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“You knowexactlywhat.”
“If you tell anyone anything, we’ll all say that you’re crazy.Completelyfucking crazy.”
Saber felt a chill.
“What would I even fucking tell them?” she asked, stone-faced.
Rex turned and walked away.
“Hey, kiddo.” Saber’s dad’s voice made her jump. She’d been painting in her studio, a landscape, thinking.
It had never occurred to her that by knowing about the existence of a vampire, you were responsible for killing it. Doug had explained it succinctly. No one will believe you, and when there is a question of doing good, evil, or nothing, what choice was there, really?Of courseyou were supposed to do good.
The question had terrified her.
“Hey, Dad.” She looked up from a piece of watercolor paper taped to a board on her easel. She had sketched a horizon line and an expanding river flowing from the horizon, then painted the sky in blue, like in a child’s painting. She never painted landscapes, but thought that, for once, she might enjoy doing something easy and peaceful.
“What’re you working on?”
“I don’t know,” she sighed. “Trying to do something different, get out of a rut.”
“You seem like you’ve been kind of upset lately.”
She smiled at him, but apparently her smile was unconvincing.
“You haven’t really talked about that girl that went missing. How well did you know her?”
“A little,” she said. “Not like the people who grew up with her. People here are really close.”
“It’s still a little unsettling,” her dad said, coming around to look at her sketch. “Does anyone know what might have happened?”
“The police said she probably ran away.”
Her dad nodded and gave her shoulder a squeeze.
“Is there something you want to talk to me about?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, Saber,” he said with a sigh. “I know I’m not going to win father of the year anytime soon, but I can tell something’s up with you.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Things have been weird at school. Lozen is stressed out. Everyone is stressed out.”
“But you’re ok? Just generally a little stressed?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Can we get Mexican tonight?”
“Sure.”
He squeezed her shoulder again and lingered.
She wondered, for a moment, if she should just tell him everything.
She knew if she did, it would just make him worried for her, worried that she was going crazy most of all. She turned to him and smiled.
“I’m really fine, just a little sad, still thinking about Grandma, that kind of thing.”
