the woman.
Her hand shot to her throat. She had no pain, no tenderness.
She had only been an observer, and once again, her mind seemed partially erased, even though this time she was sure she’d had nothing to drink.
What had happened? She tried to remember.
Not everyone at the party had been a—
Her head throbbed.
The word was impossible to even think- vampire.
There had indeed been wealthy people having fun, and probably sex, with one another and the other high schoolers. She saw an older man slide a glittering bracelet onto Sophie’s arm, kissing her on the neck, and Sophie had just laughed and let him.
The memory made her shudder.
“Bean?” Her dad, knocking on her door. “I thought you were going to spend the night out?”
She sat up. She was underslept, but she wasn’t hungover. She felt alert.
“I decided to come home,” she called.
Silence behind the door.
“Was thatsafe?”
“I felt safe. I didn’t drink.”
“I know, I trust you, but nobody knew where you were. If something had happened, I wouldn’t have known to look for you.”
“Nothing happened.”
What an enormous lie.
“Do you want to go get some brunch with me? In Seattle?”
She flopped into her bed and closed her eyes. She wouldn’t be going back to sleep.
“Yeah, sure,” she said. “Can I invite Lozen?”
Lozen and Saber walked around the deck of the ferry while her dad drank a coffee inside.
